Drum As You Are

Independent rocker happy to continue making great music

FOR MORE THAN 30 years, Kevin Fennell has been guided by an overpowering urge to make the best rock music fans have ever experienced.

His band’s name may, therefore, be a bit of a misnomer.

Westerville resident Fennell, 54, is the drummer for independent rock band Guided by Voices. Though its line-up has fluctuated over the last three decades, and the group was disbanded from 2005 to 2010, Guided by Voices has for years maintained a strong following in the indie rock community.

Fennell was one of Guided by Voices’ founding members. He, singer and chief songwriter Robert Pollard, and guitarist Mitch Mitchell, all living in Dayton at the time, got together in 1982, running through a long list of temporary band names – the Geese, the Tweezers, the Needmores, Dash Riprock and the Hair- spray Boys, Coyote Call, Acid Ranch –before settling on Guided by Voices.

“We had a different name every week,” says Fennell.

Even before the band formed, Fennell and Mitchell were in bands together. Their first effort was a cover band, which they formed with a third bandmate in 1971 when the three were in middle school.

Eventually, guitarist Tobin Sprout and bassist Greg Demos joined on from other bands, forming the line-up for which Guided by Voices was best known.

It took more than 10 years for the band to find a dedicated audience. It had such a hard time appealing to audiences with its live shows – they tended to not understand the music, Fennell says – that its members focused most of their efforts on recording.

“Our primary focus has been making records from the very beginning,” Fennell says. “We probably made six records before anybody took any notice.”

Despite its difficulty gaining traction with audiences, the band soldiered on. Its 1992 album, Propeller, gained it some recognition in major independent rock markets like New York and Philadelphia.

But the band’s major breakthrough was its 1994 album Bee Thousand, which became a smash hit. Once unable to garner a positive reaction from even a hometown crowd, Guided by Voices found itself sharing billing with the likes of the Beastie Boys and David Bowie.

“People were actually standing up and taking notice,” says Fennell.

In need of a break, Fennell left Guided by Voices in 1997. Pollard found other musicians to carry on as members of the original line-up left, but eventually disbanded the group after a farewell show in late 2004.

The band’s line-up during its most popular era in the mid-1990s – Fennell, Pollard, Mitchell, Sprout and Demos –reunited in June 2010 for what was to be a one-time gig in Las Vegas celebrating the 21st anniversary of Matador Records, which put out several of the band’s 1990s albums. That show eventually led to a 22-show reunion tour, then a run of performances at music festivals, then the recording of three new albums – of which the first, Let’s Go Eat the Factory, was released in January, mere days before the band gave a performance on The Late Show with David Letterman

The band’s next album, Class Clown Spots a UFO, is scheduled to drop in May. After that, Bears for Lunch is expected to come out in October. The records just keep getting better as they’re released, Fennell says; Bears for Lunch is his favorite of the three.

“I think it’s the best record we’ve ever made,” he says.

From the immediately forthcoming album, Fennell is a big fan of the title track, as well as a harder-rocking tune titled No Transmission

“I lean toward more of the rock songs … but Bob (Pollard) writes some slower, more melancholy songs that make you want to cry,” he says.

Now older and wiser, the band members get along much better in the studio and on the stage. They are more appreciative of one another’s efforts, Fennell says, and the music has matured significantly.

“I think we have so much left to do,” he says.

Fennell did not join any new bands during his 13-year absence from Guided by Voices. The only music he played was at home.

“Everything else, I feel, would pale in comparison,” he says.

Instead, he went back to school, eventually earning an undergraduate degree from Capital University and a master’s degree from the University of California, both in social work.

When not drumming onstage, in the studio or at home, Fennell works as a chemical dependency counselor at Talbot Hall, located in The Ohio State University

Medical Center’s University Hospital East. Though he often puts in more than 40 hours a week on counseling, intakes, assessments, detox and other duties, Fennell is able to make his own hours, allowing him to tour with the band without disrupting his work.

Fennell wishes the band could see greater success, but is grateful for the fan base it has and the popularity it has gained from the members’ years of hard work. And he wouldn’t want to see that success come at the expense of the band’s music.

Fennell and his wife, Janet, live in Westerville with Janet’s two daughters – Elana, 13, and Aubrey, 9. Janet and the girls are musically inclined, Fennell says, allowing him an opportunity to make music outside of the band. He also has two adult sons.

Though he’s loath to compare Guided by Voices directly to any other band, Fennell cites as the band’s influences groups like the members of the British Invasion, as well as other disparate groups such as the Byrds, Pink Floyd, the Doors, Yes, King Crimson, the Ramones, R.E.M. and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. He describes the band’s sound as straight-up rock music with pop, punk, post-punk and even some psychedelic influences.

Though the band has not achieved widespread recognition on the level of some of its contemporaries, it does have its outspoken fans. Most recently, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney proclaimed Guided by Voices to be his favorite band.

There’s no gray area for those who experience Guided by Voices’ music, Fennell says – either you love it or you hate it.

Garth Bishop is editor of Westerville Magazine. Feedback welcome at gbishop@pubgroupltd.com.

By Garth Bishop