An Interview With Mike Keneally

Last century Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson suggested I’d enjoy Mike Keneally, a West Coast vocalist, songwriter, arranger, producer and multi-instrumentalist who initially came into the spotlight as a member of Frank Zappa’s final touring and recording band.

I did enjoy Mike; it’s always been a thrill to connect with him as he played live with many favorites, including Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Dethklok, Mastodon, Robert Fripp, Wayne Kramer, Kevin Gilbert, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Andy Prieboy, The Persuasions…. On his own or with collaborations, Mike’s released nearly 30 albums of his original music since 1992. His most recent releases include “The Thing That Knowledge Can’t Eat” from 2023 and seven collaborative and uncategorizable albums created with South American multi-media abstract creator Marcelo Radulovich over the past two years. https://titicacamanrecords.bandcamp.com/ Mike’s also working with another eclectic artist Devin Townsend; who knows what that will sound like or the next solo Mike K. album that’s been in the works for a while!

Even so Mike’s thrilled to be playing at ProgStock this weekend—October 9-12 and starting his tour with David Bainbridge and Sally Minnear, plus singer-songwriter Matt Dorsey at the Cutting Room, here in New York City on October 14. Mike Keneally and Beer for Dolphin features longtime members bassist Bryan Beller, drummer Joe Travers, and guitarist Rick Musallam. Visit https://www.keneally.com/live/ for all their tour dates.

Anne Leighton: When you were in grade school and you got your first keyboard, the popular music ranged from Woodstock-type artists to bubblegum, and garage bands. What was your vision of the type of rock star you’d become?

Mike Keneally: Extremely naive, in retrospect! I imagined that my creative vision, in full flower and fully supported by a caring record company, would be embraced by a music audience hungry for eclectic, adventurous stuff the likes of which they'd never heard before. I didn't yet understand the power of comfort music, of most people wanting the familiar above all else. Now in my dotage I find myself craving the music of my youth most of the time (on those rare moments that I listen to music for please - generally on long car drives), so I've fully become what I long criticized - although my version of comfort music is certainly a lot weirder than that of most listeners!

Anne Leighton: You started your career in Southern California. How hard was it to get hired by a working band?

Mike Keneally: It was next to impossible to find work playing original music in the '80s - the only consistent live work I could get back then was playing cover tunes. To the degree that that has changed for me, it only happened after I played with Zappa in the late '80s - that was the turning point, but still it's a struggle for me to find gigs for my own music that pay anything - thanks goodness the Baked Potato exists, and that I have a near three-decade history of playing there! There are other rooms though that have been very supportive - I think of Alvas in San Pedro and Reggies in Chicago in particular - and I hope to be able to continue building a circuit of such places, which is a big reason why I'm touring the East Coast.

Anne Leighton: You’re playing ProgStock, which is a great festival because the audience listens and very few or no people talk when the musicians play. Tell us about the musicians you’re working with there.

Mike Keneally: I've been playing with Bryan and Joe for over three decades, and Rick since the late '90s, and we all know each other like the backs of our hands - I love what they bring to my tunes, and the familiarity level can't be substituted or under-valued. We are a family and the way we converse with one another while playing this stuff is not paralleled by any other musical relationship of my experience. I treasure them.

For ProgStock this year, and the five tour dates we're doing immediately afterward, we're being supplemented by Dave Bainbridge and Sally Minnear for half an hour of my set, after we do a bunch of quartet rocking. I saw Dave and Sally doing their duet set at last year's ProgStock, loved it, and immediately started fantasizing about what they could bring to my music as supplementary Dolphins. We won't actually rehearse with Dave and Sally until the day before our ProgStock set, and I'm dying to hear what that's going to sound like - I expect it will be glorious.

Anne Leighton: Is the band name Beer For Dolphins a substitute for Big F##king Deal?

Mike Keneally: Only accidentally - the way that name came about was when I was recording “Boil That Dust Speck” in 1994 with Toss Panos and Doug Lunn, and we were getting ready to record a medley of really tough instrumental tunes called "Them Dolphins is Smart," "1988 Was a Million Years Ago," and "Yep, Them Dolphins is Smart, Alright" - which is a lot of words, so we just referred to the medley as "Dolphins" for short. Right before we started laying down the first take, Toss asked if we should get some beer before we attempted to play this vast behemoth, and I said "of course we need beer for "Dolphins," and realized that Beer For Dolphins would make a pretty snappy band name. Doug was the guy who noticed that the initials were "BFD" and as soon as he informed us of that, I instantly knew that was the name we should go by. And here we are 31 years later, about to tour under the same name - amazing how one small moment reverberates over the decades.

Anne Leighton: One more question. I need to ask you about Wayne Kramer, whom I felt a special kinship with through email even though we never met or talked. I loved Chuck Berry as I discovered he did, and he helped me shine first time I sent him an email using “Motorvating” for a motivational project I was working on. What’s something you’d say about his inspiration for you and others?

Mike Keneally: I wish I'd played with him more. We did a residency of a month of Wednesdays at the Baked Potato, and it was a joy. He gave me the ultimate honor of telling me that he hadn't had as much fun improvising with another guitarist since the days of him playing Fred "Sonic" Smith in the MC5. His amalgamation of street-level rock and roll with poetry and high-minded art conceptualism was indeed inspiring to me, as it ought to be to anyone with an ear to hear and appreciate it.