Robert Kuhn, the mastermind behind GALVEZTON and new single,’Roll To G-Town’, takes us on a trip through his music and inspirations.
What keeps bringing you back to GALVEZTON in your music?
Where else is there to go? GALVEZTON is my home, community, and an alternate reality I envision full of artists, musicians, poets, healers, surfers, skaters, and independent-minded people that share the global vision and this island where we live. It infiltrates every ounce of my being now, and when music starts coming out of me, it is from here. The musicians who accompany me and build this sound are all from here, and we’re steeped in the sound. It’s very free, eclectic, and welcoming, so it’s easy to keep coming back.
You’ve spent time all over the world. How did those experiences shape your sound?
I first had to abandon the stale sounds (and most of the teachings) that I was born and grew up with. This took some time, but when I was free of it the new music of the world took its place and left me open to just about anything. I learned new languages and new rhythms and brought those back with me. When I first started making music in Galveston, people pigeonhole me as a reggae/world artist, because I’d just come from the Caribbean. The music of Texas quickly grew back into me, but filtered through my new ears. Its all one heartbeat, but you can kick it on the One or the Three. Everywhere has folk music and everywhere has country music and young people everywhere are pushing those boundaries. Just throw some psychedelia on there and look for the love and joy in it.
How did everything grow from one event into the bigger community and music movement you have now?
It grew with the help of many people who felt the same vision and potential I did. The first time you make a new thing, you never know what people will think. We were all wondering if anyone would show up for the first La Izquierda Surf and Music Festival, but by the time mid-morning arrived, cars were lined up and down the Seawall and the pier where we held the event was packed. It would have been hard to stop at that point and we all knew it was the first annual. The second year was even bigger and more organized, but then the pandemic hit, and we shut it all down. Galveston, like much of the world, was closed and people were inside and isolated for over a year with no music. There is a community park on the Seawall in Galveston, with an old historic bandshell where there used to be concerts back in the day. It had been abandoned and mistreated for years, so I finally talked the city into letting me host some concerts there. It was outdoors, so people felt safe coming together, and all of us musicians got to play shows again. We called it “Save the Locals” and had concerts every Thursday night that summer. People loved it, and the nonprofit grew to bring back La Izquierda and use the revenue it created to put on the summer concerts. Every season it gets bigger, and people understand the power in organizing a community around music and local culture.
GALVEZTON blends a lot of different styles; what inspired that sound?
The Gulf Coast is the home of and a breeding ground for a lot of different types of music, and we’re saturated in it. We have country, blues, folk, rock ‘ n ‘ roll, surf, garage, psychedelic, cumbia, Tejano, Norteno, Hip-Hop, Cajun, Creole, urban electronica, and all the indie stuff that stems out of this.
Did you expect “Roll To G-Town” to catch on the way it has?
Every time I write a song, I feel like it has to catch on. Thats why I write them down. I hear them, and I’m like “ooooh, this sounds awesome. People are gonna love this”. That being said, no one had ever recorded one of my songs and nothing seemed to break through, so I was shocked when I heard two of Houston’s biggest Hip-Hop stars, Bun-B and Paul Wall, wanted to get down with it. It felt like a break.
What inspired the story behind the song?
I owed a guy some money on the far North Side of Houston a few years ago and had to go up and clean up a property to pay off the debt. I was in between tours, girlfriends and apartments at the time, but when Friday afternoon came around and I got paid a little extra, I felt so happy to get in my car and head back down to the island where the “honey is sweet, but the girls are mean”, I just started singing and driving.
How did the collaborations on this track come together?
Texas Country Music star Rich O’Toole heard me play this song at one of our La Izquierda Surf and Music Festivals and he loved it. He said he wanted to record it on his next album and asked me to teach him the chords and words, since I hadn’t recorded it yet. He took it to the studio and cut a killer version of it. Rich was friends with Bun-B through the Houston scene and he played it for him. Bun liked it and wanted to do a remix to throw some rap on it. They ran into Paul Wall around that same time at a coffee shop and shared the song with him and Paul wanted to get in on it to. All the Houstoners know the feeling of taking your money and rolling to G-town.
What was your vision for the video?
I was feeling some haunted Terentino vibes when the owners of the old abandoned strip club outside of Galveston showed me around the place and asked me to do a video there. The club had been closed for decades and was like a time capsule full of hidden stories that so many people have imagined driving by the old building resting quietly in the marshlands. I was feeling ghostly stripper vibes, but I wanted classic vintage cinematography to feel good looking at. I had zero budget and very little experience in filmaking so when Juan Lazo got involved with the project, I handed him the reins. He took the video, which started as just a little short promo for the record, and created a full-length music video full of beautiful, vibrant colors and local scenes. He did it because he wanted to see something good for Galveston and he believed in the song. I’m so grateful for his help, because nothing approaching this would have happened otherwise.
What can fans expect from ‘Ocean Cabaret’ as a full project?
It is an intimate project up close and personal with yours truly. I wrote, performed, engineered, and recorded them all myself in our little La Izquierda Records studio. The recordings are all pretty minimalistic with healing tones and binaural frequencies from an analog synthesizer and acoustic guitars. It’s mostly love songs, quiet songs and chill songs that are soothing, accessible and easy to listen to at home or on the road; songs that most people didn’t know I had in me. There are some bangers on there too, but many are songs that my wife just digs and made me promise to record even though they don’t quite fit into our bands surf-rocknroll format … and then there’s “Roll to G-town,” which is kind of an anomaly and a beast of its own that balances everything out.
What does it mean to you to see people connecting with what you’re building, and anything else you’d like to share with fans?
It means I should keep going. The whole point is connection, whether its playing live or sharing records. I’ll be honest, there are days that I’m just looking for a way out. Then there are days like this when I get an interview or a little love and it’s the encouragement I need to keep at it. What if I keep going? What if everything is working out? What if I’m on the right track? What if I’m happy in life? What if I can let go?
You can watch the music video for ‘Roll To G-Town’ below, and find out more about GALVEZTON and their music online on their official website, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
