McKinney recently discussed the musical reunion that led to the new acoustic rock project and the first album release of his musical career.
Do-it-yourself: “I always wanted to make an album. I had been in the studio a couple of times over the years with limited money. I’ve recorded stuff with various people, but nothing ever got off the tape. I decided to do it myself, so I got into digital home recording and started throwing money at it. There was a lot to learn so it took a while. I did some other tracks. I’m not a singer so I had other people come over and sing. I also re-recorded a lot of the Borderline originals as I was learning how to do all of this stuff.”
Starting from scratch: “I hadn’t talked to Renee in 25 years. She lived in Chicago for a while and was in Florida for years and then I heard she was back in town at the end of 2015. I showed up at her place one Sunday morning after church. I asked her if she wanted to work on some music and she said, ‘OK.’ I wanted to do the re-recorded Borderline songs but she said, ‘I don’t want to sing those,’ so we started writing.”
Finding a groove: “Renee hadn’t been singing for a long time so she had to get her voice back in shape while I was still figuring out my stuff on the recording end. We had to redo a bunch of stuff because I botched something or whatever so it took about four years.”
Musical reunion pt. 1: “Renee means a lot to me. She was a big part of my life for a longtime. It was very cathartic for us to reconcile personally and some of that shows in the songs. All of what I call the syrupy music is on this record. The idea was to get all of that stuff out first and then do a second album with the faster stuff, but we haven’t had a chance to do that yet.”
Artist info: www.stilllife-music.com.
Contact this contributing writer at 937-287-6139 or e-mail at donthrasher100@gmail.com.
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