pat keesey

Songwriter patrick keesey plays and sings simple songs in a slow, smooth, and easy style. The songs are often existential ballads about loss, longing and starting over. The development of Pat Keesey's songwriting style and melancholy folk sound developed over many years. Although the sound is simple and folky, it slowly evolved through his experimentation with many styles of music, including rock and roll, punk, reggae, classical, country, folk, and the blues.

The development of Pat Keesey's songwriting style and melancholy folk sound developed over many years. Although the sound is simple and folky, it slowly evolved through his experimentation with many styles of music, including rock and roll, punk, reggae, classical, country, folk, and the blues.

Pat grew up in a house in which everyone played an instrument. His mother sang with the L.A. master choral and the madrigal group Qualche Voce (musical heritage society). QV drank wine and practiced 16th century madrigals in Pat's living room for his entire life. By 5th grade, Pat was voted the best elementary school trombone player in the Los Angeles Unified School district. At this point however, he had heard Chuck Berry, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones, and the trombone was about to be put aside for the electric guitar. Throughout junior high and highschool, Pat listened to and consumed any music that seemed sincere to him. He was especially interested in the raspy vocals and the well crafted lyrics of Joe Strummer and the music of The Clash.

During college, Keesey continued to play the punk-influenced rock music that he played in highschool. His band, the Muleskinners, played drunkin and distorted versions of a variety of bands including the Stones, ZZtop, and The Minute Men, among others. They also played a variety of rare Rockabilly covers. Keesey was becoming well known at RISD as one of the better electric guitar players on campus. However, he had just picked up his first Lightnin Hopkins and Hank Williams records. Lead guitar began to seem light in comparison. His interest in the blues, country, and folk music began to consume him.

By the time his post-college band, Loviband, began to receive some attention in the underground L.A. music scene, the melancholy sounds of folk and country musicians like Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson, and Townes Van Zandt were about all he wanted to listen to. The attraction to a quieter sound became so strong that the loud rockabilly-influenced bluegrass that Loviband was playing started to seem like something he could no longer believe in. (Loviband had been called ?amish psychobilly? and ?hillbilly deathrock? by the L.A. Weekly due to their twangy and haunting versions of bluegrass murder ballads.) Around the time Loviband put out their only single, his brother Tim (the bassist) moved away, and the band quickly dissolved.

It was at this time that Pat finally spent the time alone to write and record, and to honestly address the songs in his mind and soul. Just weeks after Loviband's last show, Pat wrote ?goodbye joe?. At 30 years old and after having played the guitar since the fifth grade, Keesey had finally written what he considers his first song. The dark and haunting lyrics scared him. However, they were the first lyrics he had penned that seemed honest, and the first that he was not compelled to crumple up and throw away. Although he has now composed well over 30 songs and has become accustomed to the dark lyrics that end up on the page, it took another 10 years to complete the recordings of his first simple, 4 song ep, The Marfa Demos. It was completed in early 2008 and will be available on cd baby by mid-July.

Pat currently lives and works in New York City with his wife, Tina Hejtmanek, and his blue healer, Lolita.