If we’ve learned anything from sitting down with Ruston Kelly at Stagecoach Music Festival this past Saturday, it is that there is no funnier person in country music. The “Black Magic” singer had us rolling as he talked about his new EP, Halloween, the festival and his engagement to fellow country singer Kacey Musgraves.
TCN: Before we start, can we ask you what that is on your hand?
RK: This is my set list… what am I going to do, look at a piece of paper that is going to blow the fuck away. (He pauses as we all chuckle) Oh man, what if I played like a three hour set and it was all up my arm? Oh you know what would be sick, if I tattooed my favorite set list on… oh wait that’s so dumb, I’m going to stop talking now. This interview is over.
.@RustonKelly has a unique way of tracking his set list! We sat down with him at @Stagecoach! Stay tuned for the interview! pic.twitter.com/PVPdiJNECn
— The Country Note (@thecountrynote) 29 April 2017
TCN: You Just released Halloween, your first debut album. How does it feel?
RK: It feels pretty good, it’s a set up you now what I mean? It’s an EP, if you know what I mean. There are 6 proper tracks, but there is stuff intermixed in there to make it feel like a conceptual piece of work. If you listen to it straight through, hopefully you’ll hear a story in there. That’s really exciting to me because I’ve always wanted to do that. So first out of the gate is a concept record, EP, whatever. Then we have this long playing record, coming out in the fall. “Black Magic” is the single off of it. It’s being serviced to radio, May 29th, as a tee up for this long playing record. Yeah, Halloween is great, I love it. I’ll talk about it as much as you want to talk about it.
TCN: It had a really unique sound, what has influenced that?
RK: What influence the creation of the record? Artistically and songwriting wise, I’m a big Jackson Brown fan. Ryan Adams is an influence. Graham Parsons. Towns Van Zandt. Neutral Milk Hotel.
TCN: Did you have a specific sound in mind that you were trying to go for?
RK: No, I think that is what is so cool about Halloween… Like I really didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I just knew that my buddies were going to come with me to Omaha, Nebraska and we were going to record this record. With this producer, who is one of my favorite producers, his name is Mike Mogis. I didn’t want to make a boring singer-songwriter record, that shits so boring. It’s great, some people do it so well, but it’s kind of snoozeville. I wanted to make something that maybe wasn’t so snoozeville, that had a story, like I said, and work with a producer that understood that there is a concept and a story. I went in there with that mentality. It was less like let’s put our ducks in a row, and more like I feel the story and if we have all the bases covered, let’s just push fucking record and do it.
TCN: You said “Black Magic” is going to be the single off Halloween to start pushing your long-coming record?
RK: Yes
TCN: And it was on TV already right? On “Scorpion”? Was it weird to hear it on TV?
RK: Yes! It was on “Scorpion.” It was fucking weird man. People from all over the world literally tweeting in different languages saying they love “Black Magic” and I’m like thats so cool man. It’s cool to see that tweeted in Turkish.
TCN: So you originated as a songwriter. Has it been a weird transition to becoming the front-man?
RK: Well to be honest with you, I have always used songwriting as an art form. And in Nashville, which is where I’m from, where I herald from, they put songwriting and being an artist as two separate things. That’s fine. In country music, that has always been part of that. I’ve been hinted that for a long time. Hank Williams didn’t write all his songs and neither does Tim McGraw. I think that is a cool thing and tradition. I kind of come from the school of whatever you say and if you have something to say, you’re an artist. Yeah I’ve been in the songwriting circles, but I can’t separate my songwriting from being an artist. That is like saying if you’re a painter, you’re separating your paint from your brush stroke. It’s all the same to me. So it was exciting to have my shit together personally, to be able to step out and be like this is who I am and this is what I’m doing. It took a while for me to get my rhythm right.
TCN: Find your voice?
RK: Fuck yeah, everyone has got to find their voice. Everyone has got a voice, what a beautiful thing to realize actually.
TCN: This is your first Stagecoach, right?
RK: Yeah, first one. Well that is not true. I attended stagecoach maybe two years ago and I was a little disoriented to say the least.
TCN: Hopefully you remember this experience a little more than your last go around?
RK: I do. I’m in a better place now. I remember it much better. I have people to answer to now.
TCN: Of course, we have to mention and congratulations on your engagement to Kacey Musgraves. Excited to start that new chapter of your life?
RK: I am very excited. This is the first time I can honestly say that I can give myself to another person. I’ve worked on myself in a variety of different ways before I met her and then when we met, we fell in love. It was fucking awesome and I was like OK, I can do this. I’m actually not a train wreck of a person.
TCN: Last oddball question – what was your first job?
RK: Oh man, my first job was working on a chicken farm. I’m not kidding. Literally I worked on a chicken farm cleaning out coops. Oh man, it was the worst fucking job ever. I had to clean out coops and in some of these coops they had these big ass fans that would blow ammonia and all this other shit. It was pretty country. We would have to go in there with no protective gear and move chickens out of the way. It was actually a little dark. There were dead chickens in there all the time. I went vegetarians for two years afterwards. I was violent in there. It was very violent. At the same time, a really good friend of mine owns the chicken plant and that was what he was raised to do. He tried to do it as honest as he could. I don’t want to talk bad about the chicken biz and not to get off topic.
For more on Ruston Kelly, check out his website. You can find Kelly’s debut EP, Halloween, here, and be on the look out for new music coming out later this year.