Video Interview: Craig Riggs of Kind
It comes up in the interview, but I’ll note here as well that the discography of Craig Riggs is significant. In addition to his time first as drummer then as frontman of Boston heavy rock standard-setters Roadsaw, there’s White Dynomite, Los Angeles’ Sasquatch for whom he plays drums, and Kind, whose new album, Mental Nudge (review here) is their second behind 2015’s Rocket Science (review here). All of that doesn’t take into account either the fact that Riggs is head honcho at Mad Oak Studios, an institution in the Northeast, occasionally puts out releases through Mad Oak Records, and roasts his own coffee. Dude keeps busy.
Nonetheless, with Riggs on vocals, Darryl Shepard on guitar, Tom Corino on bass and Matt Couto on drums, Kind are a special case. A supergroup the pedigree of which spans decades not only through his own but Shepard‘s as well, the band coalesces around a heavy psychedelic rock that puts emphasis on all three words in that combination. Particularly on Mental Nudge, they are able to harness breadth and shove alike, and as the album was recorded in January with the emerging specter of the COVID-19 pandemic starting to take shape around them, the record brims with the potentiality for what they might’ve done in bringing it to the stage.
Well, so much for that. While Kind are taking part today along with Set Fire and others in a prior-filmed live stream (info on Thee Facebooks) to benefit the esteemed ONCE Ballroom in Somerville, MA, as well as Grayskull Booking, Mental Nudge is the first record in Riggs notable catalog where he can’t get on stage to support it with live shows. In the video interview below, we talk about what to do with that energy — hint: make another record — along with the yet-to-be-released-but-already-in-the-can Sasquatch album, experimentation with melodic layering and effects, changes in the band’s circumstances with the dissolution of what had been Corino‘s main outfit Rozamov and Couto‘s separation from Elder, and much more.
We spoke earlier this week, on the grim-feeling morning after the US presidential election, and that comes up too in its way, as it would almost have to. Not too much. Just a little.
Thanks to Riggs for taking the time to chat and to you for reading and/or watching
Please enjoy:
Kind, Mental Nudge Interview with Craig Riggs, Nov. 4, 2020
One more time, Kind‘s Mental Nudge is out now through Ripple Music. The album stream follows here.
Kind, Mental Nudge (2020)
Ripple Music on Thee Facebooks
Tags: Boston, Kind, Kind Mental Nudge, Massachusetts, Mental Nudge, Ripple Music
