 They are soulmates, they are congenial musicians and well, they are siblings too. They are the creative geniusses behind Engine Down and Denali. I’m speaking of Keeley Davis (voc., g. in Engine Down plus g. in Denali) and his sister Maura (voc., piano)
It’s always a pleasant coincidence when admirable musicians are at the same time friendly and humorous individuals. Read this and you should know what I’m talking about…
Q: What does your schedule look like right now? What are you doing/working on?
I remember reading somewhere that Engine Down is top-priority for its members and doesn’t leave time for jobs. Is that true? Maura, what are you doing besides the band?
Keeley: At this moment we are with Denali in the van driving across the center of the United States. We are in the middle of a two month tour and have seen many cities twice. Jonathan and I are in both Engine Down and Denali and are the only members in both bands that are constantly touring and writing, which leaves no room for a job. This is all I want to do anyways.
Maura: Right now I am working on some new material for the next record. Can't wait for new songs. I am still a college student but I am taking this semester off because of our tour. FUN FUN
Q: Tell me something about artistic and creative outlets, the instruments you play, your studies, your ways of creative self-realization etc.
Keeley: I will pick up any instrument I can get my hands on but mostly I write music on the guitar. Experimentation is high on my guideline for staying inspired to write. I try to keep a level head while traveling around the world and staying true to what I really want with all this. It is easy to loose yourself when everyone is telling you how they interpret your art and life.
Maura: When I get in that moment where I have to write something on guitar or piano, I know I have to do it at that second. It's hard for me to stay in the mode for writing. I have a short attention span or something. I know that all of this is something I have wanted to be a part of for a long time and sometimes I have to stop myself and realize what's happening. I can get caught up in the whole hustle and bustle part.
Q: Keeley, you have been studying art, I guess. And you’re taking care of everything visual connected to Engine Down, the album-artworks, the website, the shirt-designs. How would you describe the relation between ED’s music and its visual representation? The relation between these two artforms. Where do you draw inspiration from when it comes to designs? Is it the music or could it be something else?
Keeley: I actually do all the design for both Denali and Engine Down. They both are very visual sounding bands to me. When we finish a song I see the scenery around it and always want the sound to be accompanied by visuals. The artwork is always a stimuli that works hand in hand with the music. The Engine Down artwork has pulled more from themes, relationships, and overall interaction within the band. Each album carried over into the lights that we bring with us on tour as a visual control on the environment. As far as inspiration for design, I take if from fashion, media, nature, and organic human nature - if that makes any sense. Music comes first, design comes second.
Q: And another thing: On the latest recording and the connected website this KHEYDesign-Logo appears. How much of a business is this actually? There are some musicians in independent music, working as freelance designers, I’m thinking of Jacob Bannon or Aaron Turner for instance. To what extend is it filling up your time, compared to the music?
Keeley: KHEYDesign is just a way for me to separate the design side of my brain with my musical side. I like to think that I know my own taste better than anyone but if I worked the music and design at the same time then I would get lost in the separate items. It is my split personality but not my business. I have done work for others, but mainly just to help out friends. There really isnt enough time for me to do the design side as a business when I am touring with two active bands. Maybe when I cant walk anymore.
Q: What do you generally think about albums as pieces of art, concerning the look. Are you collectors? And what do you prefer, LP or CD?
Keeley: When it comes to music, I am more interested in the listening than the looking since the primary goal of a musician is sound and not visuals. I have not come across too many musicians that have a close relationship with the artist doing the album art, so many times it doesn’t seem to fit the mood. CDs beat LPs in listening comfort, plus I cant play vinyl in the van.
Maura: I agree with Keeley on this one. The cover design gets me ready for what I am about to here. I think it is sort of a mood setter. I am definitely a digital girl.
Q: How and when did Denali come together? Who was approaching whom, how did everything work out?
Keeley: Two years ago.
Maura: I wrote some songs in high school, not knowing what I would eventually do with them. A window of opportunity appeared when I moved to Richmond for school and Keeley was living here also. I played him some of some of my stuff when we were home for Christmas and was interested in making music together, I mean we are brother and sister and that always sells. Jonathan and Cam then became apart of it somehow. We didn't really have any expectations of being a real band or even playing out at the beginning. It was just a little side project.
Q: The bonds between you two must be really strong and of extraordinary quality. I mean, you seem to have so many things in common. How do you value one another? What do you like and admire about each other? Are you more the like-minded, soul mate kind of brother and sister or do you sometimes fight over certain things? How does your relation affect artistic cooperation?
Keeley: Well for one we both have short attention spans and all those questions just seemed to run together. Maura and I live together, write together, play together, and eat together. So I guess you could say that we are the soul mate kind of siblings. Sometimes we realize that we have to separate when I comes time for families of our own but it seems so far away. We will always feel young. I think I most admire the modest side of Maura. She has always been a very talented girl in many aspects, and through all the praise from family and friends she has stayed a very modest person.
Maura: As kids, Keeley used to torture me and I would scream at him, but once we grew up we began to see each other as real people. Keeley is the most laid back person I know and he definitely calms me down when I start to wig out. I have always admired every band he has been in and he is really the only person I knew I had to write music with. We have such a similar taste in music that writing music together comes very naturally. It's almost too easy. I would definitely say we are the soul mate kind of siblings.
Q: What was it like when you were discovering music when you were younger, did you always like the same records and bands? Did one influence the music taste of the other? What are your first experiences concerning music, your all-time favorites, the heroes of your childhood and teenager times?
Keeley: I think I was more into Metal bands when Maura was still playing with her Barbies. Motley Crue was my favorite band when I was 11. I still wait for the day that I will meet Nikki Sixx.
Maura: I was definitely a Jem and the Holograms fan. At the time when Keeley was your poster boy for Metal bands, I was the poster girl for teenibopper 80s girls like Debbie Gibson. Since we are four years apart, I musical tastes as kids were very different. When we started getting older and I was influenced easily, Keeley gave me my first Metal band tape of the band Cinderella. Great band.
Q: What bands are you totally into at the moment? And what were your last truly inspiring experiences? Can be music, can be art in general, can be life.
Keeley: I really enjoy the new Coldplay and Interpole records. At the moment I have been lucky enough to meet some people that have really inspired me to enjoy things. It is rare these days that I come across people that have true drive to do the things they love.
Maura: Like I said before, we have the same taste in music but I will add N.E.R.D. and Black Heart Procession.
Q: Keeley, what was it like to work with Brian McTernan on the last album? Basically everything he did was just mind-blowing and the sound of „Demure” is mind-blowing too. „Demure” is sounding very organic, pounding and warm. It’s more raw and direct than the recordings before. What was your conception before the recordings, of how the record should sound like and how do you think did it turn out?
Keeley: Well we were all blown away by the Cave In record that Brian did and this solved our biggest problem we were facing. Every record we put out was not competing with our live sound. All our fans were telling us that the live show blows away the recordings so we set out to find the best man to fill this void. Brian did help us produce a very organic sound and we also stripped down the "studio tricks" that we have done before. The sound was strong enough on its own without filler. Before entering the studio I really wanted this record to be our coming out record. It shows all our confidence in our sound and song writing. This also has to do with the actual band photos on the artwork. Before the images of us would be faded and out of focus, but now we feel comfortable with our place as musicians, and Brian McTernan helped us realize this.
Q: Well, my impression is that your music is pretty much intuitive, artistically pretentious, but very true, open and emotional. Same goes for Denali’s music, there’s always some kind of distinctive side to the songs and they are unbelievably deep and touching. If it is possible at all, could both of you try to put your approach towards music as a creative and emotional outlet into words?
Keeley: I am normally a stable and content person. When it comes to music, I am always drawn by the truthful emotion that can be expressed and surrounded by sound. In this I feel comfortable expressing deeper thoughts and emotions than I would normally talk about.
Maura: I use the music to get out whatever emotion I am feeling at that moment. It's pretty hard to do that in everyday life, well for me. It is an outlet to say something crazy or bold.
Q: Keeley, the same thing with your lyrics. They appear to me like associative writing, very spontaneous and somehow incoherent and elaborated, almost as if they were coming out of your subconscious or your dreams. It’s quite difficult to grasp some semantics there, especially for a non-native English-speaker like me. Again, what is inspiring to you, what are the lyrics dealing with, how does the technical side of your writing look like, which moods, surroundings are helpful? What is your approach, your pretension towards (your) writing in general? And what comes first, words or music?
Keeley: Music is always first and it pulls my words with its mood. My brain works in short bursts of imagery and concepts, and this is how I write words. When I express my experiences and feelings in songs it is as if they are short films with limited time for filler. I don’t expect someone to understand a story that I am telling but to interpret the song in any way it inpires them.
Q: Maura’s lyrics seem to be of a similar kind, also containing blurred meaning, with much room for interpretation, but a little bit more arranged and focused, a little straighter. And it seems as if they were less connected to the music, they could stand alone as poetry, you use rhyming schemes and there is rhythm and melody in your lyrics even when there is no music that accompanies them. So the same question to you: what drives you to write, what is your inspiration, what are the themes, what your pretension?
Maura: When I am writing, I get into this zone that is detached from reality. I may leave a song and come back to it with a totally different theme, but it is very true.
Q: Could you imagine playing in a band together, or lead Denali into a direction where you two bundle your creative energy and share vocal parts 50:50? Just like you did on „Demure” with „Closed Call”?
Keeley: We talk about it some times since it would be the easiest thing to do. Great minds think alike ya know. What do you think Maura?
Maura: I think it's a very smart idea. I would be curious about the outcome. I hope that someday we will venture into that idea.
Q: How is songwriting executed in your bands anyway? I guess in Engine Down it’s mainly you, Keeley, coming up with basic structures to build a song-backbone with the drummer. Are Jonathan and Jason contributing such basic ideas as well, or are they working on complete songs individually? As far as I know, Denali’s songs are written/composed by Maura. How do you approach composing? How important are the contributions of the other band-members and how important is Keeley’s songwriting-experience when it comes to finish the songs?
Keeley: Engine Down songs start with my ideas and are layered upon by the other members. We usually jam on an idea I bring to the table and then it morphs into an EngineDown song.
Maura: I write the skeleton of the song. The best part is seeing how it turns out when the guys work on it. I have always loved Keeley's music and he is a little more outside the box than the rest of us so his input is way imortant.
Q: As the Folk/Singer/Songwriter-boom is still exploding, are you into stuff like that, could you imagine to have a completely stripped down acoustic solo-project?
Keeley: I have many songs that could come across this way but I don’t think touring would be as fun. FUN
Maura: All my songs could be done solo but the fun part is collaborating with these guys.
Q: One more question concerning Maura’s songwriting. What I like best about Denali’s music is the dramatic side, this chorus-like vocal-line in „Everybody Knows” and the final chords of this very song for instance or the slowly tension-building in „Where I Landed” and the outburst in this sort-of-wall-of-sound, this dark and moody guitar-riff shortly before the end. What is your conception of drama and pathos and how important is it for your songwriting?
Maura: When I get caught in real life drama, I get in a zone where my mind is racing and turning like crazy. Presenting a dramatic sound in music I feel could get that same kind of reaction, well if your like me. But I wouldn't say I am a drama queen or anything.
Q: I experienced Engine Down as very lovely people when playing live over here, it is safe to say that Engine Down is a band of integrity and sincerity. What is your conception of the artist-recipient-relation? I’m thinking of terms such as two-way-communication. How important is feedback and communication? Unfortunately I didn’t have the chance to experience Maura in persona, but I’m sure, she is damn cool too, so please feel free to answer this one as well.
Keeley: It is very important since our very reason for doing as this is to get reactions from those who may have not know the people we have reacted to. Its all about recycling inspiration and connecting with others. P.S. It is very nice of you to think that we are nice.
Maura: Keeley said it very well and yes, the Engine Down men are extraordinary people.
Q: Though both Engine Down’s and Denali’s music is often reflective, melancholic and gloomy, you seem to have a good sense of humor. How important is humor/irony for a) your life, b) your art?
Keeley: Probably the biggest part. Without humor or irony I wouldn’t be able to get out of sticky situations or cover up an uncomfortable moment. We are all jokesters and we really enjoy each others company, this includes each others sense of humor. As far as art goes I like humor on clothing. That is my steez.
Maura: I think everyone has different sides to them. It seems funny to me that when people hear gloomy lyrics, they think that person is obviously depressed. I would say humor takes up more of my life rather than depression. Putting yourself on a stage, exposed to strangers demands a sense of humor or you would drive your self crazy.
Q: Engine Down toured Europe two times now, I guess that means that you like it here. Again not the most original question, but is there a difference between the crowds in Europe and the US? How are your touring plans right now? I hope you‚re coming back soon.
Keeley: Europe's crowd is a very respected crowd. Everyone seems to be there more for the music than just to hang out. We have a lot of really devoted fans in Europe and it astounds me since English is not your native language, so there is a language gap. We have been touring more of the US lately since we want to expand our music to more ears. We hope to come back to Europe with both bands in the spring sometime. I want to show Maura all the amazing sights.
Q: What is coming next from both bands? Any releases we should keep an eye open for? If you had the choice, with which band/artist (of any kind) would you like to share a split-release? Have you ever thought about an Engine Down/Denali-split?
Keeley: Touring is our first priority at the moment, but our inspiration to write more music is very high right now. I think if we wrote more songs in the next month I would do a split with the band Velvet Teen from LA, CA.
Maura: I am very excited about new material. Oooh, good idea Keeley. A split with them would be awesome.
Thank you very much for your time and patience. Hope to see you soon and take care. Thanks so much, Andreas. I hope this all makes sense to you. Take care.
Further Links:
 www.enginedown.com
www.denali.vze.com
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