Ky Babyn playing Patio Series
Old soul will share country music
By Catherine Griwkowsky News Staff
Posted 5 months ago
Original article found at http://www.sherwoodparknews.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?archive=true&e=2700428



When Ky Babyn sings about cotton fields and the year of '39 he sings with an authenticity that should be impossible for his age
The country singer will be playing the Qualico Patio Series at Festival Place at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
With his lyrical focus on days gone by, and business focus on the entirety of an album, one would never think he has been on this earth fewer than 22 years.
He is a history buff, and would turn on the History channel and watch documentaries on the Second World War.
Babyn said his age doesn't matter and tells people to just enjoy the music.
Since he didn't live through the events, he relies on Google and Wikipedia to make sure things are historically correct.
Babyn sat clad in a fedora, bolo tie, suspenders and horn-rimmed square glasses, his hair black, long, with swept bangs.
After going camping, drinking whisky and passing out, his ankle was covered in 23 mosquito bites.
He walked to the interview with a flower in his hat he had picked up along the way.
His lip shows a hole where a piercing used to be.
Growing up in St. Paul, he played in pop punk and metal bands.
"I moved to the city with a group of friends the day after graduation," Babyn recalled. "Hung over, packed up, moved out. I wanted to play hardcore metal, pretty heavy stuff. After a while, it's like holding the gas pedal down all the time."
He was not a fan of country music growing up in St. Paul; the local scene wasn't into barn dances.
Everything changed when he heard Corb Lund.
Captivated by Lund's song writing, Babyn felt he was robbing himself of his own musical capacity.
He apologized to his metal bandmates and dove headfirst into country.
"It's not about being heavy, cool fast licks, power screams and tight licks," Babyn said. "He's doing something really different here. He incorporates his heritage."
Babyn then began writing. And writing.
He bought an acoustic guitar, got rid of the television, started going out and doing things, and invited friends over and played.
Babyn had written an album of acoustic songs, but after hearing Lund, he decided his songs were "emo," not surprising given his emotive hardcore background.
Once he got his own (non-emo) style down he began to write an album.
"I have an odd way of living my songs," Babyn said.
The song "Dirty Jeans" was born during a heavy festival circuit.
He'd put on a pair of jeans he thought looked clean after showering, then:
"I'll get to the gig and there's mud down the back," he exclaimed. So he washed the jeans, and went out thinking they are clean, only to have a repeat experience.
"I went through this mud phase," Babyn said. "Something will keep reoccurring in my life and it starts to feel like a theme."
While most people will pass off these reoccurrences as coincidences, laugh at them in their day jobs and move on, Babyn gets inspired.
"I'll be sitting around, feeling creative, and I feel a static building up inside me," Babyn said.
His debut album, I'll Work For Whiskey, took much more effort than what he had pictured, but now that he has the ear for producing, he's on to producing other acts.
Through the process he realized an album is never finished, you just quit working on it.
"You can always change it," he said.
His take on the recording is an authentic sound, not overly produced.
The artwork, a very important aspect of his album, was taken in a small town in Saskatchewan. Babyn laments the rise of the MP3 files and single song downloads for its effect on the experience of an entire album.
"iPods are wrecking music," he said. "Everyone's listening through little half-inch speakers. People are actually listening to a very small dynamic range of beautiful instruments."
In fact, his parents were buying singles off of iTunes, while Babyn encouraged them to listen to the entire album of an artist.
When he's more well-known, he wants to release an album on vinyl.
The album's takes on the guitar were from a 1974 Gretsch plugged straight into the amplifier. The vocals were recorded on vintage ribbon mics.
On the album, Stew Kirkwood plays lead guitar and baritone guitar, Keith Rempel plays stand-up bass, Bradford Tebble plays percussion, Tyler Vollrath plays violin, Rob Anderson plays pedal steel guitar and Ido van der Laan sings back up vocals and harmonies.
Working in the studio did turn him into a "vampire," coming home in the wee hours of the night and not being able to sleep.
"I expect a shorter life expectancy because of it," he said. "Oh well, I'll make the best of it. I don't want to be old and brittle anyway."
Despite the name, Bablyn doesn't just work for whiskey, though. He has been known to drink Guinness and La Fin Du Monde beer, the latter of which lead to him being kicked out of a bar (things are fine with the bar now, he said).
Already he's working on his next album in addition to producing other acts.
"I'm getting into some real nitty-gritty stuff," Babyn said.
Fans of his music can thank his mother for getting him started.
She is a music teacher and a choral director and "forced" Babyn to play piano in Grade 2.
He was none too fond of learning the instrument, right down to the books. Even as a child, he had a dislike for children's books.
Instead, he convinced his mom to take him to Gordon Price music where he set off on a path of guitar playing.
"I was thinking about acoustic, but I figured I'd pick the most rebellious instrument, this electric guitar," he said. "And get an amplifier that had to have the distortion button on it."
He worked in a metal shop, which equivocated with working on a farm.
"When I'd leave work, it felt like I was in this massive metropolis, just a revolving hum or a buzz," he said. "I could not find anything that inspired me about the city, then I traveled back home. Maybe I was homesick, but I started going back to small townspeople and townsfolk. They're hilarious."
He said it was a shift in perspective to go from replacing the wheat fields behind the house with parking lots. He gained a new appreciation for small Alberta towns
"I fell in love with country stuff and now I'm stuck in the city," he said.
Another shift brought on by music was his decision to leave his house behind.
Once he started making his record he wasn't around the house and decided to be a "travelling gypsy."
"I minimized my life to all my instruments I need with me, everything that I can keep in my car, living out of backpacks," he said.
He said by living with relatives and friends, he has gotten to know people around him.
That lifestyle does catch up, from eating poorly to spending long, hot days in cars.
"It's a hard schedule," he said. "You can never plan when you're going to eat, or when you're going to have meals. I always carry apples. You really appreciate showers."
With the insane schedule — he normally wakes up anywhere between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. — he has lost friends who he used to be able to spend time with.
"I feel like a day-walker sometimes," he said.
Despite being snapped in the musicians schedule, meeting people and playing music is worth it for him.
Ultimately, Babyn wants to take his music around the world.
"I play music because it's something I kind of have to do," Babyn said. "It's something that inspired me and then I did it so much, it's like coffee for some people. I get a little antsy if I don't have my guitar."
Babyn said he hopes through his music he can meet new people and maybe even make money at it.
He said he is a big fan of putting on a great album and seeing the artist live and finding out they are even better.
"What you hear on the album, you hear live," he said. "There's no autotune."
He said because of his pursuit of a darker country sound, it can be hard to play with a live band that he describes as spooky music.
At the Festival Place show he will play with Rempel, Matt Grier on drums, and Chris Taber on guitar.
"It will be a drummer, bass, guitar, me, six shooter and rattlesnakes," Babyn said.
Tickets for the event are $8 and are available in person at the Festival Place box office, by calling 780-449-3378, or by visiting the website at www.festivalplace.ab.ca.

catherine@sherwoodparknews.com


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