Nathan Kelly has said in the past that as a musician he was really "more of an enthusiastic amateur" in his own estimation, but the new facts are now probably too overwhelming even for his self-deprecation.
With the release of his fresh album and his inclusion in the cast of The First Waltz all-star show, the realization is out there that Kelly is one of the city's premier rock 'n' rollers, and he'll just have to get used to that.
Kelly's band Crones just released their CD Air Chud (a term of endearment among bandmates and friends, said Kelly). It's their first full-length album after some EP releases over the years, some live recordings, and some obscurities. It sets the band up on a new platform, where they have to introduce and explain themselves to a whole new set of people beyond their familiar fan base.
So we will start with the name. Crones.
"It's from folklore," said Kelly. "It is the flip-side of the witch figure. She is generally seen as a force of good. It is a neutral term but one that has positive connotations."
The band is an actual band, with a set roster, not just a Nathan Kelly mask. The other band members include Cal Hilde (keys and guitars), Landon Hilde (drums), Chris
Dibbens (bass) and Britt Meierhofer (vocals). A lot of the band members also play multiple instruments and sing as needed.
They have numerous guest collaborators as well, like Corey Wildemute, Sean Wesley Wood and many others.
"I was in a band called The Concerns of Royalty with Cal, so when we started doing this, Landon became a natural fit for us," Kelly explained. "I was a big fan of Chris's bass playing; we had worked together a bit in the past. And Britt - who in Prince George doesn't love Britt?" She being the creative force behind popular acts like Goodnightmare and BrittAM. "I like having something to sing against, and her vocals seem just perfect for that."
The writing process is almost constant, for the band. Each concert appearance includes a couple of new songs, Kelly said, so eventually they had enough material packaged up that the band members enjoyed performing and audiences seemed to enjoy hearing.
"I never really sit down with an agenda," said Kelly about his song-writing techniques. "It can start with just a couple of snatches of conversation, then a rhyme comes to mind, I'll have a little melody line in my head, and it starts to tumble together. It's a mostly subconscious process that probably shouldn't be delved into. Safety first."
He usually doesn't block off time in which to focus on writing. Instead, he'll go about his daily business and when that inspires some creative sparks, he'll whip out his phone and sing or vocalize the instrumentation into the built-in voice recorder. Later, alone or with bandmates, he will flesh it out.
"I want it to be catchy, at least to me. I want it to have some sort of meaning behind it, even if it isn't totally apparent what that is," he continued. "There's some 'sad boy' stuff in the mix, because sometimes I'm a sad boy, but more than not the song is upbeat - up-tempo, at least, even if the lyrics aren't. That creates a nice tension sometimes."
Kelly's parents introduced him to music lessons as a child with a violin, but the bulk of his learning was on the guitar and self-taught.
"It was chore to me, as a child, but later it became fun and now it's what I love to do most," he said.
They rehearse at the Hilde home, in a space lovingly provided to them over the past three-plus years by the Hilde parents.
The album was likewise homemade. Even the cover art - a photo of a skydiving friend of Kelly's father - was designed and hand-cut into the CD package. "We consider all this a home-spun project. You want to have that personal touch," he said.
He's a home-boy in every sense. Kelly was born just down the Cariboo Highway in Quesnel, raised in Prince George after that, and he's a fan of his town.
"I enjoy Prince George on a personal level. I feel very comfortable here and will most likely always consider it to be home," he said, and that goes for the musical community as much as the lifestyle community. "I find few things as fun as going out to local shows and checking out new bands," and when that band is his own, "the most important part is, I love all those people so much. We respect each other musically, and we have a similar temperament as people, so it's all a good fit."
To hear the album, go to the links on the Crones page on Facebook, or look Crones up at the Bandcamp website.
