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Bikini Magazine - November 1999
The Call Of The Feetlefeeps
After years of plying her trade on the big and little screens,
What possible use can western civilization have for another addition to the musical canon created by actors who make albums? What more can be said after Kevin Bacon, Dennis Quaid, the Jennifers (Lopez and Love Hewitt), Alyssa Milano and, lest it be forgotten, Keanu Reeves' Dog Star?
Kari Wuhrer could really care less what you think. As far as she's concerned, if you have to ask that question you've already missed the point entirely. It's a point which she can best explain using her great-grandfather as an example: He was an "Army officer who wrote children's stories about mythical people called "Feetlefeeps." Now he never published these stories, in fact he only ever read them to this grandchildren, but he loved writing those stories, The act of creation was reward enough. And so it is with Shiny, Wuhrer's first album, now being distributed by Del-Fi Records after selling well on the internet. "My music," she explains, "is fettlefeep music." You might know one or several of Kari Wuhrer's incarnations. There's the Kari who just wrapped up her last season as the tough Capt. Maggie Beckett on the Sci-Fi Channel's Sliders.
There's the Kari of small roles in feature films like The Crossing Guard with Jack Nicholson and Anaconda with Jon Voight. The Kari of the late 80's was the one who did the MTV Series Remote Control opposite a guy called Adam Sandler. And then there's the Kari who came to L.A. to be a musician, briefly had a deal with Rick Rubin's American Recordings, and has now resuscitated her musical longings by recording Shiny
"If I were to be tattooing myself, I would have "Shiny" tattooed on my calf because it was a really important process for me. I am really proud of my having done it, because it was me coming out of the circumstances of my life that I allowed myself to be wrapped up in - my marraige - my creative restraints" says Kari; who has a rough throaty voice, the kind that's a dead giveaway to late-night shenanigans and a penchant for singing along to the car radio with the top down, speakers blaring. "I feel credible to myself. I know I can do better. I know I can control my life, my circumstances, my art. I don't need Joe-Happy-Red-Shoes to do it for me."
She is also the kind of person who has a habit of leaning over tables and looking people straight in the eye. Picture this: producer Tom Keane was once sitting near her at a dinner party hosted by a Japanese record label. "He said something that was stupid and egotistical and I said, 'You know what? You're an asshole.' I said that outright. Because I said that to him and challenged him, a half-hour later he said 'Let's blow these people off and make our own record.'"
The result, while showing some promise, might have been better served by different production. Wuhrer's raw vocals, well suited by a stripped down acoustic treatment, get tarted up with Katrina and the Waves-type production. "My songs were always written like some girl sitting at home in her bedroom songs, not to, like make a statement.," says Wuhrer, who cites a love for Fugazi, the Violent Femmes, and Cat Stevens in the same breath - the common denominator for her being that they're all straghtforward, simple, and 'I have a handle on shit'." Qualities she herself tries to embody. "Passion doesn't have to ooze out of every literary, Henry Rollings pore. Sometimes something just is."
Recording the album truly was a catharsis for Wuhrer, whose four-year marriage was coming apart around her. Every song was written by her or in collaberation with ex-husband Daniel Salin. So Shiny was a learning experience in every sense of the word, she says, the way her whole career has been. "I am so grateful for every fame-delaying, fame avoiding experience." she says. "Listen if I had been, like, from wet-behind-the-ears suburbia to number one, top -o charts, Hollywood A-list, I could be dead. I'd be in a swamp. I'm 32 years old, everything I have I've earned the hard way."
Interview by Sam Dunn.
Photograph by Steve Appleford
Styling By Francis Lam
Makeup by Sabrina Paul
Location: The Avalin Hotel, Beverly Hills
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