Q. Name, age and where you live?
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A. My name is Geoff Kraly. I’m 26. I live in Brooklyn, NY. My co-
bandleader is Benjamin Scheuer. Ben is 25. He lives in Greenwich
Village in New York City. He and I make up the band Lady
Clown. We have a new record called First Lady Clown. We’re
releasing the album in April, and are putting on a CD release
show on April 11at 8:30p.m. at Arlene’s Grocery in New York
City. Our Myspace page is www.myspace.com/firstladyclown
Come be our friend on My Space!
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Q. Education?
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A. I grew up in Hubbardsville and went to Hamilton Central
School. I then attended Northwestern University where I was
the first graduate of their fledgling Music Cognition program.
It was a very good experience as that course of study was
essentially interdisciplinary. I was able to take Psychology classes,
Cognitive Science classes, Linguistics, in addition to the core
music classes. Meanwhile I was diving into the music scene in
Chicago, playing with great musicians, and studying with Steve
Rodby.
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Q. When and how did you begin your involvement with
music?
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A. My first involvement with music was listening to a Jackson
Browne song, “Tender Is The Night”, repeatedly on my dad’s
headphones. I was probably 4 years old. I don’t think I’ve heard
that song since then, to be honest! It would be fun to hear it
again. I started playing piano at some young age. I then moved
onto trumpet.
Piano and trumpet fell by the wayside, and when I was 12 I
picked up bass guitar. That is what I play now, 14 years later.
Being exposed to different types of music and having the simple
experience of making a note on an instrument of any sort was
invaluable when I was growing up.
And I had great teachers in Hamilton, pianist Kerry Koen and
guitarist Ed Vollmer.
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Q. Who has influenced your musical style and your
writing?
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A. The most direct influence on my musical style is the musicians
that I play with and the people I am surrounded by.
One of my favorite things about living and playing in New York
City is the great feeling of community among musicians, artists,
and fans. More and more I feel like part of a growing family, and
this at the same time shrinks the hugeness of New York City and
expands your own world so that you feel like your music is not
just for yourself and your bandmates, but for anyone who wants
it to be theirs.
More specifically, I’m incredibly lucky to be able to work with
people as talented as Ben Scheuer, whose skills stretch beyond
writing rock tunes, singing, and playing guitar into writing for
musical theatre and producing and recording other artists in his
studio, 875 Studios. In fact, we recorded the entire Lady Clown
album, “First Lady Clown”, at Ben’s studio with the help of
veteran producer Peter Denenberg. Peter had worked with the
Spin Doctors, David Bowie, Martin Sexton and many others.
Josh Dion joined us on drums. Josh is an amazing talent and a
truly great person. He plays with Lady Clown in our live shows.
A great guitarist, Dan Hindman, also joins us on stage for live
shows.
These guys do a great job of helping Ben and me retain the
precise detail of the tunes as they were recorded on the CD
while creating a show that is powerful and, of course, rocks. We’
re very excited for the CD release show on April 11.
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Q. What was the first band you were in? What was it
like? What sort of music did you play? Who else was in it?
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A. The first band that I was in was a band with my older
brother, Jim Kraly, on drums, with Shannon Bauman, Corey
Bauman, and Chris Joyce. I was 13, and most of the other guys
were a few years older. My bass was probably taller than me at
that point.
We played Hamilton High School dances, graduation parties, and
eventually at bars and even at Fireworks Over Central New
York, opening for Gov’t Mule, Little Feat, and others. We played
mostly classic rock covers — Beatles, Elvis, Janis Joplin, Jimi
Hendrix. Some of the best training I’ve ever received was when I
had to learn about 50 songs in just a few weeks when I joined
Static.
I hadn’t been playing bass for very long, and Static already had a
large catalogue of music, and gigs in the books. I had to jump on
board and pick things up quick! It was on-the-job training that
has resulted in skills that I use every single day as a freelancing
bass player. I learned how to organize the pieces of a song in my
mind so that it can be memorized after hearing it just once.
Maybe twice.
Working in Central New York with pianist Rick Montalbano
provided even more training of this nature, as he would often
ask me if I knew a jazz tune, I’d say “No”, and then he would say
“Okay” and he’d start playing it and I’d have to learn it on the
gig! I now see the value in that experience.
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Q. When and how did you know that you wanted to
pursue being a full time musician? What was the process
like to arrive at that decision?
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A. I don’t know that I ever made the decision to become a full
time musician—that wasn’t really a choice to me. It was, and still
is, a given that I’d be making music for the rest of my life. I knew
the day that my parents bought me my first bass that I would be
playing it constantly! That’s not to say that I had any thoughts of
a career in music. My vision (for lack of a better word) of how I’
d like my career to go transforms over time.
Right now, I’m very excited to have this Lady Clown project.
Working with Ben has been very educational and rewarding for
both of us. We love being in the studio for hours. We love
writing tunes. We love editing each other’s tunes. We love
writing songs together. It’s fun for us and rarely feels like work.
And, when it does feel like work, we love that too.
“First Lady Clown” documents a year of Ben and me writing and
recording together. You can also hear a lot of sound designing
and production that I did with a bass and an assortment of
effects and other devices, recorded on my laptop at my
apartment in Brooklyn. That process is something very dear to
me also—hours and hours of noise making that results in the
tiniest details in the recordings, some of which aren’t even
supposed to be heard!
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