Hot Buttered Rum – The Kite and the Key: Part 3
“These are the songs we want to play at a late-night festival set. There are a few road-tested tunes here that we’ve had a lot of fun with over the years. I think about all the different ways we’ve played Desert Rat and Entangled! They’ve gone so many places. The challenge here was to bottle that energy in a more concise studio arrangement. Kyle had us do a bunch of free improvisation in the studio, with him at the keys calling out ideas. I think that put us in the right mode to bright a light energy to these tunes.”
“Desert Rat comes from reading Edward Abbey’s books ” Desert Solitaire” and “The Monkey Wrench Gang”. In Monkey Wrench, the character Hayduke is freshly back from Vietnam and seeing the back end of the military-industrial complex destroying his beloved Utah desert. He takes matters into his own hands. I wrote this after my dad challenged me to write something from someone else’s voice.
“Entangled comes from conversations I had with two friends who got wrapped up in heroin. So easy to entangle, so painful to unwind! I related their experience to an old girlfriend’s (less-destructive) drama.” — Nat
“I can’t decide whether I like Kyle Hollingsworth better for his skills as a producer, a keyboard player, or a human being. He’s damn good at all three. He pushed us on this installment to be spontaneous in ways we normally reserve for the middle of a second set, by either nudging us from the control booth or hustling down into the tracking room to show us what he was thinking with a Wurlitzer or a piano, then staying there while we finished it.” — Erik
“Working with Hot Buttered Rum was so great. From creation to inspiration we were all on the same page, plus digging into that true analog sound and recording process was a refreshing experience. The analog approach brought out the best in both of us. I’m psyched to have had a chance to meld minds with these guys.” — Kyle Hollingsworth
