...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead's Conrad Keely is always keeping busy. As TOD return to the area this month, playing October 18th at the Highline Ballroom and October 20th at The Williamsburg Hall of Music, the band is still supporting last year's incredible release, So Divided. Shortly before the release of So Divided, I spoke to Conrad about the many instruments he plays, and his early life in Olympia, WA and Austin, TX
DA: Could you give our readers a rundown of all the instruments you play?
CK: My mother says I had a drum set when I was two but don't remember it. I started with the piano at age eleven, then learned guitar shortly afterwards. In high school I joined the orchestra and played upright bass. Around this time my late friend Brady Gates lent me his saxophone and I picked that up, applying fingering I learned from playing recorder. And then I painstakingly taught myself drums shortly afterwards. I only recently began to learn the viola and violin, and I recently bought a clarinet which I was able to apply my knowledge of saxophone to.
DA: You've moved around quite a bit, right?
CK: I was born in Nuneaton, England. Six weeks after I was born, we moved to Thailand and I was raised by my father's family in Bangkok. Then we moved to Hawaii when I was four. We moved back to England for three years when I was eight then returned to Hawaii, then moved to Olympia when I was sixteen. That's more or less the whole story.
DA: Were there any underlying circumstances that prompted your move to Olympia?
CK: We had originally intended to move to Seattle, but while we were there we met a person who had a house for rent in Lacey, what you might call a suburb of Olympia. That was how we ended up there.
DA: A lot of stuff has come out of Olympia; it's the home of record labels like K Records and Kill Rock Stars, there was the whole Riot Grrrl thing, and in general it pretty much became a Mecca for young musicians. What was going on by time you got there?
CK: All that was going on while I was there. The first show I ever went to was the Melvins, Nirvana and Beat Happening. I noted Nirvana in my diary as "a shitty metal band", which they probably were at the time. Then two years later they were the mind-blowing band people now remember. Beat Happening were my favorite, but there were a lot of great bands, some of which only a few people still remember. The number of bands at the time was definitely a bizarre abnormality, as if there were something in the water.
DA: Like Olympia, Austin has quite a music scene of its own. By time you relocated there, you had played in a couple of different bands. How much did life start to change once you got to Austin?
CK: It changed completely, and I have to equate a lot of that simply to the weather. In Olympia, I suffered from the lack of sunlight and felt depressed a lot of time. In Austin, I felt an explosion of pent up energy, and immediately surrounded myself with a youthful and energetic circle of friends, with whom I am still close to up to this day, even though most have moved to all different parts of the world.
DA: Could you give our readers a rundown of all the instruments you play?
CK: My mother says I had a drum set when I was two but don't remember it. I started with the piano at age eleven, then learned guitar shortly afterwards. In high school I joined the orchestra and played upright bass. Around this time my late friend Brady Gates lent me his saxophone and I picked that up, applying fingering I learned from playing recorder. And then I painstakingly taught myself drums shortly afterwards. I only recently began to learn the viola and violin, and I recently bought a clarinet which I was able to apply my knowledge of saxophone to.
DA: You've moved around quite a bit, right?
CK: I was born in Nuneaton, England. Six weeks after I was born, we moved to Thailand and I was raised by my father's family in Bangkok. Then we moved to Hawaii when I was four. We moved back to England for three years when I was eight then returned to Hawaii, then moved to Olympia when I was sixteen. That's more or less the whole story.
DA: Were there any underlying circumstances that prompted your move to Olympia?
CK: We had originally intended to move to Seattle, but while we were there we met a person who had a house for rent in Lacey, what you might call a suburb of Olympia. That was how we ended up there.
DA: A lot of stuff has come out of Olympia; it's the home of record labels like K Records and Kill Rock Stars, there was the whole Riot Grrrl thing, and in general it pretty much became a Mecca for young musicians. What was going on by time you got there?
CK: All that was going on while I was there. The first show I ever went to was the Melvins, Nirvana and Beat Happening. I noted Nirvana in my diary as "a shitty metal band", which they probably were at the time. Then two years later they were the mind-blowing band people now remember. Beat Happening were my favorite, but there were a lot of great bands, some of which only a few people still remember. The number of bands at the time was definitely a bizarre abnormality, as if there were something in the water.
DA: Like Olympia, Austin has quite a music scene of its own. By time you relocated there, you had played in a couple of different bands. How much did life start to change once you got to Austin?
CK: It changed completely, and I have to equate a lot of that simply to the weather. In Olympia, I suffered from the lack of sunlight and felt depressed a lot of time. In Austin, I felt an explosion of pent up energy, and immediately surrounded myself with a youthful and energetic circle of friends, with whom I am still close to up to this day, even though most have moved to all different parts of the world.
