Joan of Arc
Tim Kinsella discusses a very personal Boo! Human, his musical family and his dislike for Britain.
To list the projects that Tim Kinsella has worked on would require much more than a paragraph. The Chicago based Kinsella has been in Cap'n Jazz, The Sky Corvair and Make Believe – among many others. The intertwining band members can be confusing, but the focus for Tim has now shifted towards Joan of Arc, who, in May of 2008, released Boo! Human. HEAVE had a chance to catch up with Tim and ask him what makes Boo! Human so intimate.
HEAVE: Red Blue Yellow broke up after their first show, and re-emerged as Joan of Arc, why such a quick break up with a new name?
Tim Kinsella: I don't remember exactly, but I would guess that the show must've been such a wipeout that it seemed irredeemable to our young selves. Now of course I believe somehow the most blessed blessing of material form would be that any and all actions are redeemable.
HEAVE: Fourteen people helped contribute to the new album, and they all come from fairly successful groups. How did you get such a big group of talented people together?
Tim Kinsella: Two cliches apply - success is in the eye of the beholder and in showbiz its all about who you know.
HEAVE: There is a sense of intimacy on Boo! Human that is much stronger than on your previous records, almost an album of reflection. What was happening in your life while writing/recording Boo! Human?
Tim Kinsella: My wife left me for Derek Erdman, maybe I let that creep into the process a little bit. As far as I can tell this may be his greatest work of art to date, but he's a pop artist and I'm not particularly into material forms, so maybe his work is just over my head. I'm more of a literally head-in-the-clouds kind of guy. I love and trust my wife deeply, if she sees something in him he must be onto something I guess.
HEAVE: Where does Boo! Human fit in with the rest of the catalog?
Tim Kinsella: From a temporal perspective biased towards this specific moment - it is the last thing I have recorded that has been surrendered to the public.
HEAVE: You have some overseas dates scheduled for mid-July. What is your favorite country to play in?
Tim Kinsella: I couldn't say I have a favorite country. Sometimes there are language barriers and that is endearing or frustrating in accord with the individual I'm interacting with. Sometimes standards of comfort regarding how to treat travelers become apparent, but I'm just thrilled to see the world pass me by and to be so lucky as to have been born into whatever mysterious realm this is that I inhabit. But I will say without hesitation Britain is kind of a shit hole.
HEAVE: You guys are playing two shows in Chicago on July 26th and July 27th. I know this is your home, but what is your favorite part of the Chicago music scene?
Tim Kinsella: The idea of a scene isn't something I can really relate to. It has a hollow ring to it somehow. But nothing is as meaningful to me as the community I live within. I am inspired daily by the freshness and loving attitudes with which my friends stretch out toward their furthest dimensions of expression.
Music is a language - you know the movie Close Encounters Of The Third Kind? People are free to be as daring as they choose to be and daringness is a testament to the freedom of the human spirit and a vote for the potential of what's meaningful about humanity. I particularly resonate with this when it manifests sonically. It activates my heart and my brain in equal measures and though maybe its my liver I should really be worried about, given humanity's simultaneously bleak predicaments, I got my heart and my brain on my mind.
HEAVE: You now have 12 records in 11 years. What do you think your best has been, and why?
Tim Kinsella: I couldn't answer that in any meaningful or even truthful way.
HEAVE: Say you could go back and do it all over again, is there anything you would change?
Tim Kinsella: I am not a happy person in the most common sense of the term. But disregarding the half dozen buses I considered stepping in front of today, I am one pleased motherfucker. I miss my wife a lot in a deep and immediate manner countless times each day, but find life such an abstract thriller that I can't help but be absorbed. I regret that it's not simpler to live in a simple way - IE; I am a musician, this is not a choice or a romantic vocation, just a default setting I have been dealt. Too bad it doesn't pay better in a material sense, wish I'd been born an advertising executive or a pop artist, but I have a Popeye syndrome being as I am as I am.
HEAVE: You've collaborated with your brother a bunch and a few times with a cousin. Who else in your family plays an instrument?
Tim Kinsella: My cousin Andy is three days older than my brother and we were all raised together. He plays in 80's hair metal cover bands and owns a home and a car and we get together and compare the greenness of each other's grasses. He has a talent I could never summon whatever discipline I could ever muster and I have a what, "a joi de vive" that gets me by?
Posted by Wes Soltis on Jul 14, 2008 @ 6:56 am
