KING DUDE [USA] is celebrating his death through rebirth… with his Australian wife + daughter in Brisbane. After moving to the East Coast, this prolific artist may seem to have slowed down on the music front. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Since releasing the ‘final’ full-length for this project, DEATH, back in 2022, there have been four albums in tow. Mostly focussing on collabs + sentimental covers, he has reinvested his creative energy into new projects, including the instrumental Italo disco horror stylings of RUNE JAIL.
HEARTS OF DARKNESS’s own JESS KILL chats to TJ Cowgill ahead of their Boorloo//Perth debut this weekend — playing with RUNE JAIL on June 21 + KING DUDE on June 22…
How has your songwriting//performance direction changed since being in Australia?
TJ: “Since I’ve been in Australia, I’ve mostly focused on raising my daughter and being a good dad. The few times I have played have been fairly casual and acoustic. My songwriting is all over the place at the moment. I’ve got a few different projects than King Dude in the works at once.”
Nursery Rhymes (2023) is a very personal release for you and your family. What made you want to document an album so vulnerable instead of purely sharing this with your daughter?
TJ: “I figured, since I was singing these songs to her all the time, I might as well record them so that she could listen to them when she’s older if she wanted to. Then a friend of ours who also had a kid about the same age as ours said she would like to hear them. Then the next thing you know I was releasing an album of them. It turns out a lot of people wanted to hear them and play them for their kids, which is amazing to me.”
How has your daughter reacted to this album?
TJ: “(Laughs) Well, since she hears me all the time, I think she doesn’t really care for it that much. She likes certain lullabies that I still sing to her in real life when she wants to go to sleep. But she may associate them with sleep too much to listen to them during the daytime. She really likes certain songs of mine; in particular, she really loves listening to Rune Jail in the car, but so do I, so that may be why.”
You have released quite a bit of material since this album. With the Songs of the 1940s - Volume 1-2 and 3-4, as well as the Wife of the Sea collaboration (with the Society of the Silver Cross), these all have very different places stylistically in your discography. What process did you you through for each of these to come to fruition?
TJ: “The songs from the ‘40s just came about because I had less time to write new music, but I still wanted to record something, and I’ve always been interested in music that was made before the 50s. Then when Raubbau became interested in releasing a physical copy of parts 1 & 2 they also asked for more songs to which I happily obliged and parts 3 & 4 were then recorded.
“The Wife of The Sea collab came about sort of organically when I was back in Seattle with the family for Christmas. I wanted to see the new studio my friends Joe and Karyn had built, and since having worked with Joe in the past as an engineer on my album Music To Make War To, it just made sense to collaborate on a song together. I'd enjoyed following their progress with The Society of the Silver Cross from afar and was happy to record that song with them at the Temple of The Trees. It’s such a beautiful place. No surprise, it also turned out to be a fantastic recording studio.
“We met up at the temple early in the morning on January 1st this year to get to work on our collaboration. I had the loosest skeleton of a song that we three decided to build up into something. It's very rare that I work this way, sharing so much of the writing, especially the lyrics. But that speaks to the volume of trust I have in Joe and Karyn's vision. In the end, I think it makes this song even more special.”
All of these pieces take you on a journey that’s distinct from your earlier catalogue… though maybe not in the most traditional sense for you. How would you describe your writing and performance style now, in comparison to earlier years?
TJ: “It really hasn’t changed that much, to be honest. Or if it has, I can’t really tell. I try to be like a child when it comes to music. I prefer to have no idea what I’m doing, so I try to remain as willfully ignorant of most things and only make what I like without overthinking it. Overthinking your process is a good way to kill whatever magic you may have in it.”
With this being your first time performing in Boorloo//Perth, you will be joined by a band (not solo acoustic). Where will you take this performance?
TJ: “I’d expect a lot of songs from all my catalogue. But since I’m playing with a new band member for these shows, it will invariably be different than all other shows. All signs point to it being a great one, though.”
