The Lilacs are a four-piece indie rock group from the Chicago area. The band started getting traction in the early part of the 90’s but were dormant before the decade ended. The band was out of the spotlight and not making music for a quarter-century. Certain circumstances took hold though and The Lilacs are back at it. In the period of inactivity, Ken Kurson became a political consultant and journalist for The New York Observer. Ken Kurson who plays bass for The Lilacs spoke with LM2’s Dylan Bowker on this installment of Liberty Music about The Lilacs Endure which is the latest record from the band.
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The 25-year hiatus for the band was of such a duration that many thought the band would just never pick it back up again. Some heavy life occurrences and reflecting on it all would lead to The Lilacs becoming an active collective again.
Kurson said, “In 2016 I got divorced. I had focused my whole life on my career and getting ahead and all that. Which probably contributed to that sad event. But one of the things that I learned in first marriage therapy and then just regular therapy was ‘start saying yes to stuff you’ve been saying no to and start saying no to stuff you’ve been saying yes to’…. I had gotten offers over the years. ‘oh put the band back together.’ We had some notoriety especially in Chicago, our hometown. But I had always said ‘no I’m focused on my career.’ All of a sudden I got this call from Joe Shannahan who runs the Cabaret Metro in Chicago. That’s the place to play and I said you know let’s do it. I called the guys and everyone was into it.”
Ken Kurson
To play in The Lilacs through the 90’s is a great deal different than what it’s like nowadays, both good and bad.
Kurson stated, “It’s such a strange thing, Dylan. To be fifty years old. In some ways, it’s so much better to play music. You just do it without it getting you fired from your minimum wage job. We can take a vacation like adults. In other ways, it’s way harder. It’s harder to stay up till two in the morning and rock out. But I think the band sounds as good as it ever has honestly. Whatever we’ve lost in terms of not being able to hit the high notes in my case or maybe do some other things in the other positions cases, we’ve more than made up for it just in being more responsible and more mature about how we approach this thing. I’m really our toughest critic. We listen to a lot of our live stuff on this most recent go around and it really holds up.”
The Lilacs
The early days were essential for the band and there were some vibrant communal spaces that helped with that. Kurson said, “Chicago had a very vibrant indie rock scene in the mid 80’s to mid 90’s which is when we were plowing that field. Wax Tracks was a classic record store that launched a lot of bands.”
The heavily politicized, ideology-driven society we live in can be stressful. The Lilacs as a politically benign outfit is a great outlet for the politics heavy day to day happenings Kurson deals with in journalism.
Kurson stated, “There’s so few things that today bring people together in any way….Even the most innocuous pursuits have this political tinge to them. One of the things I always celebrated about music, even though I adore political music like The Clash or Billy Bragg, is that it was a space where; “Love Me Do” does not have a political component and shouldn’t….Certainly, a song like Tax Man could be seen as a conservative right-wing ode but you can enjoy this music without declaring your allegiances.”
Kurson continued, “It’s not just me. All of the members of The Lilacs; I’m sort of the dumb one in the group…To this day, these have been my close friends for thirty-plus years, we really have not had a substantive political conversation. It didn’t come up when we’d be traveling to Winnipeg for twenty hours in a van. Didn’t come up when we’d be hanging out in a Chicago bar. It just wasn’t what we’re about. It’s not what we’re about today.”
The Lilacs Endure
The legendary 90’s tenure of The Lilacs generated some classic moments with seminal bands of the day. Kurson quipped, “I played with Husker Du a few times and sometimes their individual members would come to our shows….One of the best was at a pub called The Riviera in Chicago…..They were a band at peak songwriting power, peak popularity, and the intensity of the anger between the members was so thick, that it made it an even more exciting show. Because they were so good and so sick of each other.”
Speaking of legendary musicians, Richard Lloyd from Television produced the latest record for The Lilacs. This was a huge honor for Kurson and company but a situation of great mutual respect too. Kurson said, “I’ve been a huge Television fan….I’ve been a huge fan of the entire 1977 lower east side movement. I think Ramones and Television and Blondie, The New York Dolls…These are some of the most important cultural moments that the entire history of the United States has ever produced.”
The well regarded Studio 19 was the recording space for The Lilacs Endure which lent even more to the project. Kurson stated, “As for how Scotty’s studio came about, it’s a place Richard is comfortable in. So he lives in Tennessee, we don’t. So we’re going to do what he told us. The session was really great. He can be a cranky guy. Had me do all these vocal exercises before the session and he had really strong opinions on how to do them. All of it worked. He appreciated that we did follow his advice. The session couldn’t have been easier or more fun.”
The Lilacs
Beyond this last record, Kurson broke down in detail the recording process for important earlier albums. All of which can be found in the interview on Liberty Multimedia’s youtube channel.
The songwriting methodology of The Lilacs has always been compartmentalized but more collective songwriting is seemingly happening for future records.
Kurson said, “There is two songwriters, David Levinsky and myself. We have only collaborated on a song one time. Even that wasn’t a true collaboration. It was more like I had a song and he had a song. Both worked weren’t quite finished and we took the best elements of both and smashed them together. We haven’t like sat down and written songs together….Just recently, Dave texted me with an idea for re-writing one of my old songs and he’s going to write a new bridge to it.”
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Kurson continued, “Although we haven’t done much collaboration in the past, probably because our songs are very personal and they’re always about like some searing breakup that one of us has gone through or whatever. I think in the future, to the degree there is future with Lilacs music, we’ll do that more in the future. I think we’re just less ego-driven and more collaborative as human beings.”
The kinship never wavered between the lads despite the band not being active for a while. The friendship that was sustained through the years of inactivity lent itself to a smoother transition back to playing. Kurson quipped, “Three of us went to high school together. Two of the guys went to college together. So we really have been friends. We’ve maintained the friendships even when we weren’t playing music together. So that said there was some rust. I remember our first couple of practices getting ready for this gig and I’m a little bit of a slave driver in terms of the band. I did not want to be a joke.”
The band went out to England and did three shows in Liverpool. As far as a regular touring cycle in support of the record though, that is not assured. The Lilacs is a function of having fun and there are a lot of outside adult considerations (ie. paying bills) that do inform what the band’s future looks like. Whatever that future looks like though, I presume we’re all happy to be along for the ride. Taking a measure of pleasure in the fact that The Lilacs endure.
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