An Interview with Brooklyn Musician Kevin Devine

Critics and fans often point your skill as a wordsmith as one of the key elements that sets you apart from your peers. How did you first begin honing your skills as a lyricist and how do you choose the subject matter of your songs?

I've always written a lot and been in love with language and imagery, since the 1st or 2nd grade. Loved writing assignments and poetry. It's been a lifelong process with that, with communicating something in words, and I hope I'm always honing it and always will be, because I could get a lot better for sure. You always can. As for subject matter, it often chooses itself. I just sort of write about whatever I'm moved to write about in the moment. It's not a very intellectual process in that way.

You talk a lot about fickleness in your songs (“People Are So Fickle,” “Just Stay,” etc). Through the years, how have you seen this trait manifest itself in the world around you?

Well, the world is sort of arbitrary and unpredictable, and plenty of people's natures are changing and I guess unreliable, my own, very centrally, included in that assessment. So I think that my songs are partially about trying to be adaptable in the face of that, struggling towards understanding and acceptance.

Your lyrics often reach an incredibly personal, some might say, almost uncomfortably-intimate level. After you’ve scratched the lyrics down on paper or perhaps even after you’re nearing the end of completing a song, do you ever get the feeling that perhaps you have exposed too much?

Not really. Most of what I write is personal but filtered through, I guess you'd call them, writerly conceits. They're very, very rarely 100% straight like diary entries; there are elements of storytelling, of writing. Sometimes you're playing with using 'I' and 'you' even when the story and people are made up. Other times you're very much talking about yourself. If something feels like it shouldn't be sung, I don't sing it, but generally speaking I trust the audience enough to make those distinctions.

What themes did you look to explore in the new record?

I wrote the record over several years and, as always, wasn't terribly mindful of it all fitting together as a record. It was just a bunch of songs that lived together. They seem to be a lot about conscience, people examining their actions and motivations, their relationships and self-understanding, their histories, and how to reconcile all these disparate strands in a scary present moment. It's in many ways a record about trying to make sense of the senseless contradictions that make up your day to day. With some despair and a bit of humor, I hope.

You’ve become a bit of modern legend when it comes to your touring schedule. Can you talk a bit about the past several years on the road, along with the ups and downs?

I've grown to really like touring, the rituals as much as the actual playing, which is a really small piece of it. I like the driving, the instant camaraderie, the conversations and the local places you eat. I like the pace. I also sometimes miss being home, which is normal when you're not there 200 days a year. It can be hazardous to your mental health at times and isn't always great for your personal life. It's definitely a balancing act, and difficult to both keep in the moment in front of you and tend the garden at home 2000 miles away. It's juggling.

Over the many years that you’ve been a touring musician, what venues and cities would you count among your favorites?

Bowery Ballroom in New York is my all-time favorite venue. Stubb's in Austin is pretty great; Schubas in Chicago, Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco. Cities: Seattle; San Francisco; Austin; Athens, Georgia; Boston; Berlin; Barcelona; London, and home.

Who are among some of your favorite artists who have been most influential to your sound?

Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Nirvana, Modest Mouse, REM, Neil Young, Elliott Smith, Pavement, Dee-Lite, The Smiths, many more.

It seems people can’t help but trying to compare singer-songwriters to their peers. As you have no doubt received (more than) your fair share of comparisons, are there any in particular you’ve found especially off-target?

I never really understood the Dashboard [Confessional] one. I've met and played with Chris and he's a good guy but I don't really see that. It's kind of lazy, but all of those things are by nature I guess.

What artists are you listening to these days?

I love the bands I'm out with and seeing every night: Brian Bonz and Miniature Tigers. I listen to all kinds of stuff and I love tour because everyone's stuff gets jumbled together. iPod stew. Today in the van we've listened to John Lennon, Jason Lytle, Other Lives, Elvis Perkins, Manchester Orchestra, NPR, the Strokes, Broken Social Scene, Bright Eyes, I've read Alan Moore's 'Swamp Thing,' and we've watched 'The Prestige.'

What else do you have planned for 2009?

We're doing Lollapalooza, which I'm really excited about, and I'll be doing some stuff in the UK around the record's release this summer. I anticipate I'll be touring a lot behind this album and can see the later part of the year filling up pretty quickly. Some peace and quiet and writing and downtime in there too. Read some comics and get slow.