THE STORY
Songwriter Michael Kearns couldn't seem to get around to his own CD.
He moved to Nashville in 1996 and started to crank out demos to pitch to Music Row. He didn't sing on the demos. “My voice wasn't country enough,” he said. Kearns got some independent cuts with the likes of Americana artist Diane Gentes and jazz vocalist Abby Burke. Got his own recording studio going and produced great CDs for artists like Gordon Vincent and Davis Raines. But his songwriter friends scolded him: “Sing your own songs – the quirky ones, not just the 'commercial' ones. Do your own CD!” And he always said he was working on it.
In 2003 Michael Kearns finally bit the bullet and formed his own band. “From then on, playing music was the destination, not a means to an end,” he says. After debuting at the Sutler, he built an avid following over the next several years. But still no CD: Kearns was now too busy writing books. Finally, his band members ganged up on him and said: we'll record it, and we'll do it live, down and dirty, let it bleed.
And done. Death or Life was recorded in one winter afternoon, everyone playing at once (lead vocals too). So a songwriter's songwriter finally has a disc you can hear.
Kearns recently relocated to Cape May, NJ, where he continues to write books and songs and is connecting with a new tribe of creative souls.
THE CD
Death or Life: rather than the typical "sum of a thousand overdubs" in today's antiseptic digital world, this CD is the sound of people playing together. Its title arose when Kearns realized that half the songs on the CD mention death.
A few song notes: Kearns lived in LA for a decade; "A little rain" is about that. Written long before The Office came to television, "I loved you for a day" is just one of several songs Kearns has written depicting the secret lives of bureaucrats. "Coal Tattoo": this classic by Billy Ed Wheeler is one of two songs on the CD about the terrors of unemployment – and employment.
