If Pie Had a Soundtrack…

It would be by “Keep Your Fork, There’s Pie”

When I started this blog in January, I heard that these guys were playing a show. A band named after pie? It was too good to be true. What made it even better is I checked out their Myspace page, and realized I totally dig their style. Any band with a squeeze box, a banjo and a uke is alright by me!

Keep Your Fork, There’s Pie is an eclectic band that’s tough to classify. They’ve been playing shows in the Portland area for the last five years.

They are releasing their second album, “Homespun” on May 29, with a release party at Backspace. Tickets are $10 and the show starts at 6 p.m. I’m told there is always homemade pie at their shows and you can of course pick up a copy of their new record.

Gage from KYFTP was kind enough to answer a few questions about the band and pie, of course.

MMSP: First off – have to ask, how did you guys decide on “Keep Your Fork, There’s Pie” as your name?

KYFTP: We are a porch born sextet, consisting of friends that came together 5 years ago from Kansas, Chicago, Michigan, and Washington. After our first and only show as a band called the Wednesday Warblers, filled with covers and lots of guitars, we had a contest among band families and friends to find our name. Jay, the husband of Denell, our squeeze box player, suggested Keep Your Fork, There’s Pie. We all loved it as it encompassed the nostalgic feelings of excitement that accompany the post picnic anticipation of grandma’s pie, and the philosophical stance that life is lived well when the best is yet to come. It also has a comma and an apostrophe….and who doesn’t like pie?

MMSP: How would you describe the band’s style? Does it relate to pie in anyway?

KYFTP: Our style of music is very reflective of our creative musical process. We’ve created 2+ albums of original songs that range from satirical country, to pop folk, to danceable indie rock, while throwing in powerful background vocals, each band member as a lead vocalist, and our multi-instrumentalist band members swapping instruments often. We’ve each written songs on the new album, Homespun, and the majority of the songs were arranged weekly at Thursday night band practice. We participate collaboratively in the creation of all of our music, and that makes each song a true mosaic of our melodic and vocal playfulness together. Fun for the whole family.

MMSP: Do you have any songs about pie?

KYFTP: Our resident clown and uke/drummer extraordinaire, Toby, wrote a song called Crust Recipe No. 5. It goes like this:

Cut into the flour, half cup fat a little louder
First step to success, safe way for me to caress
Sure to flake when I, See you bake I’m, Married to you in my head

Fork, Fat, Flour keep on hold, quarter cup cold water, make it ice cold
Second step to success, safe way for me to caress
Sure to flake when I, See you bake I’m, Married to you in my head

Need that dough, soft roll it too, heat up that oven for me and you girl
Third step to success, safe way for me to caress
Sure to flake when I, See you bake I’m, Married to you in my head
I’m married to you in my Head

MMSP: Does the band have any favorite pie joints in Portland?

KYFTP: Being Portland, and being that we live in all corners of the SE-NE, we have our choices of pie joints. But in the spirit of KYFTP, and DIYing things in a homespun way, we make a lot of pies in our homes. I would say that my favorite pie joint in town would have to be the next Keep Your Fork show. We always have pie at our shows, and I have to say, that there are very few things as satisfying as sharing pie with Fork fans at any number of the cozy acoustic venues around town.

MMSP: Are there any pie references in the new album?

KYFTP: Our CD cover is actually a photo of the base of a pie plate made by a close friend of the band as a gift to our Kickstarter backers.

MMSP: How long has KYFTP been around?

KYFTP: We’ve been playing at places like Mississippi Studios, The Woods, Produce Row, The Goodfoot, Mississippi Pizza, and many others for the last 5 years. We try and play a variety of venues so we can perform for our wide audience range of families, and adults of all ages. We play markets, fundraisers, theater shows, house parties, on bikes at the Sunday Parkways, and anywhere we can find sweet pie forkers and drinkers of life.

MMSP: What’s the deal with Portland and Pie? The two seem to go together well.

KYFTP: I think pie is a wonderful thing to come together around. The joy received from sharing something sweet, and made with love, can only be compared to a precious few of life’s other simple, soul nourishing pleasures.

MMSP: What can we expect in the future from KYFTP?

KYFTP: KYFTP has committed to making music without limits, while sharing the collective burden as well. We don’t confine ourselves to specific genre, we don’t gig that often for work and family sake, we don’t put ourselves in the red by paying for things outside of the money we raise gigging. With a healthy balance between ambition and sustainable realism, we hope to continue pumping out songs, and carving a nice niche here in the Portland Music scene. We are already anxious to get back into the creative wonderland that is the Klickitat Band Camp studios, to have our music masterfully transferred onto tape, filling a depth of space that could only be orchestrated by the hands of Shay Scott and the best studio in town. Stay tuned, the best is yet to come.

Or, in other words, Keep Your Fork, There’s Pie.