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We’re very excited to have some time today with acclaimed Scottish Indie rock muso Kev Sherry; greetings and salutations Kev and welcome to Vents Magazine! Before we charge down the proverbial Q&A musical pathway, how is 2025 finding you and yours?
Hi. 2025 has started at a fair pace and only shows signs of increasing speed – both with my solo releases and with my work in Disco Mary. Add a two year old daughter into the mix and life is hectic but beautiful.
Major kudos and accolades on your freshly-minted sophomore solo album Wrath of Can which is set to light up record charts across the ever-lovin’ globe when it drops this March 14! Starting at the top, can you talk about what inspired this triumphant follow-up to 2020’s Foxy Orthodoxy?
Ha! Very kind and hyperbolic words. Though I do appreciate it. Inspiration – basically my wife. When we got together, songs started pouring out of me at a rate I’d never experiences before. And it’s still happening. Songs about her, songs about life, songs from the depths of my twisted mind. My creativity has exploded like never before. So I figured I’d better get this batch of songs recorded and released before the batch of songs inspired by my daughter see the light of day. There’s also a sense of reckoning with the music industry in the songs – especially on the last single, Everything A Mother Could Want. For years I didn’t really talk about our experiences on a mator label in case it jeopardized new music I was involved in. Then recently I just thought, ‘f@@k it! Who cares. Follow the muse and ignore all the crap around it.’ So the album really has a feeling of release to it, like I’m finally doing exactly what I want, and not what other people, be that band mates, record labels, or audiences, want. The title was inspired by me trying to b@llsh@t my wife into believing that as a child I had a bit part in the Star Trek movie Wrath of Khan dressed as a plant. IT was an absurd notion but I was so straight-faced about it that at one point she thought I might actually be telling the truth.
The Wrath of Can LP was produced by two time SAY Award nominated producer Chris McCrory, who a lot of folks may know as the frontman for indie rock quarter Catholic Action! What was it like to collaborate with Chris on this new pip of a solo LP?
Chris is amazing. I recorded most of the instruments and vocals at home (and did the drums in Chem19 studios near Glasgow). Then I sent it all to Chris and asked him to just run with it. The cool big reverb sound, the live vibe, and some of the amazing psychedelic keyboard sounds are all his doing. He really brought it to life. The production of the record is definitely all about collaboration. I think it’s really important not to be precious about your stuff, and to trust other creative people to do what they do best.
Is it a little too Sophie’s Choice to ask you if you have a favorite tune on the new Wrath of Can LP? And, if you do, what especially resounds for you with this specific favorite tune?
My favourite track is probably Milk White Teeth. It’s one of those songs that just happened very quickly, almost popping out fully formed. It’s about my wife and I, and what we were doing through the years before we actually met. As in, what was happening in our lives at the exact same time, an ocean apart (she’s American). There’s a lot of love and admiration in it, and I also really like the composition of it, the odd chords and the way the melody moves around them.
We’re big admirers of the Everything a Mother Could Want track which also served as the lead single off the new Wrath of Can album! What’s the VH1-Behind the Music origin story of this gem of a ditty?
Ah, it’s the classic ‘being on a major record label and all that it entails’ story. We were a small indie band from Glasgow with some catchy tunes and we were picked up by Island/Universal Records – and maybe they didn’t really quite know what to do with us because they tried to market us in a certain way to appeal to a bigger audience. And it wasn’t really us or what we were about. The song is about the expectations that are placed on your shoulders when a lot of money is put behind you, and a lot of different opinions come into the mix. And how that can affect your mental health or your view of yourself. W ewere lucky in that the sotrng friendship between us all helped us get through it relatively unscathed. But ultimately we learned that if you are going to work in music honesty, you can’t let other people’s expectations interfere with what you are doing. I used the metaphor of a son trying to appease a socially ambitious mother to explore these notions.
How is the Wrath of Can album similar to your freshman LP, Foxy Orthodoxy? How is it different?
It feels pretty different to me. Foxy Orthodoxy was really about me trying to find my feet as a solo artist in the wake of my band Attic Lights. It’s an album of really putting out the feelers and trying to figure out my sound. Wrath of Can is definitely much more confident in itself and what it is all about. It feels like my first ‘proper’ solo album in that respect.
In the wake of the March 14 release of Wrath of Can, what does your touring/performing dance card look like?
Mental. My Kev Sherry solo gigs are starting to get arranged but at the minute my gigging and release schedule is dominted by my band Disco Mary. We play a lot of shows and this year we have a continuous stream of releases lined up. I’ll be fittin gin the solo shows around the Disco Mary commitments for the immediate future.
Word ‘round industry campfire has it that, on top of being a true musician’s musician, you’re also one heck of a comic book scribe, slinging words the way a short-order cook slings hash at the local diner; congrats! Can you talk to readers about how you fell under the siren call of the four-colored graphic novel world and how it does – or does not – play into your work as a music artist?
I’ve always been a massive comic book fan, from a kid onwards. And it’s an area I’ve always wanted to work within. So I just went for it, the same way I go for things in music, and was lucky enough to get my graphic novel ‘Painted’ published by a big comic publisher. At the minute I’m in the process of learning to draw so I can actually draw my own comics as well as write them. And part of that is trying to link comics and music together by creating little comic strip stories for each song on the album and releasing them as both music videos and also as online comic strips. I’m really loving the process, though it’s pretty time consuming. I’d like to get another graphic novel published sometime soon – I just need to find the time to work on it. There’s really no money in comics. It’s definitely something you have to love whole heartedly to actually do.
Who are some of the key musical heroes in your world who have inspired you and influenced your own pathway in music?
Ohh. Too many to mention. I love classic songwriting in the mould of The Beatles, Neil Young, Dylan etc… But these days my biggest inspiration is artists who lose themselves in creativity and create original sounding stuff with deep emotional resonance. My current favourite bands are Fontaines DC and Young Fathers. Every time I listen to them I get inspired. As a Glaswegian I’d be remiss not to include local hometown heroes like Teenage Fanclub and Belle & Sebastian… and well…. I could go on and on.
At the end of the day. What do you hope listeners walk away with after giving many-a-spin to your new magnum opus of an LP, Wrath of Can?
I kinda hope it opens people up to the world of lo-fi indie rock music. These days the world is dominated by pop – much of which is fantastic… and stuff that is called alternative or indie, is really just pop marketed in a certain way. So I feel we are due a renaissance at some point of genuine left of centre indie rock music. And I hope Wrath of Can fills that need in people.
