How heartbreak gave birth to a band and recording contract & helped Kevin Barnes make new friends
Odd things happen in Athens, Ga. But don't go running around thinking something's in the water. Nope. But there is something to be said about a mass of musicians migrating from Louisiana to Athens just because the music scene "seems" better. That's what happened with the Elephant Six collective, but more on them much later.
For now, take the band Of Montreal. Formed in Athens originally, the band migrated towards the Elephant Six collective and have somewhat become immersed in their auras.
In the meantime, Bar/None, a record label in Hoboken, NJ, once put forth Athens band Chocolate USA onto the record buying public. But eventually, as most small bands go, they dispersed, separated, moved around... general mayhem ensued, lead vocalist/writer Julian continued collecting cows... stuff like that happened which meant Bar/None desperately needed a band just as quirky to fill the gap.
That band turned out to be Athens, Ga.'s Of Montreal and their debut album, "Cherry Peel" offers plenty of Beatles-esque riffs, Robyn Hitchcock style lyrics and plenty of charm.
Kevin Barnes from the band explains more...
Y'all: Odd name... where did it come from?
Kevin: I met this
girl when I was in Florida. She lived in Montreal and she was down in
Florida visiting. I met her one night by chance and I really fell for
her. She went back to Montreal and I moved to Minneapolis. We were
having this literary love affair. I was really really into her. I went
to Montreal to see her and for some reason it didn't work out and it
was really crushing. Everything I did after that point would be from
that experience so it was "of Montreal."
 Y'all: So that inspired you to form the band?
Kevin: Mostly,
yeah... songwriting... just from that experience. It just woke me up. I
was in this daze... not really feeling anything. Once she broke my
heart it was almost like it opened up something inside of me that I
could feel a lot deeper in a lot of ways like getting into movies,
books and songs. It was really a wonderful thing but very sad, too.
Y'all: What's up in the future?
Kevin: The second
record is kind of a concept album -- it's just my experience in
Montreal -- it'll be called "A Petite Tragedy" -- it won't be out for a
while. It's already done. We're working on the third one. We'll try to
make it fun, in the sense of the '60s psychedelic stuff. I guess the
first record is autobiographical because whatever experiences I would
have I would come home and write about it. I guess pop music... I think
of it as pop music. The kind of music I love is pop from the '60s and
some of the '70s gumball pop.
Y'all: What exactly IS the Elephant Six Collective?
Kevin: It's like
a bunch of bands that are from the same place and they started their
own record label. They had Elephant Six for a long time, it was their
little thing, but then they all started signing with other labels but
they kept this label. They might have some distribution with somebody.
The Athens band Elf Power might be on Elephant Six.
Y'all: Is this all run by one person?
Kevin:I don't
know if there's a person at the head of it... they're all from the same
town -- Ruston, Louisiana -- it's weird, there's plenty of small towns
and nothing comes out of them. There's a band called The Gerbils and
they're incredible. They're from there too. The two singers in Olivia
Tremor Control -- Will and Bill and then John Fernandez and Jeff Mangum
in Neutral Milk Hotel are all from there. Robert Schneider in The
Apples In Stereo is from there too. The Gerbils are from there, too.
Only way we're connected to each other is that we're all friends and I
love all their bands.
This story originally ran for yall.com in 1996.
Of Montreal site
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