Kyp Malone Gets Deep and Desperate on 'Rain Machine'

Posted on Sep 25th 2009 2:00PM by Mike Ayers
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Of the 11 cuts that comprise TV on the Radio guitarist/vocalist Kyp Malone's solo debut 'Rain Machine,' 'Desperate Bitch' and 'Love Won't Save You' stretch out past the seven-minute mark. Fans of Malone's full-time gig will surely see it as something new, but he doesn't see it as being such a departure. "For me, I'm not thinking 'How I can place this in a commercial?' or 'Is it going to be too long to play on a talk show?'" Malone tells Spinner. "I don't mind short songs but I can also be taken by music that lasts an hour. It takes you outside of time, because you're being transported. It could be too long but for me it's not."

Malone cites '60s jazz giants such as John and Alice Coltrane as well as Pharoah Sanders as being music that has been very inspiring over the years, particularly because of their stamina on stage. "People in that idiom, you know that they were happy to get a gig at a club and they would have three-week stints, where they'd play for four hours a night," he says.

He also recalls a particular time in his youth when his older brother put one of his father's Coltrane records on, and he hated it. "I remember thinking it was trash and I was so angry that I was being made to listen to it," he says. "But then I got a little older and [I remember] finally putting that back on and understanding it.

"I'd like to make perfectly clear that I'm not in no way comparing myself to those people and their ability," he adds.

The jangly 'Desperate Bitch' is one of the older songs that make up 'Rain Machine,' a song Malone says he wrote during one of the first TV on the Radio tours. "It was a time when not having money was affecting my relationships with other people," he recalls. "I'm a father, I had roommates -- there were people I was beholden to financially. There were times in my life before that where I didn't have money because it didn't matter. I was free from responsibilities. I think I wrote that out of frustration. Things have changed significantly since I wrote that song. At the same time, I feel blessed in a lot of ways but that I'm treading water too, just paying to exist. Really, I don't want to live that way -- I don't think it's right that people have to pay to be alive."

Kyp Malone kicked off his 'Rain Machine' tour Monday night and will travel coast to coast through late October.

Listen to 'Rain Machine'