Kevin Stebner is the Hardest Working Musician in Calgary

Photo courtesy of Arif Ansari

For artists in Alberta’s music scene, it can be easy to feel isolated, insular and alone. Once you’ve run out of places to play in your own province, the nearest major cities are hundreds of kilometres away. While it’s certainly getting better, it’s still not an A-route priority for touring acts. As such, it’s easy to fall into complacency, whining online and licking your wounds over just how bad you have it. Or, if you’re Kevin Stebner, you could simply work your hands to the bone and make cool shit happen. The Red Deer-raised, Calgary-based musician, label boss and show promoter is a true punk entrepreneur. Following stints in bands like totheteeth/tothehilt, Draft Dodgers (alongside Viet Cong’s Daniel Christiansen and NEEDS’ Glenn Alderson) and Stalwart Sons, he’s currently got four projects on the go. There’s the frantic chiptune project GreyScreen (with which he uses a hacked Game Boy to perform), the experimental hip-hop duo Heavy Mountain (a project that builds beats from folk samples and will debut later this year), the frantic post-hardcore of Prepared (a ripping punk band at once aggressive and emotive) and the doom-laden alt-country act Cold Water (whose music recalls the vast, dreary desert-scapes of a Wim Wenders or Jim Jarmusch film). Outside of all that, he helps book the annual hardcore/post-hardcore/emo festival Ghost Throats and simultaneously runs the BART Records cassette label and vinyl oriented Revolution Winter.

Stebner’s hustle is so fabled that he’s often joked about writing his own self-help book called The Stebnerian Way: A Guide to Being a Real Dude and Getting Shit Done. Though he’s yet to write the book — and we strongly think he should — it’s representative of his quit-bitching-and-grind attitude. “The Stebnerian Way was sort of a joke that turned into something real,” he says of the semi-fake self-help book. “Basically, it’s essentially a get ‘er done work ethic and staunch DIY mentality that has turned into a mantra…. [It’s] aimed at keeping artists and musicians motivated in spite of the inevitable and all too prevalent indifference that faces those called to artistic output.” “Perhaps one day I’ll spit it out,” he adds, “but I’ve been staying motivated as of late and have filled my time with output, so it seems The Way has been working.”

That much is most definitely true — this spring, Stebner will release two major projects through his Revolution Winter label. First up is Prepared’s debut release, a pair of songs on a split 7-inch with the Toronto-via-St. John’s, Newfoundland hardcore band Veneers. Not unlike Stalwart Sons, the songs combine Stebner’s poetic lyrics and gruff shouting with off-kilter rhythms and busy guitar work. It’s classic emo, though he says the band is still a marked evolution from previous projects. “In Stalwart Sons, being a three piece, I had to cover a lot of space in my playing, the guitar parts had to cover rhythms and leads simultaneously,” he explains. “But with two guitars, and with Will [Bjorndahl] whose playing skills far outmatch my own, it’s been exciting to see what the songs can become, how melodies can fight with each other, how I don’t have to fill every moment with myself…. All the guys in Prepared — Will, Ryan [Kennedy, drummer] and Joey [Cliff, bassist] – have all played in hardcore bands previously, and thus understand how to make things rip.”

That record will land on April 1. Then, in May, Stebner will issue the self-titled debut from Cold Water. From its sparse, drawn-out arrangements through its bleak (and distinctly prairies) album art and his own singular, gruff vocal delivery, the album’s a truly unique country record. “All of these so called country heroes that people cite end up sounding pretty hokey, and the whole notion of ‘outlaw country’ comes off pretty hackneyed to me,” Stebner says, saying he prefers to categorize Cold Water’s guitar-heavy anthems as “full-stack folk.” “I’ve always kind of preferred the way folk artists can draw out personality and emotion – these sad folk ladies that actually make a guitar weep and you, as listener, are able to steal away and distill their emotion,” he says. “But I could never understand, with all that emotional weight behind the songs, why these artists would treat their songs so slight. If you feel so deep, how then do you treat it so lightly? So with Cold Water, I sought to play out the feeling of a folk sound, but fully, and loudly as I would approach a hardcore band.” Lyrically, too, the Cold Water LP features some of his heaviest work yet. “For someone who has played so-called ‘emo’ music, the irony is, here is where I get far more personal,” he admits. “I get pretty naked in some of these songs. I reveal more of myself here than I have anywhere else.”

Noisey: You’re always on your grind with one project or another. How do you avoid burning out or running out of ideas?
Kevin Stebner: Against all advice of most writers, I find it really difficult to write at all times, regardless of inspiration. I can’t force it if it’s not there. I’m very much a slave to the muses. When inspiration hits, I have to take advantage. So for me, it’s having the multiple projects that allows me to produce like crazy. When I’m uninspired from one project, I’m able to pick up the next one. Make a thing. Ideas are infinite. You’ll only run out of ideas if you becoming boring yourself. Listen to every record, read a thousand books. Ideas are yours to find, they can drop from the sky, sure, but they’ll mostly come from digging.

How did you learn about DIY music and culture? Do we really need an all ages scene, or is that a dream from a previous generation that doesn’t matter anymore?
What in insane posit to think there doesn’t need to be an all ages scene. Without fresh blood, the music scene would be nothing but blues-dads. Living in Red Deer, I put on my first punk show in a skate shack when I was 14. Who knows where it began exactly. I suppose at this young age even then I had a desire to actually live, and be active and have some slight ambition. I grew up in an all ages scene. I learned how to play instruments, and organize events and people, to build something out of nothing. All ages is not for the fogeys who came before it, that previous generation’s dreams have long died. All ages is not to serve the “music scene,” it’s for fresh blood, new players to play and grow, try things out and maybe one day become actual musicians. Do we need it? Being a teenager is frustrating as it is without having to fight for something as pure and simple as artistic endeavour.

Tell me about the writing process behind Cold Water… do you start off saying “I’m going to write a country song” or do you play riffs and write lyrics and decide what project it fits into later?
Cold Water began as a basement recording project to write some country/folk songs on my TASCAM. It was intended to be nothing more than that – but when the band got together and we started gaining momentum, and mining out the sound, it changed somewhat. I certainly do write with the band in mind, knowing where the steel will slide in and when the drums will roll in. So yes, I do tend to write towards a certain band or project, generally starting with riffs and chordings, and working out from there. I’ll generally start with a rhythm or mood I’ll want to fulfill and build toward it. And from that tone and mood, lyrics will follow from that.

Is it tough to find shows as a punk dude in a country band?
As one trying to book a Cold Water tour right now, I can assure you – yes. I try to marry the two in Cold Water, but rarely do fans of punk or hardcore mesh with fans of folk or country — and no… folk-punk is a misnomer and an atrocity. This is no anomaly though – every band I’ve been in, it’s always felt like a struggle to find assistance or specific interest. I mean – it is what it is. I’m used to fighting, and I’ll still just do it however I can.

Have you considered playing into the Calgary cowboy stereotype and lining up some high-paying Stampede gigs?
Is this a real question? I’m an actual Albertan. I go to actual rodeos and go to senior men’s hockey games in small towns. Said stereotype is a falsehood, the stampede is an excuse for adults to act like college bros and spend a week puking in the street and ruining my neighbourhood. It’s barely a rodeo and it’s an embarrassment to “Western culture” and this city. I’m embarrassed by it.

Josiah Hughes is a writer living in Calgary - @josiahhughes