“Seth and I met at a gig up in the mountains in Colorado when he helped me carry my old Roland keyboard from my 1992 Toyota Corolla station wagon to the stage.”
CHINA: Music and mutual friends brought us together, and I remember thinking that Seth was the most intelligent person at the table later that night when we all went out for drinks. It was the early oughts, before streaming and YouTube, before the internet would take over music listening. I was working 5 different gigs to make ends meet at the time, driving myself all across Denver in that green station wagon, listening to my CDs and the radio.
I mentioned to Seth that first night, that I was obsessed with a song I’d heard on the radio, but didn’t know who had sung it or how to find it. I sang the snippet that I remembered, “In the cathedrals of New York and Rome…” to him, unbeknownst that he was the world’s best finder of random things; that he would research until he found the song, “Cathedrals” by Jump Little Children; that he would purchase the CD it appeared on, and bring it to my doorstep. Thusly, our mutual adoration of each other and of music grew to this full-on collaboration we now nurture, grow and manage together called Alright Alright.
SETH: Yeah, I mean I was a bit smitten when I saw China, then I heard her sing and I was starting to get it bad. Later, in the middle of this dive bar we all ended up at that night, we were drinking martinis to feel fancy, and China asked us about that song. It was so amazing to have this beautiful girl with this big voice just belt a song in the middle of the bar.
Finding that album for her was sorta my foot in the door, and ever since, we’ve ended up discovering a lot of music together over the years. That magic still happens. We were at Americana Fest last year at Jeremy Ivey’s album release in the new Grimey’s, and while we were listening to the music, we kept finding records we wanted. They made some money on us that night!
CHINA: I mean, I grew up in a fundamentalist household, and my parents were extremely strict when it came to music and movies. Classical and Christian music were the only approved genres allowed. My only musical icons were the classical greats: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms. When I was fourteen, I made the preposterous decision to order twelve CDs I’d never heard from Columbia House Records for a penny.
I’ll never forget that box arriving in the mail, my nervous churning stomach as I rushed upstairs with it, hoping my parents wouldn’t find out, then opening the box to reveal the twelve forbidden treasures.…U2’s Achtung! Baby, Neil Diamond’s Greatest Hits, Stevie Nicks, Steve Miller Band, The Eagles, Billy Joel. These new icons arrived in a cardboard box ready to lead me in a new devotion. It was my first true rebellion.
SETH: My house was similar but not nearly as strict. Although most of the music in our house was Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith, I remember my parents spinning Peter, Paul and Mary, or Herb Alpert vinyl records and all of us dancing around and singing along.
Later, in my teens, I was quickly learning to love music and scrounged up a record player from a thrift store that I set up in my room. A youth pastor who I think secretly wanted to be a rock star decided, since he had all his music on CDs, that he would give me all his old records. There was some really wild stuff in there and I still have most of it. He had everything from worn out Jimi Hendrix records to instrumental tracks that you could play and sing along to.
My friends were all listening to grunge CDs, and they thought I was crazy because I would light these old oil lamps I had found somewhere and lie next to my speakers late at night with the sound just loud enough to hear without waking my family. I’d listen to Dylan and the Allman Brothers and John Michael Talbot on vinyl, sometimes holding my breath in, listening to Bill Cosby records and crazy Gomer Pyle skits because they were just so funny to my teenaged, sleep-deprived mind.
CHINA: Now we listen to vinyl records most of the time when we’re at home. We just love the crackle, the warmth, how it feels. There is an aspect of it, a forced break, that lends itself to having to pay attention to music in a different way than a streaming service. You can’t just turn it on and forget about it; the music must be attended to, and therefore you must be, to some degree, attentive to the record. When we play music for dinner parties and Saturday morning waffles, there are moments to get up and ponder what would create a moment, or what record would enhance the vibe.
SETH: With music being so much at the root of our relationship from the very first moment, I think it makes sense that we care about the way music is presented. The fact that the packaging of vinyl can be part of the art is lost on some folks, I think. In these days when your proofs need to be checked for how they look on a phone screen, it is refreshing to take photos and think about them as the gatefold inside vinyl packaging. There is a lot of room for detail and beauty and creativity in vinyl packaging that makes it part of the narrative of the record itself. I would say that part of the process has been one of the highlights of putting together our new album, Crucible.
—China and Seth Kent
Crucible, the new full-length release from Alright Alright arrives in stores on October 23rd—on vinyl.
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PHOTO: MICHAEL WILSON HAIR
