When Texas songwriter Memphis Kee chose to title his latest record Dark Skies, he intended it to be a statement on the world he sees as a musician, a husband, and a parent.
“The world is changing,” Kee tells Rolling Stone. “Us as individuals are changing. Me as a dad, husband, and bandleader, and as a citizen of Texas and the world have all changed so much since writing the songs on my last record in 2020 and 2021. I think you can hear it. Some of it’s subtle, and some of it is pretty in-your-face.”
Kee recorded the 10-track Dark Skies — out on Jan. 16 — with producer Adam Odor at Yellow Dog Studios in San Marcos, Texas. His eponymous band showcases on the album, the first of Kee’s records that has featured his full touring outfit. Kee sings lead and plays rhythm guitar. He is joined by guitarist Spencer Carlson, drummer Paul Pinon, bassist Joey Sisk, Chris Loyd on keys, and Jake Waylon on guitar, mandolin, and harmony vocals.
“This is the first one where those songs were either written on the road or written at home and then taken to rehearsal where we all wrote our parts from the beginning,” Kee says. “I think you can hear it. To me, it sounds cohesive.”
The songs themselves are slices of Kee’s life and the current world as he sees it. When he was stuck writing the bridge to “Black Butterfly,” his eight-year-old daughter, McKinley, suggested “fly away” and ended up becoming a co-writer on one of the record’s standout cuts.
Another of those, “Being a Kid,” started when Kee watched McKinley getting ready for school and contemplated the difference that a bad day at school meant in his youth versus what it means for his daughter. Kee spells it out in explicit detail when he sings, “Hey baby girl, I heard it was a rough one at school today/Another shooter showed up, but he didn’t get you this time,” over a haunting string arrangement.
“That one stayed in the shadows for a while,” he says. “I let the guys hear it, and they all loved it — in a way that I guess you can love that song. I never really thought it would be on one of our records, but I asked them and they 100 percent said, ‘Yes, absolutely.’ I don’t really like arguing with people. I shy away from being controversial. I don’t think the song is controversial at all. Essentially, it’s saying, ‘Kids being killed is bad.’ But you get people from both sides who will find what they want to find with it, or assume things about your character or personality or political beliefs. That’s on them if they want to waste their time doing that.”
One of the singles Kee has shared ahead of the album is “Bewitched,” which features a Texas songwriting mainstay, Jamie Lin Wilson, collaborating as both a writer and singer. The tune is a love song featuring a couple going off the grid to escape the chaos of modern existence. Kee wrote the song about his wife and needing a getaway from the ugliness of day-do-day life. He took it to Odor, who heard it as a duet, and Kee reached out to Wilson.
Kee asked if she had any suggestions for the song, and Wilson ended up overhauling a verse, landing a co-writing credit on the tune. “She knocked it out, and it was chills,” Kee says. “I remember driving down the road listening to it for the first time, and I couldn’t believe she was singing on it.”
Kee originally hails from Memphis, where he picked up bass in college at the University of Memphis. He also founded a band, Rambus, and landed a spot at SXSW in 2002. He subsequently moved to Austin and lived there since, though he shelved music for a decade to work as a police detective and later opened his own private investigating firm.
“Those two careers don’t really mesh well with being a live musician,” Kee says. “I could have done a cover band or something like that, but I didn’t want to go that route. What bridged the gap during that time was living with my two buddies who worked for the department I worked for. We worked night shifts, and would wake up at 3 in the afternoon. We’d go to karaoke and sing stupid songs, and I’d remember how much I loved singing in front of people.”
Kee began pursuing music again in 2015, releasing an EP and a series of singles before his full-length debut, Wimberley — named for the former Texas home of Odor’s Yellow Dog Studios.
Kee will spend the month of March touring behind Dark Skies. He has 13 shows booked across the Midwest and Texas, mostly small clubs or rock rooms such as the Showboat Saloon in Wisconsin Dells, the Mercury Lounge in Tulsa, and Knuckleheads in Kansas City. Kee says his plan is to tour in fits and starts for a few weeks at a time rather than becoming a road dog in his mid-40s.
“We’re not going to go out and play 200 shows a year,” he says. “That used to be my dream, but then I realized that my family didn’t make it through that way. My parents split, and we went through some heavy financial problems in life. Now, I have my dream. I have my family and my daughter, and that’s the most important thing in my life. I’m going to give everything I have to give, short of sacrificing time with my family.”
Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose book (Almost) Almost Famous will be released April 1 via Back Lounge Publishing.
