Talking To...Kim Richey
Kim Richey had a variety of careers before establishing a successful solo recording career as well as having had hot songs recorded by the likes of Brooks and Dunn, Trisha Yearwood and Kathy Mattea. She is even responsible for naming a bun!
Fatea had the chance to chat with Kim before her gig with Boo Hewerdine at The Cluny on June 4th about these and a variety of other topics.
Interview with Kim Richey @ The Cluny, June 4th 2009
KR: Kim Richey, HM: Helen Mitchell
HM: Hi Kim, it is so great to finally meet you.
KR: Thanks. You too, Helen, right?
HM: Yep.
KR: You came straight from work? What do you do?
HM: Oh, I work with EBD children, the ones at risk of being put out of mainstream schools.
KR: Oh wow, that must be hard. I don't know if we're talking about the same thing here but I have a degree in Environmental Ed. so I worked with grade school kids at a nature centre but one of my jobs right out of college was at a drug rehab group home facility for teenage boys and I was probably about four to five years older than they were and it was an experience!
HM: yeah when I was first teacher training I'd be teaching kids of eleven, thinking 'They know I'm hardly any older than they are.'
KR: (laughs) Yeah, but I loved the outdoor ed that I did - environmental teaching - grade schools would come into the centre where I worked for, like, two and a half days, then we'd have a new group for the next two and a half days of the school week. We taught them all kinds of natural sciences but mostly through games and hikes and everything was outdoor. It was really great and really fun. They gave me all the kids who caused trouble 'cos I liked them the best.
HM: (laughs) Welcome to my world!
KR: (laughs) A lot of them are just too smart and they're bored...they're just bored.
HM: Or they need their energy channelled in the right way.
KR: Right, right. Yeah, I loved doing that.
HM: So, Kim, what made you go from that into music? That's a pretty massive difference, really!
KR: Well, I always did music at college and everything. I was in bands and plays at college. After that, I didn't do music, I working the Environmental Ed. and working in restaurants. I worked in restaurants for a long, long time, to the point where the last place I worked I was running the restaurant and cooking. It was a small blackboard place, where the specials change every day according to what you get in and it was really, really great. I learned a lot about cooking in that place because if you ran out of something in the middle of dinner, you had to come up with the next special off the top of your head. It was in Bellingham, Washington and the best food ever is along that coastline right there in that area.
HM: Really?
KR: Yeah, seafood - any kind of fantastic seafood - and the climate is a bit like here because stuff grows year round, so they have everything. It was a great place to learn about cooking. So I did that and then I moved to Nashville and that's when I started with my songwriting and making records.
HM: How long were you there before you got your first cut?
KR: I don't know. I was probably there two or three years before I got a publishing deal. That's mainly because you're not really sure what you're meant to be doing. It's not like going for an interview. You just play places and hope someone notices you and that you meet the right people. I avoided doing that for a while because it was really quite scary and intimidating. I was pretty shy too, not very good at the whole self promotion thing, but finally I got a publishing deal and I think the first cut I ever got might have been by a Swedish band. The first time I ever sang on a record was a guy named Radney Foster.
HM: Oh yes, I know his music.
KR: He did a solo record so I sang on a bunch of songs then we had one we'd written together that went to number one.
HM: Nobody Wins?
KR: Yeah.
HM: I guess this follows nicely then, I was thinking about people who have cut your songs - Trisha Yearwood(has cut several), Brooks and Dunn, Eve Selis, Kathy Mattea, among many.
KR: What's Kathy Mattea cut?
HM: Didn't she cut I'm Alright? Yes she did, on her Roses CD.
KR:I don't think I knew that. I don't know a lot of stuff that goes on. It's the publishers. Sometimes they tell me sometimes they don't.
HM: Okay, so if you had to pick, which has been your favourite cut?
KR: Oh, that's too hard. I couldn't really say. They're just different interpretations. I was really happy with one Chapin (Mary Chapin Carpenter) recorded and all the stuff Trisha's (Yearwood) done; she's just a really good friend and great person and singer. I always really like what she does.
HM: You should tell them to come back over here!
KR: Funny, I was thinking the other day Chapin should come back. Have you seen her play?
HM: No, sadly. The last time she was over I was still at uni and she played with Shawn Colvin but I couldn't make it - ten years or so ago.
KR: That must have been after I came over here with her.
HM: Strangely, since we were talking about her, the one and only time I've gotten to see you play live, was when you opened for Trisha Yearwood in Manchester - what - eleven years ago? That's the only time you've been anywhere close.
KR: No, I played here in Newcastle at The Sage with John Hiatt about a year and a half ago.
HM: Oh, I wish I had known, I never read anywhere you were playing with him.
KR: That's right, I remember, my name wasn't in any of the advertising for that tour.
HM: Well, that's a shame as I would have been there. I debated whether to see John Hiatt as it was.
KR: (laughing) Oh well, you're here now!