Episode 37: Steve Kilbey Talks New Solo Album ‘Eleven Women’, New Music From The Church and More-SLIS Podcast
On today’s podcast episode I’ll be speaking to Steve Kilbey, best known as the vocalist, bassist, and primary songwriter for veteran Australian alternative psych group The Church.
With The Church, Kilbey has generated a whopping 25 studio albums since their formation, beginning with 1981’s Of Skins and Heart. The band are most notable in pop culture for their hit single Under The Milky Way off their 1988 album Starfish, but as diehard fans will tell you, that’s just a drop in the ocean to their immersive, impressive and expansive body of work, including their masterful 2017 album Man, Woman, Life, Death, Infinity.
But Kilbey has also had a lengthy solo career, releasing 14 eclectic and stirring albums., including Unearthed, The Idyllist and Sydney Rococo. And now he’s back with Eleven Women, one of his strongest solo efforts to date.
In today’s interview Kilbey discusses the origins and creative process behind the new album, the challenges of being a musician during the Coronavirus pandemic, future solo work, his upcoming album with The Church, and a stirring account of a childhood experience with extraterrestrials.
So check out the interview and stick around afterwards when I’ll be playing Woman #9, a song off the new album. Click here to listen to the interview via Apple Podcasts and click here to listen via Spotify, or listen via the RadioPublic embed or other podcast platforms at the bottom of this post.
You can purchase Eleven Women via Kilbey’s Instagram page, and you can keep abreast of all his creative endeavors via his website thetimebeing.com.
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Live, whoever Steve plays with is the Church as long as they’re playing Church material. I’ll grant him that.
But as far as current and future recordings are concerned, I wouldn’t consider them Church records without at least Peter’s involvement. In order of musical importance, after Steve, it was Peter, then Marty, then Richard. Future records with Steve and this new cast may be great, they may be horrible, but they’re not the Church – it’s just another of Steve’s many projects. And that’s ok. Frankly, the Church haven’t made a great record in decades – good, yes… occasionally even very good… but, great? That well ran dry a long time ago. Just my two cents, of course.
It will be interesting to hear what it sounds like. I think the 2 most recent Church albums were totally solid (esp the 2nd one), but I’ll always miss MWP and PK in the lineup.
Interesting thoughts, The Church is Steve, Marty, Tim Ian and then Peter. Love them all, wish they were all still playing together. Ian is excellent, Tim has been around longer than Richard. The current albums are excellent, however they were Peter driven in sound so now with him gone and Jeffrey Cain in with Ash I think this will be one of the best yet when released.