Dave Hollier of King Ropes very much knows his way around rock’s past and present, always referencing the past but somehow incorporating shades of genre-pushing boundaries into his stellar but vastly under-appreciated rock outfit King Ropes. His new album Gravity and Friction, (released 7/26) deals in “contrasting attitudes and tonalities, reveling in the process of discovering the connections between dissimilar sounds and compositional instincts.” Heavy stuff indeed, but upon first listen the ears find this offering of sounds immediately accessible and challenging.
Gravity and Friction and one walks over a goldmine of tracks that persevere to the true essence of what a meaningful indie band should and always be- eclectic, un-cliche, mood swinging, shades of psychedelic and yes- sad in all the best ways. From the stomping “Butterfly Joint” which rocks with unnerving energy that would fit into Nirvana’s Bleach, while “Mouth Full of Bees” melds the coveted musical worlds of Kurt Vile and squawling guitars. The rollicking title track meanwhile might be the best kiss-off anthem of the year where Hollier shouts “go find your blanket of stars.”
Gravity and Fiction will most likely lay under the radar or most year-end lists- which is another musical tragedy in itself- the eight songs touch cornerstones of one’s musical DNA almost to the point of a name that band puzzle game. Yes, influences are there, but King Ropes is very much its own breathing and an original entity that must be heard to be believed. Glide recently had the chance to talk with Hollier about King Ropes’ latest and greatest…
In your bio it says that by learning hundreds of covers you developed an intuition about the intangible factors that make a song work or not and that you became obsessed with writing you own. What factors make a song work for you?
Well, I wouldn’t want to give the impression that I’m some kind of expert or anything. But it’s true that learning so many great songs did help me learn a lot about what other songwriters do. There are so many little things that need to go just right, but might not. I never get over the way a musical phrase or lick or whatever can work together with some words to touch an emotional nerve that can feel like magic. There’s a sweet spot I really like where a song is complex enough to keep my interest, but not so complicated that it’s a ton of work for the listener. Especially if it seems really complex but you pull it apart and there’s actually almost nothing to it, or the opposite, where it seems super simple, but the more you hear it the more layers you uncover. One of my favorite things is the way a song can be just really kind of mundane or even stupid, but emotionally resonant at the same time. Think about the Beach Boys’ Don’t Worry Baby, a song about middle-class teenagers driving their cars around, but also a heartbreakingly beautiful love song.
How do your most direct musical ideas come out when you have so many reference points in your past for composing? Do your thoughts and visions always turn to what you are currently listening to?
I’ve listened to a lot of stuff over the years, and some of it I’m more influenced by than others, but I don’t feel like any of that really gets in my way or makes it hard to see the forest for the trees. When I’m working on a song I’m just trying to make it the best I can, trying to make something I’d like to listen to, (and something I’ll want to play a thousand times). I’ll use whatever ideas I can to make it work better. I sure don’t let myself get hung up by some idea I start with about what kind of song I’m trying to write, (I’m not even sure what that might mean). I just hammer away at the thing, or massage it, follow it or whatever you’d call it until I get the best song I can.
I’m not sure that I’m especially influenced by what I’m currently listening to. A while back when I started really diving deep into this songwriting and recording stuff I found myself hardly listening to music at all. There was so much music in my head that I was trying to puzzle out that I found listening to music was just distracting. Lately, I’ve been trying to listen to more.
Gravity and Friction’s eight tracks build on a genre-less aesthetic – how does that freedom allow this album to remain so eclectic but focused? What songs do you feel are most rooted in your true vision of King Ropes?
Yeah, it’s true. It seems boring to me to limit ourselves to any particular genre. I love a lot of different things, as I imagine most people do. Why should we have to choose between them? I love the way juxtaposing things that “don’t go together” can make you hear both things in a different way. I don’t think this is really a new idea. But I’m happy to hear you say it all feels cohesive. I guess that comes from just listening to the songs as we’re working on them and recording them and paying attention to how they feel. One of the things I do think I have going for me is a willingness to try things and really listen to whether it’s working or not. I come into the recording process with a lot of ideas, but nothing is sacred. If something isn’t working we’ll mess with it until it gets better. Brown has been a really effective song for a while when we play it live, but the structure, especially the verses, is a pretty basic blues thing and super repetitive. The recording was sounding ok, but not very interesting. We started stripping it down till it was pretty bare-bones but it was tough pulling it away from feeling like some average bar band blues thing. We tried a bunch of stuff and ended up bringing the distorted synth drone way upfront in the beginning of the song and messing with the bass pretty hard with a phaser pedal and some other stuff, and that just brought it to this other kind of psychedelic place.
I try to not play favorites with these songs, but some of them inevitably end up working better than others. It feels like Mouth Full of Bees comes as close as any of them to what I’m trying to do with this band. It has a lot of elements that maybe refer to this vibe or that, but as a whole, it feels hard to categorize, which, you know, I like…
As a veteran of indie music, you’ve seen your share of bands come and go and trends come and die. What musical themes or trends do you feel are most deserving to remain?
I’m completely unqualified to answer this. What little knowledge and understanding I have of music is super spotty and limited to my personal experience. It’s pretty hit and miss. I am hearing a ton of music out there lately that I really like, and a lot that I don’t care for much. And I know there’s a lot more that I’m not even aware of, so who am I to say? I mean, I tend to like it when someone builds on something from the past but makes it their own in some way. And I’m personally interested in songwriting, so I’m often listening to see if there’s actually a song in there that could hold up to being interpreted one way or another, you know?
Since you have had various musical outlets- how would you best describe King Ropes in terms of its sound?
Ha! I wish I had a good answer for this. I say a lot of different things, depending on the day or who’s asking. “We’re an indie rock band with a lot of different influences.” We’re a psychedelic hard country garage roots rock band.” “Imagine Wilco, The Pixies, Tom Waits, The Velvet Underground and X hanging out at Willie Nelson’s place, you know?”
What are the challenges of releasing an album at this phase in your career where tastemakers seems to gravitate to gimmicks and social media stunts vs musical depth?
Social media can be interesting, I guess, but it can also be a dark hole you can fall into. There’s so much chatter about social media strategies that it could be easy to forget what the hell we’re actually trying to do, which is play music for people. I try to believe that the really good stuff will get heard despite whatever happens with anything else. If we can make killer records, and get a few people to hear them, then we’ve done pretty good.
Can you talk about your live shows some and what us listeners should expect if we catch you soon?
Some bands can make great records and also be great live, by finding the connections between the two, but still allowing the recordings and the live shows to each have a life of their own. We try to do that. There’s no attempt to slavishly reproduce the recordings. I think our live shows tend to be louder and more rocking than you might expect from the records, but we do try to give a good representation of the whole spectrum of what we’re doing on the records. It’s been fun trying to do some things live like what we’re doing with layering in the studio, and trying to do that with more low tech, predigital approach, using synths and guitar pedals rather than loops and sampling. Keeps it fun for us, and works with the vibe in a live show pretty nicely. We’re having fun playing this stuff. I think that translates to the audience.
If you can curate a festival with King Ropes – who would you include?
Kurt Vile. Wilco. Buck Meek. Courtney Barnett. I love Sharon Van Etten’s new album. Kevin Morby? Cass McCombs? And Strange Ranger. Nocona. Fewer people have heard of those last two, but I dig what they’re doing. Dang, we’d love to play with any of those folks.
