Paul Kimball of Careless Hearts

photo by Brian Lee

Paul Kimball is the principal songwriter for the Careless Hearts, a country-rock outfit out of San Jose, California. The singer and guitarist recently spoke with American Songwriter about growing up in Texas, the band’s approach to writing songs and Neil Young’s courage as a lyricist.

When did you start writing songs?

I started writing songs in 2003. I had been performing for a little while with my good friend (and Bay Area recording legend) Bart Thurber, just doing acoustic cover tunes and learning how to sing harmonies. Steve Earle, Neil Young, The Band, Hank Sr., a Doug Martsch song… that kind of stuff. Bart’s gal Liz asked me one day why we didn’t perform any of our own songs, and I told her that the songs we were playing were some of the very best songs I knew of, and I really didn’t want to have our original tunes be the lousiest part of the set. She just turned to me and said, “Wow, I didn’t know you were so afraid of writing songs.” That one line just cut me to the bone, and I started writing pretty much right after that conversation.

Have you always been into California-style country-rock?

I was a teenager in North Texas when I first discovered how much music meant to me. At that time I was really getting into R.E.M., The Replacements, Echo and The Bunnymen, Elvis Costello… a whole bunch of not very Texas-y stuff. Then my folks moved me up to Washington state, and I found that I started to identify myself as Texan in a way that I hadn’t when I’d lived there, the way many Americans don’t tend to feel patriotic (or think they have accents) ‘till they travel abroad. Anyway, the Beat Farmers’ Tales of the New West, Lone Justice’s first couple of albums, and the first Knitters album all came out right around that time, and those bands helped me hear country music in a way that I’d never heard it before, and I loved it. They were all from California, too, a fact that wasn’t lost on me.

How does the band as a whole approach the process of writing songs?

Mostly I come in with the songs fairly well solidified, and with some kind of arrangement in place. I stand there and try to get this basic info across as well as I can, and then we just see what happens. I’d say about half the time we end up with something very much like what I’d imagined. The other half the time the songs may end up miles from where I thought we’d go, which is really fun, because those songs feel a bit more like “ours” and less like “mine.” I count my blessings constantly with this band: they are the coolest bunch of guys, they play like total bad-asses, and they actually seem to like what I contribute. I feel out-classed by them pretty much all the time, so that acceptance means a lot to me. (I should mention that Derek See, our lead guitarist, also contributes some really great songs to our albums and live sets. He brings ’em in fully baked and frosted, too.)

You reference Neil Young’s “Helpless” in the song “Starling’s Darlings.” How big an influence was old “Shaky” on your art?

Neil is a big influence, in many, many ways. His courage as a lyricist means he’s not afraid to be really raw, to lay it out very plainly, and to not give a fuck what anyone thinks about what he’s putting out there. He’s one of my favorite guitar players (Derek’s, too), and he’s probably my biggest influence in terms of harmonica (one of his most underrated skills). I love him for his failures, too. He just keeps going, and if it takes him 20 years of mediocrity to get back around to dazzling brilliance, well so be it. He just won’t quit. Oh, and did I mention he’s written a shitload of absolutely amazing songs? Yeah, there’s that too.

You have a line in the song “Chattering Teeth” that goes: “Like a junkie in a film by Gus Van Zandt.” Which film or films are you talking about?

I think I was thinking about Drugstore Cowboy, or My Own Private Idaho, when I wrote that, though I’m not positive even what scene I was referencing. Loved both those movies, though.

Do you relate to those characters?

I never detoxed, if that’s what you mean. But feeling desperate and lonely and miserable? Absolutely.

The song “Yolo County Line” has been featured in the ad campaign for Palm Inc.’s new phone, The Palm Pre. When you play live, do people recognize that song from the ad?

If anyone has recognized it yet, no one has said anything about it to us. All I know is that we’ve taken the money we got from Palm and are using it to put out our first vinyl 45 single, coming out in September of this year. We recorded to tape, mixed to tape, and mastered it to vinyl from tape. There’s something kind of nice about the idea of high tech helping keep low tech alive.

-interviewed by Caine O’Rear