Kai Crowe-Getty
Bio
“The Wreckage,” Kai Crowe-Getty’s first solo album, won’t be what you expect if you’re familiar with his time fronting the rock band Lord Nelson. Sonically, “The Wreckage” turns the volume down a bit with a wide-open ambience, at the same time Kai turns up the emotion with the most personal set of songs he’s ever written.
“I’ve played in big rock ’n’ roll settings for a long time, and I do enjoy that,” says Kai. “But where Lord Nelson is more of a party band, this is a vehicle for a different avenue of songwriting that explores different things. I wrote this album’s songs while working through some catharsis. I’m not overly nostalgic, but a lot of these songs seemed to end up in that vein where you’re simultaneously looking back and forward.”
Kai has spent the past decade-plus fronting Lord Nelson, a band named in honor of their stomping grounds in the Appalachian artists’ enclave of Nelson County, Virginia. He’s been playing music since middle-school years, starting with a band named Blue Lava (yes, after a lava lamp). His ambitions and seriousness grew over time, especially when Lord Nelson started up, and Kai’s solo work stands as a peak beyond that.
As was the case for a lot of artists, the Coronavirus pandemic shutdown knocked Lord Nelson off-stride. While the band remains a going concern, members including Crowe-Getty have been exploring other outlets in recent years.
“I spent a lot more time on songs than I have in the past, mining a lot of things from my own life that I think resonate,” he says. “Not writing toward an audience but crafting a new point of departure. These songs are much, much more personal for me. Not exactly autobiographical, but I’d say there’s more of me here than in anything else I’ve ever done – a dive into darker themes, trying to find light in a dark tunnel.”
For example, the album’s stately first single “Heavy as Heaven” begins, “You shot first, and waited for the blood to land,” evoking a sense of hopelessness before arriving at something like hope by the end. Following that track’s release, the childhood memory “Dancing on a Razor’s Edge” and the anthemic “American Radio” will be the next two emphasis tracks.
“Like a lot of songwriters, I’m very self-critical,” he says. “I feel like I might get it right once every 50 times. But these songs really came together as a collection, especially ‘Heavy as Heaven’ – I’m really happy with how that one turned out. There’s a need to look forward at some point, which is where my songs tend to end up whether I mean to or not.”
