On September 29th, Todd Kerns – whose impressive musical resume includes: Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators, Toque, Static In Stereo, and The Age Of Electric – will be performing a sold out, unplugged solo show in Toronto, Ontario at B-Side Lounge. That show will be filmed for Todd’s first-ever solo DVD, which can be pre-ordered now via Pledge Music.  

Speaking exclusively to Brave Words scribe Aaron Small, Todd reveals that “B-Side is a new venue, just opened. The whole thing came from the fact that it’s a really small place, but they have this whole setup to film the show. It’s more like a jazz room, or something weird like that. It’s a very intimate kind of show. The acoustic thing works in all kinds of contexts, but for me, it can be the most fun when it’s pseudo-campfire vibe. You bring in the closest of your friends and family who know and dig your music… the idea is to do a bit of an overview of my career and release it as a DVD.”

“It’s been four years since Borrowing Trouble, so we thought, let’s go out and celebrate that,” continues Kerns. “Let’s take a lap doing my music, and music I’ve done over my whole career in all kinds of places. Once we put those feelers out, suddenly it was New York City and Philadelphia, and I was like, really? The first time I went to Los Angeles, I thought, who’s going to give a fuck about me playing acoustic guitar in LA? And we sell it out every time we go there. I think people like the change. They’ve seen me do very loud, in their face music. And they dig the intimacy of hanging out, having a laugh, and singing some songs. I’ve watched a lot of guys do it over the years, and it’s not easy. Doing an acoustic thing, you’re up there – if your voice is rough or the guitar’s out of tune; it’s all you. It’s not the guy behind you or the guy beside you, it’s just you. The safety net of a loud band with amplifiers and drums is not there. But I really love the challenge of it. What used to be mildly uncomfortable is now super normal.”

“I look at guys like Chris Cornell when he used to do it, and to me, you can get more out of an acoustic version of ‘Can’t Change Me’ (from Euphoria Morning) than you can the full band version. That’s not to say that one is better than the other; there’s just something else going on there. The interesting thing for me doing The Age Of Electric or Static In Stereo, or any songs off Go Time! or TKO – doing them really naked sometimes takes it right back to sitting in a bedroom or on your couch, coming up with the song in the first place. It sort of creates this whole other energy for it, and the audience takes the place of the band. They’re singing and clapping; we’re all doing the show together. As opposed to watching a show, they’re part of the show; that’s the way I try to do it anyway.”

Coincidentally, the date of the upcoming Toronto show that will be filmed for the live DVD, marks the 25th anniversary of the release of Dirt by Alice In Chains – it came out on September 29, 1992. “Wow, really,” exclaims Todd. “There’s another band man. A lot of people don’t remember the Sap EP, and that kind of stuff. Those guys could really hang on acoustic music. They were responsible for a lot of those bands like Days Of The New that sort of lived in an acoustic rock vibe. The fact that those guys (AIC) have any sort of career without Layne (Staley) is a testament to how good that music is. The new singer, William DuVall – he’s not new, he’s been there a long time – he does a great job at that stuff. Like anybody, I just thought Layne was very special. It’s such a shame… But Dirt, I might have to entertain the idea of trying to play something. Those guys did a really killer Unplugged. They could shine where a lot of bands didn’t. Sometimes Unplugged would just be bands playing acoustic guitars instead of electric guitars. But they really thought it out, how they would present the music differently as an acoustic band. I think they did a great job!”

Todd’s forthcoming live DVD will be available in December. “Yes, it could be even earlier. We’ve never made a DVD before… it’s basically the same idea as making a CD – you have to produce the actual content, put it into digital format, having it pressed and manufactured. So that’s the giant conversation – we film it in September, what’s the lag time behind that as far as getting the mix together, getting the editing together? Then, what’s the lag time as far as printing it, artwork? But I think by December, we’ll have it out for sure. My intention is to have it out by my birthday, which is December 5th.”

In the old days of record stores, if it wasn’t out by the first week of November to capture the Christmas rush, it wouldn’t get released until the end of January. Now, especially with Pledge Music that’s not a concern in the slightest. “The best thing about Pledge Music, and I always say this, is that your audience is now the record company. Sometimes there’s a negative vibe about any type of crowdfunding, all I’m asking everybody to do is pre-order my product. If they don’t want to pre-order it, they don’t have to. But anybody who does, it’s like they’re part of the process. They’re as involved as an A&R guy or the record rep. They are how records get made these days. When I started doing stuff with Pledge, it was like me, and a lot of indie artists. This time, to go through there and look at all the major names that are using Pledge campaigns for their own product; I’m talking people who have deals and major backing, they’re using crowdfunding. It’s grown exponentially over the years; it’s become part of the way you make music in the 21st Century.”

Todd reached 100% of his Pledge goal within three hours of launching the campaign, it currently sits at 303% and growing. “That was mind blowing, it always is! With all these things, the intention is to figure out how much it’s going to cost to make it work. And everything beyond that is, now we get to put more into the artwork, that kind of thing. I’ve always used Pledge Music because I like the charity aspect of it; we always have a charity attached to everything we do.” For the Live DVD Campaign, 10% of all money raised goes to the Nashville based People For Animals. “Yeah, we did a benefit this year for People For Animals in Nashville, which was a thrill for me cause I’d never played Nashville before – as a solo artist, so that was a big deal. Getting to do that is important to me. Whenever these things happen, it’s like wow! I can’t believe we made it to 100% that quickly.”

Delving back into the DVD, Todd readily admits, “I actually have to think about what I want to play on it. Cause a lot of times I’ll show up at acoustic shows and it’s more like, we’ll see how it feels, just roll with it. Somebody shouts out a song and you start playing it; off you go. This will probably have a bit more of a plan to it as far as what I should say. Am I supposed to think about stories? But you can always edit stuff out. We did a live album for Bootleg Confessional. It was a live album we made of one of the Vegas acoustic shows, and there was a lot of editing out my nonsense; just yammering, joking around, talking. It doesn’t translate when you’re sitting there listening to the record, so we clipped a bunch of that.”

When fans who pre-order the live DVD through Pledge Music receive their copy in the mail toward the end of the year, it will contain much more than just the acoustic show from Toronto. Todd shares his plans for extra features. “I think we’re going to try and do some stuff at soundcheck; find a couple of additional things to play. We’re looking at setting up an interview with (Canadian DJ and author) Jeff Woods. I’m trying to come up with a few different things to include as bonus footage. It’s a fascinating thing because the live music DVD is soon to be a thing of the past; it’s kind of heading that way already – not for guys like me and you. We’re 100% on board. When I see something I want to see, I snatch it up and get into it. To the point that, on Hulu or something, there’ll be a Lennny Kravitz concert. I’ll watch the concert and then my first thought is, now I want to see the bonus footage with the interviews and behind the scenes shit. But it’s just a TV thing, so that doesn’t exist. We’re doing this ourselves – independently – and it’s also the first one, so figuring out how to do all this has been the fun part. It’s obviously not being put out by Warner Bros. or Universal, so it’s going to be whatever we can do with it. I think it’ll be fairly punk rock, but also as classy as we can make it.”

In closing, Todd lets a secret or two out of the bag. “I’ve been sort of very quietly and casually working on a follow-up to Borrowing Trouble; another acoustic record. It’s a work in progress. In reality, I’m going to try and release it in early 2018. I love doing these things so much, and it’s really afforded me the opportunity to – what we’re doing now in The States and Canada, being able to just grab a guitar, show up and play. I definitely want to make that a reality in places like Europe, The UK, Japan, and Australia.” 

Catch Todd Kerns live on his upcoming North American Acoustic Tour:

August
30 - The Laughing Goat Coffee House - Boulder, CO 

September
2 - The Roxy - Vancouver, BC 
8 - Casino Nanaimo - Nanaimo, BC 
23 - The Bowery Electric - New York, NY 
24 - Milk Boy Philly - Philadelphia, PA 
29 - B-Side Lounge - Toronto, ON - SOLD OUT
30 - Steve's Music Store - Toronto, ON 

October
4 - The Casbah - Hamilton, ON
6 - The John St. Pub - Arnprior, ON

Get your tickets online at this location.

(Photos courtesy of Stephy Hayward)