When a promising roots-music musician leaves his home environs for Nashville, it's not difficult to guess the reasons: fame and fortune. But Iowa native Kelly Pardekooper left Iowa City for the country-music capital of the world with an entirely different motivation. "It's kind of the opposite of the classic reason," he said in an interview with the River Cities' Reader last week. Purely personal issues drove him to Tennessee. After a divorce this past summer, "I needed to get out of Iowa City," he said.

But Nashville? "A lot of my best friends are here."

Make no mistake: Pardekooper is still chasing a music career. He has a new CD, Haymaker Heart, and he's preparing for a month-long tour in Europe, with a stop at The Mill in Iowa City on February 5. He'll also perform at the Iowa City Yacht Club on March 11 after he returns.

But moving to Nashville means that he's essentially an unknown quantity in a city with plenty of people looking to make a splash. "It's been kind of fun starting over," Pardekooper said. He lives in eastern Nashville - "where poor musicians can afford to live," he said - and he started working the door at a neighborhood club. He's now playing there every few weeks, "my home club." He paints houses to make extra money.

Haymaker Heart was written and recorded in Iowa, and like its predecessors, it's firmly planted in Midwestern farmland. "Johnson County Snow and House of Mud [both available from Trailer Records] were definitely rooted in Iowa, and so are the lyrics on Haymaker Heart," Pardekooper said. "I don't think there's a whole lot of separation."

But in terms of sound, Haymaker Heart is an expansion on earlier albums, quieter in its softer moments and rougher in its louder ones. "I was letting more of my influences come through," he said - not just Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, but pure rock acts such as Cheap Trick. Previous CDs had focused primarily on lyrics, while Haymaker Heart is as concerned with the music. "I wanted to make something that sounded more beautiful to my ear," he said.

The result is more adventurous and varied, with experimentation with sounds and instruments, such as the accordion on the opening track, "Not in Iowa," and the haunting, distorted, almost piano-like guitar that closes "Drinking Alone Again." Furthermore, the record was constructed song-by-song, instead of as "this fluid thing," he said. While it's not a coherent as previous efforts, its emotional and sonic range is greater, including pop forays.

Pardekooper expects to be promoting Haymaker Heart for the foreseeable future, but he's also looking toward a new album, probably out late this year or in early 2006. He's been writing in Nashville, and the blues-rock artist Teddy Morgan - his friend and fellow Nashvillian - has studio space in his house. Pardekooper said he plans to record this summer with his drummer roommate and Morgan. "I have an EP's worth of stuff right now," he said.

He's not on a major label - Haymaker Heart was released on his own Leisure Time Records - but over time he's learned enough about the music business to get good distribution for his work, particularly in Europe. House of Mud sold roughly 2,800 copies in the United States, Pardekooper said, and about 2,500 across the Atlantic. The mail-order label Miles of Music bought 200 copies of his CD, and while that doesn't sound like much, "it's a deal that pays my rent down here for a couple months," he said.

He's working with Redeye distribution on a radio promotion to public-radio and college stations, and he hopes to further improve his distribution network. "I'm not shooting for some do-it-yourself indie sainthood," Pardekooper said. "I would like to have a team like I have in Europe."

Like many jazz and blues musicians, Pardekooper is probably better known in Europe than in the United States. He played on a bill with Cracker at the 2003 Take Root festival in Amsterdam, and "I could just tell something had changed." Following that European tour, he got distribution in Italy, France, and Spain.

So even though he's a newcomer and a relative unknown in Nashville, he can go to Europe for a month of dates and do well. "For me it's a supply-and-demand thing," Pardekooper said. "The [European] audiences are different. ... They come to shows and are quiet. They come to listen."

While American roots music is omnipresent in the U.S., it's a bit more exotic in Europe. "It's good export," he said. "I guess I'm authentic Iowa."

For more information on Pardekooper or to order his CD, visit (http://www.kellyp.net).

Support the River Cities' Reader

Get 12 Reader issues mailed monthly for $48/year.

Old School Subscription for Your Support

Get the printed Reader edition mailed to you (or anyone you want) first-class for 12 months for $48.
$24 goes to postage and handling, $24 goes to keeping the doors open!

Click this link to Old School Subscribe now.



Help Keep the Reader Alive and Free Since '93!

 

"We're the River Cities' Reader, and we've kept the Quad Cities' only independently owned newspaper alive and free since 1993.

So please help the Reader keep going with your one-time, monthly, or annual support. With your financial support the Reader can continue providing uncensored, non-scripted, and independent journalism alongside the Quad Cities' area's most comprehensive cultural coverage." - Todd McGreevy, Publisher