Kelsey’s Woods Comes Around With a Breakthrough Sophomore Album

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If you missed Kelsey’s Woods the last time they played, don’t worry too much—you’ll have another chance to see them soon. The local country-rock band, led by singer/songwriter/guitarist Dave Kennedy, makes a habit of playing live as often as they can.

“Kelsey’s Woods in its current form has never rehearsed as a full band,” Kennedy says in an email interview. “The fact that we play out a lot is how we are able to build chemistry together. We all have families and lives outside of the band, so we count on one another to listen and pay attention when we’re playing out so that we can survive as a band. Plus, the more you play the more money we can bring into our households, and diapers are expensive.”

Conventional wisdom, of course, holds that performers with even halfway serious professional aspirations should space out local gigs. Overexposure, the theory goes, is as bad as no exposure, and fans are less likely to make it out for one show if they know there’s another one the next weekend. For Kennedy and his group, though, playing too many local shows beats the alternative.

“I always tell folks that I play as much as I can, solo and/or with the band, because I’ve hated every other job I’ve ever had, and I stand by that statement,” Kennedy says. “I don’t really want to have a real job, so I work as hard as I can to play as much as I can. It’s the best job I’ve ever had and I don’t want another one.”

The heavy schedule has paid off for Kelsey’s Woods this year. In 2012, an earlier incarnation of the band—Kennedy, bassist Russ Torbett, and fiddler Shawna Cyphers—released a pleasant album of low-key honky-tonk-influenced country-folk, One More Heart to Break. Cyphers left the band shortly after, and Kennedy and Torbett started pursuing a bigger, more expansive sound inspired by Lucero, the Drive-By Truckers, and Uncle Tupelo. With the addition of guitarist Austin Stepp, keyboard player Stevie Jones, and drummer Andrew Bryant—and dozens of gigs behind them—Kelsey’s Woods found new energy and a new voice, one that comes through clear on the band’s second album, When the Morning Comes Around, released earlier this year.

“Since adding drums, electric guitars, piano, organ, etc., the kind of songs I started writing just had a different feel,” Kennedy says. “I still write plenty of folk/sad songs, but this was the first time that I had the opportunity to hear how songs like the ones on When the Morning Comes Around would sound with this kind of instrumentation, so we wanted to explore that more on this album. My heart still belongs somewhere in the ‘sad-bastard song’ realm, but it’s awfully cool to hear some rockers here, too.”

When the Morning Comes Around has the full complement of roots-rock signifiers, from pedal-steel guitar, Hammond organ, and mandolin to songs about the open highway and references to Merle Haggard. And, of course, there’s more than one drinking song. Its country roots are evident, but there’s plenty of heartland rock—think Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, and John Mellencamp—in the mix, too, as well as echoes of everything from Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones to the Black Crowes.

“My interest in country music comes from the fact that it’s always been, at its best, the best songwriting around,” Kennedy says. “I grew up listening to my dad and uncle play bluegrass and gospel music—dad plays banjo on ‘When the Morning Comes Around’—and my mom always listened to country radio. I went through a fairly normal music progression, going through what my parents enjoyed to the ’90s rock radio of my youth (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, etc.) to a pretentious sort of college scene where I thought the only music worth listening to was “independent” music. … And then I found Texas music (Steve Earle, Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Robert Earl Keen, etc.) and my life changed.”

Kennedy is as prolific a writer as he is a performer, so he’s got plenty of material for the follow-up to When the Morning Comes Around. He still has to introduce some of those songs to the band, but he says he’d like to get to work on a new record by January. In the meantime, don’t take the band’s loaded calendar as an excuse to skip their next show. As Kennedy says, the lack of practice means you never know what you’ll hear.

“Our whole existence is based to some degree in improv and trust in one another to be able to say, ‘F*** it. Let’s give this one a shot. It’s in D,’” he says. “It usually turns out great, and in fact it often creates a really cool opportunity to hear original songs in a very new way for me. It also bonded us, musically, very quickly and makes every show more fun and a little less monotonous.”

 

Kelsey’s Woods plays with Roger Alan Wade and Sparkle Motion at the Lawn Chair Concert Series at Campbell Station Park (406 N. Campbell Station Road) on Thursday, July 30, at 6 p.m. 

Senior Editor Matthew Everett manages the Knoxville Mercury's arts & entertainment section, including the comprehensive calendar section—Knoxville’s go-to guide for everything worth doing in the area. You can reach Matthew at matthew@knoxmercury.com.

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