Photo by Chuck Pittman

Michael Pink & Kevin Bowe

By Jeannette Madden
Staff Writer

West Fargo singer/songwriter Michael Pink and Grammy-winning songwriter, guitarist and producer Kevin Bowe are a great combination. They recently teamed up to record and mix Pink’s newest single “In The Blood” and the Reader got to sit in on the mixing process, listening and watching in amazement as the song was literally birthed and brought forth into the world.

Bowe, who has two platinum records and a Grammy, is known for his guitar work (lead guitarist for Paul Westerberg & His Only Friends on their 2005 US tour) as well as his writing and producing skills, which he has used with the likes of Jonny Lang, Etta James, Dan Wilson and Tommy Castro.

Pink started playing guitar when he was 18 and as he explained, “I picked it up kind of late. Before that, I was a drummer for a few friends’ bands and I’d always wanted to write songs, but you can’t do it playing drums. I never knew how to play guitar properly so one day I just picked it up and started tinkering around with it.”

And, as Bowe pointed out, “We’re similar on the guitar then. We’re both never learned to play right but we got really good at playing our own wrong way, which can be better because I can hear a guitar track and go ‘that’s Michael Pink’. There’re a lot of guys who play better than we do, but they play like everybody else.”

Pink came to Bowe’s attention through musicians they both knew. As Bowe put it, “Michael started to get people in other bands that were like ‘wow, this guy is really good’ and talking about him. And since I’m producing I always get people saying ‘you got to hear this guy’ and its very rarely that I’m like ‘holy crap’ but when I heard [Pink’s] stuff I think I sent [him] an email saying ‘dude, you’re it’ and that’s when we kind of ended up talking and stuff, hanging out. This is the first full thing that we’ve gotten to do together.”

One of Bowe’s many areas of musical expertise is teaching at the Institute of Production and Recording in downtown Minneapolis, which offers degrees in Audio Engineering and Production, as well as Music and Entertainment Business. Teaching gives him the opportunity to bring in artists and projects that he and his students can work with, such as Pink. As Bowe explained, “If there’s someone I really want to work with, some musicians, they don’t have a lot of money so with this position here I can work with someone like Michael just because I love his music.”

“I got my drummer from Allison’s [Allison Scott] band and the bass player from Allison’s band to play drums and bass on this so its kind of cool for Michael because he can walk out with a complete major label mastered song and not have to worry. Money controls so much of what we do in music so it’s nice to have this really weird thing where it’s not even a factor.”

“We don’t have to cut corners here. We have a million dollars worth of equipment, a world class bass player, a world class drummer and a world class studio.  It’s cool for the students because they can see something being done. It’s not like a project or a demo, this is the real thing. It’s particularly outstanding because Michael has some heat going on in his career right now and people noticing his music. There’s a major motion picture coming out with a song of [his] in it.”

Pink’s song, “What Hurts,” was picked up for a picture coming out through Lionsgate. The movie is called “House of Dust” and Pink describes it as a science fiction thriller to be released in late fall.

On the day HPR was in the studio with Pink and Bowe, they were mixing “In The Blood,” which Pink had recorded previously in the same studio. To this writer’s untrained ear, the song sounded fine before the mixing started. However, after three and a half hours in the studio with Pink, Bowe, Bowe’s engineer and a roomful of students, I developed a new appreciation for creating music. Also during the session, Pink took a break to talk to HPR about his career and his future while occasionally Bowe chimed in.

High Plains Reader:  When you and I first started talking about getting together, you said your ‘Minneapolis story in general has been an interesting and very unique one.’ How so?

Michael Pink:  When I lived here, I only lived here for about eight months. Before I lived here I lived in Yankton, South Dakota, which is really rural. Then I started getting a lot of interest and word started getting around that I was moving to the cities. I had more than one producer interested in meeting with me. When I got here I had things set up, all of these ‘meetings in the big city’ and things came sort of easy that way. I don’t know, just sort of in the rapid pace of things, I made famous friends. Phil Solem from the Rembrandts contacted me one day and we ended up meeting at the Green Mill for a hamburger like the next day. We just sort of became fast friends and he actually did some vocals on this song, some back up vocals. And meeting people like Kevin, who’s produced Paul Westerberg, my idol. Feels like things happened fast, that like they came without too much effort.

HPR:  But you went back to Fargo after living [in the cities]…can you tell me about that?

MP:    When I was living in the cities it was just living in an apartment and I was recording all my own stuff at the time. But you really can’t do much recording in an apartment, especially when you’re recording drums and other loud things. Couldn’t afford to get a house here so we decided to go back home and complete the triangle back to Fargo. We moved back there and I started recording. Then I decided to let go of the reins a little bit and let Kevin take over.

HPR:  Do you think of yourself more of a songwriter or a musician or both?

MP:    I think of myself as a good enough musician to play the songs that I write. What I mean by good enough musician is to play the songs in every way. I play everything on my recordings except for this experience. It came in handy that I was multi-faceted and could play drums, guitar, bass, piano and whatnot. Before I could play guitar I always wanted to write songs, like having melodies and ideas in my head so I guess I’m probably a songwriter first and foremost but also a musician, which is necessary to get it out there.

HPR:  Do you think you’ll ever write for other artists?

MP:    I’ve actually been approached to write songs for other people, which sounded like a fun idea. I had a manager from Chicago approach me about writing for one of his artists. I had another instance, probably the biggest one, where I had a manager tell me he loved my songs and he would pitch them to [his artist]. This guy’s on A & M and its like wow, what if he decided to record one of my songs? 

HPR:  I read that you recorded your songs in homes throughout the Midwest? Whose homes?

MP:    Oh my…not necessarily my own –

Kevin Bowe:  Strangers!

MP:    That is true, that is true. When I was living here I needed to do a drum track but I lived in an apartment, which presents an obvious problem. I had this friend called me up and said ‘I know a guy who has a basement in Crystal [Minnesota] who has this Yamaha drum kit and his wife is taking a nap but she has earplugs in. He said come on over and I’ll pick you up.’ I brought over one microphone and crappy little amp and recorded my drum track in the basement of this guy’s house. The guy even writes me once in awhile.

HPR:  Are you looking to sign with a label?

MP:    I don’t know. I’m definitely a free agent, but with the music business these days there are so many options.

KB:    The difference is it used to be a narrow, deep industry. It was a gamble and if you win, you make a bunch of money and very few people made a bunch of money. Now, music is a wide, flat industry. You don’t need a record label, you can just do this and more people are making less money. If you’re willing to get out there and tour and you’re willing to get out there and manage your own businesses you can make a living doing this, if you don’t suck.

HPR:  How do you get your stuff out there?

MP:    I don’t even know.

KB:    Word of mouth, Internet and live shows. Those are the things you have to do to get yourself out there now. We like doing this. It’s partly about ‘making it’ but making it is defined as doing this all of the time and not doing a day job. I’ve been doing this a long time and it’s very, very rare that someone comes along and I can point and say ‘That!’ but that’s how I feel about Michael.

MP:    Will you print that please?

HPR:  Sure [laughing]. Oh, and I almost forgot to ask you about making music critic John Borack’s top 20 list for 2010 (http://www.musicstack.com/articles/john-m-boracks-top—cds-of-). What’s the reaction to that been and how did he get a hold of your music?

MP:    It was sort of out of the blue. This guy out on the east coast has a radio show at like Rutgers and he has my CD and he has a thing he writes up in the Village Voice (http://www.villagevoice.com). Then his friend, John Borack, from out on the west coast, is a fan of the same kind of music. Once again, word of mouth and then John sends me an email and says ‘Send me a CD please.’ So I sent him one and I got an email back that it was great but then nothing more and then this list comes out and I’m on it. I guess he liked it.

HPR:  I guess so…I mean, I read his list, there’re some heavy hitters on there.

MP:    Exactly. It was very flattering considering everybody else that was on there and my ‘crude’ recording. There’s something to be said for home recording, though. Its like you can do it whenever you want, you’re not on the spot, somebody saying ‘Get the vibe right now.’ You can leave your microphone up like I used to and have Big Lebowski playing in the living room.

KB:    It’s like Michael’s songs could be recorded in a bathroom with one mic and it doesn’t matter because its melody, lyrics, chords, beat. Personally, I like it. I’m tired of really well produced crap that you hear when you turn on the radio now. Getting a great song, I don’t really care how it’s produced. I’m always hunting for great songs and they’re just not easy to find.

MP:    There’s a lot of great music recorded poorly out there and there’s a lot of shit that’s recorded state of the art. It’s one of those things, there’s ear candy and then there’s brain candy, you know? Two different things.

You can hear Michael Pink’s newest single “In The Blood” only on the Reader’s website http://www.hpr1.com. Go to Michael Pink’s myspace page, http://www.myspace.com/michaelpink, to hear “What Hurts”, soon to be found in Lionsgate Entertainment’s fall motion picture release, “House of Dust”.

Listen to this exclusive release of In The Blood by Michael Pink:

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