Kentucky Nightmare finished recording its latest EP a week ago, and the band members are ready to take their new songs to the stage. The band will perform Wednesday night at the Bishop with Evansville, Ind.-based band Thunder/Dreamer and local band Chainsaw Mondays.
Kentucky Nightmare’s lead singer and songwriter Simon Moor, from Evansville, said the band will play all six of their new songs, five of which have never been performed live, as well as some of their older material. While Kentucky Nightmare is not new to the Bishop, Moore said the band enjoys playing there, especially since their sound engineers are top of the line.
“It’s a great crowd, really nice crowd,” he said. “It’s a really cool bar, like I would hang out at the Bishop, too. I would certainly hang out there more than I play there.”
Although the band is technically based in Bloomington, guitar player and vocalist Chris Brubeck lives in New Albany, Indiana. Moore said he and Brubeck have recently started to share songwriting duties, and although it is a long-distance collaboration, it’s not difficult to manage.
“We work really, really well together,” he said. “It’s been a really fruitful partnership. It goes really smoothly. Honestly, it’s kind of nice because we all have our different home lives. When you have too many cooks in the kitchen sometimes the song writing process can get just bogged down in detail, but him and I just cut out a lot of that work and our rhythm section is just kind of happy to listen to our ideas.”
Brubeck said he grew up in Evansville like Moore and was a fan of the band before joining as the group’s guitarist four years ago. He said he frequently watched the band play in their hometown in 2004 when it was founded.
“Simon was sort of like a musical hero of mine,” he said. “Just the fact that I get to play with him was cool, and writing with him is even better.”
Brubeck said he doesn’t really consider himself a lyricist, despite writing five out of the six songs on the band’s new EP. He said he was initially worried his lyrics wouldn’t fit in with the band’s sound, but his fellow band members reassured him.
“The two songs Simon wrote are just perfect,” he said. “They’re really great songs, and mine seem to just fit right in.”
Moore said the band’s sound has definitely changed in the 12 years since it formed. He said their first album was more bluesy because at the time he was listening to a lot of 1960s music.
“Since then, as what I’m listening to changes, so does the music,” he said. “Hopefully, it’s been a graceful evolution. Certain possibilities open up or narrow down for the people who are playing.”
Although the band has plans to release its new EP, Moore said the group won’t be playing many shows due to the members’ busy schedules. The new EP was recorded quickly, in just four days total, Brubeck said.
“I could not be happier with how it turned out,” he said.
