An Interview with Cal Kevany

2:04 Luke F. Walton What's good, everybody? Welcome back to Love Music More. I am Scoobert Doobert, and I'm joined with Cal Kevany. Welcome to the show, man.

2:13 Cal Kevany Thanks for having me.

2:14 Luke F. Walton Yeah, I'm super excited. I love I'm a guitarist myself. So I'm super excited to talk about your guitar journey, your hot takes on the guitar if you have any. And also what it's like, you know, playing, going on the road, working with other artists working on your own music, kind of your jazz background, how that leads into indie, indie guitar and indie rock.

2:36 Luke F. Walton Yeah, man, bunch of stuff that I'm super excited to talk about.

2:38 Cal Kevany Definitely.

2:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah, so first question, I'd love to hear just about the kind of like touring life. I know that you're playing with Wallice. And one thing that I thought was crazy, so I was lurking your Instagram, and I saw Sean Sobesh.

2:53 Cal Kevany Sean, yeah.

2:55 Luke F. Walton i

2:55 Cal Kevany so

2:56 Luke F. Walton went

2:56 Cal Kevany bad

2:56 Luke F. Walton to high school

2:56 Cal Kevany oh

2:57 Luke F. Walton with sebash

2:57 Cal Kevany yeah nice

2:58 Luke F. Walton i my

2:58 Cal Kevany oh

2:59 Luke F. Walton the first band i ever played in i was subbing for sebash oh

3:03 Cal Kevany yeah because you're san diego guy right

3:05 Luke F. Walton san diego

3:05 Cal Kevany yeah

3:06 Luke F. Walton yep

3:06 Cal Kevany yeah yeah sick he's

3:07 Luke F. Walton yeah he's killer bassist so i had to learn all of his bass parts i was a guitarist that never played bass before and i had to learn all of his bass parts i'm like crap this guy's super good

3:17 Cal Kevany crazy yeah that's awesome

3:19 Luke F. Walton so yeah small world dude small world

3:21 Cal Kevany Yeah, just spent five weeks with him. So it was, yeah, sweet great. crazy that's awesome i haven't seen him forever yeah so how how's the what's the tour lineup like uh how's the kind of like rig what's the setup and i'd love to hear some stories about the road cool

3:36 Cal Kevany Oh, definitely. Yeah. So this past tour, I was playing my friend Lulu Simon. We were opening for Aiden Visset. It was like 20.

3:49 Cal Kevany six shows with this kind of like opening setup we were doing guitar me Sean was playing bass and running tracks originally we were gonna have a drummer and there was a lot of miscommunication about what was going on like we thought we were for sure bringing a drummer the headliner they had no idea that that was the plan so about like

4:17 Cal Kevany few weeks before we were supposed to leave this was like before we even started rehearsing or anything yeah the headliner is tm was talking uh rtm which is wallace was tming which was really fun um

4:31 Cal Kevany Really cool yeah and so a tour manager oh for people that yeah tour yeah sorry tour managing and he was like so i'm assuming it's just going to be you and lulu and probably a sound guy right maybe she's like oh we

4:46 Cal Kevany Yeah. actually plan to have a full band and he just that completely blindsided him he's like okay i got a lot to think about a lot more logistics to think about now um and like right off the bat i'm gonna say there's no possibility of bringing drums so we're just like Okay, we can figure this out.

5:10 Cal Kevany So we just like have all the drums and the tracks and then Sean and I are playing our live instruments. So it's a nice, it was a nice blend of tracks and instruments.

5:23 Cal Kevany Sometimes it can be a little tough like filling out a live show when there's so many tracks. But I think it worked out great.

5:33 Cal Kevany Cool. Yeah, Yeah. it's actually I think that's a thing that a lot of people might just go to shows and they'll see the opener like, oh, no drums, but they won't realize like, yeah, maybe the opener wanted to have drums. It just is the reality, the logistics.

5:45 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

5:45 Cal Kevany Definitely. Yeah. So how did how are you running tracks? Was it was it like just off of like a laptop? Were you splitting out a bunch of like stems and stuff like that? Or was it like just a simple like stereo out to the mixed board? I'm always just curious on if

5:59 Cal Kevany Oh, sure. you're Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we actually got a great music director, Antoine Fadavi, and he set up everything for us. He took

6:12 Cal Kevany Cool. all of Lulu's songs, got all the tracks in Ableton. He did a great job. I think he pretty much had to mix all the stems and he made them sound great. They were super balanced. That was all stereo out going in front of house. And also the parts that he emitted where he gave Sean and...

6:38 Cal Kevany I direction like play these parts of these parts everything was I think you really pick the perfect parts to make the live show still like interesting and engaging because sometimes I'll be playing a guitar part and I'm like this could be in the tracks it's not super exciting but Yeah, he made it feel very live, which was cool.

7:05 Cal Kevany That is cool. I've had those gigs where like the tracks are so dense that it's basically like I'm just a backup dancer, but yeah

7:13 Cal Kevany definitely that's so it's great to be able to like make those decisions and then also like as the player to be able to like know like what are you supposed to play because that's also can be super hard when you're just kind of like hey learn this song we're like there's 13 guitars and like a doubling a synth part like I have no idea what the hell you want

7:28 Cal Kevany definitely me to play yeah so like a good music director that just lays it out exactly everything you're gonna play and makes it really great and just rehearsals are smooth the songs feel better because you really have a good idea of your role in supporting every song you know

7:50 Cal Kevany That's a great point too of just like when you have some decisions made for you or you kind of know your lane it's a lot easier to like paint within that or like really focus and do your thing like

8:01 Cal Kevany Mm i always talk about like a mix i'm a mix engineer and i always like it when people make decisions so that i can then like jump off of your decisions rather than just like send me all of the raw like

8:11 Cal Kevany track by track it's like no you can print some stems or like you can put the reverb on it if you want like tell me tell me what you're looking for and then i'll work with it um when people don't make any decisions then it's almost like you get paralysis or you you're not like really thinking creatively you're thinking like logistically and yeah sometimes that's paralyzing

8:27 Cal Kevany Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Super curious if you have any strategies for learning songs, because I know this is like a fun thing for people that like, I'm sure that you've had the situation just like, hey, end of the week, we're rehearsing, here's a whole bunch of songs that you need to learn. Like, how do you go about tackling it? Like, what's what are some of your strategies?

8:46 Cal Kevany So I like to organize chords based on like Roman numerals. Okay. So The seven chords that you have in any key, one major, two minor, three minor, four major, five dominant, six minor, seven diminished. I've learned to just really organize songs in terms of the other Roman numerals basically.

9:15 Cal Kevany So what I like to do is I'll listen to all the songs and even before like learning about The form, I feel like getting the chord progression and being familiar with that, that's where I like to get my starting point. So I'll just think like this is in like G, we're going 1, 6, 2, 5 as an example.

9:39 Cal Kevany Mm-hmm. And then just getting the chord progressions of each section. So I'll go through the verses, choruses, kind of write down the chord progressions and then... I just listen usually with a notebook and I'll have like my staffs with the bars and kind of write the chords as they're going along while I'm listening and

10:02 Cal Kevany Okay. and then taking note of like how many bars the verses are the choruses are and when they're happening so just having like a mental and visual roadmap that

10:17 Cal Kevany Yeah. you can use them together to really memorize the songs and yeah so just for a song structure and the chords that's how I go about it then when it comes to like adding in a lot of times I'll also have to play like lead lines and different melodies

10:37 Cal Kevany That one just comes down to like listening to the songs a lot because I feel like you can you can learn a melody pretty easily.

10:48 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

10:49 Cal Kevany But to really internalize it, you have to hear it so many times and be able to hear it back in your head. Yeah. So they're like on my Spotify rap, they'll just be so many artists. that I've learned sets for just

11:05 Cal Kevany Mm-hmm. like hundreds of minutes listen to all those songs because yeah there's not really an easy way around it for me anyway

11:15 Cal Kevany I totally agree. I totally agree, especially for like nuance. And one of the things that I've had a hard time with, especially for people that are very pop, like you're saying, like very diatonic, like.

11:28 Luke F. Walton in the in the bag is when you have two songs that are similar tempos and

11:32 Cal Kevany Yeah.

11:33 Luke F. Walton similar chord progressions but like there's just like a couple things that are swapped or like this bridge versus that bridge feel the same but they're very different uh like one moment or something like that uh any is that the same thing like you have to anchor yourself just by like really getting into the melody and being in the moment and like is that is that are those some of the things or do you have like a cheat sheet that you write on your set

11:55 Cal Kevany of set list or like what do you what do you do to like yeah keep probably that fresh yeah

11:59 Cal Kevany a cheat sheet could be useful but I've never thought to do that um i've done that in a pinch and it was i was so scared because like what if the lights go off and i can't remember the chord progression yeah

12:10 Cal Kevany definitely or like it gets blown away or something yeah that's a great idea I would also say like when songs are similar

12:21 Cal Kevany like chords and even keys I kind of I kind of like to think of what the general tone or feeling of the song is and differentiate it that way because like let's see

12:36 Cal Kevany One set I learned it was like 45 minutes and almost all the songs were in A and G.

12:43 Cal Kevany Yes. And so it was all kind of blending together, Yes. but then kind of remembering like the attitude of each song and

12:51 Cal Kevany Okay. the energy that I'm trying to add to it kind of help differentiate each one.

12:58 Cal Kevany Cool. Yeah. I like that. that's a really good point really really good point yeah i've had those sets where it's just like the same key over and over

13:05 Cal Kevany Yeah. again you're like uh-oh because you don't you don't have that like okay this is a totally different or sometimes the same feel for like a long

13:12 Cal Kevany Yeah, definitely. set like some some artists just love writing the same song in the same tempo or same same vibe of song in the same tempo that can be so hard yeah

13:20 Cal Kevany Yeah, it's tough. do you uh when you're making your own music do you uh try and keep that kind of stuff in mind or do you just eat

13:26 Cal Kevany each write each song as they come because i know it's like every everybody has kind of different ideas for like making eps some people want to do like different feels different keys different vibes or some people are trying to like really center around one kind of thing or just do it all piecemeal uh what what kind of approach do

13:41 Cal Kevany you if any yeah I guess I wouldn't say I have an approach because I've only released one EP and I didn't really have any like boxes I had to tick in mind. It really just came from me kind of discovering that I liked writing songs.

13:59 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

14:00 Cal Kevany And so I guess the biggest overlapping with those four songs was just that it was music that I liked and that I like to listen to. And I was just happy that I discovered that. like oh I can write songs that are enjoyable for me to listen to and

14:21 Cal Kevany Yeah. yeah so that was exciting and since then I haven't really had time to tackle like oh I want to have a new project or any specific thing that I'm working towards it's really just been I started posting just musical ideas on TikTok

14:45 Cal Kevany Yeah. Because I was having fun making music and I was like, oh, this is kind of bringing a lot more people to listen to it than I thought would happen.

14:56 Cal Kevany Cool. Right. So then it just turned into writing like a 30 second, 40 second thing, trying to do that every day as many times as I can a week.

15:08 Cal Kevany Which is great because I had so much practice and figured out what kind of music I like to make and

15:14 Cal Kevany Cool. what's fun for me to make. Yeah. It's hard for me to think about finishing things because I have this like backlog of just. hundreds and hundreds of snippets that

15:25 Cal Kevany Mmm. are like 30 40 seconds and Yeah. it's almost turned into my own roadblock where it's like I've started on this thing of just making small short things every day I mean not as much anymore and so it's hard for me to think about even making like an EP or something it's like well what how would I choose what to finish or It just seems like almost an insurmountable task.

15:52 Cal Kevany Totally. Yeah. That's really fascinating. I'd love to get into that a little bit because I think that's something that is shared from every creative, every field. It's like, how do you finish? How do you pick which idea to see all the way through?

16:06 Cal Kevany and yeah how do you get through those blockers so yeah let's let's talk about that a little bit i'm super curious just your experience um what and also like what helped you finish that first ep yeah

16:17 Cal Kevany Let's see. uh Oh, what really helped me was just having time because when I finished it, it was like during lockdown, which was a while ago.

16:33 Cal Kevany yeah Yeah, I just like graduated. college and Mm-hmm. then it went into lockdown and suddenly I had no more obligations and I couldn't even go outside so

16:45 Cal Kevany Yes. it was you know blessing a curse because obviously we're all sharing this this hard experience where

16:55 Cal Kevany It's not something any of us had experienced before or known how to deal with it.

17:01 Luke F. Walton Mm

17:01 Cal Kevany But

17:01 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

17:01 Cal Kevany then also I had so much time to like finish an EP. I'd never done that before.

17:06 Luke F. Walton Mm

17:06 Cal Kevany I

17:06 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

17:06 Cal Kevany was like, oh, I actually can finish songs and work on them and not feel so much pressure to be. moving on to new things and getting

17:19 Luke F. Walton interesting yeah

17:20 Cal Kevany more things done and yeah

17:22 Luke F. Walton what's good guys Scoobert Doobert here for the love music more podcast and i want to let you in on a little secret one of my favorite new things minuetto lossless earplugs so these are really really really cool i've got two of them here um it comes in this awesome sweet box but it comes with a bunch of little goodies like carrying case tether cleaning tools

17:45 Luke F. Walton But the real tech is in these little tiny lossless earplugs. My favorite thing about it is one, you can swap out any of the included tips. So depending on the size of your ear canal, we're all built different. You can get a nice comfortable fit. But there's also this little lever on these adjustable versions that can go from 7 to 25 decibels of cutting.

18:05 Luke F. Walton So depending on if you're listening to new metal or jazz, you can just hit the little lever and adjust in real time. And I think that's really, really cool.

18:12 Luke F. Walton you know for the longest time I was listening in those awful foam earplugs and it makes the music sound like that it just cuts off all of those high frequencies um and so I was always tempted to sneak them out a little bit oh it's my favorite song no earplugs and you get hearing damage you have tinnitus after the show and then you come back you want to work in the studio and guess what your ears aren't right and that's why I love Minuendo because you can just pop these in and have full full full fidelity

18:39 Luke F. Walton with these lossless earplugs there are two different versions one is adjustable with a little lever and then this one is fixed at 17 decibels so check out minnuendo m-i-n-u-e-n-d-o.com where you can search them on amazon and find minnuendo earplugs today get cracking that that's that's kind of interesting too because it a lot of people share that a lot of people had

19:04 Luke F. Walton almost like a creative blocker removed when they were in lockdown it's

19:08 Cal Kevany Yeah.

19:08 Luke F. Walton funny because i don't know if it was necessarily that everyone took more time it was just everybody kind of had more focus and

19:16 Luke F. Walton i don't know it's it's interesting to think about because it's like okay how could you replicate a little bit of that like

19:20 Cal Kevany I know.

19:21 Luke F. Walton is it a cabin is it like a bonnie bear kind of situation like you go to a cabin you got a tape recorder and you make something or you know like where it's the magic that obviously covid sucked but could you pull any of that out to power creative like juices or finishing or like a deadline that isn't that isn't like imposing because i know that there's this weird there's this weird tension right where like like

19:45 Luke F. Walton like you can put on a deadline and if you feel very capitalist and inhibiting that rather than like something that's motivating um yeah

19:52 Cal Kevany Definitely.

19:52 Luke F. Walton interesting to think about

19:54 Cal Kevany That's a good point. I hadn't really thought about that before, like trying to. take some part of what was driving me to finish stuff from

20:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

20:04 Cal Kevany that time yeah that's actually that

20:07 Luke F. Walton Cool.

20:07 Cal Kevany that'll probably be helpful for me yeah

20:10 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Well, I love these kind of conversations because I think they can be helpful for anybody, no matter what project you're working on. There's always blockers. There's always an excuse or something that you want to perfect dial in further. It's so hard to know when something's done.

20:26 Cal Kevany Yeah.

20:27 Luke F. Walton um and also i think yours is such an interesting case i'm sure a lot of other people feel that of like you're making stuff for social media that's all good stuff and it's validated because people are like hey i like this i'm liking it i'm viewing i'm sharing it and it's like okay how do i take that nugget and turn it into like a longer work that's a that's a tricky turn because a lot of them they're kind of like i've been listening to them they're they're nice they're like packaged

20:51 Luke F. Walton pleasant compositions unto themselves and

20:54 Cal Kevany Yeah.

20:55 Luke F. Walton then it's like okay how do you extend it that's tricky that's a tricky question

20:58 Cal Kevany Yeah, it's tricky. And now coming off this tour, though, I'm definitely trying to organize some ways to actually, because I do want to release more music and

21:13 Luke F. Walton yeah oh

21:14 Cal Kevany i've been playing some shows under my own name like playing

21:18 Luke F. Walton cool my nice

21:18 Cal Kevany own music which has

21:19 Luke F. Walton yeah

21:19 Cal Kevany been really fun but it feels it feels like i just need to release more music to help propel that as well yeah

21:27 Luke F. Walton totally totally get it i do i do feel that where um live shows can really point out where the gaps are in your catalog it's like i wish i had an uptempo song here like i wish they could get funkier here then you or then you can be like okay i should write that it can give you like your own little hook for what's next yeah

21:42 Cal Kevany Definitely. Yeah, I was just thinking that the last show I've kind of been playing the same set of music I wrote and I was like, this is all very like pretty down tempo. I gotta. figure figure out some more stuff and get the energy up yeah

21:59 Luke F. Walton I swear that's like such a thing with internet versus reality it's like social media and Spotify playlists and stuff like down tempo chill like good vibes that's all really nice and you get in front of a crowd that doesn't like really care about you very much like maybe like some of the people were there for you but like it's kind of a mix

22:16 Luke F. Walton and then you're like oh i want to like have something to pump them up or like pull them in or convince them you're like okay like all of my stuff is chill yeah

22:24 Cal Kevany yeah the chill chill epidemic oh

22:27 Luke F. Walton exactly exactly which is good and i like it and it's a very nice vibe but i've seen it play out it's also funny like i went to a mild high club played in san diego

22:36 Cal Kevany nice

22:36 Luke F. Walton and um the audience was just there i don't remember the name of the song but they're just there for that one song song that

22:43 Cal Kevany Mm

22:43 Luke F. Walton like got

22:43 Cal Kevany -hmm

22:43 Luke F. Walton super tiktok famous and the energy of it was so bizarre because there was like maybe 10 15 of the people there were like i like this band like i want to hear them take solos and extend and do their thing and then the vast majority of people are like boring

22:59 Cal Kevany Yeah, it's

23:00 Luke F. Walton and i

23:00 Cal Kevany very

23:00 Luke F. Walton fell

23:00 Cal Kevany interesting.

23:01 Luke F. Walton for the musicians like definitely you could feel that on stage um to their credit they were playing a big ballroom they were you know very close to sell out and it was a great great time but weird energy between the like chill almost smooth jazz and most of the crowd doesn't know your songs until the one kind of bizarre

23:23 Cal Kevany Yeah, definitely. It seems. that's kind of a trend with anytime someone is getting big traction on tiktok it seems like there's a specific kind of audience that tends to come out this last tour it seemed like i was we were getting a lot of those i mean obviously we're the opener so we're not going to have the most generous response but

23:52 Cal Kevany And it seemed like a lot of people were watching us as if they were like watching a TikTok or a YouTube video, like

23:59 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

24:00 Cal Kevany not super connected and engaged, just kind of like, yeah, just like they're watching a concert on YouTube, which was interesting, which I've noticed that a little bit. uh recently yeah

24:12 Luke F. Walton that is interesting especially in pop music because that's like exactly what we're kind of trying not to be we're trying not to be the like symphony academic slash like passive experience we're trying to get people like dance and sing along and like yell back at us like those are my favorite concerts there's like where you're taking the solo or something like that and people in the audience are like yelling at you it's

24:32 Cal Kevany yeah

24:32 Luke F. Walton oh it's so fun totally

24:34 Cal Kevany i want them to yell at me

24:35 Luke F. Walton it's so fun it's it's the right kind of vibe it feels like blues hall or you know gospel church like that kind of tradition of just participation call

24:46 Cal Kevany Mm-hmm.

24:47 Luke F. Walton and response um

24:49 Cal Kevany Exactly.

24:49 Luke F. Walton but yeah yeah it's interesting i'm actually i'm curious about um your jazz background and the way that it plays into indie rock because i've been hearing a lot more like jazz influence in indie rock um a lot more like

25:02 Luke F. Walton extensions and interesting chords even if it's like rooted on like pretty basic harmonies still mostly but i'm hearing like a little bit more of like seventh chords and interesting little things going on i'm curious like how you're feeling about that your take on it and where like indie rock is versus your jazz background and if you like it if you're bored how do you feel

25:24 Cal Kevany Definitely. Yeah. When like making my own music. I'm trying to pick out chord progressions and find the things that I found exciting when learning jazz standards in college, like maybe some chord movements that really struck my ear and trying to find out how to put that into a more indie rock like palatable. package which

25:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

25:55 Cal Kevany has been really fun for me and I love hearing like borrowed chords and kind of chords that are breaking conventional rules in music outside of jazz those are that's like when I'm excited by listening to indie rock is is when I hear those chords that are

26:20 Cal Kevany that just kind of like slap you across the face and you're like oh that was really cool like anything where I'm listening to a song and and it makes me pick up my guitar and and and be like oh what chord was that they played there Because it's not what I would have expected it's

26:39 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

26:39 Cal Kevany just that stuff is really cool to me.

26:42 Luke F. Walton I agree.

26:42 Cal Kevany Yeah

26:43 Luke F. Walton I totally agree. And I also think that like harmony, interesting harmony can unlock really cool melody or really cool like parts or voice leading and stuff like that, that like if I'm just writing to a static loop.

26:56 Luke F. Walton i feel like i'm missing out on some level of like oh but i could go here especially like a last chorus like i love that in double choruses that always gives me chills when you like start to re-harm in the second half of a double chorus or you push the melody in like an unexpected direction um yeah i'm a sucker for that stuff too

27:15 Cal Kevany Yeah, definitely. I was learning June guitar. from Alex G's last album

27:21 Luke F. Walton Oh,

27:21 Cal Kevany yeah

27:21 Luke F. Walton Alex G. Cool.

27:22 Cal Kevany and that had some

27:24 Luke F. Walton Listen to that album.

27:25 Cal Kevany really cool like

27:26 Luke F. Walton It's like, yeah.

27:31 Cal Kevany yeah yeah like so we got an E major B major and then we get a minor chord which is very nice oops and then It goes to F-sharp major, so already there's some chords that are being borrowed, and they're taking you to places you wouldn't expect, and then, let's see. Oh yeah, yeah, so then we have an A major.

28:13 Cal Kevany a major seven like a g sharp minor seven and i i really like using this where you put that major seven chord before

28:26 Luke F. Walton really tight

28:27 Cal Kevany going back to the one

28:29 Luke F. Walton that's nice because you have that nice rub between the two notes right next to each other and you could just hear those frequencies just kind of fighting with each other that

28:37 Cal Kevany yeah

28:38 Luke F. Walton is nice

28:38 Cal Kevany yeah and so like even just hearing that like flat two major seven going

28:43 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

28:44 Cal Kevany to the one that

28:46 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

28:46 Cal Kevany was like looking back to being a freshman learning jazz and hearing people do that in like a standard where

28:57 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

28:58 Cal Kevany they're going to the flat two major seven to the one that was like so exciting for me I was like oh I didn't even know you could do that and it sounds great and then hearing it in different types of music like this Alex G song and

29:13 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

29:14 Cal Kevany kind of connecting those dots it's yeah it's fun for me and looking at all the different harmony you can use

29:22 Luke F. Walton Totally agree. Totally agree. That was one of the moments that unlocked a lot of things when I was starting to think about. uh tritone substitution and

29:29 Cal Kevany Mm

29:29 Luke F. Walton moving

29:29 Cal Kevany -hmm.

29:29 Luke F. Walton the five chord you know a minor third up or down and

29:34 Cal Kevany Yeah,

29:34 Luke F. Walton just like the little things that unlocks and it because it's the same function it's the same like we are pushing you home but just in an unexpected way so when you arrive home you're like how did i get here

29:43 Cal Kevany definitely. Yeah.

29:45 Luke F. Walton Super

29:46 Cal Kevany One of my

29:46 Luke F. Walton cool.

29:46 Cal Kevany favorite ways to think about like if I'm stuck with a chord progression, I have maybe like one chord that feels okay, but I want to do something else with.

29:58 Luke F. Walton Okay.

29:58 Cal Kevany It's nice to just look at all the ways that you can get there. As opposed to as opposed to thinking of like, where do I want to go next? Sometimes it's nice to have a a destination set and

30:14 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

30:14 Cal Kevany then think backwards and look at all the different places you can get there and

30:20 Luke F. Walton Love that.

30:21 Cal Kevany yeah oh

30:22 Luke F. Walton It's really cool because I sometimes think that way with like rhymes or like a rhyming

30:26 Cal Kevany yeah

30:26 Luke F. Walton structure,

30:26 Cal Kevany definitely

30:27 Luke F. Walton you know, applying the same kind of idea to harmony and backwards direction. I really like that. Yeah, it's a good point, too. And also like the ways.

30:36 Luke F. Walton like i think that music theory is really interesting because there's like a series of implied probabilities or directions that you can go and you can always break them and deciding when you do the unexpected when you do the expected to set up the next thing it's almost like a punchline in a joke or

30:55 Cal Kevany Oh,

30:56 Luke F. Walton like pacing

30:56 Cal Kevany definitely.

30:56 Luke F. Walton in a movie yeah

30:57 Cal Kevany Definitely. Yeah. Because you don't want to just throw all your punches right at the beginning. You want them to land and just be satisfying, which is tricky. It's it's a whole thing in its own self. Like where do I want in this whole chord progression? If I have one exciting idea, like where should I place it and how do I make it so it's not overdone and over the top and have it be very satisfying. Yeah.

31:24 Luke F. Walton it's a good it's a that's actually a really good way to put it because that was definitely a problem that i had when i first learned all of the stuff it's like when you get a wawa pedal as a guitarist it's like i'm put a wawa on everything i'm gonna sound like slash on every guitar solo um and then eventually you're like yeah you know i use a wawa sometimes

31:44 Cal Kevany All's up.

31:45 Luke F. Walton but like picking your spots picking your picking the moments to show that flash and then also like having a bag doesn't mean like you put the bag on the table it

31:54 Cal Kevany Yeah,

31:55 Luke F. Walton means that you

31:55 Cal Kevany definitely.

31:55 Luke F. Walton know when to reach for it you know when when that that tool hits and also i love the idea of like your emotional connection to the songs from song learning but also your emotional connection to like songwriting of like what am i actually trying to pull off working backwards from that working backwards from your destinations i think all of that layers together in really cool compositional style i think you can hear it in your mini compositions too of like

32:18 Luke F. Walton a richness, a depth, an emotion that you can just like pack in and to be able to make something that's satisfying and that short is tricky. And I, you know, I think you deserve credit for that.

32:29 Cal Kevany Oh, thank you.

32:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah. How can you, how can you entertain somebody and get them, get them hooked and invested in a song so quickly that is so contained. That's really cool.

32:40 Cal Kevany It's tricky.

32:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

32:42 Cal Kevany It's fun to try to pull it off over and over again.

32:47 Luke F. Walton yeah totally totally that seems like the hardest part of like all right do it again like just the sheer volume that's required to pull that off was that daunting how did you set a schedule how did you just like kind of keep that happening

33:01 Cal Kevany Yeah, I guess I didn't really give myself too much of a schedule. I kind of dialed in. about how long it takes so

33:11 Luke F. Walton Cool.

33:12 Cal Kevany like one to three hours and

33:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

33:14 Cal Kevany looking at my schedule every day if there's any one to three hour gap when I'm home not on tour like that's I just got to do it and definitely there's

33:28 Cal Kevany There's dips when you get burnt out and it's hard because going on tour breaks up your routine so much. I mean, your routine is gone for,

33:39 Luke F. Walton Yep.

33:40 Cal Kevany you know, how many weeks. And that's definitely one of the trickiest part is coming home and trying to get yourself back into that routine. There are definitely times when I would go on tour.

33:55 Cal Kevany And then it was too hard to try and get back on track making stuff every day and just finding that motivation to like get back to a regimen.

34:13 Luke F. Walton Yes. So hard. it's so easy to get knocked off of like a certain path and it's so

34:20 Cal Kevany Mm

34:20 Luke F. Walton hard to begin

34:21 Cal Kevany -hmm.

34:21 Luke F. Walton again and it's so hard to show yourself grace when it happens because

34:24 Cal Kevany Definitely.

34:24 Luke F. Walton it happens to everybody i feel like there's this idea of you know the people that like they work out every day and it's

34:30 Cal Kevany Oh,

34:30 Luke F. Walton like like

34:31 Cal Kevany yeah.

34:31 Luke F. Walton a lot of people a lot of people that i know that like run marathons and stuff like that they have to train again you know every single marathon it's like they're starting from not a great shape and then they're ending with a marathon and it's not it gets easier because like you can train back up to that quicker but they

34:45 Cal Kevany Yeah,

34:45 Luke F. Walton have to redefine that routine and conquer that mountain again it's not like they just stay in marathon shape unless you're an elite athlete and that's all you do most

34:54 Cal Kevany definitely.

34:54 Luke F. Walton people are riding that sine wave and everything

34:57 Cal Kevany Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting you say that one of the things that helped me get back on to my routine these

35:06 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

35:06 Cal Kevany recent tours was that like the past two years or so I really got into rock climbing like indoor rock climbing

35:13 Luke F. Walton Cool.

35:14 Cal Kevany and

35:14 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

35:14 Cal Kevany I'd never had an exercise I was excited about where

35:20 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

35:20 Cal Kevany I'm like looking forward to do it every day and scheduling it and

35:25 Luke F. Walton Cool. Yeah.

35:26 Cal Kevany and so just having that where I'm going I'm back home and I'm like oh I can get back onto this exercise routine is

35:34 Luke F. Walton Oh, yes.

35:35 Cal Kevany it actually really helped me because then I can like schedule my music making around that because I know for sure I'm gonna try to do that every day and have a block of time and then I can just like oh well right after the gym I can go straight into the office and Just build off that momentum. organize them in those blocks.

36:03 Luke F. Walton Sorry to interrupt this very important broadcast, but it's time for one more advertisement for myself, for this podcast. What I'm asking for is for you to rate it five stars, share it with your friends. This is like the most important thing for this podcast to grow. So if you want to do this, you go into the podcast screen, right? You click on the dot, dot, dot on Spotify.

36:22 Luke F. Walton Under there, it says rate show and you go and you click it five stars. If you could do that for me, that's the best way for the algorithms, all that stuff.

36:30 Luke F. Walton stuff to share it out with the world i know that it's a lot to ask but if you could please please please just please just hit those three dots and a five star it would really help us out and helps us you know get the get the word out and spread the love of music so thank you if you're listening on youtube you know what to do like subscribe all that good stuff thank you so much and here's the rest of the episode a good technique and it makes sense of like you've got this anchor you've got a rock you've got

36:51 Cal Kevany Yeah,

36:51 Luke F. Walton a rock that you exactly. can go with yeah i've heard this actually from a lot of musicians especially people that have been doing it

36:57 Luke F. Walton doing it for a while of like finding an activity um like one bass player was all about like wrestling and like jujitsu and these little different things but then they all they typically talk about how it helps their playing or like i'm stronger so i have less joint pain or like etc etc like there's kind of these additional benefits that

37:16 Luke F. Walton i don't know a lot of musicians including myself like i didn't exercise for a long time while i was practicing and uh yeah things start to fall apart it

37:23 Cal Kevany Yeah,

37:23 Luke F. Walton doesn't

37:24 Cal Kevany definitely.

37:24 Luke F. Walton doesn't go very well especially with the road because the road

37:29 Cal Kevany you're Yeah.

37:29 Luke F. Walton saying like you're saying it is brutal where you just kind of get thrown into a blender you're eating weird food at weird hours in different places

37:38 Cal Kevany Yeah, it's crazy.

37:40 Luke F. Walton what does it look like what what are what's some of your go-to uh like tour eats do you have any like fast food joints or like you know steady orders you know like all right there's a chipotle like i'm gonna be good

37:51 Cal Kevany When I first was touring, I was like, oh, this is so fun. You know, we can get fast food after the show every night.

37:58 Cal Kevany we we're stopping all these places and after a couple goes of that kind of eating i've i'm like done with that it's too much for me yeah so like this past tour are the best thing has just been on a long drive we'll just stop at whole foods and get like green juices and chicken breast and like healthy snacks yeah

38:28 Luke F. Walton Yes.

38:29 Cal Kevany that that's been definitely really helping me these past couple tours just feel good and then that helps you stay mentally good when you're not your body isn't hurting from like jack-in-the-box at 12 a.m every night and it's been great yeah

38:47 Luke F. Walton That's a great point. That'll mess you up.

38:50 Cal Kevany Mm-hmm.

38:51 Luke F. Walton yeah no it's such an interesting thing of just like when you first get into touring it is like a party and then after a little bit of time it's like an athletic endurance sport and

39:02 Cal Kevany Definitely.

39:03 Luke F. Walton maybe it's maybe part of its age but like i do think a lot of it is just like you you recognize the cause and effect of treating your job that way

39:12 Cal Kevany Yeah. and you see it so clearly because if you're partying after the show every night that's not going to be something that you're going to see at home really i mean unless you're really a partier but yeah like every show party wake up early show party wake up early like you feel it so quick and you see the effects very fast as opposed to like every weekend maybe it's

39:40 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

39:41 Cal Kevany not gonna be so clear yeah

39:42 Luke F. Walton Yes, exactly. Exactly. And especially the different levels of touring, you know, I think that the effect that a van tour can have on your body can be remarkable. I'm just like narrow and small, a lot of driving, never laying down.

39:57 Cal Kevany I know yeah I think just it's been like two weeks And my neck is just now starting to feel okay. It's yeah, it was getting a little brutal.

40:10 Luke F. Walton i feel you i feel you these are the things that i like talking about because i don't think that they come up often when people talk about touring like obviously like it's glamorous it's fun it's a party in its own right but the the element of just pure travel constant grind and also the different levels like some people are flying in private jets a

40:29 Cal Kevany Yeah.

40:30 Luke F. Walton lot of people most people are traveling around in a van some people are rotating drive driving duties which that was brutal having a driver is like the ultimate luxury

40:40 Cal Kevany Yeah.

40:41 Luke F. Walton and safety thing

40:42 Cal Kevany Definitely. Yeah, no one is loopy driving at 12 a.m. with their energy drink like shaking in their hands.

40:53 Luke F. Walton exactly exactly but these are the things that it's like i don't know when you when you are watching that band on tour yeah giving it back to them like we're saying not just like pretending like it's a youtube video it's like what they're putting themselves through to be there playing for you what they're trying to pull out of their soul on show number 40 um it's like help them out you know help

41:13 Cal Kevany yeah

41:13 Luke F. Walton them out in the audience a little bit

41:14 Cal Kevany and no one really thinks about that side of the touring

41:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

41:19 Cal Kevany It's so funny.

41:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

41:20 Cal Kevany They just want the best show, perfect show, everyone to have all their energy up. And yeah, sometimes it's tough.

41:30 Luke F. Walton Totally. totally and sometimes some venues suck like or it's just a bad day or the audio is cutting in and out or some technical thing throws you off it's super super hard to stay centered like one of the challenges i've had um with some of my shows is i've been like solo solo just me

41:47 Cal Kevany Oh,

41:48 Luke F. Walton yeah. in the house sound person and no technical help and a cable goes out it's like all right Off

41:56 Cal Kevany yeah

41:56 Luke F. Walton we go.

41:56 Cal Kevany brutal

41:56 Luke F. Walton And they're like, now perform.

41:59 Cal Kevany yeah push

42:00 Luke F. Walton It's like,

42:01 Cal Kevany through all the stress all

42:02 Luke F. Walton yep.

42:02 Cal Kevany the stuff that's you're screaming and just push it to the back of your mind give the best show oh

42:09 Luke F. Walton exactly and you and you have like the physical response of uh-oh like i have to start playing soon something's wrong heartbeat heartbeat cortisol

42:17 Cal Kevany yeah definitely

42:17 Luke F. Walton and it's just like it's so hard to push that back down once that creeps in especially like festivals i'm sure you've had that experience oh my god it's like gonna be so stressful those quick changes

42:28 Cal Kevany you have 10 minutes and you're then you're playing hopefully my guitar makes sound

42:36 Luke F. Walton Totally. There was one show where they had they had like a sub sub bass synth that they clearly did not check. Bands playing, they're playing live bass or whatever switch to like the bridge.

42:52 Luke F. Walton hit that synth literally it felt like a like a cargo plane took off everyone in the audience was like clutching their chest i

43:00 Cal Kevany Oh my lord.

43:03 Luke F. Walton was

43:03 Cal Kevany That's

43:03 Luke F. Walton like oh this classic festival sound like oops that was a unity because everyone's like oh my heart

43:10 Cal Kevany It's always the bass synth.

43:12 Luke F. Walton yeah oh it's the bass or some random sample like like it's got like an SPD or something and they trigger this crazy sound and it's the loudest thing in the room yeah

43:22 Cal Kevany Yeah, definitely.

43:23 Luke F. Walton it's

43:24 Cal Kevany Yeah, I remember on the last show of tour, Sean was playing bass synth for like two or three of the songs. And so the song started.

43:39 Cal Kevany it's like guitar and tracks intro and we're playing and then when the synth comes in he plays and it was detuned a half step and so he's playing

43:49 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

43:50 Cal Kevany a half step off and we're just like what is going on and he just ran over to the and he's not a logic guy so he's like I can't fix this on the fly he just Just muted his synth,

44:04 Luke F. Walton uh

44:04 Cal Kevany unmuted

44:05 Luke F. Walton -huh great

44:05 Cal Kevany the bass track, and then mimed it.

44:08 Luke F. Walton brilliant utterly brilliant

44:09 Cal Kevany Yeah, quick thinking. It was great.

44:13 Luke F. Walton i love those moments where you see the person on the like the stage like kind of give that side eye of like what the hell dude good

44:21 Cal Kevany Definitely. Good moments.

44:23 Luke F. Walton moments those stick with you you feel those in your deep in your gut I really want to ask you this one question that I ask all of my guests. I want to unpack it a little bit with you. This doesn't have to be our last question, but the show is called Love Music More. The segment's called Love Music Why? It's a simple question, but a tricky one. Cal, why do you love music?

44:50 Cal Kevany Yeah, it is simple, but tricky.

44:52 Luke F. Walton Right, right.

44:52 Cal Kevany I mean, this is... Pry cliche, but it's definitely just the community and friends and being able to do these things with your friends and making new friends and just it's amazing how how music can just make these connections. Yeah, I just like on tour, you're sometimes you're going in and you're not knowing anyone.

45:31 Luke F. Walton Yeah

45:31 Cal Kevany But then through playing music and just being on the road together, you make like bonds that are going to last a lifetime, which I think is awesome. Memories that will last a lifetime. And it's all through something. that we all share such love and passion for, which is awesome.

45:52 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

45:54 Cal Kevany And being able to try our best to give that to the audience too.

46:00 Luke F. Walton That's really beautiful. I actually haven't heard much of that, and I totally agree.

46:05 Luke F. Walton there's something real special about music people and when you get to the level where you're actually like doing it professionally and going on the road and do that art that already cuts down the audience the people that have been able to do that so much and it's not just talent but it's also like dedication and passion and sacrifice so everybody that is out there kind of has to go through all of these gates in order to get to that point so it's like this crazy selected audience

46:32 Luke F. Walton uh or group that you get to be a part of and embrace and naturally you all have you know things in common because you're all kind of crazy people exactly

46:40 Cal Kevany Definitely. Some screws loose.

46:43 Luke F. Walton like why would you choose this yeah and that that makes it so special because those are your people like you all even if you came from like completely different parts of the world or different musical traditions you made similar decisions on what to spend your limited time on earth doing and It's a beautiful thing to spend your time doing, I

47:00 Cal Kevany Mm

47:01 Luke F. Walton think.

47:01 Cal Kevany -hmm. Definitely. Yeah. And even like also looking at playing jazz, like before touring and all that and songwriting, that was really my focus in music. And it's so cool that everyone is like learning kind of a shared.

47:23 Cal Kevany language together that can just spontaneously come together on stage or anywhere like yeah i could go to someone who doesn't even speak english if we both play jazz i could start playing there will be another you and they can play with me and and think about all the shared experiences of of that and learning the music and playing the music and it's really cool yeah

47:54 Luke F. Walton that is really cool i love how jazz really focuses on listening to each other too sometimes i feel like pop sometimes misses that not always but sometimes we can be so focused on like locking to the track or like hitting the right genre or like looking cool on stage or whatever but jazz is so um You feel so supported and so listened to and heard and you're in conversation. I love that about it.

48:22 Cal Kevany Definitely. One of the best things musically, I think, is when I'm playing jazz with people who I just like trust completely musically because then I know whatever happens. like they'll be there to support me and

48:43 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah

48:43 Cal Kevany I can support them yeah I guess it's almost like musical therapy like being there for each other but in a musical sense it's yeah it can be pretty deep which I think is so hard to come by so it's really cool

48:59 Luke F. Walton i agree and it's hard to communicate what that feeling is because i felt that too of like you really could get to different heights through that support

49:07 Luke F. Walton like if you're just playing alone or just playing and recording in like a silo you're just not as good at music compared to those moments it's

49:16 Cal Kevany Yeah, it's

49:17 Luke F. Walton crazy yeah

49:17 Cal Kevany really like uplifting each other.

49:19 Luke F. Walton i love that catching catching a special wavelength so where where can people uh you know watch watch your videos hear your music get connected hire you where where are the places for people to find you we've been cool

49:31 Cal Kevany Instagram is at Kagablan. c-a-g-a-b-a-l-a-n and then my tiktok is something dumb i post a lot of music stuff on there it's bloke underscore number underscore one because

49:48 Luke F. Walton Cool.

49:48 Cal Kevany i made it in 2020 just to like watch videos i should change it i'll change it one day yeah and

49:56 Luke F. Walton It's kind of

49:57 Cal Kevany then

49:57 Luke F. Walton a funny

49:57 Cal Kevany any

49:57 Luke F. Walton story.

49:58 Cal Kevany streaming platform uh oh callahan you can find my music And I'm really going to release more music.

50:06 Luke F. Walton Heck yeah.

50:07 Cal Kevany Definitely.

50:07 Luke F. Walton Heck yeah. You're going to find that whatever zen you had and channel that back in. It was an awesome time chatting. I really loved hearing about your path, hearing about your tour stories. It was super, super fun.

50:18 Cal Kevany Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

50:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

50:19 Cal Kevany This was awesome.

50:20 Luke F. Walton Thank you. Take it easy.

50:22 Cal Kevany Bye.