by: The World’s Luckiest Music Lover, Brian Mckay
Over the Treefort weekend, I had the pleasure to meet and watch the Smokey Brights on more than one occasion. This is a band that is more than just a simple concert review. They are worthy of their story and what lies ahead being known. That story that is represented in their songs and stage presence. It is a band I intend to follow and anxiously await their upcoming album. Judging from the crowd’s response, I am not alone in this assessment.
Fronted by Ryan Devlin (guitar and vocals) and Kim West (keys and vocals) and accompanied by Nick Krivchenia (drums) and Luke Logan (bass). The band’s story is compelling. As a couple, Ryan and Kim bring their synergy and strong love to the stage in both their harmonies and stage interaction.
The band was officially born out of necessity, due to some very underfunded bank accounts, insufficient for gift giving, going into the Christmas season as a couple. The incredibly talented Nick, came along via Ohio from a family of musicians. Grooving away Luke, is via Alaska with a background of singing folk songs with his family and is a great third for an always perfect harmony.
You can see a slight punk, influence pulled into a signature Seattle sound with, what can only be described, as their own genre. While comfortably in the alt rock category, it’s obvious that Smokey Brights will take whatever they feel or find interesting and make something new and totally their own out of it.
Again, it is the experiences that shape this band and probably my best candidate to interlace a review, pictures, video, and an interview all mixed together. Considering their amazing mixture, I hope they like it.
Interview conducted Saturday, September 25th at Neurolux
So el Korah tonight is so retro cool that it’s awesome. The sound is really good and the time you play is kind of after main stage…
Kim: Dude, I’m stoked.
Ryan: I feel really honored we got moved to that slot. Eric (a Treefort founder) was out at the Neurolux show about a month ago and we were going to play Humpin’ Hannah’s at 10 and that ended up not working out as a venue for Treefort so they bumped us over to el Korah, which is a bigger room, great slot and I am just swelling with gratitude that he trusts us enough to put us in that spot.
Indeed, el Korah ended up being the perfect spot for Smokey Brights to play. Having had the honor of playing the first concert at the Record Exchange in 18 months on Thursday, a 9.30 pm slot at el Korah on a Saturday turned out to be an absolute perfect fit.
For a Treefort with smaller crowds due to COVID, the room was the busiest I had seen it during Treefort. The first thing you notice of Smokey Brights is an energetic, open crowd that immediately jumps in with both feet. Check it out:
There really is a difference with a Smokey Brights crowd.
So, I’ve always gotta ask, what do you think of Boise?
Kim: We love Boise. Big fans. Big Fans!
Nick: Boise loves us back.
Ryan: Boise is a live music town with venues and great people and a great history of bands and we can drive to it from Seattle, which makes it Valhalla for a West Coast musician. It’s amazing.
Boise showed Smokey Brights its love at both the el Korah and Hideout stage performances. Dancing was common, as was extensive cheering. The one time that I heard the crowd just singing along with the band at Treefort was the Hideout crowd singing to the I Love You but Damn chorus as the band closed out the set. Our photographer, Greg, said, “I don’t really know the song but feel compelled to sing along.”
Smokey Brights brought their amazing energy and Boise responded, “We love it!”
On your song, I Love You but Damn, I think, wasn’t it that song you mention Reno and then it also looks like you’re going to Reno soon..
Ryan: In less than a week we’ll be in Reno.
So, can I assume you kind of like Reno too?
Ryan and Kim: We do like Reno. (with laughs from Nick and Luke)
Ryan: Reno is like scrappy. I grew up in Seattle and Tacoma and like my friend that grew up in Tacoma with me, he’s always like, “Reno is just Tacoma with gambling.” And that is what it feels like to me. There’s kind of a blue collarness to it. Kind of a punk rock fuck it attitude, but it’s also like their working hard to make it cooland kind of a good hang place.
Kim: It’s like the dirtier, more scrappy version of Vegas.
Ryan: I want to hang out in Brooklyn, not Manhattan or Oakland and not San Francisco and I want to hang out in…
Kim and Ryan in unison: Reno and not Vegas.
This is a great way to define Smokey Brights. Everyone’s band with an affinity for all the punks that have come and gone. Ryan’s punk past is alive in every show and strongly influences his amazing talents on the guitar.
If you are in Reno for the Offbeat Music Festival on Friday, October 1st, check them out at 7pm. Having once lived in Reno, they fit the place so well and will light it up. After watching much of the Freakout Records lineup on Sunday, I’m thinking that watching Smokey Brights and the rest of the bands on November 11 in Seattle could be amazing.
So, what have you guys mostly been up to during COVID?
Ryan: Writing.
Luke: Staying busy. Writing, Rehearsing. You couldn’t get in front of crowds but we could be with each other so we kept working looking forward to the time we could put on a good show.
You’ll notice that most of the bands here have albums coming out. In fact, a couple came out this weekend. A lot of people, like, they wrote a lot during the pandemic but their whole tone was impacted by it. Esme Patterson last night, who is amazing, really had some songs that reflected a lot of loneliness and were written during the pandemic. How do you guys think it impacted your writing for the next album?
Kim: It definitely impacted our writing.
Ryan: For this record, which is not out yet… and I tease it too much because it could be another year but like, even when we’re not writing about the sensation of going through this diminished life, I feel like that tonality pokes through. We’ve got a song, it might be called, I’m Not Through this Yet. Kim sings it and like the first lines are “I’m not through this yet, can I learn to love this mess, can I reassemble myself from the parts that I have left”. And like, every time Kim sings that, that feels like the state that a lot of us are in right now.
I really love the song 72. That is spectacular.
Kim: Thank you.
I also love, I Love You but Damn, was amazing and what was it, Save Us Sarah was spectacular.
Ryan: Right on! There’s three songs you can get into.
So, Unity…
Kim: That’s coming out in October.
So, tell me about that one.
Kim: So, Unity and Honey Eye are two songs we recorded. They are coming out October 29th. And they are two songs we recorded during I Love You but Damn, and they didn’t quite fit on that record but they fit really well together and so we just sort of held on to them and decided to release them this fall, which feels like a really good moment for them. They are really about kind of just working together and giving a shit. You Know. And the chorus of Honey Eye is “I wanna rock the world with you, before it splits in two, don’t know what else to do”. That’s kind of a thesis statement for, I feel like, doing anything right now intentionally. Who knows what the hell the future holds because as we have all seen with the traumatic events we have lived through the last 20 years, nothing’s guaranteed. It’s been insane, all you can do is do as good as you can and be as intentional as you can and be as kind as you can and give a shit while there’s still shits to give.
Smokey Brights are the embodiment of a band that gives a shit. You can sense the caring for each other and the cohesion of the group as a whole. Most importantly, they give a shit about their crowds and no show will ever be neglected, no crowd will ever leave less than completely fulfilled.
I Love You but Damn, was obviously kind of your tour song.
Everyone: yeah, yeah
Like, did you guys all kind of write that together?
Ryan: I mean, Kim and I co-write lyrically everything to the point where when we get done with a record, it’d be very difficult to use a highlighter pen and say who did this one.
Kim: And the songs are definitely like, it’s the unit that makes the song a song and the arrangements and…
Nick: Production wise, we came into the studio not knowing what were going to play really besides the chordal structure.
Ryan: Well, we knew the cords and the melody.
Nick: Andy the producer kind of like plugged in a drum beat and said, “Okay, play to this”.
So, was that right after tour because it kind of reflects that weariness and loneliness?
Ryan: I mean, that one is specifically, that one’s kind of coming from my point of view. It’s talking about the first couple months when Kim and I started dating. How many years ago? 13?
Kim: Yep
Ryan: 13 years ago. And I was touring in punk bands and I was on tour in a van 3 out of the first 6 months we were dating. You know. We would be on again, off again. I’d come back into town and things would be good and then go back on tour and we’d break up and it was just like, we are touring in an old junky Dodge van that would break down too. And just like coming to some realizations that I might be in love with this person I might need to treat myself better. I might need to think of my life in a different way.
That’s a big chunk of romantic love is recognizing that someone cares about you. You should probably keep yourself in okay condition too.
I Love You but Damn closed out the Hideout set for Smokey Brights and closed out their Treefort. Watch the fans and you’ll see why they need to become a Treefort staple and Boise regulars.
So you’ve been together since about ’13?
Kim: So we started… I guess the vague conception of Smokey Brights began about 2011, which was when we recorded a demo in our original bassist’s mom’s house in Olympia. We put out our first recorded a couple years later in 2014. I would say it was kind of 2016 when Luke joined the band and we just got really intentional that this is what we want to do. This is what we want to be when we grow up. And we want to tour and we want to play live and we made our minds up for that to happen.
I really feel like, you know, Smokey Brights has been a band in the sense we are now since 2016.
Okay last question. Do you think that Seattle needs to bring back the Sonics?
Everyone: Yes!
Ryan: Bring our Sonics back!
About the title: So why are Smokey Brights the only band in the building? Watch the crowd. When they are playing, that crowd might even think they are the only band in the world.
I loved meeting them, look forward to more shows, and couldn’t recommend catching this band more.
Look out for their two new songs, Unity and Honey Eye, on October 29th and a new album, umm well, sometime.
Thank you Smokey Brights for helping make Treefort the best festival anywhere.
