Weekly > Interviews
Stephen John Kalinich
The name Stephen John Kalinich probably doesn’t ring that many bells to many Beat Surrender readers I would guess, but it;s a name that has been behind some of the biggest hits and most loved songs for years. He’s worked with P.F. Sloan, Art Munson, Kenny Hirsch, Jobete Music, Irving Almo Music, Randy Crawford, Mary Wilson of the Supremes, Odyssey, Clifton Davis and Diana Ross to name just a few.
As well as penning lyrics for other artists and writing poetry, Kalinich has buried in his past a recorded spoken word album that was recorded with Brian Wilson in 1969, an album that was lost to the world until Light In The Attic kept up their impressive record of finding lost gems and releasing them. The result of which see’s his album A World Of Peace Must Come finally seeing the light of day now.
I caught up with a man who has many stories to tell, particularly about one of my big heroes in music Brian Wilson.
A World Of Peace Must Come is being released finally this month, I presumed you’d got to a point where you thought it was never going to come out?
I always believed it would come out some day. Whether I would be alive when it happened I did not know. Ten years ago or so I had triple by-pass surgery and the doctor said I was fortunate to come through it. So I am grateful for every breath and the Peace album is also about this outer and inner peace first. Starting in yourself and then in the world.
It was recorded back in 1969 with co-production from Brian Wilson, how come it didn’t surface sooner than this?
At one point Mike Curb offered to put out America I Know You as a single but somehow the negotiations did not happen. He talked to me on it. He loved it. He was very excited but the people were demanding too much for me as an artist now that I look back at it, I had bad advice.
Brian was always helpful. He went to Mo Ostin and the head of many records companies and basically beside Curb they thought it was not commercial but we wrote it as a call for World Peace .It was like a home recording mostly Brian’s idea because at that time in my twenties I did not have a clue. I never wrote to be commercial I wrote because I was inspired and thought I had something to share with others.Then along the way people rejected it but in my heart I felt I was onto something important and beautiful and there are some people who hate my ideas and think I am dated and corny, and they are entitled to their opinions.
But I am passionate dedicated and World peace must begin with each one of us. It is a reaching out. I am not a big one for causes or movements. It is an inspired individual song from my soul…
Working with Brian Wilson must have been a real experience in many ways, how did you find it?
At that time Brian was the sweetest funniest kindest soul perhaps I had ever met. We loved each other like brothers and I do not think at that time the other Beach Boys with the exception for Dennis was into me and later Al Jardine. They thought it was noncommercial I would imagine, off the game plan, but Brian embraced me, healed me. I can never forget it. He was married to Marilyn then and I still have a great sweet relationship with her now and her new husband Daniel Rutherford was very helpful in getting me to Matt and I love him too and I think Brian does too.
Did he have any bizarre recording techniques that he used with you?
He was amazing.On America I Love You America I Know You put a microphone on me two times one in the shower and another in his bedroom in Bel Air and he recorded it on a mono cassette recorder and the crickets were singing making their sound in the background, so there was only me and the crickets and he took that recording on the cassette.
Instead of putting me into the studio, he put a microphone on the mono cassette real close and the players like Tommy Morgan and Stella Castellucci improvised with Brian giving the directions and the results is the record you hear. That was the most produced one. We used his dogs and so many other fun things it was amazing each track was unique. After America he said let us do it like a home recording, simple tracks and we began that way. He wrote liner notes for this album and it was the first one and we planned to do more it was World Of Peace Part one but that is a far as we got…
What a God given talent he has and as a friend then he was brilliant, kind, supportive and did what he wanted. I think many people were not so kind to me and he was the best. I have heard it said in some quarters that I am a bad influence on him but I do not believe it. I was a friend who never did drugs and tried to live the poems…
Do you feel the album is just as relevant to any listeners now as it was back when it was first recorded?
I feel in many ways it is more relevant now than then because like in The Deer The Elk The Raven
“Streets were dark and shadows lonely
Highways spreading into cities
People laughing drunk not caring
not comprehending living only walking as i’m dying
blaming all except themselves for their lives of utter desperation…” and so on.
This is going on in the world still people need inner and outer peace more caring values more spirituality not just geared toward success but growth as souls on this journey of life…
Weblinks
Add to favouritesThe album is mainly spoken word, how easy or hard do you find writing tracks that will draw the listener in, in the same way that songs can, particularly in portraying emotions?
I write from my passion and feelings I let it out I express it. It is what it is .When it flows out, it comes, I never know what will trigger it off. I think in general people respond more to music but I think spoken word can go deep and touch lives in ways that songs alone can not usually go. Music can also be the music of the poems, the words, the sounds, then hopefully once in awhile you connect…
I want the poems to be physical, to be like Mick Jagger or the Who, I want to go for it, be moving, stimulating, powerful stuff that make an impact. Give the vitality of rock ‘n’ roll and not always tame it down but some words demand quietness softness and if it is done properly you can can connect with some readers. I do not write for intellectuals but for street people for every day people not for critics or people who feel superior.
Light In The Attic seem to have a brilliant record of releasing lost gems, have you had chance to listen to anything else on the label?
I love this label, to be honest with you I have listened but I am a new listener and I love there records but Daniel Rutherford and many of my friends in UK made me more aware of them. I love the way they get involved with their artist and I have never been treated better by a company than Matt and Light In The Attic. None of the ego money that you have, just about the record and what you want to do. They are inspirational to me. They believe in their artist and not just the sales. I have never been treated this good in my life and it gives me hope…for mankind that their are people who care this much and are still human.
Most of my life I have been a marginal artist probably considered a failure or someone with potential who never quite got launched..but they are different at least to me. That is my experience with Light In The Attic and I am full of gratitude to them…
I’ve heard on the grapevine that you are a fantastic storyteller, what’s your favourite rock ‘n’ roll anecdote that you can share with us?
I do not know if I can live up to that but one of my favorite stories besides the one that Dennis would have me get up on a table in R Chows and recite and also on the top of his dark brown Rolls Corniche convertible but the story I like the best is this one…
It is early 10 ish morning we are at Santa Monica City College Open Air Outdoor stone theater, a Roan Theater and Dennis puts me on stage and has me recite a poem and he directs me on how to do it and he yells at me more emotion and other commands and I really get into it, soon there are people all around and when I finish they give me loud applause, my first! Possibly the first of the rock of the rock ‘n’ roll and poetry world colliding and meeting at the same time…
You’e worked with people like Randy Crawford, Diana Ross and Mary Wilson in the past, did everything always go smoothly with them or did ego’ ever get in the way on their part?
Most the time it went smoothly with the artist not always with writing partners. There are so many ways to collaborate. Sometimes they give you the music first which I can do but I prefer words first then melody, the change growing out of the dynamics of the two, I prefer working with the other person I love the interaction…aliveness.
Are there any musicians out there at the moment that you’d like to pen lyrics for?
I would love to do a project where Paul McCartney puts melody or a concerto to one of my poems or Pete Townsend..I am also writing with a 21 year old from Brighton UK, Paul Steel who I love and I want to write with Steve Wrigley and Glen Richardson of the Brighton Beach Boys..and do a dance record with a poem.
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