Pat Keen (Interview)

Today we’re listening to Pat Keen, an American multi-instrumentalist from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He grew up playing piano and guitar, influenced early on by classic rock including a major Beatles phase as a teenager. Since 2018 he’s put out three LPs; he sang on the first two but not on his third, I Saw a Bug, which came out in 2024. Eschewing vocals, he told us, “allowed me to get away with a more lounge-oriented and hokey approach without having to preserve the emotional message of a song with lyrics.” Bug was high up on our Best of 2024 list – it has a sweet, playful sound that’s both comforting and cool. We’re also playing his preceding record, 2020’s Cells Remain, which has lyrics and, as he noted, is slightly more solemn.

I Saw a Bug - Pat Keen (37m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal

Cells Remain - Pat Keen (38m, vocals throughout)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal

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What's your earliest memory of music?

I started piano lessons when I was 4 or 5. My teacher was giving me lots of sheet music to read and my mom would help me figure out how to do it. Little did she know that I was just memorizing what her hands did and following along with my ears as opposed to actually reading the music.

Another memory is that I definitely remember my dad listening to a lot of Clapton and The Doors in the car. We’d go get haircuts and he’d play rock and roll for me.

Tell us about your history with the guitar.

I got my first guitar (a Baby Taylor that I still have!) when I was 8 and was decently into it until I became fully obsessed with The Beatles when I turned 11. That’s when I started playing guitar all the time and learning lots of rock music. A couple years after that I wanted to get into playing jazz. I started trying to learn jazz guitar but shortly after saw an upright bassist in the high school big band playing at the middle school renaissance festival and was very enamored. Plus I realized that the bass was always playing in jazz, whereas guitar was more sparse. Guitar took the second rank in my “main instrument” category. I always have written a lot of music and songs on guitar all through my time studying upright.

Who are the artists/records that most influenced you in the direction of your sound on I Saw a Bug and Cells Remain?

• Bill Frisell’s Disfarmer and Good Dog Happy Man

• Haruomi Hosono, Shigeru Suzuki, and Tatsuro Yamashita’s Pacific

• Daniel Lanois’ Flesh and Machine, Goodbye to Language, Belladonna, The Omni Series

• Wede Harer Ouzo by Hailu Mergia and the Dahlak Band

• an obsession with the Grateful Dead

• Sleeper by Paul Spring

What instruments/gear did you use to make those two albums?

For Bug I did most of it on a Focusrite 2-channel interface with an SE VR1 Ribbon mic used on everything I mic’d. Somewhere in the middle of the record I got an Apollo x4, a Rode NT2A, and the Arturia Package and started to incorporate those things in.

Cells was recorded at a state of the art studio in Eau Claire, WI called the Hive. My dear friend Brian Joseph runs that spot so he’d be the one to ask about what he used since it was so long ago now! Although I definitely remember using the space echo and another tape echo he had there quite a bit throughout the recording process.

What are you listening to the most these days?

I listen to a lot of the records coming from the LA jazz scene like SML, Sam Wilkes, Jeff Parker, Anna Butterss, Greg Uhlmann. Other stuff includes the latest Rich Hinman vs Adam Levy record and Speedy West’s Guitar Spectacular. That Speedy stuff is so well played and joyful. That was my goal with making Bug, to have fun making songs without lyrics. It sort of allowed me to get away with a more lounge-oriented and hokey approach without having to preserve the emotional message of a song with lyrics.

How do you find new music?

I honestly enjoy Tidal’s daily discovery quite a bit, but I also just keep up on socials with artists I like as well as taking recommendations from friends.

Who's your #1 dream collaborator?

Great question. I think I’d have to say Arthur Russell for someone not with us anymore, but as far as someone who is alive I’ll say Bill Frisell or Daniel Lanois

Name an underrated artist from the past 50 years.

I’ll go with Arthur Russell again here. His ability to write so many different types of music will never dry up in the well of inspiration.

What are you working on next?

I’ve got a lot of stuff in the works currently. My winter goal has been to have people over to my studio, throw up mics and say go. I’ve done quite a bit of it with awesome improvisers here in Minneapolis. I plan to release tracks as well as albums with everyone who has been involved. I’ve also got an upright centered record I’m making in the same vein as bug was with guitar, where I go back and find voice memos of pieces I wrote, create a form and then overdub onto it. Today I sent off bounces for a new batch of songs I produced and engineered for the band I tour with often called Humbird. I’m stoked to be growing my engineering chops!