Could you shed a little light on the history of The Tasty Kings, who’s involved, how you came together, and what the sonic journey has been like?
Andrew Morse: The Tasty Kings was the name of a Chinese restaurant on East 14th Street in New York that I passed one night. I called up my friend Kevin and suggested it as a new name. Before that, we had put out a few records as Nice Boys from New York. It was a rotating cast of musicians over the years— for example, the late great Howie Wyeth was the drummer and piano player on our first few records. After he passed away, Charley Drayton took over, which was lucky. I don’t know of anyone better.
As far as the sonic journey, when I was a student at the green pastures of Columbia University, there was this killer guitar player, Kevin Trainor. I couldn’t believe some of the shit he could do— great lead, great rhythm, slide. He played with this educated recklessness, a sort of nutty structure that put a smile on your face. Anytime I heard he was playing, even if it was at some horrendous frat party or something, I’d try to catch him.
Now, at that time I was in a couple of bands and playing a few solo gigs around town. One night this girl came up to me and said, “Kevin Trainor says you’re a good guitar player.” I couldn’t believe it. I got his number, called him up, and went over to his place on 109th Street. We sat there and played all afternoon. I remember he taught me “Pale Blue Eyes” by the Velvet Underground. In addition to being fantastic on guitar, Kevin also had pretty wide-ranging taste in music.
For example, he loved country music – George Jones, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, Sr., The Osborne Brothers, etc. I mean, he knows all that stuff and a lot more. So I asked him for a few key albums to learn from, and he suggested the _MGM Hank Williams_boxed set, that big collection from Sun Records, and a bunch more. It was like going to college, except a lot more interesting.
At the same time, this was around 1980;* the Stones* were just killing it. Everything they released sounded so different and wild. The quality of the songwriting just destroyed me. For me, it’s always been Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and the Stones.
For the latest album, Native Tongue, you have Blondie Chaplin covering vocals. How did he come to be involved, and is there a shared history between him and the band?
Andrew Morse: Blondie goes back a few years with the great piano player and composer Stephen Barber. I think they worked together on a record. Also, Blondie and Darryl know each other from the Stones. Anyway, my place in New York got flooded out, and I was moaning about it to Stephen, saying I didn’t know what to do in Texas for the next couple of weeks, and he suggested that I call Blondie to see what his voice would sound like on a couple of my songs. So Blondie came down to Austin. We had a big pile of songs, and Dave Boyle, the engineer at Churchhouse, would just bring them up with the scratch vocal, and Blondie would either say, “Okay, let’s try this one,” or “What else you got?” He came back down to Austin another couple of times, and then we finished off the vocals in L.A. at East/West.
Blondie’s an interesting guy to work with. He sings with such openness and abandon that you just want to sit back and see what he does. In some of the songs, he stayed pretty close to the original melody, but on a couple, he really took them someplace new, changed a line or two, and so on. He also harmonizes beautifully with himself, which is cool. And he’s a terrific guitar player.
Plenty of classic sounds and styles echo out from these songs. What are your influences in general, and who do you see woven through this album’s DNA?
Andrew Morse: As I say, for me, it’s always been Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, and the Stones. Between those three, you can hear pretty much all the influences— country, blues, rock, disco, whatever. I really love the music of John Prine. I love Jerry Lee during both his rock and country periods. A few more I love Johnny Cash, The Allman Brothers, T-Model Ford, Mississippi John Hurt, Tina Turner, Eddie Cochran, Chuck Berry, Cole Porter, Gershwin, Rogers & Hammerstein, Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, Gordon Lightfoot, Loretta Lynn, Emmylou Harris, Merle Haggard, Al Green, Aretha, Hendrix, Charley Patton, Chris Whitley, Jimmie Rodgers, the Ramones, Lou Reed, the Who, Sly Stone, Toots & the Maytals. Then, of course, there are the Texans – Townes Van Zandt, Blaze Foley, Rodney Crowell, Guy Clark, Steve Earle. Those guys have taught me a lot. I notice this is just turning into a list of some of my favorite artists, but I think that is ultimately what influences you, the music that you love. Most of them have written at least a few songs, but of course, a great singer makes it sound like they wrote it, regardless of whether they did. Look at Tony Bennett.
Really, I have this crazed melting pot of musical influences— to me, that’s one of the greatest things about the States, the music. You listen to the lyrics of “Red Dirt Girl” by Emmylou Harris, or the lyrics of “Poison Girl” by Chris Whitley – such a range of fantastic writing. There’s that song by John Prine, “Far From Me”— Justin Townes Earle has a beautiful version. I never paid enough attention to that song until I heard him sing it, which is another aspect of all this. Somebody takes a song written by someone else and delivers what many people consider the ultimate version. The Jimi Hendrix “All Along the Watchtower”, for example.
You are the band’s songwriter. Is there a recognizable songwriting process, or does each song come to life uniquely?
Andrew Morse: I think it was Lou Reed who said something like, if he had a good title, he was halfway home. I understand that. I usually have a list of around twenty or thirty songs that I rotate, like shish kebabs, working on a few at the same time. Sometimes I’ll focus really hard on one or two, especially if a record needs to be finished. Last year the opening lines to a song about a white whale came to me in a dream. I woke up and wrote ‘em down. I try to push myself, to dig out something rather than just fill up space. It usually takes a while. I go through a lot of pens and notepads. Each song gets its own file folder, where I throw in the various notes and drafts to keep track of what the heck I’m doing. It’s easy to get lost. If I’m stuck, sometimes, instead of asking myself how a song should go, I’ll act like it already exists and say, “How does this song go again?” That’s a nice way to trick yourself into writing a song. Kind of like pre-remembering the past. I used to write songs that had a lot of autobiography in them. Now, I write more in hallucinogenic metaphors. One thing that seems to happen a lot is I’ll work for a few hours on a song with no success, then I’ll wake up the next morning with a line that seems to click into place, like the piece of a puzzle. I suppose often it’s about the marination, where you live with an idea or a few lines until something comes along. And I’m looking to create something that feels fully baked and complete to continue with cooking comparisons. Maybe that’s just a fancy way of saying I do a lot of re-writing.
One comforting thing about songwriting is that you get to sit there with an instrument, and there’s always something to discover.
Are there any recurring themes or ideas in the lyrics, anything you feel passionate about, or a particular conversation you want to start?
Andrew Morse: I guess most of my songs have to do with love in some form or another. One topic that’s been striking me in the past few years is the difficulty so many black motorists seem to have with the police. “Done & Dusted” is about wandering around the Village during the early days of the pandemic, seeing how empty the neighborhood had become and wondering how many more people would die from Covid. And we do have a record coming up that has a bunch of songs about contemporary life in the USA.
Do you have any plans to tour the album? If so, where will you be gigging, and where would be somewhere new that you like to play in the future?
Andrew Morse: It’s been a while since I’ve gone out, but I’d love to, with either this record or a couple that we’re finishing off. I love to play live, with a band or solo. These past few years I found myself in the studio trying to get a bunch of songs polished enough to where I could live with them.
And finally, is there any songwriter, artist, or band you would love to collaborate or co-write with?
Andrew Morse: Songwriting for me is a very plodding, intimate, slow-moving thing. I know people who can spend the afternoon writing and come up with three songs. I’m lucky if I get three lines. So I doubt anyone would want to write with me.
I wrote “Done & Dusted” with the Stones in mind, but when it was done, I thought it would be good for Tina Turner.
Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, and best of luck with everything.
