Stream two new songs by Kevin Devine (playing Union Transfer on November 21st)

Singer-songwriter, guitarist, and indie rock and roller Kevin Devine has been one busy fellow. He’s got two new collections of music on the way with his group, The Goddamn Band. Both albums – Bulldozer, and Bubblegum – are being released on his own label Devinyl Records.

Bubblegum, produced by Jesse Lacey of Brand New, is a full on rock and roll record. Bulldozer was produced by Rob Schnapf (Elliot Smith, Beck) and reveals the more singer-songwriter side of Devine’s talents. There’s quite a difference between the two records; what threads them together however is Devine’s excellent songwriting talents. With his latest records, not only does Devine continue his streak of making excellent music, he’s become quite the business person as well, starting his own label and raising over $100,000 on Kickstarter to make his records. There’s an excellent interview with Kevin that you can read here on Purevolume. however when asked what drove him to self-release the two album, he said:

I wasn’t super satisfied with the experience I had with the most recent record label I worked with and I also have enough self-awareness to see that they were the sixth record label i’ve worked with over six albums in ten years so the fault doesn’t lie exclusively with them. There’s either something about what I do or the way I do it where it doesn’t seem to connect in the best way with the traditional structure. I think that also has something to do with the fact that these places are financially struggling and I’m not the kind of person who would make a label a lot of money at this point in my career.

I kind of thought the crowd-funding thing was interesting but I had a whole mess of fear based somewhat ethical concerns. Most of which I addressed pretty explicitly in the essay that accompanies the Kickstarter campaign but I ultimately decided to do it because I wanted to do something different and see if either A, I was super misguided in thinking I had the kind of connection with the audience that I thought I had or B, I was correct in assuming that they’re not concerned where the records come out label-wise as long as I keep making them and playing shows and thankfully the latter was what ended up happening.

Devine and The Goddamn Band play Union Transfer on Thursday, November 21st. Go here for tickets. Below, listen to “Fiscal Cliff,” and “Bloodhound.”