Stories
abound about the genius songwriter done in by stage fright,
poverty, voices in the head, agoraphobia, fear of
failure, fear of success, shattered heart, broken soul and
the old standby,
drugs. We’re not sure which afflict Kevin Tihista but
none of them have stopped this Chicagoan from consistently
finishing and releasing critically-acclaimed albums.
Kevin
was 30 and had played professionally for a decade (Triple Fast
Action, Veruca Salt) before he
actually finished
one of
his own songs. But, since 1999 he's been working at a feverish
rate, averaging three or four new ones a week. "Once I
got it, I was a freak," he says. "I didn't stop.
I was afraid to stop because I didn't want to go back to
where I was. I'm still afraid to stop. So I just try and
write as
much as I possibly can."
Although
Home Demons contains a few bona fide studio out takes, most
of the tracks were recorded
in Kevin’s
box room at home surrounded by his guitars, cheap keyboards
and Kiss
figures, in the company of long suffering girlfriend Tonya
(co-cover star) and their teenage cat Rat.
"I
just write them, demo them, and put them in this big pile.
And whenever it's time to make
the next record
I'll just
pick out some songs to record. But once I get into the studio
I really go into overdrive, and I'll write even more freakishly
than I do now. I'll replace old songs with new ones and it's
crazy..."
Many from Kevin’s demo pile ended up in full-blown studio
form on the 2004 release Wake Up Captain, which The Chicago
Reader named the #1 Chicago release of the year, and UK’s
UNCUT voted in their year-end Top 60. Further, MOJO described
KT as a “a wry, dreamy-voiced soul let loose in a deluxe
soft rock playpen” (that’s a good thing) and the
Onion compared Wake Up Captain to the “early-‘70s
work of John Lennon and Harry Nilsson.”
Inspired
by the sheer number of unreleased home demos collecting on
CD-Rs in Kevin’s apartment, Parasol is releasing the
first volume of Kevin Tihista’s Home Demons series. Volume
1 features fourteen tracks including the original version of
the Wake Up Captain track “Sweet,” a cover of the
Dave Mason hit “We Just Disagree” and songs from
the download only collection “Dracula.”
"I know it's weird, but I went through all my teens and
my 20s without writing a single song," he says. "I
feel like I have all those years to make up for."
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Press for "Wake Up Captain"...
“Some people want to fill the world with silly love
songs…”
CHICAGO READER
“He sounds like the late Elliott Smith might have if
he’d been weaned on ELO instead of The Beatles – a
wry, dreamy-voiced soul let loose in a deluxe soft rock playpen.”
MOJO MAGAZINE
“A challenging and often moving song cycle…one
that ought to separate the stage-shy songwriter from the
Ed Harcourt pack, while securing him the respect and following
he deserves on his native shores.”
STYLUS MAGAZINE
“
17 skewed pop masterpieces on which Tihista tests his fragile
state of equilibrium to the limit…[and] suggests the
demons that inspired this beautiful and disturbed record
are still lurking in the shadows.”
UNCUT MAGAZINE
