When Kevin Morby was just 17 years old, he made the all-too-famous “musician’s decision” to drop out of high school and purchase a one way ticket to New York. After moving from Kansas to Brooklyn, working various café jobs and bouncing between crash pads, Morby fell in with the members of local psych-folk group Woods and eventually took up residence at their Rear House recording complex in Bushwick. Around the time of 2009’s Songs of Shame LP, Morby joined on their touring bassist and the rest, as they say, is history.
That may be so for some bassists—content to remain in the shadows—but for Morby, life seems to sing a different tune. See, part of it is that Morby was never a bass player to begin with. He’s a guitarist. He also has trouble sitting still.
While still in Woods, he joined up with Cassie Ramone of the Vivian Girls and formed the indie-rock outfit The Babies; in which he plays guitar. Just this past year, Morby stepped out even further on his own with the release of Harlem River, his debut solo album, which also coincided with his departure from Woods. To top off his year of transition, he also uprooted himself from New York and made the move to Los Angeles.
I caught up with Morby a little while back to chat about going solo, his departure from Woods, and why he likes to root for the underdog.
When you decided to embark on a solo career, did you know that leaving Woods was in the cards and that you’d be going out on your own for the foreseeable future?
I guess at the time I that I recorded, which was about February 2013, I don’t know if I had made up my mind to be in Woods or not anymore. Touring got crazy after that and I recorded the record during the break. After I recorded that, I went out with both bands and realized I had to be realistic. I thought about my solo record coming out and wanted to put all my energy into it. While I liked having a voice with Woods and The Babies, I couldn’t do all three at once. I had to choose something to put my energy into, and it was this.
So are you not with The Babies anymore?
I’m still with The Babies, we don’t have any future plans at the moment.
Okay, so I’m curious about the decision to leave Woods. As you said it’s something you weren’t sure about. Was that a difficult decision to make?
Not really. With Woods it was more like being a “live member,” so it kind of just came to a point where I put in a lot of good time with them and formed some really great friendships. I just turned 25 and it seemed pretty natural to me. You know? There was a lot of thought forming The Babies and having another record out under my own name. I think I kind of expected it.
I know that Jarvis and Jeremy are the core of what Woods is, but there’s something that you, and also [former member] Lucas Crane, obviously brought to the table—especially in the live setting. Were you hoping to become a more permanent member of Woods or was the solo career a natural evolution in your musical career?
I’d say it was definitely a natural evolution. When I first joined them, they had just put out a record and I was a fan turned member. At a certain point I got to have a lot to do with the live show. As you said, the thing about Woods is Jarvis and Jeremy are the core and it will always be an evolving thing. At the end of the day, it’s Jeremy Earl’s project. It’s a rotating cast, which I think is cool and keeps it interesting. There was definitely no part of me that just wanted to be a full time bass player and have that be what I did in life. I wanted to do something with my own creativity.
When it came time to create your own album, what aspects of Woods, if any, did you take with you?
I think a lot of what I learned from Woods was the foundation of how to be in a band. Before I played with Woods I played in a punk band and played house shows and that kind of thing. Before Woods I would just tangle up my chords and throw them in a bag. I remember at the first Woods practice I went to, Jarvis said “You can roll up your chord like this, and it won’t break anymore.” It’s a funny moment to think about, just logistically. I learned how to tour and how to be a performer—and I transferred those kinds of things to The Babies, and with The Babies I took it one step further because I had to learn to sing on stage and stuff like that. The combo of the two set me up naturally doing my own thing.
What was the timeline like with regard to the songwriting? Were you on the road with Woods, or at a certain point did you just sit down and say, “I need to start writing some songs?”
I wrote a lot of songs. I have so many. Sometimes it’s a problem, but it’s a good problem. With this first record it was important for me to get out old songs that I had around for a long time that weren’t appropriate for The Babies, so I felt the opportunity to use them. It’s funny because I was moving out of New York, and using songs that were specific to New York and about my time there. Before I could get into writing new songs I had to use the old ones because I didn’t want them to just go unheard. I wrote the oldest one when I was 19, one of them when I was 20, two when I was 23. I think the latest one I wrote like 6 months before I went in to record.
Who were some of the major influences that inspired the songs on Harlem River ?
As with any record, there are a million influences. If I had to pick a couple, there’s definitely a Bob Dylan Highway 61 influence. We tracked it all live, in the same room, at the same time. None of it was isolated; it was just everyone going. I’m also a huge, huge fan of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska and that was definitely an influence on it. I also listened to a lot of Jandek around that time. He has an album called You Walk Alone. It sounds nothing like Harlem River, but aesthetically it’s similar. I was listening to that like crazy when we were recording, but it’s a little harder to tell.
What inspired you to move away from New York?
The Babies came out [to LA] in 2011 and at the end of our tour and we found a sublet, so the band stayed out here for that winter. With no real purpose, we were kind of like, “We’ll stay out here and play some West Coast shows and won’t be in the cold for a couple months.” I made a ton of good friends while doing that. The next year we came out here around the same time to record The Babies album, Our House on the Hill, and it only seemed natural that I’d make another album in my downtime. And that’s what I did.
New York and my schedule there was so chaotic—touring so much and social life and what not. New York just wasn’t appealing to me because I knew it was more of that. I felt like I’d be going out just as much as I was on tour and I’d have to struggle finding a room. I felt like I had a foot in Los Angeles, so I made the move. It’s funny, a lot of my friends didn’t even know I was making the move. One day I came back on the way home from tour, I flew from London to LA, and then a week later I signed a lease on an apartment.
I guess you don’t have too many possessions that you have to move around.
Yeah, no. Not that much at all.
One of the things that I noticed on the album is a sense of moving and the distance that you’ve covered and places you’ve been. It listens almost like a travelogue. Obviously you did move, and the road was a big part of your life for the last 7 or 8 years. Was that a central theme on your mind when you were recording—moving and relocating—or is that just a part of who you are?
It is part of my character, I moved a lot growing up and sometimes I feel like that may had something to do with it. We moved around the Midwest a lot and I got used to that—always starting new schools and new homes. We moved around about every three years. Growing up, I was used to moving, but I’d never gotten out of the Midwest proper. I had never seen the ocean or anything. So I feel like once I left the Midwest, I was free and wanted to explore. Moving is inspiring to me. My brain works really well whether I’m walking around, or in a car, or on a train it keeps my gears in motion. I really like moving.
What was the reason behind all the moving during your childhood?
My dad’s job. He worked for General Motors.
I think it was Hemingway who said that if you are ever stuck on a problem you should go for a walk. Subconsciously, your brain will work out the problem while you are distracted by other things.
Yeah, I completely agree with that. I have a really hard time sitting still. That was one of my favorite parts about living in New York, just all the walking you can get done on any day. I always love walking.
That’s one of the main themes that stood out to me: moving, and not being in the same position for any period of time. What would you say are some other themes that you deal with in your songwriting or on the album?
A heavy theme of addiction, which is not something I really deal with personally, but I’ve always been sort of attracted to that—tragedy, and rooting for the underdog or something. Those are the people I associate with.
It’s nice to see you developing your own project. It’s very much the story of the underdog—seeing the bass player who’s not even a full-time member of the band grow to become to a full-fledged solo act.
Yeah, it really is. It’s really nice. I started out as a sideman, then co-fronting a band, and now it’s just my band.
In general, how has life been as a solo musician for the past few months?
Life’s been good. I’m really enjoying it. I mean, there’s nothing crazy happening. I really like it here. I’ve recorded a lot at home and I’ve made a lot of future plans. I’m getting ready to go back into the studio next month. I just did my first solo tour opening up for Cate Le Bon. I’m really enjoying the freedom of it—of not always having a set band or set thing. For example, we went on that tour with Cate and we played the same songs every night, and that was a lot of fun. But recently Justin [from The Babies] and I played a set with different songs. It was completely different and I’m really enjoying the freedom to stretch out like that.
