Stephen Kellogg Interview
Doug Burke:
Welcome to Back Story Song. I'm your host, Doug Burke, and today we're here with Stephen Kellogg. Stephen Kellogg is an American singer songwriter who has released 17 albums and performed more than 2,000 concerts in 21 countries. One of Stephen's passions has been visiting military bases to perform for the servicemen and women serving abroad. SK and the Sixers have performed for the armed forces in Kuwait, Israel, Bahrain and Africa. Rolling Stone said, "Objects in the Mirror captures the talent, spontaneity and humanity of Kellogg's songwriting." He was born and raised in New England and lives there with his wife, four daughters and their cat, Holly. SK is an imperfect authority on managing testosterone in an estrogen-filled household.
I'm here with Stephen Kellogg at Back Story Song. So thrilled to have you here. Stephen, I printed out a list. Normally, we do a deep dive on the vision, inspiration, creative process you went through on an individual song and what you went through in the creation of your song.
Stephen Kellogg:
Well, yeah, I love that. That sounds like fun. And it kind of fits in because I mentioned to you a minute ago, I just finished a book. And in the book, what I ended up doing was tying each chapter to a song on the new record. So each chapter starts with a set of lyrics and then it goes into.
Doug Burke:
A lot of them are part of your personal life, your marriage, your daughters, and being a parent and things like that is what I understand in hearing about that.
Stephen Kellogg:
Yeah. I don't make a lot of things up. I try to draw on what I have seen up close and really believe to be true. So it doesn't always have to be my life. But it's usually if it's not mine, it's someone that I know. And that gets in trouble sometimes because people see their lives in your songs. But my goal is never to wound but just to kind of report the truth as I see it. And so you never know, Doug, you might end up in one of my songs after this because everything's fair game.
Doug Burke:
I would be thrilled and honored, actually, if that happened. I know you're a very respectful person in your music and in your speech, like your TED speech. If you see that I encourage everybody to look at Stephens TED Talk, it's very inspiring. But you have a core set of values. It's powerful in your music.
Stephen Kellogg:
Yeah. When I was younger, I used to worry about, I didn't want to be too preachy. I'm 43 now. And the thing is, if you believe what you're saying and it's good, then preach it. I'm a little more comfortable in my own skin now, and I guess that's just part of the age. But I feel like this is the whole point is to say things that you mean and that can be of use, hopefully, to someone else in the world. And if you keep it inside or play too close to the chest, then you're being stingy with what you've learned. So the songs over the years I think I've gotten more direct and less ... I used to couch some of the discoveries and philosophies in a little heavier poetry and now I try to really say what I mean.
Doug Burke:
What song would you like to talk about?
Stephen Kellogg:
Well, why don't we start with the first single off the new record. It's a song called High Highs, Low Lows. And this was one that I wrote because I had been having ... I had had a really tough professional situation about two and a half years ago. I thought to myself, it was truly a midlife crisis. I thought, okay, I've accomplished a lot but not what I wanted to. It's been so different than what I thought I wanted. And I'm here at a place in my life where even when I'm winning, I sometimes feel like I'm losing. So I was kind of having a little bit of a pity party. And one of my artists, friends, Eric Donnelly came over to the house and he and I told him what was on my mind. And in a very Zen way, he said, "Kellogg, you just need a good new good idea, buddy. Like, just do it, man." I mean, I know it sounds so simple. It sounds like I'm just being cute here. But he was kind, but he kind of just told me, "Come on, man. You got this." So I sat down, I started writing about where I was at and I started remembering all the great highs and some of the stuff that I'd been through. And then I thought, this is how everybody's life is. So I wrote this song, High Highs, Low Lows and it healed a lot of things inside of me. It made it okay. And then it became this thing where when I would play it and the chorus would come back to the chorus, high highs, low lows, only one way that the river flows was a tragedy or comedy who really knows high highs and low lows, all those high highs and low lows. That felt like it just equalized things and made it okay and it seemed to work for other people. So that was really one of the seeds for the new batch of songs. Once that song came in, I thought, this is fun. What if I could write songs that could heal myself and maybe others too? What else is on my mind? And from there kind of got running with the other songs.
Doug Burke:
And the album and the book have the same title?
Stephen Kellogg:
They do. The album is called Objects in the Mirror. And the book will be called Objects in the Mirror: Thoughts on a Perfect Life from an Imperfect Person. Originally, I wanted them to come out together, but it turns out reading a book was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. And it just took me about two years longer than I thought. But it's done now. That subtitle, Thoughts on a Perfect Life from an Imperfect Person is really the crux of what the book is. It's essays that are, the first part of the book is relationships. So it's marriage, kids, parents, friends, heroes and the second part is everything else that really matters; time, health, sense of humor, forgiveness, integrity, legacy, work. I tried to just kind of get under the hood of the best stuff that I'd learned in each of those. But before all that I was kind of doing that in the songs anyway. The songs in so many ways cover the same exact topics that the book does.
Doug Burke:
So High Highs, Low Lows, which is a universal thing, humanity.
Stephen Kellogg:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
What are you trying to say in the song?
Stephen Kellogg:
Well, really, I'm just saying it's a kind of a raise your glass to the good and the bad to life. I joke around that it's like AC/DC for middle aged people who like Americana music. It's an anthem. It's a folky anthem, but it's an anthem where really every chorus it's like, all right, let's sing this one. Let's acknowledge that this is a roller coaster, but that's okay. This is life and we're lucky to be here.
Doug Burke:
And the audiences sing along easily?
Stephen Kellogg:
Yeah. I hoped it would be that, but I just wrote the song and then we recorded. I thought, this could be good. And then I did my first. I remember before the album came out, I played it in LA and I knew it was going to be a fun one to do live. You can feel. Sometimes you think it's going to go one way and it doesn't, but in this case, it exceeded my expectations.
Doug Burke:
So you've only played a handful of times live?
Stephen Kellogg:
No. I've played it a lot now, but when I first started playing it-
Doug Burke:
First started playing.
Stephen Kellogg:
You write the song and you think it's solid and done, but then when you put it in front of an audience you kind of find out.
Doug Burke:
And are they picking up on the anthem?
Stephen Kellogg:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Okay.
Stephen Kellogg:
It's been great fun to do live. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
So tell me about the production of it. You write it. It's like you write it in one sitting, your friend provokes you. You're a creative person saying you need new ideas. Like Stephen Kellogg needs new ideas. You're like this fountain of ideas.
Stephen Kellogg:
Yeah. Well, he said, this has to be a good one. But what do you want to do next? In a song like that, I wrote it and I took it out and played it live, felt there was a connection. I realized I didn't really have enough of the highs in there. I had more of the lows. So I wrote some other verses. Just kept hammering away at it and then and then my friend, Eric, proposed kind of a different feel than we had been playing in it. And that's when it really just opened up and made total sense and that's the way we recorded it.
Doug Burke:
So you tweak the melody with a different feel?
Stephen Kellogg:
No. It's just kind of a different finger picking pattern that he actually plays on the record. He plays it beautifully. And I do sort of a dumbed down version of it when I play it by myself live. But when I'm doing a band show, he'll play it and does a lovely job. It just brought it home in a way that made it even more connected even more. And in terms of the production, the production on the whole new album was the same. We worked really hard on making the song arrangements to our liking and making sure that the words were exactly what I wanted them to be. And then we just went into the studio with great musicians and we just cut them live. We did all the basics in two days and then we did the background vocals and overdubs in two days. Then we took it home for a few days, then we spent two days fixing things that we didn't like and as much as you can because when you record live we're all in the room together, bleeding into the mics. So you can't fix a lot but you can fix a background Vocal or something like that or redo a guitar solo or that was it, six days. Both songs, six days. I had my family in the studio. I knew that would ground me because it's a lot of pressure, you're invested. They come down, hung around and it was a-
Doug Burke:
To help inspire you to have them there.
Stephen Kellogg:
Yeah. It just reminds you that this isn't brain surgery, it's fine. If the song doesn't come out, it's okay. It's easy to be ... I'm an intense person and that is a very grounding force in my life.
Doug Burke:
So High Highs, Low Lows is the first chapter of your book?
Stephen Kellogg:
It's not.
Doug Burke:
No?
Stephen Kellogg:
What would we attach that to? We attached it to the chapter about forgiveness, which is actually the 11th chapter. But it's the first single off the record, so I sometimes feel like it's ... For something like this, it seemed like a good place to start. It was the first song we shared with people saying, this is the new album.
Doug Burke:
So the song has some elements of forgiveness in it? As a message in some way, shape or form. Describe that to me?
Stephen Kellogg:
Well, the thing is, as life goes on, we go through it and you can sort of amass a list of grievances if you're not careful of everything that didn't go right. All the lows. And you can end up really reaching back for those highs. Man, when I was in my late 20s, I could have been the president of that company, and then they passed ... You can get hooked on what was. And so these peaks and valleys of a person's life can just call to you and they can sort of derail middle age. And here I am, I'm now in middle age. So I'm looking at my life and saying, well, you got to make your peace with what did work out, with what didn't work out and that is where the element of forgiveness comes in. You got to forgive yourself for the things that you got wrong, forgive others for the things that they might have screwed up for you. And in this particular song there's some relationships that are outlined where I had felt quite attacked by someone I really cared about and struggled with that for quite a while. And then I forgave that person for whatever they were feeling about me and for whatever they wouldn't forgive me about. It's like letting that stuff go so that you can keep writing new chapters in your life.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. A lot of us carry that grievance around like a backpack everywhere we go.
Stephen Kellogg:
Right. Totally. Anne Lamott says holding a grudge is like drinking rats poison and expecting the rat to die. I think I'm getting that slightly wrong but it's like the idea that ... It's misplaced. It's a heavy load to carry. Why bother? You don't have to keep ... In my chapter of forgiveness and sort of in the song, my point is like, you can forgive someone without condoning what they did and without needing to be best friends, you can just forget. It feels good. And that's been one of the most powerful messages of the last few years for me. It's like a secret weapon, the power of forgiveness and it's definitely crept into this song but a lot of the song is on this new record. Well, we'll go to something a little lighter for a minute. There's a song called Symphony of Joy on there. It was funny because you and I, we were talking and I have four daughters, and my oldest is a teenager now. And she is getting ready to leave for tour and she said, "Dad, I just want you to know I'm dating Michael." And I said, "Okay. Well, who's Michael? What do we like about Michael?"And she said, "Well, he makes me laugh." Of course, I meet the kid and he's not funny, but anyway. I called my daughters into the room and I said, "Look, marry whoever you want. But I would love it if you married someone that dances." Because I think it says a lot about the way that people live their life. They don't have to be good dancers, but they have to be willing ... Because I know my daughter's love to dance. And I just thought, they have to be willing to go out with you. I mean, on the dance floor, to me that's something you should look for in your ... And of course, Greta, my daughter is five at the time looking at me like, why are we talking about who I'm going to marry? I had this and then I went off on tour and I wrote this song, Symphony of Joy and the chorus it's an encouragement to dance like a symphony of joy. And then the next line is, it's not your obligation to go easy on the boys, because the ceiling’s going to shatter. And believe me, when it does, those who pinned you to the margins, baby, there'll be sweeping up. I wanted to write a really upbeat song, something to kind of remind them about our conversation that married people ... Look for people who are going to meet you where you're at and not try to dim your star in any way. And also, I wanted to speak to the fact that everybody ... I know they mean well. So if you're listening and you've done this, don't feel bad. But people come up to you, you got four daughters. I feel bad for you. Put them in a Convent. I better get a shotgun. I would laugh and play along for so many years. But at some point, they're listening, they're watching, and I would never want them to ... I wouldn't want there to be any ambiguity as to … I'm the luckiest guy in the world. Four daughters, that's perfect. I don't want anything else. Things are changing here in America, but in a global sense women are not ... They're not always given the respect that they deserve to say the least. And it's very important to me to do my best to raise strong women who will know that any pushback that they're getting out there, that's about other people, that's not about them. They have every right to the mantle. And so try not to carry it just as anger. Carry it as you go out and live boldly, dance like a symphony.
Doug Burke:
And you've written another song called Four Daughters.
Stephen Kellogg:
Yes. We have four kids and then I have Song For Daughters. And that's also on the record.
Doug Burke:
Sorry. I am mixing them up. Sorry.
Stephen Kellogg:
No, I know. I'm like Rafi for adults. I have all these family songs but Song For Daughters is kind of like when you're leveled by the challenges of life, try not to be so hard on yourself because we've all been there.
Doug Burke:
That's a dad message to daughters or?
Stephen Kellogg:
That's an anyone message. I say it's a song for daughters but it could be a song for sons. Song For Daughters was one where people sometimes call me up and want to write with me about family because I've done it a lot and they think I'll like that. And here I am, trying to write about other things. But I went out and wrote that one with my friend Tyrone Wells, California guy and he had just had another child and I could tell he wanted to write about it. So I, we started writing. I'm a little reluctant because I've got a lot on that topic and-
Doug Burke:
Covered that terrain.
Stephen Kellogg:
Well, you think you have and then you start uncovering some other side of it that you haven't seen and this was a case of that, because by the time we got to the second verse, I knew I would be recording the song. Yeah, he could too but I was like, I'm definitely doing this. Is great. And it became a song for my newly widowed mother and my elderly grandmother and my divorced sister. Again, just like, how can we live in a world where women are second class citizens and millions of them and countries where they ... It's just, this is not okay. It's not right. And you can say, well, it's cultural, and we need to respect each other's culture. But if someone said to me, well, slavery is cultural, the South, they believed it was okay. Well, they were wrong. There are things where it's just slavery is wrong. And some of what's going on with women and other countries especially is wrong. It's not about being an intolerant person. It's about just saying like, this is not okay. It has to be confronted. I wish it wasn't so but it is. My daughters are fortunate they live in America, they live in a very progressive society. Their battles may feel a little smaller. But this is going to be an increasing thing as we move forward in civilization. This is going to be addressed. And the people who have the power are going to not want to give it up necessarily. It's important to me, so I end up writing about it a fair amount.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. You have to call out the problem to recognize there is one.
Stephen Kellogg:
Yeah. For sure. And they're maybe a bit young for some of the heavier stuff that I've seen in my travels in the Middle East and places like that, where you ... I'd rather over-educate them than under-educated them.
Doug Burke:
You've played in front of our armed forces all over the world.
Stephen Kellogg:
Many times, all the time. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Thank you for doing that.
Stephen Kellogg:
My pleasure.
Doug Burke:
Tell me about the songs that you play there that resonate with the troops and what do you put on your setlist and tell me what those songs are. Or have you written any songs from that experience?
Stephen Kellogg:
I haven't written that Much directly about that, but it's a factor ... It's in me. It's in the fabric of all the songs. It changes you. You go when you see the role that America plays on an international scale, and you can't help but be changed. If you're in Africa and you're in Kuwait and you're in Bahrain, you just go to these places and you can't unsee things that you've seen. And you realize the commitment of our armed forces that's just independent of any politics. These are just people that are giving their time, usually away from their families for long, long stretches to preserve some version of good behavior. It was a term I heard you use earlier and that's kind of what it is. Just trying to keep some semblance of peace and some ones have some kind of international standard across the board.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. Recognizing bad behavior and calling it out and saying, hey, we don't want that.
Stephen Kellogg:
There's exceptions, of course. We get really hung up nowadays with ... There are exceptions. It's not a blanket thing of all armed forces are perfect and great. I'm not perfect and great. There are problems. But there's also at its core a good thing that goes on there. And I think that where we connect myself and the armed forces is that we are mostly doing what we're doing for our family, for our country. We're trying to be good people in the world. We're doing our level best. And we're making sacrifices to do so, we're scrapping. I've got a song called 4th Of July. The chorus of which is, "This is my life. It isn't much but at least it's mine." That one has become a big song in general. That came out in 2007. But for me that has become an important one to the people who listen to my music and always seems to resonate with the troops as well. Because you're sort of accepting, hey, I'm no better than anybody else, but I've got a life to live here and I'm going to live it with purpose. That's the entirety of the lyric in the chorus. In the verses of that one I'll tell my story, but it's really the chorus that's so universal. I'll always play that for the troops. But I just show up and let them know they're thought of and talk about my life and my family and how it might relate to theirs. And if someone shares a story with me, then I'll maybe bring that into the show. I'm a pretty spontaneous performer in that capacity.
Doug Burke:
Would you call 4th Of July a patriotic song?
Stephen Kellogg:
No.
Doug Burke:
What is it about?
Stephen Kellogg:
No. It's a sort of just a human interest. Again, a lot of my songs I think are anthems to being alive and making it through the hard times and living to die another Day and find some more joy and do some more good work before your free time is up. So, you could probably characterize 40% of my songs as that. But that's fine. I mean, Willie Nelson, it's not like he's covering a huge array of topics. He's just looking at it from different angles. And I think that that's the kind of body of work that I'm trying to create too, where I'm less worried about talking about everything than I am about speaking comprehensively on the subjects that are really important to me.
Doug Burke:
The 4th of July is a very specific personal experience story?
Stephen Kellogg:
It is. And yet, a lot of times the specific songs are the ones that seem to be more universal. People can grab onto them because they see some part of themselves in it. On a song like that, there's tons of very, very specific details, but it doesn't seem to ... It seems to connect to a wide audience. I don't know. Maybe I'll play today and I'll look at the audience and see if they're connecting. I think they probably will be.
Doug Burke:
And you did that with the Sixers?
Stephen Kellogg:
I did. Yeah. The Sixers were a band that was with me for 10 years. And some of the guys still play with me sometimes and some don't. But in most cases, yeah. Those songs, I never really looked at anything as this band or that. It was just these are just the songs that have come out of me over the years.
Doug Burke:
I'm interested in the writing experience of that song. Did that just come to you?
Stephen Kellogg:
Yeah. That one was, we were in Herndon, Virginia. It was the 3rd of July, and we were playing a festival for the town the next day. And we were having a little acoustic rehearsal behind the Stonewall Jackson Inn. Amazing that that's there in my brain, but that's where it was. So we're sitting out in this field. And we're having a little acoustic rehearsal, a couple acoustic guitars, singing the parts and we're all getting to starving because we're at it for a couple hours. We're about to go back inside and it's dusk, and the fireflies come out. And that was one of those songs where the words, they were just there. I don't even know. I just got down on my knees and I wrote them in my notebook. And the band knows not to interrupt me if something like that's happening. It was, I don't know, 10 minutes, 15 minutes.
Doug Burke:
Just poured out of you.
Stephen Kellogg:
And the music you kind of tweak after, shape a couple lines. But I mean, not all songs are that way. But that one was ... It's you're just like a vessel. And it stuffs just kind of there and it's about as close to spiritual as it gets.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. And that's interesting. 4th of July is Independence Day and Stonewall Jackson was a Confederate and I think RCA headquarters. Right there. Like all those forces around you. I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but-
Stephen Kellogg:
I'm a distinctly American artist. I mean, I go and I play in Europe but it's ... I really come across as American in so many ways and in so much of my music. But my problem with songs that are "patriotic" is they get used to alienate. They get used to push people, you're not a patriot if you don't like this song. That's just not true. You can be a patriot and disagree with things. And we're in a situation here where we're repeating history because patriotism has been used as a political tool to say you're with us or you're against us. That's just not true. That's not what made this country great ever and proud to be an American because at least I know I tried. That song gets used in some disgusting ways and it just ... So I can't get behind it. If it weren't being used in that way, I wouldn't have a problem with the song. So I don't really write anything that's like go USA for that reason. But my kids are very clear on how much I love America. I could never be happy in another country. I would go down with the ship if I had to here. So I think of myself very much as a patriot but I sort of detest patriotic "songs" because I just see the propaganda that they get used as well.
Doug Burke:
I'm sorry. I asked you if that song-
Stephen Kellogg:
No. You shouldn't be because it's a good chance to talk about something that I'm passionate about. But, yeah.
Doug Burke:
Because your music is labeled Americana.
Stephen Kellogg:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
And that is a First Amendment word.
Stephen Kellogg:
Yeah. Do you know the history?
Doug Burke:
I don't know the history of it. It's saying it's from America. It's Americana. And we have unlimited voices in our country because of the First Amendment. There's infinite number of voices in Americana. And all voices should be heard. You can disagree with those voices and that's your right to do so.
Stephen Kellogg:
Totally.
Doug Burke:
And that's a foundation of America.
Stephen Kellogg:
Totally.
Doug Burke:
And that's a foundation of Americana.
Stephen Kellogg:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
That's a cool definition.
Stephen Kellogg:
It's hard for me right now in 2022, I resent feeling pushed out of the distinction of Patriot because I don't share some of the political stuff that's going on. I think of John Adams and I think of the real patriots and these people and they were just ... I don't know. We'll get through it but it's interesting to be an American right now.
Doug Burke:
Tell me about your love songs.
Stephen Kellogg:
Yeah, that's another 40% of the songs right there, love songs. That's the other that's ... Yeah.
Doug Burke:
You've had a long love story.
Stephen Kellogg:
I've been very lucky. I met my wife when we were 15. And through some cosmic luck and a bit of hard work we've been able to be together the whole time and share this experience without, I think, holding each other back from living our own individual lives, too. So in terms of romance, Kirsten, my wife is undeniably ... I understand love through her, romantic love and so she's in the songs. But I write in the broad sense about love, not in a way like you don't have to have been with your high school sweetheart to understand what I'm writing about necessarily. From the love songs, the thing ... I've got a few that are just like our now codes to love. But again, I also write about the struggle. Real love is knowing all the buttons you can push in a person and choosing not to push the ones that cause pain and choosing to accept people as they are ,not as you would have them be. How often does somebody get married and then gradually shift to who they are to accommodate until you're sort of like, I don't know if that's ... Till you've sort of given up maybe your core. And then people get divorced and it just keeps going sometimes. Because it's hard to find the right people. You've got to care. You've got to communicate a lot. And sometimes you realize you picked the wrong person and you got married to just the wrong person. This person is never going to be someone that can support you in the way that you need to be supported or you're not going to be able to support them. And that's a painful reality. I kind of like to get in there and write a story especially about the journey through love and what happens if you can learn to see each other in the best light, if you can learn to accept the whole of the person.
Doug Burke:
So imagine your songs are like your children, it's impossible to pick a favorite but can we talk about some of your love songs? They don't have to be your all time favorites. They just have to be the favorite in this moment while we're talking here on this podcast.
Stephen Kellogg:
Well, let's think about this. Let me look at this list. I wrote one called Love of My Life on the new record as a gift to my wife for her 40th birthday. That was one where I took it out to the audience, I'd written the first verse and the chorus, and I took it out. I remember I played it in Denver. And I could feel the first verse and chorus, I could feel the audience leaning in. And the chorus hits, "You're the love of my life." People holding hands. I was like, this is great. And then the song went on and it kind of like lost the thread. So I thought, well, maybe Denver doesn't know what they're ... Let me try this again. I played it again and Des Moines and kind of the same thing. And then I realized, okay, I haven't quite captured the essence of what it is to feel like you have the love of your life. I just kept working on it and we were about to go in the studio. And I was in Chicago taping an interview at this music store and there was an old 1948 guitar there. I picked it up and started strumming a version of this song. And these bridge lyrics, like the whole song again just kind of came together on this thing. And this bridge came together that I had never written down or thought of. And the bridge was, and this isn't lyrically genius or anything, but I'm just going to tell you what the bridge is. It says, "This is a simple song about simple things, a boy and a girl and a wedding ring. saying it's simple doesn't make it mean less. Oh, from those blue jeans, right to that wedding dress, you're the love of my life." And that was just, again, sitting there and I thought “this is okay.” I don't need to make this song any more complex than what I'm saying. It's just like we got lucky we're here and you’re the axis to my world.
Doug Burke:
You think that people would be tired of silly love songs, but they're not.
Stephen Kellogg:
No.
Doug Burke:
Paul McCartney wrote simple songs about love songs.
Stephen Kellogg:
And they're all great. I mean, you can hear a million of them. They keep reminding you of what love is. This is going to sound a little new-agey, but I think it's the gasoline that our hearts run on. And the more tapped into it you are, the more full your life is going to be. And the less you have it, the more miserable it's going to be. So if a love song reminds you of what's most important, God bless.
Doug Burke:
Is there a chapter in your new book on that?
Stephen Kellogg:
On love?
Doug Burke:
And marriage.
Stephen Kellogg:
Marriage is chapter one.
Doug Burke:
Right out of the box.
Stephen Kellogg:
Marriage is actually chapter one. It's sort of a funny chapter because it's a lot of it's just my ... I mean, people erroneously, what a good husband you must be. Like these songs. I'm like, I don't know where you're getting that necessarily. In the book I shared my many ... I'm in the middle. I'm not the worst husband. I'm not the best.
Doug Burke:
I always ask the artist when you play this for the person that you wrote it about, in this case you very specifically, I believe wrote about your wife. How does she react? Like, does she ...
Stephen Kellogg:
She's cool. I mean, I think she liked it. She liked this one. She'd loved me if I wrote songs, she'd loved me if I didn't write songs, it's okay. So it not-
Doug Burke:
Here's like your postcard to her or your Valentine you've written like, I mean, are you expecting her to break down in tears and hug you?
Stephen Kellogg:
Just got a very even reaction. And I've learned not to be needy and need her to do anything more. It's just my offering. It's not how she reacts, is not part of the deal. It's like me saying what I need to say to her and she can receive it on her own time. And she does. She's never been real mad about a song. I'll give her a hard time sometimes because she'll come to the show and, "Did you see any of it? Or do you hang backstage?" She's supportive. She likes my music a lot. So when I played this, it was at her birthday party, which was when we had three couples over and we had dinner. And I said, "It was one of my things. I wrote the song." What I can tell you with certainty, Doug, is that the other couples there were more impressed.
Doug Burke:
And their wives are like, why can't you do that for me?
Stephen Kellogg:
Totally. And I don't want to make my wife sound like a humbug. I'm not trying to throw her under the bus because she loved it. She was like, "Thank you so much." But it was just like the other couples were crying and like, oh my god, how did you do that? She was like, I love you too, babe. It's cool, it works. I'm plenty emotional for both of us. So it's good to have somebody who's a little more stoic in the relationship.
Doug Burke:
So I always ask artists, do you watch the crowd and how they're reacting in a song like that? Do you love it when they start to cry in songs? Is that kind of you know it's working? What do you look for?
Stephen Kellogg:
I like tears. Tears are fun. What I really want to do more than anything is connect with the people who are watching me play. And if someone is brought to tears you know you've succeeded. To me, that's one of the clearest indicators. And it's funny, I was just hanging out with a great songwriter named Andrew McMahon this afternoon and we were discussing this very thing. And saying that now 20 years into our careers, both of us, I try not to adjust myself to the audience. I try not to, they're reacting this way, so I need to do this or I need to do that. But I do observe the audience and I do care. I just don't want to get off track from what it is that I believe here to do. And too often in the early days you walk in a crowd and you're like a leaf in the wind. Like, the crowd wants upbeat. And you don't really know who you are then and you don't really give them an indicator of what you do. There's music for everything. There's music for partying, too. There's music for sitting quietly in a theater, too, and people can receive in different ways. So my goal now is to go be myself. If I do that well, then, and I don't sound like a jerk, but then I don't care what the audience does. I love it when they get on my train.
Doug Burke:
Do you have to certain songs that are the usual audience tearing songs?
Stephen Kellogg:
You know more than anything what it depends upon is the situation. Out here at Sundance, you don't always get a shot. It's too chatty. Too many people just getting drunk and schmoozing.
Doug Burke:
There were a lot of people from LA here and with the Kobe Bryant situation of his untimely passing, a lot of people who actually knew him Yeah, and people were playing. In particular, I saw Rain Phoenix play a song and her album is called River about her grief resolution process. And there were tears in that audience.
Stephen Kellogg:
I love that. If you give music a chance to do what it's designed to do, you can get there. If you took AC/DC's, You Shook Me All Night Long and you brought it into a folk café, it might be confusing. By the same token, if you take High Highs, Low Lows into a loud bar, it's probably not going to invoke a sing along. It's not an Irish sea shanty thing. For me, it's all about just you try to as often as possible put yourself in situations where you can do what it is you do. And then you just let the music work like medicine. You just put it out and it does what it's going to do.
Doug Burke:
How do you know when a song is done?
Stephen Kellogg:
A great question. And I've heard a lot of other songwriters answer this question, but I don't know that I have, which is amazing. But I guess it's just you just let it go at some point. I have songs that are in theory done that I don't think are done. Like, I didn't quite finish but you've already recorded them and whatnot. But at some point, the air can go out of the balloon a little bit with a song. If you keep tinkering too long, you can lose the plot.
Doug Burke:
I also ask, this is one of my interview questions and it may not apply to you and I understand if it doesn't, but have you ever written a song and said, boy, this is not a Stephen Kellogg song, but this would be perfect for this voice. This would be perfect for Beyonce.
Stephen Kellogg:
Sure. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
What's that? What song is that?
Stephen Kellogg:
There's a lot of them. But I remember writing a song called ... It was called, Why Don't You Quit Talking To Me. And I thought the Barenaked Ladies ... I wrote it really early on. And I think the Barenaked Ladies, it was when they were really booming. And they, I feel like could have just had a smash with this one. It was so hooky in a way that I if I was writing for me, like if I had thought it had to be for me, I couldn't have made it as sort of sugary as I did. But because it just seemed to want to go there, I thought that would be good. I got another one called Shoebox Full Of Proof that I've always thought Brad Paisley would be great on. And that's about sending notes home to your family while you're out traveling so that they ... This is based on my own life but so that they have ... My kids have these shoeboxes full of postcards that I've sent them from years and years. The running joke is when they're in therapy when they're older, they can have this evidence that I was making an effort. So we wrote a song, another writer and I one day JT Hardin and it had a country lane, and I thought Brad Paisley or Tim McGraw would just sound great on them. So never know. It's not done yet. I mean, the song is done but ...
Doug Burke:
Yeah. No. No. My goal is that my podcast listeners will somehow get it in front of those artists and they will consider it and it will become a top 10 hit for them. No. That was, actually, I told you about Brian Richardson Mountain Time Music and he said, "If you did that, you would make so many songwriters dreams come true."
Stephen Kellogg:
Yeah. Oh my god. Totally. I played at a festival this summer. And I played with Beth Nielsen Chapman and I went around and she's in the songwriting Hall of Fame. And she said Bonnie Raitt has to hear this song.
Doug Burke:
Which song was that?
Stephen Kellogg:
It was a song of mine called Prayers. And she said, "Can you put it in the first person and I'll take it to her?" Because the song isn't in the first person. I went home and cut a demo because I said I love it. So I have sent it to Beth a few times now and she's like, "We got to hang." I don't know if it's gotten to Bonnie and I don't want to be a paid pest, something like that. It's always the dream that your stuff will connect to the places it needs to.
Doug Burke:
So Objects in the Mirror is that title cut?
Stephen Kellogg:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Of the new album and the first part of the book. You want to talk about that song?
Stephen Kellogg:
Sure. That's a song, it was summertime when I wrote it. I was getting close to getting ready to record and trying to wrap up. I had two ideas. One was called the Date Song, where I just used all these different dates. And I wrote that Date Song because the last label I was on had said, Stephen, we really like you and we want you to win. But could you consider writing some songs with less specific dates and names in them? I said Sure. And then I went and wrote more date songs. So I kind of leaned all the way into this thing that I am inclined to do. So I had that one and then I had a song called and The Moment Passed about those moments in your life that get away. Neither of these songs were released. Because basically, we cannibalized both of them to make Objects in the Mirror. So it was summertime and I'm supposed to meet my family for a barbecue. It might have been like Memorial Day or something. And I sat down and I put the words from the date song to the melody from The Moment Passed. And I started just unapologetically going with this date thing, 11/28/76, the day that I was born right before my parents split. And I go from there on that. And then I thought, okay, what came after that? And then we had a verse, which is actually fitting because today is 1/28/86. Our eyes glued to schools only television set. No one told us, now we knew, every dream does not come true. And that of course, was watching the Challenger explosion and what a loss of innocence that was. Suddenly, parents are explaining to their nine-year-olds. I mean, they had all of us watch that at school because it was this because, yeah.
Doug Burke:
A schoolteacher. The first non-astronaut.
Stephen Kellogg:
I mean, think of that. All these kids watching a disaster. What do you call them? A spaceship exploded. And there's no way to sugarcoat that. You can't say, actually it's ... And the looks on the face of people. So that loss of innocence. So from there, I got to this idea, I was like, I'm going to keep going with this. I never made it to the barbecue. And my wife said, "What happened to you?" When she came home that night. And hopefully this doesn't sound arrogant, but I said, "I wrote a song that people are going to be hanging the words to in their houses for at least the rest of my life." Who knows what kind of legacy I'm going to leave in a professional way. But I know for the people that listen to my music, I knew finishing that song that we had ... And my friend Eric Donnelly wrote some of the lyrics with me. I knew we had written something that would be with us for always. It was one of those ones that we go, well, at least we wrote that one. You get a few of those. They're gifts when they come. And so I went from there and it's a mix of personal things and wider events that were in there. And it's not necessarily the biggest things but it's stuff that I thought covered the large idea which was what the refrain was. As we look back through the looking glass, visions closer than they appear. And this line changes every chorus. But in the last chorus, there's so many things to be grateful for my dear. All these objects in the mirror. And it's the idea that your life passes by. When you see these things, and each chorus takes a different look at the objects in the mirror, the things that are now past us before you blink, and they go by. It's long days and it's fast years. You're well aware that you've spent 15 years raising a kid and it's been exhausting and challenging and all the rest of it. And in the same breath, it's how did she become 15?
Doug Burke:
Yeah.
Stephen Kellogg:
When did that happen? So with each chorus too, it kind of nods to the verse in a really neat way on that song. That's a really fun one to roll out for people. It was one of those ones when I first started playing it live, as people catch on as to what's going on, it's pretty special.
Doug Burke:
And they don't mind the dates?
Stephen Kellogg:
Nobody ever cared.
Doug Burke:
Nobody ever cared about the dates.
Stephen Kellogg:
The irony is that people that come see me, they like that. And yet, the labels, they have an obligation to mass market and that's fine. And they think, well, maybe ... And they just don't know. They think maybe it's simpler if it's ... What if it alienates someone because they can't relate to that? When in fact, you kind of want to look at what does this artist do well? What are their superpowers? What are their aces? And if someone had had a little more foresight, they might have looked at my aces and said, no. Write more of that, not less. Let's go whole hog in here instead of having you write blander songs that you're not actually that good at writing.
Doug Burke:
Have you ever written an angry song?
Stephen Kellogg:
Yeah. I'm a really angry person, actually. I have a lot of empathy and a lot of love, but a lot of anger too.
Doug Burke:
What's an angry song?
Stephen Kellogg:
Same thing that lets it all in, it's just kind of like comes back. The Brain Is A Beautiful Thing is two records back, that's an angry song. That song was a song where I just thought ... I do have political views and for so many years this crap that we peddled artists, shut up and sing, stick to singing, stick to arts. No. Stick to being a human. You can say that to Bruce Springsteen, but if he doesn't act like Bruce Springsteen, then he's not Bruce Springsteen. So, listeners are entitled not to listen, that's what you get to do, but don't ever tell me who I should be in the world. I'm not here for your amusement any more than you're here for mine. So, Brain Is A Beautiful Thing was a bunch of political views that I wanted to share. And it did in kind of ... I tried to share them in a way that wouldn't be overly alienating or us versus them. But I'm angry about this. I admit, I'm frustrated living in a world the way it is.
Doug Burke:
And I think that's okay. I'm glad you wrote that song.
Stephen Kellogg:
I'm okay with it. I will say it's not a huge theme in my music. It's just, it's more there in my way of being. It exists. I don't ever want to like let things that aren't okay. I don't ever want to let a racist comment happen at a party that I'm at and not say something again. That makes me angry. I want to address that. And so I bring that into my shows. And sometimes people come in and they're overserved and I will call them out. But ultimately, I don't bring it. I go into the shows with a lot of love and the goal is not to like spread anger. It's more to spread like, “hey, I know we all have some stuff that bothers us, so let's let's focus on our commonalities and bring that together and how can we drive this love force more?”
Doug Burke:
It's my honor and thrill to get to know you better in this way. And thank you. I can't wait for the new album Objects in the Mirror. The album's out, but I can't wait for the-
Stephen Kellogg:
Dive in, man.
Doug Burke:
For the new book. Full title again?
Stephen Kellogg:
Objects in the Mirror: Thoughts on a Perfect Life from an Imperfect Person.
Doug Burke:
And you can find it on an Amazon download near you.
Stephen Kellogg:
May 19th, 2020. It comes out officially but we'll have an audible, it'll be on Amazon and then certainly through my website and channels.
Doug Burke:
And you're playing around?
Stephen Kellogg:
I have just finished about 14 months of touring. So I have European thing I'm doing in the fall, I've got some festivals this summer, and I'm going to do a book tour. So I will be going around doing a book tour that will have a little bit of music in it. That's what's coming up. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Great. Thank you so much.
Stephen Kellogg:
Yeah. Thank you.
