By ERIC SCHELKOPF
Chicago musician Brian Krumm’s first solo album was born out of the pandemic.
Krumm fronts the band The Great Crusaders. He wrote the songs on his debut solo album, "Just Fade Away,” during the 2020 shutdown.
The album was released on June 2 on Chicago independent record label Pravda Records. Krumm and His Barfly Friends will hold an acoustic CD release show at 8 p.m. Sept. 9 at Uncommon Ground, 3800 N. Clark St., Chicago.
Tickets are available at Uncommon Ground’s website, uncommonground.com.
I had the chance to talk to Krumm about his new project, Brian Krumm and His Barfly Friends.
Q – Great to talk to you. Are you happy that “Just Fade Away” is being released on Pravda Records, which is one of Chicago’s longest running independent record labels?
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve known Kenn Goodman for years and he actually has helped out The Great Crusades, my other band, in the past.
He got us placed on some very high profile TV shows, including the season finale of “True Blood,” which was amazing. And I think Pravda is just on to something these days.
The artists that they’re putting out are all putting out amazing records. I know that they just signed Nathan Graham who is a great singer/songwriter and is based in Chicago.
They are really paying attention to people who are making great music. I have been admiring Pravda for quite some time.
Q – Of course, the album is called “Just Fade Away.” I know you started writing songs for the album during the pandemic shutdown. Does the album’s title refer to you wishing the pandemic would just fade away?
It probably has a bunch of different meanings. During the lockdown, I gave myself an hour to try to write a song at 5 p.m. every day along with a shot of whiskey, truth be told.
Like everybody else, we were all confused about whether we could go inside or if we could see other people. My wife actually came up with the idea. She suggested that rather than me moping and pacing around, that I should try to write a batch of songs.
And after 25 days, I had 25 songs.
Some people thought the album’s title was a nod to Buddy Holly’s song “Not Fade Away.” I just thought “Just Fade Away” fit for that collection of songs and it also worked with the artwork my friend came up with.
It didn’t really having anything to do with wanting the pandemic to go away. But that’s what we were all feeling and hoping for.
It took a lot longer than anybody thought it was going to take. And it’s still not completely gone.
Q – How did you go about choosing the 11 songs that are on “Just Fade Away?”
I just started sending Christian Moder, who’s my lifelong friend, the tunes, which I just recorded on my iPhone.
I just sent him these recordings pretty much every day after I finished one and we just worked on the ones that started naturally coming together. There’s still another batch of songs that are waiting to be worked on, but these were the first ones that we got to and these were the ones that felt most natural to work on.
Q – But you said the rest of them might be released at some time?
Yeah. It’s going to be a similar process for what we did for this initial first record.
Q – Were you surprised that you actually wrote 25 songs in 25 days?
Yeah, I was very surprised. The Great Crusades have been putting out records since 1997, so I’ve been doing that for more than 20 years.
This process, where there was no preconceived notions about what the end result was going to be, was super refreshing to me, to just have that blank slate.
I did surprise myself. After I wrote the first five, I said to myself, ‘Wow, I guess I do have some more things to say, some more stories to tell, some more memories to sort of mine and make them into songs.’
So it was pretty cool. I was happy with the end result and still want to write more.
That was the one positive thing that came out of the pandemic.
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