A Conversation With Kurt Neumann of BoDeans

Kurt Neumann and his band BoDeans have been around for nearly 40 years. After finding huge success in the 90s, the band has consistently released high-quality records and toured the country. Recently, Kurt took some time to talk about their new record 4 The Last Time.

Please press the PLAY icon below for the MisplacedStraws Conversation with Kurt Neumann –

On writing, playing, and producing the record himself – Well, sometimes records just happen that way is the simplest answer I have, but it’s not my favorite way. I think the old-school way of taking a band into a great studio and spending a couple of months just experimenting is kind of the most fun way to do it, especially when you have really great people as far as engineers and producers and stuff to work with. However, we were coming out of a pandemic, These were songs that were from a couple of years ago that I was writing for a Netflix show, “The Ranch”, and so I just wanted to get them out. Because we were coming out of what we were coming out of the way we were and stuff like that, I just was chipping away at working on them and before I knew it, there was a record done. I thought people have been wanting to hear these songs and get them, so I’ll just finish this up and put it out this way, but it was kind of unintentional to just do it that way. :49

On building his own instruments – Well, trying to find the guitar that sounds the way you want and is set up way you want isn’t always easy if you want specific things. Some people are so good, they can pick up any guitar, make it sound great. For me, I had real specific things I wanted it to sound like, and how I play and where I wanted the knobs and stuff like that, so it occurred to me, “Maybe I could just get someone to help me by cutting a body a certain way, in a certain wood and maybe just getting a certain neck that I want, a certain way I wanted, maybe I could just put them all together”. I had done this with other people in the 90s with my first custom guitar. The guitar, you hear in “Closer to Free” was a guitar I had built for me. I told the guy when I wanted, he built it all, and it was my first custom guitar and so I thought maybe I would just try to piece some together myself with the way I wanted it,do the weird kind of wiring the way I wanted to do it and experiment, and little by little, you find some guitars that sound really great and some that sound pretty good, but a couple of them sounded really great to me. I have a hard time picking anything else up now because I build my guitars to really be able to have a lot of different sounds and be able to work in different environments. I’ve never been the type of guy who likes switching guitars every song. Mine are pretty versatile. So I like to pick them up and that was basically the idea behind it was I wanna find something that works for me personally, and so I did it. 2:00

On if he missed having another set of ears in the studio or if he trusts his instincts – I have a lot of experience in the studio with some really great guys. We started with T. Bone Burnett, I’ve worked with Jim Scott as an engineer and producer, Daniel Lanois in the studio. I’ve worked with Bob Clearmountain in the studio, just one of my favorite producers of all things rock and music, and so I based my judgment on that. What I know of these people and what I’ve learned from them, however, I think it is better if you have at least an executive producer, someone in the room, or if you can have a really great engineer and they’re helping you get sounds. I say, go that way if you can. Because when you’re having to do all the tech work and music work you really gotta have a special mindset to get through it all. The technical stuff can just rip away the creative process, and so I tried to get a set up that was really simple so none of that stuff would get in the way, but it can be tough, and so I don’t recommend it for everybody. 4:00

On if he’s aware of sequencing the record as he records – Not what I’m tracking, but what I do is I remember all the great records that I grew up with. When Tom Petty or someone release a record back then, they would last for a year and a half on the radio. Radio used to go deep into these records, and these records were a big part of our lives, and we knew these albums. We didn’t like someone just for a song, and so I really wanna give the listener that full record, because I don’t think everyone just likes one song. I think they like all different songs and all different kinds of songs, and so (with) BoDean records, I want them to be that. I want them to be a broad spectrum of different music and different emotions. If the record is done well and you have that journey through highs and lows and stuff, it feels satisfying to listen to the whole thing, and that’s what I love, and it’s hard to find these days compared to when we were 15. When we were young we werelistening to some great music, great albums out there. Whether you’re listening to Dark Side of the Moon or something, you listen to the top to bottom to these records, because they were a thing unto themselves, the whole record, it wasn’t just one song, and so that’s what I try to give, when I release the record, which I guess makes me old, but that’s my philosophy 5:47

On writing songs for the Netflix series, “The Ranch” – A friend was on a plane and he said he toured with BoDeans and somebody said, “Oh, I have friends who love BoDeans, they’re doing a Netflix show they should call”. So, from a friend on a plane literally passing me, someone’s number, (I contacted the) producers and they were like, “Oh man, we love BoDeans, we grew up with BoDeans. We’d love you to do music for the show”. Literally telling me, “Do as much music as you can for the show and we’ll try to get as much in as we can”. It wasn’t like they were looking for 30 seconds of a guitar riff somewhere, they wanted full songs, so that made it harder. I had to write complete songs, but on the other side of that, and then I had all these songs and I could try to put out a bunch of them for people. Some of them were remakes of old BoDeans songs, some of them were instrumental tracks, but some of them were songs, as you hear on 4 The Last Time and our 13 record as well, EP Prayer for the Weary. All of those were songs that kind of started out in that “Ranch” Netflix era. 7:28

On if he felt locked into a certain time after having “Closer to Free” as a TV theme song – No, we were lucky in that we had spent many years with many records building a foundation of fans, so we had a following. But I think you’re right, it can be a curse. So many people come up to me and you’re like, “You’re the guys who did that “Friends” song”. I’m like, “Yeah, no I didn’t do that one. I wish had done that one too”, but that’s what they know of you, or that’s what they think of you, and you’re like, “Actually, I’ve got all this music, you should hear it sometime”. You can get labeled that way and it can be a curse. So it was tough, but it was also nice having your music just go everywhere to where it’s a top 10 hit around the world, and everybody gets a chance to hear your music and hopefully you draw in some people. You’re right, it can be a tough thing to overcome. All you can do is to kinda keep chugging along and keep putting out music… Well, it’s funny because “Closer to Free” was out on a record three years before it was ever hit. We used to play that song live all the time, and you get your reaction that you normally got, and so you kind of measure that to what it was. For us, it was only about a year and a half of those kind of top 40 fans who came to see us, but mostly it was just the good old fans who stuck with us. So they’re usually pretty excited to hear all the music that we have for them. 9:08

On when he feels the band found its footing – Well, I think we were in a really great place when we made the first record as a band. We had been just a three-piece with two guitars and drums for almost our whole career, it wasn’t till right before making the record that we brought our friend in who played bass guitar. It was a real special sound there, and I think that was a great place, but after the first tour, the drummer couldn’t keep up with the shows anymore and he was hurt and he left the band, and when that happened, I think it really disturbed the chemistry of the band a lot…(On the next) record, we were all of a sudden trying to replace someone who was a vital part of the sound, and that’s not a simple thing. We also have a label saying, “We need to get you on rock radio, so you need to make a record that gets on rock radio because you can’t just be a critical darling, you’ve gotta do something, this is the business of music”. So you’re always weighing all that stuff together, and we were in a tough position then on that second record to try to make that all work. So in my mind, what we stuck with was, “Well, let’s keep the songwriting very simple like we always have, the harmonies, the guitar-driven songs that we write and go with that”, and Jerry (Harrison) definitely made it more of a polished sound. I wish we would have worked with T-bone on the second record, but what can you do now? So I think by the fifth record when we made Go Slow Down, we were kind of back at that place, the record company had pushed us through several producers, and we had tried to do what they wanted, and what we found every time was just letting us do what we do is kind of the best process, so I think by the fifth record we were back to doing that. 11:59

On his podcast “Staring At The World” – My daughter was doing podcasts and she suggested we do one. I never thought of doing a podcast, I never thought of it for me…(video interruption)Creativity was never pushed in school, it was like something like, “Well, if you wanna be creative, you can go take an art course over here or a music class, those aren’t important, and we put no importance on them”, and I thought, “Man, creativity is at the core of every single thing we do in life .If you’re not creative with math or science, it’s going nowhere”. But it’s not taught that way. So I thought if I ever did either do a podcast, teach of course, speak to people or anything, it would be about that, about this creative element and why is it not more important? I think it’s really important in everyday life, and it should be in the school system every day. I wish they would start school by saying, “What did you do that was creative today”, or, “What are you gonna do that’s creative today”, instead of what they do. So the podcast gives me a chance to say that to the world, and so I try to talk to people with interesting stories from all different spectrums, all different areas, and let people hear a creative stories and keep pushing my agenda of creativity. 14:05

On his dream podcast guest – Can’t think of one. I really want different stories from different people, when I see people like Jim Carrey out there who, he had such a weird comedic style, he did things just his own way, it was just so brilliant…(video interruption) the screaming rage, it wasn’t necessarily brand new to him, but the way he did it seemed so much natural and at his core, and it’s those kind of things. I like anyone who came up with something really that was their own thing, that was their own way to deal with it and it was tremendously creative. Those are the stories I look for, and you can find them anywhere in any topic. 15:56

On upcoming touring – That’s what we do is we go out and play shows. The records for us, we’re always a calling card to get to go and do the next show, so we’ll be going out. Record comes out on June 24th. We did do a couple of weeks on the East Coast, which I picked up a nice head cold here, and we will be going throughout the Midwest and stuff, and some of the West Coast on fall and summer. Just trying to play as many towns as we can play as much as the new record and the old stuff, because a lot of people come out to here, we have so many records and somebody songs, so I will just keep playing throughout the year and probably in the next summer with this as well. 17:11

On if 4 The Last Time is the end – Well, you never know. I never would predict it’s for the last time, necessarily. The song is not about ending the band at all, it’s about the absolute destitute of a relationship that you cannot save, and coming to that realization that it can’t be saved. But I thought it made for a good title that people would say, “This band’s been around a long time. They’ve written a lot of music”, and so you never know how long you can keep going in this business and making new records and stuff like that. I love playing music, I still plan to keep playing music, but… Who knows? 18:09