Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

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Maple syrupy sweet power pop

The son of a preacher man, Mark Kleiner, pappy of the Mark Kleiner Power Trio, received the call of God a while back and suddenly quit a band, left his hot girlfriend and moved back to a prairie home in Saskatoon.

After being schooled about church things at a Lutheran seminary, Mark did what any good former rock star would do–moved in with his millionaire friend in Vancouver and fell back into songwriting.

“We were sitting around one night by the hot tub with the acoustic guitar,” recalls Kleiner, “and I was playing Nick all these songs I’d written. At the end of the evening, he reached into his jacket pocket, signed me a blank check and said, ‘Go make your record.'”

Kleiner recently chatted with The Herald about cerebral pop, Much Music and the Dells.

The Badger Herald: So Wisco played out as an inspiration for your record?

Mark Kleiner: The idea for the “Beautiful Slide” video came on a bus trip I took across America a couple summers ago, en route from Vancouver, BC to Orgone, Maine (I received a scholarship to attend the Wilhelm Reich Orgone Accumulator Conference at his former residence).

We passed through the Wisconsin Dells, and I was utterly blown away–this image of late 1950s/early ’60s Americana still hanging on the vine, and the dream was to fly in to shoot the video just chilling down the main drag from day ’til night. When I meet my future-ex, I think we’ll have to honeymoon there!

BH: How did you get involved with Mint Records?

MK: I’ve known the Mint posse for years. They had interest in my 1990s cerebral pop outfit Sister Lovers, but a number of lifestyle issues prevented anything tangible from getting done. Five years later, with much atonement and therapy under our belts, we managed to rock the i’s and bop the t’s, and get the music where it belongs–in the life space.

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BH: Do you have any formal music training?

MK: I took piano lessons up to maybe 4th grade Conservatory and took a few years of guitar and had a great lounge pianist named Sam Lohnheim give me a year of lessons. He taught me what David Crosby (and others, I’m sure) calls “singer-songwriter” piano.

BH: What artists did you really appreciate when you were growing up? Who did you hate?

MK: OK, I remember when rock ‘n’ roll turned 25 in 1980–“white rock,” I should say; Bill Haley (not Ike Turner) being declared the “father.” More like the chaperone! But whatever, it meant there were these great rock ‘n’ roll specials on TV and the three cats who really stood out for me (in order) were Buddy Holly, Fats Domino and Jerry Lee.

Before that, I had been into KISS and even played maracas in a KISS-influenced band called PARADISE, but that was more about the theatre than the music. With the old ’50s guys, it was so much the tunes.

Then came the Beatles, and THEN, TV again; it was all about the Monkees. I lost my mind from age 10 or 11 ’til at least 17 and listened to an almost steady diet of Monkees bootleg solo shopping–[I went to] mall concerts, went to conventions, you know the routine. Came out the other side.

In Saskatoon in the 1970s, if you liked KISS (i.e, were a dude), you HATED the Rollers (or Bay City Rollers, as they were then known). Later in life, I acquired the ENTIRE Rollers catalogue, including their drug album (Elevator), teaching me a valuable lesson in being careful about what I loathed!

BH: Do you wear zebra-colored pants out on the town a lot? [Kleiner is pictured in tight, striped pants in a promo shot].

MK: I recently joined AA and, yes, I have been known to wear them to the odd meeting.

BH: Do you have a particular writing style? And how long did it take to write/record Love to Night?

MK: My writing style is pretty much what you hear on the record. It tends to come back to this heartland kind of pop, with urban accoutrements.

I have been feeling the need in the last year or so to really throw my language to the wind because of the dreaded “romantic’s disease”; ya know, “I-me-mine;” it’ll probably take a couple failed concept albums for me to come back to the point of it all (I have an early-’90s-influenced side project called Mark Kleiner’s Toadstone in the works; you’ve been warned). Recording L2N took about six or seven weeks including mixing.

BH: Mint publicist Yvette Ray tells me you are re-joining the seminary; will this affect you as a rock musician?

MK: I think rock ‘n’ roll might affect me as a seminarian! Rock came from gospel, but yeah, it’s never been a comfortable fit. Then again, we’re not really talking about comfort here, are we?

BH: Where exactly were you born?

MK: Philadelphia, PA under the sun sign of Virgo, moon in Aries, with Libra rising. Home to Rocky, Todd Rundgren (sorta) and the Philly Cheese Steak. And those ol’ hip-hop rollies.

BH: What was it like filming a music video?

MK: We had about $17,000 Canadian (so half that for U.S. bucks) to make the “Beautiful Slide” video, but the beautiful thing about working here in Saskatchewan where we shot it is the level of enthusiasm.

Most people donated their time for free, including like 80 guitarists who play along with the song at the end. It’s a guitar instructional video shot in a waterpark where I teach a coterie of students to “play my song.” It was actually a lot of fun, especially filming the waterslide sequences at eight in the morning after having been up filming for, like, twelve hours. Surreal.

BH: Is Much Music going to air the video?

MK: They have and they will again; April 18 and 25 for sure (at between 1:15 and 1:30 p.m. your time). Do you get Much Music down south?

BH: Sorry, guy, I wish.

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