Music fans in Cleveland know Doug McKean from his decades-old presence in their scene – singing his songs and playing their clubs in a variety of bands. Most notable would be The GC5 from 1996-2003, releasing their well-received punk-edged albums and touring extensively, before going solo and with shorter stints in other bands. Most recently he’s front-and-center crooning drunken London-Irish ballads of booze, poverty, and broken love in The Boys from the County Hell – an excellent, insanely fun, and immensely popular tribute to The Pogues.
The GC5 LP (left) and The Boys From the County Hell (right)
But Doug’s truest and most present talents are his ability to craft, and then deliver, a song. He’s got the chops to set a Stones/Faces-like groove, a Clash/Stiff Little Fingers-like punk anthem, or a Westerberg-ian/Waits-esque ballad complete with all the hooks and heartache. He sells them with a raspy throat, coated in an upper-midwestern drawl and honesty. Each project provides a unique spin on the tale, but the song is ever-present, front and center.
After years in the shadows, save the odd BFCH show, Doug was gearing up to get back out there again when Covid-19 hit and, like the rest of us, stopped him in his tracks. He used the lock-down as motivation to make his most ambitious, diverse, and quirky album yet, and the results are beautifully raw, catchy and challenging. Queue The Second Golden Age of Piracy.
Out of the gate is the western-disco tinged “Cowboy Show” that sets the stage, letting us know this ain’t gonna be what we expected. The beats are heavy with a dance-groove that provides a steady bed for several of the songs. There’s a great mixture of sounds, genres and cultures – from a beautiful Pogues-like belly-dancing-gypsy middle section in “Shoot the Light,” to the straight-up pop-dance party chorus of “Howlin’,” and finally a return-to-form of sorts with the guitar-driven “Suddenly Summer,” and again as the album closes out with “Dreams of Oblivion.” To bring it full circle, it’s fun, unexpected, diverse (again), and a bit challenging, but ultimately incredibly rewarding, riding on the back of strong songwriting and arranging.
5 QUESTIONS WITH DOUG McKEAN
We caught up with Doug recently from his compound in Cleveland. Here’s the skinny about the new record and what’s going on.
Hey Doug! I’ve spent some time with your new album “The Golden Age of Piracy” and there’s a lot to process there! The first thing is that it’s a stylistic departure from your more rock and roll/punk/rootsy stuff on previous releases and with your previous bands. The clever lyrics and smart arrangements are ever-present, but there’s lots of funk, techno and even dance flavors. Why the left turn? Is this your “Sandinista!”?
I got kinda bored with some of the ideas people have about what songs are. I think there’s a “songwriter” persona that people try too hard to fit into. I hadn’t been playing out or anything due to life stuff, so I’d been around the house poking at the piano a lot more, which leads to different sorts of ideas. Plus, the last time I put a record out, I was 32. I’m now 41. I’ve changed a lot, and the world has changed a hell of a lot. I’ve realized and partially made sense of what kinds of limitations I’ve had musically and otherwise.
And, you know, I’m in a position at this point where I feel really free. The stakes are pretty low for my music. Never again will I sell 2% of the records The GC5 sold. It’s not going to happen. Everything’s changed. So why the hell shouldn’t I just make up whatever songs seem good to me? It was fun. I’m doing whatever I want these days.
Can you touch a bit on the actual recording/mixing process? It’s all you, right? Did you start with a click and just build on it or were the tracks built from beats or an acoustic base? Seems most songs have doubled/layered vocals? How did you hook up with Dixon to help with the mixes?
The recording process was really an extension of the writing process. I bought a TASCAM 8 track machine in June 2019, which was the first time I’d owned a multitrack recorder since I was in college. I just started throwing stuff down and getting it out of my head and trying to add to it until it turned into something. This process is radically unlike the way I normally bang on a guitar until a chord change and a melody I like appears. The percussion and vocals, I just did my best. I don’t really consider either of those to be my strong suits, so I messed with them until I liked how it sounded. And I knew if something was trash, Don would tell me to fix it.
Dixon has been producing my buddy Chris Allen’s (he was in the Bedroom Legends with me) records for 15 years or so now, and he plays in a Christmas band we do called the Ohio City Singers. I’ve gotten to know him pretty well over the years and I’ve worked on a few records with him, so when it came down to making this into a legit record, it wasn’t too hard to decide to call him about putting it together rather than try to mix it myself. That’s not a skill that I have. He cleaned it up and made it sound professional.
So many different flavors on this record – but it does veer back towards powerpop rock as it moves along. I guess you can take the boy out of the rock, but… Anyhow – I’ve often struggled to step out of my wheelhouse without feeling like I’m just not qualified, like, why would I do a Mexican-flavored mariachi song that isn’t nearly as good as those bands could do, when I could do a country-tinged powerpop song that feels so much better? At some point you need to dive in and go through those growing pains, I guess. I’m wondering if you struggled with the genre explorations with and how you got the confidence to ultimately get that stuff onto tape – and most importantly – so successfully?
Thank you! That is very kind of you. The freedom I was talking about earlier was the big thing. If I stumble onto a piano riff and an entire disco song appears in my head, then maybe that should be a disco song. Maybe not! But, I didn’t have anyone else to play with or an audience to alienate, really, so fuck it. Try it out. I scrapped a couple ideas but I was pretty pleased that most of what I tried turned into something. And there were massive, massive moments of doubt along the way. I just had to ignore the kind of narrow range of expectations people have of you as a musician in a rock-adjacent genre. And then trust that your voice won’t get lost and you don’t start writing novelty songs.
I think I am by nature a bit disagreeable. When I see what people like, 90% of the time I don’t feel like they connect with it, but they recognize something about it and they like that it makes them comfortable. Lifestyle music. Punk rock is pretty bad about this. Turns out Americana is worse! But I’m pretty happy these days. My wife is weird. My kid….well, all kids are weird, so that’s good. And I’m free to fuck around in my basement doing whatever I can turn into something that interests me. If it speaks to people, that’s great. If not…I mean…still beats watching tv.
All of life is such a weird little experiment. You get to define what it is to be you. And I like it when people are constantly tinkering with that and questioning it. The people who don’t….well they get to be really confident, so that’s probably nice, but I see people spending all their energy justifying the one small thing that they settle on. And I’m barely talking about music or art at all here. It creates problems! And it seems like kind of a waste of this thing we’ve been given.
You’ve been noticeably absent from the live music scene for a while, save a couple of your annual shows with The Boys from the County Hell (where you and I first met), but you were gearing up to get back out there, no? How far along were those plans when Covid-19 hit, and how has the pandemic affected your motivation (as opposed to your ability) to get back out there? Are we gonna see some shows when this mess is finally behind us?
I guess I’m lucky. Not much difference between waiting 9 years to put a band together and waiting 10 or…. so it hasn’t bummed me out much. I just went to work on this instead.
We’ll see what the world looks like on the other end of this, but I’m fired up to play new songs with a band. I had people lined up. We were gonna start rehearsing after the BFCH did St. Pat’s. My goal was to make it a real band that does a defined thing on stage. No bar band stuff, no putting together a pickup band for gigs because people are busy, minimal improvisation until you’d earned it as a unit. Play songs with parts and hooks and do it like you mean it. There aren’t many bands like that left. You play in one of them, you know what I mean.
You’ve got a long resume of bands in your wake, as musicians of our age often do. The GC5, Magpies, Bedroom Legends (my personal fave) and Pogues and Clash cover bands, to name a few. With your fifth solo album out, looking back on your career – what are a couple of the highlights and what are you most proud of? What’s left to check off, to accomplish?
Well, I don’t see a lot of accomplishments in the future honestly, although maybe I’ll get a pleasant surprise or two. Being in a band that grabs people’s attention playing these songs is the main thing I care about at this point. I’ve been a frontman, sideman, gotten too drunk to stand up, driven 400 miles to play to the bartender….so that’s most of the check boxes that I know of, haha.
You’ve invited me to brag a little, so without any pretense, here goes…I toured with Spider Stacy with the BFCH, We also did a residencey at the New York, New York in Vegas and played in Thailand. Then that fall I played bass with Tim Easton in Europe. Man, when I was 25 it really looked like I was on the right track!
You know what? That’s the coolest shit that I’ve done, but what I’m proud of is I’ve played in 3 different bands (The GC5, BFCH, Magpies) that genuinely cut heads as live bands. If I can just get a gang together for one last heist…
Anything else you want to mention?
Thank you for doing this. I love talking to other musicians about this stuff, especially people like you who get it. I hope everyone’s doing alright out there. Keep in touch with your friends. Vote in every election.
To buy the record: https://dougmckean.bandcamp.com/
Instagram: @dougmckeanmusic
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DougMcKeanMusic
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC92vo6dsesXJTba5spF1QYg
Jeremy Porter lives near Detroit and fronts the rock and roll band Jeremy Porter And The Tucos. Follow them on Facebook to read his road blog about their adventures on the dive-bar circuit.
www.thetucos.com
www.facebook.com/jeremyportermusic
www.rockandrollrestrooms.com
Twitter: @jeremyportermi | Instagram: @onetogive & @jeremyportermusic
