Kelly Dale
This self-mythologizing Seattle musician has seen the rise and fall of many local bands in his 32 years of performing, writing, and producing. At the age of four he started out as the tour manager of Duff McKagen’s pre-Gun’s N’ Roses band, Whipped Puppies. Tensions on the road claimed the life of Whipped Puppies just a few short days into their tour of local Bellevue high schools.
By the time he was a precocious six year old, Kelly pulled himself back together and decided to get into performing. He formed a quick succession of short-lived acapella vocal groups: Tennessee and the Raiders, Got 2b Realz, Sniff Faktor, and Mouth Mussels.
Through family connections, Kelly “ghost produced” Cher’s comeback hit, “Believe.” In addition, he co-wrote the lyrics, which were inspired by his intense breakup with his 3rd grade girlfriend, Tiffany Spangle. They were both ten years old. This was Kelly’s first taste of club music/electronic production, and although it would be 20 years before he would work in the genre again, he never quite forgot his first time.
Kelly’s middle school years are still a bit of a mystery. After working with Cher, Kelly picked up some “nasty habits” which found him floating in and out of contact with his friends and family for several years. He did pop up in Aberdeen, WA for awhile, skateboarding and playing in a Pixies Cover band with a local youth named Kurt Dobson. Dobson would later change his name to Cobain to distance himself from his famous father, conservative family talk show host Dr. James Dobson.
Those formative years spent “Sticking it to the Man” led to Kelly’s intense style of playing the guitar with a martini shaker and a pick axe and inspired his first rock band Martini Axe (later changed to Johnny Thunderpants due to inter-band disputes). Encouraged by family friend Nick Cave, his dissonant chords and lock-step kazoo playing made Johnny Thunderpants one of the highlights of the burgeoning “Grungy” movement… NOT to be confused with Kelly’s college roommate Chris Cornell’s pre-Soundgarden band, Chris Cornell and his Grungy Movements.
After losing the commercial control of both the rights to the Johnny Thunderpants catalog as well as the lucrative rights to the critically lauded children’s television show of the same name, Kelly found himself deeply in debt. While recovering from a freak cave spelunking accident in which both Kelly’s legs were broken in four places, he came to appreciate two things: expressing his inner feelings through song writing on his acoustic harpsichord and prescription pain medication. This ushered in Kelly’s “Sensitive Singer Songwriter” phase in which he began wrestling with subjects as varied as religion, idolatry, pagan sacrifice, circumcision, iconography, and needlepoint stitching. In addition to a budding solo career, Kelly also formed a local “super group” with Damien Jurado and David Bazan called Bathsheba’s Bitch. Seattle label Tooth and Nail released the record, but due to public outcry from Christian record stores across the U.S., it was pulled from shelves after only one week. The three song writers have the rights to the (almost) unheard record and are currently in talks to reissue the album with “label of the moment” Burning Building Recordings (The Lonely Forest, Post Harbor, Oregon Donor). Bathsheba’s Bitch continues to gain notability. Recently the internationally famous bearded Fleet Foxes covered the title cut, “God’s a Gravy Train I Can Live Without,” to critical and radio success! The royalties from “God’s a Gravy Train I Can Live Without,” allowed Kelly to enter rehab and purchase a recording studio from one of the guys in Death Cab for Cutie. Panic attacks and heartbreak have kept Kelly out of the spotlight for, literally, weeks. During this time he felt most at home in his studio, whipping up sonic confections most of which the world has yet to hear.
This changed recently when he met another “Sensitive Singer Songwriter,” Daniel G. Harmann. Looking to revive his flagging career, Dan hoped a re-inspired Kelly could at least bring the kind of raw energy to Daniel G. Harmann & the Trouble Starts that Kelly had enjoyed with Johnny Thunderpants, Sniff Faktor, and Mouth Mussels. Dan searched for Kelly by looking at the names on all the mailboxes in Seattle. Finally, after weeks of fruitless effort (which by the way inspired the DGH song, “Location is Everything” off the Lake Effect) Dan knocked on Kelly’s door.
During the summer and fall of 2009 the two musicians nurtured a close friendship. They spent afternoons at the park, took long walks on the Burke-Gilman Trail, shared evenings of Uno and Candyland played by a roaring fire… with the sounds of Cher’s hit, “Believe” in the background. Well, Cher, Kelly does believe. He believes in the power of DGH.
Kelly Dale also finds time to play with the lovely and talented, Miss Joy Dunay in their joint project The Way We Were in 1989. www.myspace.com/kellyandjoysmusicaljourney
