The working musician is definitely a rarity on the New York underground rock scene these days. Gone are the days when you would see names like Richard Lloyd of Television or Robert Quine and Ivan Julian of The Voidoids in the credits of your favorite Matthew Sweet and Lou Reed albums of the ‘80s and ‘90s. But for over a decade now, Kyle Forester has garnered his reputation on the local scene as, believe it or not, an in-demand session player, having played keyboards for Brooklyn dark-wave heroes Crystal Stilts, indie pop veterans The Ladybug Transistor and, most recently, Warwick, New York’s psychedelic sons in Woods.
And when you listen to Forester’s self-titled debut, you can definitely hear a composite sketch of all three groups across these 11 new tracks that showcase the longtime New York-based musician’s own distinctive skills as a bandleader. Songs like the jangly opening cut “Won’t Go Crazy,” the heady laconic jam “Downtown” and the floating psych ballad “Imitation of Love” indicate just how well Forester’s music will fit into a playlist consisting of Kurt Vile, Deerhunter and Real Estate, no doubt. However, a deeper and more naturally enhanced listen to Kyle Forester will peel back the album’s roots in Todd Rundgren’s more synth-driven solo material on albums like Initiation and Faithful on tracks like “All The Runaround” and “What Would I Say,” not to mention Loaded-era VU (“Didn’t Try To Run Away”) and, perhaps most tellingly, the classic solo album from rock session legend Nicky Hopkins called The Tin Man Was A Dreamer, whose Stones-esque Rhodes soul can be heard in the melodies of “Forgot My Name” and “Woman In Love.”
One of the more beautiful things about this album is that it’s one of the last to have been created within the confines of The Magic Shop, the famed New York studio that shuttered earlier this year and the place where David Bowie recorded his now-storied last album Blackstar. And going back to the original point, it seemed as though the late, great Thin White Duke made it a point to employ working local jazz musicians over his own touring band to record his new material. Meanwhile, you have this now-veteran gun-for-hire Kyle Forester seeing his own Tin Man Was A Dreamer being mixed there, crossing one another like two stars in the night, paralleling equal levels of credence to the plight of the working musician in New York City.
Paste spoke with Forester, who had just returned home from a short tour with Woods that cumulated in a blistering performance at the Music Hall of Williamsburg the Saturday before Mother’s Day, about the new album and his role in the evolution of New York rock in its last decade.
Paste Music: Perhaps my most favorite thing about Crystal Stilts was the dark edge the band gave the rock music coming out of Brooklyn again. In many ways, the group appeared to be a reaction to all the hipster hype that was surrounding the Williamsburg area during the ‘00s. Meanwhile, your solo album manages to exist in a place between both sounds. Who came first for you, however? Ladybug, or the Stilts?
Kyle Forester: It’s funny, the connection there is actually a record store. Do you remember Rocks In Your Head on Prince Street? I think the guy opened it in the ‘70s, and it closed somewhere around 2005. He reopened in Williamsburg for, like, two years and then just gave up. But the connection with all of that is Brad, the singer from Crystal Stilts, worked there, as did Jeff Baron, who played guitar in Ladybug Transistor as well as The Essex Green. So they both worked together at Rocks in Your Head, which is where I met them both. I first started playing in Ladybug because of this weird four-track comedy album me and my friend Brody made that the store carried. But I played all of the instruments on it. And so Gary [Olson of Ladybug] heard that he was working on a covers EP, and he said to me, “Oh maybe you can help me with this, because I need somebody who can play different instruments.” So there’s a funny EP that I’m really proud of called Here Comes The Rain that was just me and Gary, and it only came out in Spain (laughs). From there, I fell into working with Gary on Ladybug Transistor.
And it was a little bit similar a story with the way I joined the Stilts, because Brad and JB were just starting to do Crystal Stilts, and it was just the two of them in the practice space doing droned out jamming and recording it on cassette. But then they started getting offered shows; they needed to make it a live band. So again, I was a guy who was around Rocks In Your Head who can play instruments, and Brad asked me if I could play shows with them. I could remember those first Stilts shows I played with them. Sometimes I would operate a drum machine and play the bass parts on the low notes of the organ while filling in the high organ parts. It was that kind of thing.
PM: It must have been pretty interesting to go from one style to a totally different one the way you did.
KF: Those bands are definitely really different, except they crossed on influences like The Clean. Hamish Kilgour is part of the story in a lot of ways as well, because he’s friends with Gary and the Ladybug people, and that jangly pop thing is definitely of that world. But the Stilts were really into The Clean as well, and we even opened a reunion show. That was one of the first things that put the Silts on anybody’s map.
PM: But from the sound of Kyle Forester, it definitely seems you are on more of the pop side of things.
KF: For me and what I’m into, I’m definitely more on the pop side of things. I wasn’t a big Joy Divison fan necessarily. That side of the Crystal Stilts’ influences was never really my thing. So when it was time to start making this solo record, I think it was more obvious which direction I would go. And it was always the running joke with me in the Stilts. For a while, especially in the early days, we’d have a lot of downtime between songs, and it was kind of a mess, JB would be tuning and fixing his amp or something. And Brad refused to talk. He never looked at the audience. So I would be the one that would talk to the audience, and it was always something that was remarked upon like, “Oh you guys are supposed to be these gloomy dudes, but the keyboard player is a totally happy guy!” (laughs) So it’s always been a running joke about how I didn’t fit the image.
PM: You cite Nicky Hopkins’ The Tin Man Was A Dreamer as a key influence on Kyle Forester. Very fitting, seeing how you both lead parallel lives as in-demand session musicians in your eras.
KF: That was the record I said to myself I wanted to make. He’s such a great piano player, and he’s amazing on all those Stones songs he played on. I like records like that, which has some variation and has a general mood that’s kind of mellow but still moves. That kind of palate was definitely something that set the tone for what I wanted to do. The gatefold from the Tin Man Was a Dreamer is actually the desktop image on my computer, so I can look at Nicky. He guides me (laughs).
PM: That Nicky Hopkins album is a whole other level of AOR appreciation, when it’s not enough to just listen to the Stones. You have to listen to the albums of the guys they worked with in the studio as well.
KF: Definitely (laughs). I’ve been listening to a fair amount of Todd Rundgren as well. I really like the palate of warm acoustic sounds with acoustic guitars and nicely recorded band sounds but with some synthesizers and also the electronic sound. I didn’t want to make a record that was just a country-folk-rock kind of thing or just guitars and piano. I like the electronic stuff, but I really love the warmth of that fusion, like on Runt or Something/Anything?.
PM: You can definitely hear the Todd on this album.
KF: And also, though I didn’t go too far into this, but I got into Al Stewart as well, and his album Time Passages. Al Stewart is a little too corny ‘70s for me, a little too smooth. I’m actually thinking about doing an Al Stewart cover. Maybe “Year of the Cat”? That’s a funny idea.