Little Horn’s Keith Forrester has been hard at work realizing a vision for his band since the release of his debut record, Such Pretty Houses. The record itself is a shimmering and southern gothic kind of folk, but it sounds like the band will be a different animal. Keith recently sat down with us to have a chat.

Whale Heart: What have you been up to lately? 

Keith:  Mainly getting off to the slowest start of a year I think I’ve ever experienced.  It just wouldn’t get off the ground.  Me and the boys haven’t played a show yet but we have our first of the year coming up. I’m starting to feel the fire under my rear again.

WH:  How have the songs on Such Pretty Houses changed since the band came together?

Keith:   They’ve changed a lot.  Neal (Williams) and Dallas (Peavy) really round the songs out and give them a new fullness. They’re different now.  On the record they stand alone as minimalist pieces unto themselves. Daniel Bellury, Daniel Whitt and I really had some beautiful chemistry creating Such Pretty Houses, but Neal and Dallas still managed to dig out all these layers and sounds buried in them and the findings were just perfect and damn beautiful.  It makes for a great live sound too.  My venue options have increased.  I couldn’t ask for better cohorts.  As far as writing stuff as a band its more of a piece-meal approach right now.  Schedules are difficult to coordinate. As it stands, I have written and am in the midst of writing a lot of new material alone on the couch or in the dining room.  I almost have another album of songs and we have hardly practiced this year. When we do they add their parts and then the songs become ours.  I don’t understand bands where one dude writes the stuff and dictates to everyone else what to play.  I prefer an organic collaboration, even if I have the song written, I need the perspective and critique.  

WH: Your lyrics deal a lot with religion and spirituality. Tell us about your personal history with these subjects and how they inform your music. 

Keith: It might be better to say that the lyrics deal with a rebellion to religion and a re-defining of your spirituality.  Especially the idea of autonomy in the presence of an Almighty, or the concept of an Almighty… You know, wrestling your Maker stuff. My grandfather was the kindest, most honorable, and most generous man I ever knew and all he could think about on his death bed was whether or not he had been good enough to stay out of Hell. When we go to one extreme or the other, that’s when we are weak and capable of wrong action, like in The Dark Crystal. As far as my personal history, I was raised from knee-high until late-teens in an independent branch of the charismatic movement, or “Charismania”. They had everything short of snake-handling; speaking in tongues, gettin’ drunk on the holy spirit and convulsing around on the floor, laying hands on a coffin at a funeral while screaming for the body to come forth, etc. That was a particularly funny one to me. The guy they were trying to raise had donated a bunch of stuff, you know organs and what not, but also his skin and eyes and such.  I had this chuckle to myself in the midst of the funeral envisioning him popping out of the coffin looking like a gore-fest and all the people so desirous of asserting their grand spiritual powers running like hell rather than basking in the awe and wonder of the miracle. When I was 14 a “prophet” at a revival told me that God wanted me to know that I was not supposed to pursue music.  Didn’t He create me and give me my talents/interests?  And then there was Eternal Damnation.  That was the eventual deal-breaker for me.  I worked in the Army Chaplain Corps, and when I got out I abandoned it.

I think there are some beautiful, unique concepts in the Bible but few can see them. Needless to say, my past and my subsequent struggles come to bear immensely in my lyrics.  

WH: What’s inspiring you lately? 

Keith:  A lot.  The change in the weather has brought a refreshing breeze to my songwriting.  I’ve been listening to some old stuff.  Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits have been blowing my mind.  I’ve also been hitting up some Rachmaninoff and this composer that calls himself Eluvium.  Neal made me a comp with some good bands too, Grouper from Portland being one of them.  So good.  The sadness of losing all of the music from my Ipod has been pressing on me and I’ve been getting so much joy from my son.  He’s a constant muse.  Be looking for a song about him on the next album or if you catch a show.  Its about him but general enough, I think, to resonate with any parent.

WH: When can we expect the next Little Horn record?

Keith: Well, right now its looking like we will record towards the end of the year and release early 2011.  At least that’s what the boss man says.  I’m real excited to do an album with a full band. 

Such Pretty Houses is available now in the store. Look out for Little Horn live this year and the new record in 2011.