Soaring and soft, sensitive and spicy.
William Kuklis has a range of voice and range of emotion that finally has a place big enough to run free. He has released a new album entitled Save Me that finally shows audiences the full evidence. Only hints were available before, from a few singles and some concert appearances.
The quality of the album rests on more than his fiery voice. The guitar arrangements, the layers of backing vocals, the careful percussion, the soft bass, the touches of musical decoration, all gather together to make a first class package of music between the covers of Save Me. The presentation is unattainable for most emerging musicians, because studio time is expensive and polishing creative burrs and jagged edges into sleek art usually can't be afforded.
Kuklis has his own studio. When he and his family moved to Prince George from Victoria (there was some time spent in Wells as well), part of the process was shipping in the recording suite he operated out of his house on the Island.
Vinyl Deck Studio was located in the garage underneath a 40-by-40 deck. Market prices being what they are in Prince George, he could move the studio right inside the house. But he still couldn't afford his own sound engineer, so when he wanted to lay down the tracks of his own album, there was a lot of running from the console booth around into the recording room.
"It's a thing to behold," he said. "I'd have to hit record and allow enough count-in time to hustle around into the other room and into position. That's my burden to bear," he said with a self-aware smirk. All of that running is part of a luxury he knows he's fortunate to have.
"I wrote the whole album in the studio. I laid down all the different parts myself. It was all me, all the time, and I could take my time with it," he said. "It took a brutally long time - about two years from start to finish. I'd love to say it was exactly what I wanted, but the truth is I became numb to it after awhile. When you hear the same thing over and over again, every little detail, you don't hear it objectively anymore."
It's also next to impossible to describe one's self, when analyzing the music out loud. Rock stars have record companies to do that sort of thing. Kuklis shyly fumbles for words.
From an outside observation point, the vocal similarity to John Popper (famed frontman of the band Blues Traveler) is uncanny, and that's the kind of timbre and tone that can't be faked. It is such a pure swing that it can only come from the athleticism of the vocal instrument. Another voice with the same smokey, brassy billow is Johnny Reid. Kuklis has this spacious whisky quality.
Kuklis's forte is his voice, which lends well to gravelly country, bluesy rock and grassroots pop. He is also a strong guitar player, knows his way around keyboards, but has a discomfort with drumming. That part of the recording process was a personal expansion exercise.
He also self deprecates about his lyric writing, but critics would likely say his songs were refreshing stories told with few cliches and plenty of new ways of expressing common emotions and ideas. Tunes like Home, It Tears Me Up Inside (his entry in the CBC Radio Searchlight competition - online voting now underway), The Show and the title track are all "listen again and again" kind of singles.
Now that he is finished recording the album it is time for presenting it to the public. It will be available for download on iTunes and his own website as of March 1. He will be live in concert at Nancy O's on March 11. He is also applying for some of the region's music festivals and investigating a few tour dates in the summer.
"I have a family, two kids, so I can't just wander off and leave it all to my wife. She's suffered enough for my music," he said laughing. "I'm also looking at my studio now, wondering what to do. I'm already thinking about what the next album might bring, and some other artists have already been in for recordings of their own (actor Charlie Ross and singer-songwriter Marcel Gagnon, for example) "but I'm not looking to make a lot more work for myself. I'm looking for a project. I love a good studio project."
A very good one now has his name on it.
