On March 13, 2018, Mark Knight & the Unsung Heroes released what I think is quite probably Mark’s finest album to date “Don’t Kill the Cat”. It’s an album that he’s been building to since Mark’s first post-Bang Tango band Worry Beads, and it blends all of the elements that have come before but with a surprising new ‘sound’.
Mark initially began working on the album at his home in Los Angeles where he wrote all twelve tracks on his 1969 Jumbo Guild acoustic guitar and then demoed each track before working the songs up with the band and recording at ‘Shut Up and Play Studios’ with an old friend, engineer George Alexander Kerhulas. With a band consisting of old and new friends, he’s produced a great record, and one that really captures the essence of Blues-soaked West Coast Americana.
The Rockpit: Hi Mark great to catch up again, how’s things?
Mark: I’m doing great man, the album launched today!
The Rockpit: I’m loving the album, I know we’ve had it for a while now but it’s been on constant rotation, and as someone who is pretty familiar with your work post Bang Tango I have to say I think this is your best yet. I love how it’s all come together. There’s a different sound, a richer sound on this release, there’s still the same variety that I love, but there’s just something about how the songs flow together. It’s hard to describe, I think for me at least, on earlier records you could pick little hints at influences here and there here it’s just all together in a big rich stew, like a good jambalaya you taste the whole thing and it’s so much sweeter as a whole. I know it sounds like a cliché but here I think you’ve really found your voice.
Mark: Thank you so much. Yeah I think after you do enough records and you start to master your craft and you hone in on what interests you, then you start to develop your own style. You look at a lot of bands and their first albums and what they developed into after the found their voice. I think that kinda happened on this one.
The Rockpit: I think the different production here also suits these songs, I loved Tom’s production on the last few records, but this is something a little different and it works.
Mark: Yeah complete different production, I changed up everything Mark. I stepped out of the comfort zone I wanted to do something different after making those records with Tom Lavin. I took a whole different approach on this one: basically I demoed all the songs at my house in my studio, just real broken down acoustic and I wrote all the guitar parts even before I went in. Then I took them into the studio with the band and built them up, but it was a different approach because I already knew how the songs sounded before I even recorded them, you know.
The Rockpit: So you were pretty much half way there then before you started work with the band?
Mark: Yeah, I did the blueprints, I’ve never demoed a record before I went in to cut it, I know a lot of artists do that – they go and they record the record and that’s the demo and then they do it again. So I had a lot of stuff worked out but mainly the guitar parts, I played second guitar and I already knew what I wanted to do going in, so those were already hashed out. The things that weren’t hashed out were the rhythm section – the drums and the bass, so those took the songs in some different directions too. Like the drummer really approached everything a little bit more ‘revved up’ a little more rock, so he brought a little more excitement and energy to the songs. Different drummers approach things differently some might half time them or make them swing more, Edward kind of directed them in a way that was a bit more energetic and driven.
The Rockpit: I know the world at large hasn’t had a chance to give its feedback so far but what’s the response been like so far from family and friends?
Mark: Well my guitar player, you know Kyle, well basically I sent him the files like I did you and literally a day later he called me up and said “Dude, I am just floored, this is like the best stuff you’ve ever done in your life, I just can’t believe it, I knew it was going to be good after the last record but this is great. If you died tomorrow you left your legacy behind.”
The Rockpit: That must be great to hear from someone you’ve known for so many years?
Mark: It was amazing. He’s really sincere, I grew up with him so that was nice feedback. My wife had a different take she didn’t know what people would make of it as it was so different, she didn’t know what my audience would think of it? “Your fans are going to be like, what the hell is this? This is like ‘pop’ almost” (laughs) But I thought they’d understand, it’s not like I put out a ‘synth record’ or something!
The Rockpit: (laughs) I see it more of a natural progression I think. It’s interesting when you put the record on and you hear that first track ‘Hey Mama’ the hard bluesy rocker you immediately know something is going to happen. It’s a great song and features a cameo by a great singer Oni Logan (Lynch Mob) – how did that come about, how did he get to play on the song?
Mark: I’ve known Oni for a long time and we’ve talked about doing stuff for years, we’ve always wanted to collaborate and write some stuff ad basically we bumped into him at a local bar, me and my wife were out having a drink and he asked what I was up to, so I told him that I’d just demoed twelve new songs, so I sent him the demos and there was nothing he really grabbed at, ‘Hey Mama’ wasn’t even on there as that was a band type of song. So sixth months down the road I ran into him again, told him the record was really shaping up and that I thought I had one he’d really love, so I sent him some studio tracks and he said “I’m all over it, let’s do it” and so he came in and we did that kinda duet where we trade off verses and stuff and that’s how it came about – he just showed up on the doorstep of the studio, said “I told you I’d be here” and he was, he’s a kind of mystical and magical guy and it just clicked and he nailed it.
The Rockpit: What I love most of all I think on the album aside from the new sound are the lyrics. You’ve really created some memorable songs lyrically, some great stories. Which comes first for you the words or the melodies?
Mark: Usually I’ll start something with a chord progression or a riff and then maybe I’ll scat some vocals, reel off something that’s on my mind, maybe catch something subconsciously that maybe I’m thinking about but not really thinking about and then I’ll build it from there and add to that. Like I’ll take a verse and then the next day I’ll try and search for a chorus, then maybe a break and then I’ll just continue the song on. That’s how I tend to work. ‘Hey Mama’ was just a riff, I had to work on the vocals later. I had that riff for so long, I used to play it all the time but I never sang anything to it, so I thought “I’ve gotta put some sort of lyric to this” and it just flowed, that’s how that one came about.
The Rockpit: Tell us about ‘1955’ which I think was the first song you wrote for the record. I love the lyrics to that.
Mark: That one dates back to when I just got together with my girlfriend, well my girlfriend at the time, and she’d just moved in and we were going through this whole transition or living here in the house with me and we’d probably only been together about ten months like the song says “It’s the first day of the month that makes ten” so it’s just a song about living together and experiencing life, a new chapter in both our lives
The Rockpit: I love those little glimpses throughout the album of shared experiences, things people go though in their lives, it’s so real and it’s great that you’ve captured that in your words. One of the other songs I love is that ode to the lost Malibu scene in ‘Malibama’ it’s a great song where you name-check bands and musicians who used to make up that musical community, what inspired those lyrics?
Mark: Yeah, so post Bang Tango as you know I put together The Worry Beads and I was living in Malibu and cutting my teeth on fronting a band and writing my own stuff so I played a lot of these bars like ‘The Doom Room’ which I mention as ‘The Dummy’ and ‘The Malibu Inn’ so there was this whole music scene in Malibu which was pretty thriving so for maybe eight years in my 30’s I kind of circled the Malibu scene and all those bands I mentioned were kind of the famous bands in that area at that time. It’s like a bunch of people like Berry Oakley (Allman Brothers Band) who you know, and Dickey Betts’ old band, but even though all these bands were really popular locally none of them really did anything, so it’s really I guess a lot of people that no one really knows about but it was a big part of my life and I thought it was an interesting story to tell, and people in Malibu that remember the scene are gonna love that.
The Rockpit: and sadly they knocked down the Malibu In didn’t they? Or stopped having live music there at least?
Mark: Yeah they did away with it all, like I said “Beverly Hills moved in” it’s become mini-malls, shopping centres and fancy restaurants, it’s terrible now and it used to be a cool little almost Southern beach town (laughs) whatever that is! And it was really cool, thriving music scene and now it’s just gone as if none of those bands ever existed.
The Rockpit: I guess it’s getting like that all over the place, every time I come home to Los Angeles it seems like there’s another bar or another venue that’s closed its doors or changed so much to be unrecognisable.
Mark: Yeah and a lot of rehearsal studios are closing down even, that’s how bad it is for music out here. There are still some places open but a lot of bars that play our kind of music have shut down.
The Rockpit: I guess as we get older we tend to notice those things a lot more. Live long enough and you won’t recognise anything I guess.
The Rockpit: Another of the things I loved about ‘Don’t Kill the Cat’ was that in places you seem to have channeled the spirit of Tom Petty very effectively, there are a few moments on there where I got the chills at how alike you sounded. Tom we sadly lost last year and I know we’ve talked about Tom’s music before but was he a big influence on you as a musician?
Mark: Yeah, yeah he was and he was the one guy that I’d get compared to when I started singing outside of Bang Tango. People would say I sounded like Tom Petty and I liked him, I used to cover a bunch of his songs over the years in Malibu playing those bars. And during the making of this record we were close to the mixing stage and he died and that drive me to get this out there so that people can hear it. It’s not that I sound or write like Tom Petty but the influence is definitely there.
The Rockpit: That’s where we disagree a little, I think if you close your eyes on tracks like ‘Hard to Say’ you definitely feel that the music is in tune with his work, like echoes, and it’s not pastiche or a tribute, it is the real spirit that you share, especially in your phrasing and the way you approach a lyric.
Mark: I did always love his vocal style and his approach and his cool kind of Southern country-style voice. He was just cool you know and I guess that style suited me and my voice and what I was capable of doing. I don’t want to sound like Tom Petty now I just do my thing and maybe it does sound like Tom sometimes (laughs)
The Rockpit: (laughs) there are far worse people to sound like! What were some of your favourites on ‘Don’t Kill the Cat’ to record?
Mark: ‘Hard to Say’ I think was one of my favourites because I felt like I’d really captured the kind of swaggering Keith Richards vibe I was going after and when I got it I felt super happy with that rhythm track that came from that initial riff. So that was a great moment. But it was all great you know, some days were better than others some songs came together quick in the studio, some were stubborn, and we had to really work at some things to get them right. There are a lot of acoustic guitars on the tracks then we layered some electric over the top of that so there is that original feel of how the songs were written.
The Rockpit: Have you been playing any of the songs live at all? Testing them out prior to the release?
Mark: Well this is the story, I basically reinvented the whole band after we made the record, I got the bass-player Wayne (Lothian) he played the bass on the record on six songs, I got Kyle Stevens on guitar and then I got Edward Shemansky who pretty much played drums on the whole record except the one track that Matt Abts played on. So I took that band and we went into rehearsals, we’ve been rehearsing for two months now and we basically play nothing but the new record and we play our first show on Friday. So I’m yet to play any of the new songs with the band, but I’ve done a lot acoustic over the last six months or so.
The Rockpit: So Kyle Stevens, who you’ve known for years is in the band, you played in bang Tango together and in Worry Beads and then in Bang Tango Redux a few years ago now, how did he come on board?
Mark: So let’s see how did that come about? Making the record I pretty much did most of the guitars on it ‘cos I’d demoed them all so it made sense and I had some ideas so Mark T (Tremalgia) came in and he did some parts, did some slide stuff and did a lot of colouring but when it came down to playing the stuff live he joined Little Caesar and he basically had a tour lined up, and I couldn’t really wait for him to tour before I put the band together to promote the record so I had to tell him I was going to get some new guys, so that’s how that went down. And Kyle he’s always my ‘go-to’ guy, we’ve been playing together since we were kids and he’d been doing this kinda Americana stuff with this girl Angie out there in Malibu and I said to him “You can probably tackle this pretty well” as he’s kind of a Rock Blues guitar player and he came in and did the stuff perfect, and he just did this crash course in Slide Guitar recently and he’s nailed it! He just put in the time and learned it and it sounds exactly like the record. So it’s really good right now, and he’s excited, he’s thrilled about playing and it’s all clicking so, so far so good.
The Rockpit: That’s cool. So do you have many dates lined up or tour plans?
Mark: I’m doing a Paladino’s show – you remember that place you saw us at, we play there in April and then there’s the Cd release party at The Six in Calabasas but noting so far beyond that. I’ve got some spots I’m looking at and I’d like to get it out as much as possible but touring is expensive so it has to be right, and people don’t want to pay too much these days. I mean I went out down south with my wife and opened for the ‘Drive By Truckers’ in September solo acoustic, and just the effort to get out there was huge, I got paid so we broke even but it’s a lot of effort to play 20 minutes each night. I’d love to get out with this band though because they are nailing the music and the band is so tight they’re liked seasoned pros and the drummer and the bass-player who plays in English Beat, he’s pitch perfect, on the drive to the studio the first time he heard the song in about three takes he had it! He’s one of those guys (laughs).
The Rockpit: One of those freakish guys who can do that with ease! You must be pretty excited at the moment waiting for the album to drop! I must admit I wrote and rewrote that review and heard something new with each listen. That’ll be up today.
Mark: I was getting worried when you’d had the album a week and I hadn’t heard from you! I was thinking I hope he likes it (laughs) then you made that comment that you’d been driving around listening to it and I knew it was cool!
The Rockpit: I notice that for this record you’re embracing all these new channels for your music. I know when we talked about streaming last time we had that conversation about how so little money goes to the artists through streaming.
Mark: Absolutely and that’s why we didn’t do it last time but this time we’ve embraced everything from streaming to Amazon and everything in-between. My daughter told me I had to do it, she’s in a band and lets me know what I need to be doing! I told her “But my audience buys signed CD’s” and she’s like “Nobody buys Cd’s anymore” but I’d just sold 5 of them today. But I hear you!
The Rockpit: It’s a strange market so many channels and then you go to Europe and sales of CD’s, Vinyl and even Cassettes now are growing every year!
Mark: That’s so cool. Stuff seems to be going on in a lot of places outside the States, things are kinda flat here.
The Rockpit: I think that’s where it’s all happening, the Europeans still love their Rock and there seems to be a Festival every week, even smaller bands can make a viable living out there.
Mark: I know my friends in Rhino Bucket have just been out there playing clubs and practically every night was sold out I think. They put a record out then they did this run, they played their assess off and I think only had one night off a week. They’re in their 50’s so it was pretty gnarly – they weren’t in a tour bus, just this van, anyway they worked hard and it worked well for them. I think you’re right there’s a lot more going on over the pond.
The Rockpit: Let’s step back for a minute and take it back to your roots. I started asking a few old Bluesmen last year about the songs that had really moved them, and the tracks that inspired and impacted them so much that every time they heard them they knew why music was such a powerful force in their life. Are there songs like that for you – music that sums up all that music means to you and all that it can be?
Mark: When I think about it there are a couple of songs that really come to mind. ’Ten Years Gone’ by Led Zeppelin and a song called ‘Memory Motel’ by The Stones which has always been one of my favourites, I love the story and the way it was put together and the way that Keith and Mick sing together. Then there’s ‘Crawling Back to You’ by Tom Petty from ‘Wild Flowers’ and ‘Locked Away’ by Keith Richards another huge song off his second solo record. I’m sure there are others but the main on is ‘Ten Years Gone’ not just for the voice and the guitar work which is amazing but the drumming, amazing Led Zeppelin from ‘Physical Graffiti.’
The Rockpit: I always loved Zeppelin but for me it was always the later stuff when they experimented more that blew me away that started with ‘Physical Graffiti’ and ended with ‘In Through the Out Door.’
Mark: I know I love ‘In Through the Out Door’, that was cool.
The Rockpit: So tell us about the launch show, what are you playing?
Mark: We’re looking at a full 17 song set, then another 5 acoustic so we’ll split the night up with the full band and then the acoustic set. Almost every song from the album and we’ll close I think with ‘Whiskey and Stars’ from the last record.
The Rockpit: Now that sounds like a great night, wish I could have made it over. It’s always great to talk to you mate, best of luck with the new album.
Mark: Always good to talk you Mark, hope to see you soon next time you’re my way.
The Rockpit: For sure, I’d love to catch a show next time I’m out.
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