When writing his new album Fleas & Diamonds, Chris McConaghy, aka Our Krypton Son, says he needed to really clear his head. So in a move that should really be the plot of a new indie movie, he borrowed his daughter’s toy guitar and went camping in the woods.
“I just couldn’t seem to get it together with writing these songs,” Chris recalls. “I was dealing with the usual distractions and stuff at home. So I found a place where I could go to be alone, and I took my kid’s miniature guitar, a pen and paper, just the essential stuff. I went out for a couple of days and pitched a tent. I wanted to see what kind of an effect it would have on my writing. I knew what the songs would be about, I just didn’t have them, couldn’t bring myself to get it down. And to go out in the woods like that, honestly, it made me a wee bit determined. ’Cause I wasn’t about to go out there and make a fool of myself, and come back with nothing. I had to make sure I came back with something, so I worked quite hard at it for a couple of days.”
Our Krypton Son’s songs are grounded in powerful lyrics that fearlessly tackle subjects of heartbreak and isolation, and while the album was obviously a great introspective project for Chris, he credits some outside influences as well.
“Nick Cave was a big one,” he notes, “especially The Boatman’s Call. But then even the Beach Boys for some of the songs, with the harmonies and the chords. And then just that isolation while writing it. The sense of being alone out there in the woods definitely brought something to the lyrics.”