When Josh Ritter met Stephen Kellogg almost twenty years ago, Ritter was sleeping underneath a piano in Cleveland, Ohio.
It was the 2000 Folk Alliance International Conference, and the then-twenty-four-year-old Ritter–like the then-twenty-four-year-old Kellogg–arrived on the banks of the Cuyahoga to peddle his wares, a young aspirant folk pup in search of connections and a record deal.
Without money for a hotel room, however, Ritter took refuge underneath the keys of a baby grand in the hotel’s lobby, where he planned to spend the evening–until Stephen Kellogg arrived, and invited Ritter to share his room.
It was the first time the two had ever met.
“That was my introduction to the generosity of spirit that Stephen brings to people’s lives,” Ritter says. “We got to be fast friends.”
A few days after hearing this story, I recount it to O.A.R frontman Marc Roberge, who cuts in before I can finish.
“There are hundreds of stories like that about Stephen,” he says, being proven correct over the course of several more interviews: Adam Duritz of Counting Crows recalls being approached by Stephen in a Salt Lake City Airport, and knowing “instantly, in that moment, that [he] liked this person.” Since then, he’s been welcomed into the Kellogg’s family many times over. Josh Ritter underwrites his earlier story with another about a night in Woodstock, NY, one of the many shows in his and Stephen’s early days that no one showed up to, when the only people in attendance insisted upon hearing “Wild Horses” by the Rolling Stones.
“Stephen knew it, made it through, and was kinder to them than I was,” Ritter says.
In support of his own point, Roberge offers two stories of the possible hundreds available in the ether: first, how–as a friend, not a musician–Stephen volunteered to drop everything and ride in a van with Roberge, when Marc needed some guidance about playing his first solo acoustic shows in years. Next was the night that Stephen left the stage at PNC Park when he thought his wife might be in labor. It was a false alarm, but given “the way his writing and singing is wrapped up in the love and concern he has for the people around him,” the trade off was not something Stephen Kellogg would think twice about.
“He’s just one of the most likeable people I’ve known,” Duritz says. “There are few people in rock’n’roll who are just so great.”
Ever the disruptor, however, Nashville singer-songwriter Will Hoge–who produced Kellogg’s most recent record, Objects in the Mirror–has a different take.
While Stephen Kellogg is one of rock’n’roll’s good guys, the reason other artists are drawn to him–the reason other artists are fans of his, and want to work with him–is because of who he is as a musician, not a person.
“Stephen and I have been friends a long time, but I wouldn’t make a record for a friend that I didn’t think was very good,” the smoky-voiced Hoge laughs. “I’ve got friends that make shitty records I’m not interested in working on. We can go eat Mexican food, but I ain’t helping you make your record.”
(Hoge’s point is well heard–one we’ll return to momentarily–but feels especially relevant, given my own small example of Stephen Kellogg’s generosity of spirit: the first time we ever met was before a showing of Stephen’s documentary, Last Man Standing. He had just gotten off the road, was on an empty stomach, and ran out of time to eat lunch before our interview. He’d bought himself two tacos, and offered me one.)
While friendship is the reason that Hoge picked up Kellogg’s phone call, the reason he agreed to produce Objects in the Mirror is because he thought he could help Kellogg make “something that he could look back on at the end of his journey, and say, ‘This is everything I want to do as an artist.’”
“I think, ultimately, he thought he’d never really captured the essence of what he does, and the goal was to try and remedy that on this record,” Hoge says.
According to Hoge, “organic” was the word Kellogg used more than any other leading up to this record, which served as the fulcrum for Objects in the Mirror from its inception. Alternate Routes frontman and Kellogg’s touring guitarist, Eric Donnelly echoes this idea, recalling how Stephen approached him with eighty song ideas, and the intention to “make the best Stephen Kellogg record he’s ever made.”
“He didn’t want to be someone else on this record, he wanted to make the best version of what he does,” Donnelley says. “Once he told me his vision for the album, my job was easy: just point him to that North Star. If we came to a crossroads, and he’d ask, ‘What do you think?’ I’d just say…‘You know what you want. You know the answer to that question. I’ll tell you if you need me to, but you know what the answer is.’”
The answer Kellogg ultimately gave is a serendipitous collection of hardwon folk wisdom that manages to bow between cleansing, tender acoustics, Petty-esque rockabilly, and a gritty, anchors up edge that occasionally tears at the seams. Perhaps the best album of Kellogg’s career, Objects in the Mirror features songs like “High Highs, Low Lows,” “Songs for Daughters,” and “Prayers,” which are at the same time sweet, and achingly real; that thoughtfulness, however, is evened out by freewheeling, hard-edged tracks like “Irish Goodbye” and “Easy Money,” which abandon the neatness of Kellogg’s previous recordings in favor of an “element of danger” that runs in lockstep with the “flawed human” interaction that’s ever-present in Kellogg’s cathartic live performances.
“[Objects in the Mirror] is the work of a real deal troubadour: someone who writes songs about his life therapeutically, provides that therapy for the listeners, then gets in a van or a car or a bus and backs it up,” Roberge says. “It’s someone who woke up and didn’t want to play pretend.”
Listening to the album, the “real road warrior shit” that Roberge sees in Stephen Kellogg is obvious–but according to Eric Donnelly, that element was even more pronounced in the studio, as years of experience manifested themselves in the earned release of greatness.
“Stephen went down to Nashville, and was like an athlete in his prime,” Donnelly says. “He didn’t make a mistake. There wasn’t one vocal overdub on the album, he basically kept every vocal he did. He didn’t hit a wrong chord, he didn’t hit a flub, he didn’t mess up a lyric…we kept every single pass that he did.”
“It was amazing to see somebody that dialed in and that focused,” says Donnelly.
Released in November, Objects in the Mirror has been as universally well received as an album can be in the modern day, with praise coming from every corner of the critical spectrum. Few outlets, however, were more effusive than Rolling Stone, who said the record, “captures the talent, spontaneity, and humanity of Kellogg’s songwriting,” and has a sound “like John Prine fronting the Heartbreakers.”
A near-obsessive student of rock history since his early teens–not to mention someone who grew up idolizing Tom Petty, with OITM’s “Orion” serving as a dedication to his late hero’s passing on his latest album–this review bordered on the surreal for Kellogg, who, at 42, finally etched his name into the modern encyclopedia of American music.
This achievement, however, proved to exist in a paradox.
Because Stephen Kellogg’s cosmic joke is that his singular appearance in Rolling Stone came only when he stopped caring about external validation.
“We’ve all had our ups and downs in the music industry, we’ve all chased hits, or radio, or labels, or blah blah blah,” says Donnelly. “We’ve all gone on those different paths, but Stephen is at a really unique spot where he’s let go of a lot of things: he’s just making music that resonates with him, and somehow, that resonates with other people.”
“If you stay out here long enough, which Stephen has, you kind of hit a bottom again, and you realize, ‘Maybe those things are never, ever going to happen,’” Hoge says. “Then, you either accept that and dedicate yourself to your craft because you want to be great, or you fucking quit. He’s completely dedicated himself to the craft…I don’t see quitting as an option for him.”
Quitting is not–and has never been–an option for Stephen Kellogg, and long before he knew what would become of Objects in the Mirror or the way his record would be received, he made a clear pronouncement on his approach. Singing over a distant, muted piano in a subtle, restrained croon on “Prayers,” Kellogg’s lyrics ring out:
So your life did not work out the way you wanted, join the club,
The success the others flaunted killed off your remaining buzz,
Nothing like you thought you’d be, believe me I’ve been there too.
When life brings you to your knees, and you feel like you can’t move,
Know that this is true:
Every unkind thing we say leads to our unhappiness
No one in the world gets by, without feeling bad sometimes
And I’m not trying to be a jerk,
But say your prayers, get off your ass, and get back to work.
Born from a particularly frustrating day–the inevitable moment in the creative process where it felt like there was no more creativity left, like it might be used up for this lifetime–”Prayers” is Kellogg’s re-statement of the advice Eric Donnelly gave him, when Donelly happened to stop by, and was able to remind his friend of an essential truth about the livelihood they’ve chosen.
“I said to him, ‘We’re songwriters, and great songs are our currency. When we have that, we have something to talk about. The rest of the time, we’re just spinning our wheels,’” Donnelly says.
A few days later, Stephen sent him the voice memo for what would become ‘Prayers,” and in that snippet, Kellogg sang, “Even if you’re only getting by, start to wonder why you even true, say the things you need to say/But if the words won’t come to you, clear your head and tell the truth.”
Clearly, that’s what Kellogg did on Objects in the Mirror: he told his truth, regardless of what that meant for his career–and in some serendipitous way, that’s resonated with people.
But on this record, Kellogg has learned that critics aren’t there for the moments when the words won’t come, only friends are, and as such, they’re the ones who actually understand.
Like all artists, the ones who Stephen Kellogg has surrounded himself with have mixed feelings about critical reviews and the way their currency is subject to public scrutiny: Roberge compares reviews to “moving targets” Adam Duritz says that he has his “own mixed feelings about Rolling Stone in a lot of ways,” and Hoge says that “if you start making artistic based on commerce, the art gets shitty pretty quick.”
But despite the apparent conflict, when they discuss Stephen Kellogg’s recent praise–which affects someone they admire as a musician, but love as a brother–there is a universal softening, and a common thread that runs through all their answers: “About fucking time.”
“I may have mixed feelings about critical reviews, but I didn’t have mixed feelings about that one,” Duritz says.
“It’s almost like the Karmic Wheel is spinning back his way because he made the decision to maintain his artistry,” Roberge says. “But Stephen has already accomplished everything he’s set out to do – I don’t know if he knows that or not.”
Photo Credit: Bailey Elizabeth Rogers
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While Stephen Kellogg is one of rock’n’roll’s good guys,