He is not filling the world with silly love songs.
Williamsburg singer-songwriter Craig Kierce will launch his debut collection of songs, “Ring Road,” at the Knitting Factory on Jan. 4. And although many of the album’s tracks deal with relationships, the songwriter says that he deals with more than just the mushy stuff.
“I try to at least make it a little bit more literate than just sappy love songs or sad break-up songs,” he said. “I try to add a little bit more to it but they usually tend to be kind of sad lyrics with a much happier, upbeat-sounding melody.”
The songwriter, who cites Elvis Costello, Bright Eyes, and Weezer among his influences, started penning his own tunes in the eighth grade, writing at least one track every day between 2001 and 2014. The resulting collection of lyrics fills 10 notebooks, a huge box of loose-leaf paper, and a handful of hard drives, says Kierce. His more recent songs are typed into a computer, he says.
Kierce’s prolific rate of song creation helped him out in 2014, when he was drawn out of the audience of the “Late Show with Jimmy Fallon,” for a segment titled “Battle of the Instant Songwriters.” He was given one hour to write a song with the title, “I’ve Got A Teeny Halloweeny.” Kierce won that battle, and soon began receiving messages from people asking (in vain) for a fully-recorded version of the self-deprecating track.
The novelty song will also not be on his set list for the Knitting Factory show, but Kierce hopes that people will come out to hear him and opening acts On The Sun, Crowd The Airwaves, and Dalton Deschain and the Traveling Show (with whom Kierce also plays guitar).
“I think we’ve got a great bill there and I think the collection of bands we put together for this is going to be awesome,” he said.
Craig Kierce at the Knitting Factory [361 Metropolitan Ave. at N. Fourth Street in Williamsburg, (347) 529–6696, www.bk.knitt
