Interview: Kevn Kinney, Drivin N Cryin

Remember, there's no "I" in Kevn

SMOKIN' BLUESMEN

With their first official UK release Fly Me Courageous, DRIVIN N CRYIN established themselves as a quirky and sometimes eccentric rock act. Despite months of road work they are already back with Smoke, a raw, far more direct album. I asked singer and guitarist Kevn Kinney whether the harder approach is due in part to the constant touring.#

"I think it's definitely heavier. The elements from Fly Me Courageous, like "Build a Fire" and "Rush Hour," are kinda what this one's like. It doesn't have those cute songs, such as "For You." It's more of a blues album."

Originally the working title was Hitchhiking Under the Big Top. Why the switch to the simpler Smoke?

"Well Drivin N Cryin have always made it confusing, all our albums have long titles. We actually wanted to call it Fuck but," he laughs, "we didn't figure that would sell a lot."

Once again Geoff Workman takes production credits, although unlike Fly Me Courageous, Rob St Germaine was enrolled to mix Smoke.

"He's an old friend who we've wanted to work with for ages. Sometimes the producer gets too close to a record, so it was good to let Rob work on it without any preconceived ideas. He's very self opinionated but he's got lots of patience and he's always right."

Anyone who caught their few European live shows last year should recognise a couple of tunes, namely "What Difference Does It Make" and the hurtling "Turn It Up."

"We played '1988' over there as well, but a lot of the songs we wrote sitting in the studio. 'Smoke,' 'She Doesn't Wanna Go,' 'Patron Lady Beautiful,' that whole side of the record is pretty much brand new."

Kevn then takes the album as a whole.

"It's a very angry, romantic record, very accessible. There's no tricks. I didn't write any of the words down ever. I did 'em like my folk songs, I would sing 'em over, and get 'em memorised so I'd be able to sing like I meant it."

This approach has certainly paid off.

"Yeah I really enjoy it. It feels good to make something I like again. I like all my records, but this one has a very European feel."

Joe Mackett
Riff Raff

June 1993

Revenge...?

Riff Raff was a legendary rock magazine based in London in the late 1980s and 1990s. Edited by the ultimate music biz insider, Mark Crampton, and employing such talents as Mark Blake, Jerry Ewing, Mike Harris, Paul Smith, Chris Collingwood, Alan McCrorie, Simon Robinson, Lyn Guy, Anna Marx, Nick Douglas, Marion Garden, Peter "Grunty" Grant, Joe "The Crow" Mackett, Billy "The Kluck" Kulke, and, lastest and mostest, the incredible Liddell Brothers, Mark (a.k.a. "El Perro") and Colin (a.k.a. "Der Fly"). Unfortunately, Riff Raff was just too R n' R for its own good. A genuine working class rock mag, written, edited, and translated into 16 European languages in a drug-N-Jack-D-fuelled haze, often on the back of motorbikes, with spell checking by our staff of attentive rock bimbos (chosen purely for their blondeness and big knockers), it soon fell behind more trainspotterly, nerdish, and politically correct publications like Q, Kerrang, Mojo, Metal Hammer, and Horse & Hound. This website is an archive and kind of shrine dedicated to the writing of its greatest writers, some of whom, luckily for the Rock Kosmos, still continue to write about music. This is the REVENGE of Riff Raff...Rock on!