"I was lucky enough to make a record with Val Garay and he is a great producer who has been around L.A. since the early days going way back to The Beatles and all the years with James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt," states musician and songwriter Kelly Deco as he discussed his latest release "Constellation" and his relationship with its producer Val Garay. "They had a great sound that he was able to make with his team of players; as a matter of fact, they have a documentary out about that group of people called "The Immediate Family" and it talks about the records that they've worked on and a lot of them were with Val."
A product of California, Deco has made his mark in the music industry with multiple albums, videos and contributions to the movie industry. Describing his music as "Retro-futuristic rock, love and fantasy," Kelly is always searching and pushing new boundaries and with the recent release of "Constellation" through Deko Entertainment; he has done just that.
"My story part of it is," he began with great enthusiasm, "I work with a producer who is one of the partners of Val Garay and his name is Nic. tenBroek and when I got ready to make another record; I've been making records and working in the movie business since the early '80s and began recording in the late '70s. My inspiration comes from bands and artists like David Bowie, Meat Loaf, Moody Blues, ELO and you can go back to Frank Sinatra. I've worked on over 60 feature films and have recorded maybe 80 recordings of my songs. So, I've been writing music since I was a kid, I've been working in movies a long time; since the '80s. This record was a more recent record that I decided to do and I said to my producer, "Hey, I'd really like to try and get that '70s sound" and I'd heard some tracks and clips from an artist named Andrew Gold and I loved that they were punchy and clean and I had no idea that Val was involved with that. Well, come to find out, Val did a lot of the work on the record and he was friends with Andrew and later on when I asked the other producer Nic, he said, "If you're really lucky you can just work with Val and you can get that sound you are looking for" and in the end, the producer approached Val and he said, "Sure why not?" So, that's how I got involved with Val and it was after I had already written the songs for the new album called "Constellation" which has since been picked up by Deko Entertainment and they are really great people."
A very high energy individual, Kelly can barely contain his excitement for this record and "The team" he has assembled.
"Since the very beginning, I really wanted to get some super top notch people to make this record. So, when I wrote the songs, I wrote the music first and then waited for ideas to come through me; which happened pretty quick and that was interesting. So, when it comes down to; how do I get this sound? Val was brought in and he brought a whole new level of expertise and professionalism; it's interesting when you're standing in that place. People can record all they want from home and I've worked in some of the biggest studios in California and actually on the East Coast too but never with people like Val who are; I don't know, they bring something else. So, everyone in the game steps up and everyone in the band I've been working with stepped up their game and they did a great job through his guidance and the record came out great! Then once you have this great record, we decided that every step we would take from here would be the best we could take; especially if you are focusing on that era. So, we worked up a team called Totalassault and they were friends of Vals' who handled the social media along with Chip at Chipster PR and Chip was good friends with this great album cover artist named Johanness and I worked with him to get a real special look which is what he kind of does anyway; these great, interesting, really exotic looking record covers. So, the intention all along was to make sure we stayed in this upper echelon quality and professionalism all the way through in the look, the sound and the feel of the record and that has happened. We've got this great record and it's out and we have lyric videos and we are transforming those into where I'll be in the videos as well."
"I worked with Leland Sklar and those guys for years," adds Garay, referring to The Immediate Family's bassist. "I saw this as an opportunity for me to do what I do and do it the way I do it. If you are looking at modern technology, I work in all different kinds of styles of music right now from Hip-Hop and total Pop and something similar to what Kelly is doing which is a timeless kind of sound and having been involved in that and having kind of helped create that thing in the '80s and '70s, it just seemed like kind of a fun opportunity do something like that."
To work with Garay was an "Opportunity" that Deco could not pass up and like the album's title; he believes it was in the stars to do so.
"Constellation '' is a bigger overlapping idea of patterns in the stars and patterns in the sky, things that tell patterns in stories and patterns in your life. So, "Constellation '' as a record, is all of the above; we're talking about things that are imagined or maybe they are not but it all comes to what goes through my mind and the space and time and twist on things that we all go through in life, love and art. So, to make a constellation of that would basically be many different vignettes tied together as a record called, "Constellation." So for me, it was a bigger picture story and thus the term; "Constellation" was a bigger picture story of vignettes of interesting things and specifically focused in an area I called and that I am still calling "Vintage futurism Storytelling." So, it's like taking things from history and deep history and running them as far as you can out into deep space somewhere and whatever comes out of that. I wrote all of the songs on acoustic guitar and I'd go to the classical piano player that I work with and we'd just run it down until we could get it one-time through and then we'd chart it and then I'd go back and wait for the words to come and they'd just come. That was the interesting part about it; they weren't worked on like, oh my God, let's try and find what word fits with this and that, it just came in and then it was a song. The whole record was done that way and it's great when you get that, it's a lot when you get that because I've been writing songs since I was a kid and for them to come like that was wonderful."
"Then when you go to make the record you have to ask yourself; what is the sound that you want to come out of it and who can make that sound? Val Garay has been around forever but I didn't know him and he was out of my league as far as people that I would busk it to but then I found that by knowing him, that he brings this sound that he really did create and I don't know if it's just natural; I think it is, he just brings his sound which is a punchy, really tight, natural kind of rock sound and it's wonderful. When I heard that, I thought, oh my God, I've made a lot of other records and it would've been great to have known him to help make them sound anywhere as good as this one does. You know, you live long enough and things happen and that's how that all came together and I know Val isn't gonna toot his own horn, probably because he knows I'm gonna do it for him anyway but this man has an amazing sense. His ear, his ability to focus within the bandwidth he is given anywhere on the sound spectrum; he knows where all of the parts go and he knows exactly where to put them. He hears it and he's like a genius, maybe everyone has one of those, maybe they don't, maybe if you're lucky you do. He definitely is one person who does have that and like he says, he can probably make every record do that because he knows lots of things but for the rock thing, I was so impressed when I heard it. A lot of people, when they hear what he does, they break down and cry and I kind of was one of those; it's very emotional when you pour your heart and soul into something and someone just gets it and polishes it and makes it go in the right way. So, yeah, I love the guy and I'm really glad that he's working with me. The point is, it's a real thing that he does, he's a real guy, a hard worker and he brings a lot of secrets that he's not gonna tell you and I'm not gonna tell you but he brings things that make the whole thing happen and a lot of it is just his ability to be that good at something."
Oftentimes, no matter who the producer, artists have different viewpoints and desires for their work; was there ever a time when Deco had a difference of opinion with his legendary producer?
"Val Garay is the producer and engineer and if you work with him; just trust him. He is the kind of guy where if you don't really trust him; you will because he's got it all and he knows what he's doing. It's very comforting when you finally meet someone who has all of that going. I know a lot of people spend all of their life thinking and believing, I can make my own record at home and it's not true; you can't. I mean, you don't make your own car at home, there are things that people need to realize, some people have a natural gift and this man has that. I'm lucky that I bumped into him and any artists thinking of making a new record should call him up; especially if they are going for that real sounding '70s punchy stuff. If you listen to the back tracks even in some of the (Linda) Ronstadt stuff, that's great rock 'n' roll. The sound is really honest and it fills the bandwidth in just a wonderful way."
"It's interesting when people listen to records and they talk about them; the best thing to do is listen to it and then you'll think, yeah, that really does sound good and they'll wonder why but in this case you know why," he continued. "As an artist, if you were going to fight with a producer like Val Garay, that would be stupid. You're bringing someone on who can probably do this in their sleep if they wanted to, so just let him do it. I think a lot of people think they can but what happens is, you get yourself into a position where you can ruin it and I wasn't going to do that."
"Kelly was very easy, he was extremely prepared, he picked a lot of great players to play on the record and he was fun to work with," interjected Garay. "He's funny, he's outgoing which you can tell by talking to him; it was a great experience, I had a great time and we got it done."
Garay has also become an accidental movie star as he has parts in the aforementioned documentary "The Immediate Family" done by Denny Tedesco scheduled for a December 15 release and in the documentary, Tedesco sheds light on one of the most incredibly talented, sought after group of studio musicians ever assembled; a group that Garay has known and worked with for a very long time.
"The reason I'm in it a lot, according to Denny the director, is because everybody that they interviewed for the film about Leland (Sklar), Waddy (Wachtel), Russell (Kunkel) and Danny Kortchmar said that they are the fucking greatest but nobody said why," he said with a large laugh. So, he said, "I need you to define why they are great." So, I gave them my professional opinion as to what made each one of them exceptional and therefore, I ended up in the movie (laughs)."
So, now that the album has been released and had several months to permeate the masses; what is the next step?
"I love playing live," says Deco, "We've been talking about making it into a "Rocky Horror" type show because it kind of plays like that. There's a lot of plans, the initial push is to get it up and going and then a lot of follow-up with whatever we've got to do to keep it going and that means a lot of Chipster PR and Deko Entertainment."
To discover more about Kelly Deco and his recent release, please visit https://kellydeco.com/#about
To all you, the readers and supporters of this column; may you have a very happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday!
That's it for this week! Please continue to support live and original music and until next week....ROCK ON!
