Singled Out: The Kelly Deco Band's Automat Girl

Keavin Wiggins | 10-20-2022

Album art

The Kelly Deco Band recently announced their new album, Constellation, (December 2nd), with the release of the track, "Automat Girl," and to celebrate, we asked Kelly to tell us about the song. Here is the story:

With my latest record, Constellation, I wrote music for all the songs first, and then let the songs tell me what to say, thinking specifically with other-worldly points of view.

With the song Automat Girl, the first release from Constellation, I was looking at books of paintings and remembered a play I designed based on Edward Hopper, and for which I was awarded Critics Choice Scenic Design for Theater by Drama-Logue.

When I saw Automat, it was easy to imagine a young person possibly new to this country, living in the coming modern world of the1920's, and what a modern world would bring, getting inside and telling the story from typical youth perspective, what was going on there, and going with it through the gritty New York City Nights with all the youthful exuberance.

Building the story by describing parts of the Edward Hopper Painting like a portal in time made sense to me, my song also mentions other Hopper Paintings like "Office At Night", "Early Morning Sunday" and "New York Movie".

Musically, the song is made up of two-note melodies and accompanied piano like Burt Bacharach would do. Planting it in the right era. Mentioning the 70's weekend in the opening melody event set up, was my way of setting the 1920's painting in a 1970's music era backdrop.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more about the album here