Photo courtesy of Mychal Kelly

By Steve Sears

Life-long Caldwell area resident, Mychal Kelly, will tell you that you can’t keep a good man down.

In fact, he’s living proof.

Since 2012, the 38-year-old Kelly has faced much adversity, but instead of permitting it to quell his creative fire, he used it to sow seeds for harvest.

Consider his current work in progress. “My last album was released in 2014, and I began working on that (his 7th album) right afterwards,” he explains. “I had the loss of my father back in 2016, and him being a musician as well, I devoted that whole year to finishing some of his uncompleted works. It diverted from there; living through that experience also inspired a whole new group of songs that I didn’t want to eliminate from the whole process.” After that, he went through a separation and divorce. “Any kind of huge life event is going to inspire I think any artist. Because they were so close together, I just kept on focusing on the creative side of everything.” Finally, Covid-19 happened, completing a between-the-eyes trifecta. “Through being a touring musician, going through last year being unemployed when there was no work anywhere, and everything was closed – studios were closed, venues were closed – there’s just a lot of material over a six-year span, which is not a bad thing. It’s actually, the way I look at it, a very positive thing.”

His forthcoming album, April Showers, initially targeted for a summer 2021 release, will instead be unveiled in the spring of 2022. 

Kelly, who began playing the guitar at age five and performing for audiences when he was 15, was inspired by his dad. “He was an all around musician,” says Kelly. “He was self taught – drums, bass, piano, guitar – and I was self taught just being surrounded by it all the time. There was never a moment that I didn’t have music while growing up in my house.”

After high school, Kelly and his band switched from performing Top 40 tunes, something they were unaccustomed to but was recommended to them. “We kind of felt like we had more of a vehicle doing things on our own,” he says. At that time, they also started an independent label called 648 Productions. “And I was always really inspired by the theatrical side of music, so we wanted to do something that was not really the top 40, which was the mainstream at the time, and be more of a concept group.”

What followed was a solo career and a “The Jersey Devil” series of albums and music movie production which kept Kelly busy until 2012, when adversity struck again. While working on an album called The Acoustic Project, Kelly was involved in a bad traffic accident where he broke both his femur and hip. Bedridden for over half a year, he pondered both the then-current project and his future. It afforded him time to sow seed once more. “What I was pretty much doing to get through it was just playing the guitar and writing additional material, and I kind of revisited some of my roots.”

The album was eventually named T.A.P. – Part 1: The Astral Plane, and was released in September of 2014. It was different. “It became a matter of just keeping it very raw,” says Kelly. “Just two variables: just two guitar tracks, and two vocal tracks throughout the whole piece. Nothing was multitrack and there was no real studio magic or extra seasoning on it. It was just very raw songwriting and talent.” It was also a work of heart and soul. “Absolutely,” he readily exclaims. “I had just gotten married, and I had my daughter who was only about a year old, and my stepson was about four. So, it really coincided with that of becoming a father, and just the maturity level as well.”

And the title for Kelly’s forthcoming album is certainly appropriate. “The title, it’s just like the old saying ‘April showers bring May flowers.’ The inspiration for every song will be inspired by the rainy days, some great and some not so great, but the end result will be the album itself, the flower that blooms from the past 7 years experiences.” The offering will be a mix of classic rock, acoustic, and modern pop.

Mychal Kelly’s music is available on Amazon, Apple, Spotify, and various other music sources. For more information, visit www.mychalkelly.com.