Page 22 - ROCKNATION ISSUE 25

PAGE 22 ROCKNATION ISSUE 25

Interview with
Denny Smith

Hello Denny with The Great Affairs and welcome to
Rocknation. Congrats to your “Ten & 2” release on
Kivel Records. Please name some tracks and what
they are about.
Thank you! Well, seeing as I’ve always preferred to
leave it up the listener to interpret these things, and
it occasionally takes me a while to figure out exactly what the hell I was writing about myself, I’ll see if I can’t dig into a couple of them that I
actually know the story behind. “Hands Off The Wheel” is a classic tale…guy lets girl go/girl finds new guy/first guy realizes he should’ve tried
a little harder while he had the chance. It’s the age-old “grass is always greener” scenario. It’s only after she’s slipped through his fingers that
he realizes it was his fault, and there were signs pointing to that fact all along the way. “I see you dyin’ for a life in bloom. I took my hands off
the wheel too soon.” “Last Good Memory” is about growing up in the middle of nowhere, and that feeling that you’ll die if you can’t get out…so
of course you take that out on the one person who’s got your back. Again, it’s a too little/too late situation. It’s also about learning to live in the
moment, and appreciating the things you’re lucky to have but maybe don’t understand at the time. A bittersweet lesson. “Right now this is all
we have. We might never make it back to where we were when we weren’t so afraid.” “Like Stone” is a “you won’t get the best of me” number.
It’s about a guy who knows how to take a punch…maybe not literally, but in life, and keep pushing through. He’s telling the person(or people)
on the delivery side of that punch that it’s not gonna be so easy to knock him down. “Don’t trouble your mind with these old bones. They’re
harder than nails, and cold like stone.” He’s been there before.

You brought in Grammy nominated mixer and engineer Michael Saint-Leon (Buddy Guy, James Cotton) how was it like working with him?
We’ve done more than a handful of records with Michael over the years, so he’s our go-to guy. He keeps one foot firmly planted in the 60s &
70s, but has a great grasp of contemporary engineering techniques, so he’s a perfect fit for us. We like to steer away from the slick,
homogenized Modern Rock production vibe, and keep things a little more real, without sounding too “retro”, and he’s always been able to read
between the lines and get where we’re coming from. It can be tough to articulate a “vibe” you’re going for, but we’ve worked together so many
times that we’ve developed a common language. He’s also an extremely patient guy, which comes in handy when we’re banging our heads
against a wall trying to figure something out. That voice of reason behind the board can be invaluable.

How did you pick your band name?
I wanted something that had a classic, classy ring to it…not that adultery is necessarily “classy”, but you know what I mean. I also had this
vision of tying iconic imagery together in our artwork and merchandising….incorporating famous(and infamous) love affairs throughout
history. There are so many Bogie/Bacall, JFK/Marilyn, Hepburn/Tracy scenarios out there that we’ll never run out of t-shirt images to draw from

What does “Ten & 2” your title named after?
That’s a title that was actually suggested by our table head, John Kivel, but it does actually appear in lyric form on the record, during the song
“Take The Ride”…”with your eyes wide shut, your hands at 10 & 2”.

If you had to tell someone what your music sounded like, what bands would you mention?
The most frequent comparisons we hear are Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Cheap Trick, Butch Walker, and Tesla. The Tesla one in particular
applies to the songs Kenny sings, since he has a vocal style reminiscent of Jeff Keith at times. I bring the Butch Walker element to the table on
the more Pop/Rock stuff, whereas Kenny covers the Classic Rock side of things.

What plans do you have for 2018-19?
We’re just planning to get out and play as many shows in support of ’Ten & 2’ as possible. The night is still young as far as the album’s
concerned, so that’s our primary concern. I’m sure, somewhere along the way, we’ll start
throwing around new ideas. I know Kenny has a solo EP that he’s been working on,
so that might appear in the meantime, but as far as the band itself is concerned,
we’ve got some highway miles left to log on this release.

Thank you for taking time for this interview. Any last words to the fans?
Thanks for letting me ramble on about this stuff. Folks, if you wanna know more
about us, where we’ll be, what else we have out, how to track down our merch, etc.,
look us up at one of the following… www.thegreataffairs.com
facebook.com/thegreataffairs instagram.com/thegreataffairs
twitter.com/thegreataffairs…or find us on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, and any one of
the usual suspects. We’ve got material scattered all over the web and beyond.
Cheers, Denny - The Great Affairs