Kansas Bible Company: Growin’ Up

When Kansas Bible Company arrived in the late summer of 2011, Nashville was in the early stages of a boom that continues to precipitate significant changes. Landmarks disappear, rents increase, and amid the tide of newcomers, the city struggles to maintain the air of friendliness and accessibility that attracted them in the first place.

While the band is certainly aware of and affected by the subtle and not-so-subtle shifts — responding to noise complaints from new neighbors, the group recently moved their communal residence and recording studio from the Greenwood neighborhood to Inglewood, a few blocks deeper into East Nashville — they take them in stride.

“More and more bands keep moving to town, and the competition is there,” says KBC singer-guitarist Jake Miller. He’s notably upbeat, despite being sandwiched between his bandmates and a vanload of gear as they trek the 150 miles between dates in Goshen, Indiana, where the band formed as students in 2008, and the next gig in Indianapolis. “Ultimately, I think it’s just made us better. The amount of bands and the amount of people making music and doing art has just kind of lit a fire under us to do it to the best of our ability.”

That’s evident on Paper Moon, the group’s third full-length, which will drop in early June. For the first time, the band brought in an outside producer and worked in an unfamiliar studio. They spent ten days last spring at Brown Owl in Berry Hill with Skylar Wilson, whose credits include producing or co-producing (often with Jordan Lehning) albums for outstanding young Nashvillians like Rayland Baxter, Caitlin Rose and Andrew Combs. According to Miller, bringing a new voice into the creative process was constructive.

“It was great to have somebody kind of making decisions,” he says. “We work really well together, but sometimes it’s nice to have a definitive voice come in and say ‘We’re going to do it this way.’ It’s like, ‘Alright, everybody can get on board,’ where if one of us were to say ‘we want to do it this way,’ somebody might have an issue with that, and it slows the process down. But he had a vision, he was able to organize us and get us to sound the best we could.”

KBC’s reputation for carrying on the traditions of Chicago and The Electric Flag remains intact, but across Paper Moon‘s thirteen tracks, Wilson helps the band focus their soul-tinged, brass-kissed psychedelic rock sound and tight ensemble playing into some new channels.

The record gets off to a running start with “Ty Segall,” a snarling, rollicking ode to touring named for the inspiringly prolific San Francisco rocker. Later, the mood shifts as introspective ballads like “Dark July,” one of Miller’s seven writing credits on the album, weave their way into the mix.

While coping with change is a thematic thread that runs throughout the album, the two songs effectively sum up the struggles the band is grappling with at the beginning of 2016 — specifically, how to maintain their enthusiasm for something that consumes so much of their lives.

“For me personally, it’s difficult to have relationships outside of the band, whether that be romantic or friendly otherwise,” says Miller. “I wrote ‘Dark July’ about [how I’m] living this dream of being on the road, playing shows. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do, and I’ve been doing it to the point where it’s like, I’ve worn myself out. I’m so tired. How do you continue to live the dream when you are totally worn out when you’re doing it? There’s some tension there. [But I’m] finding ways to move through that, to change, to adapt, to progress, to keep finding ways to do the things that I love to do.”

For some of the band’s original eleven members, life goals and new careers had to take precedence over KBC. Drummers Luke Yoder and Nate Klink, plus trombonist Isaac Lederach and sax man Jacob Martin all played their last show in January. In the end, it’s a healthy decision for everyone, and there’s no bad blood. “It’s not like one of those horror stories of bands breaking up and hating each other,” Miller says. “It’s nice to still be able to maintain those relationships.”

Goals for 2016 include over a hundred live dates in support of Paper Moon; a collaborative release with tourmates The Go-Round, a rock band from Kalamazoo, Michigan.; and even possibly a second album in the late fall. While in Goshen during the holidays, they’ve already tracked two new songs. But as Miller has grown aware, the goal line isn’t always going to stay in one place.

“Growing up, I had this idea that eventually I’d get to that point where you’ve made it, or you’re grown up — you’re there,” he says. “As I move through my twenties, [I’m] realizing that ‘Nah. It’s never going to be like that. Things are always going to be changing.’”