Ralph's World

Ralph's World

IT'S A SWEET WORLD AFTER ALL

Ralph Covert, the Pied Piper of the Playground, Visits Peggy's Pie Parlor
Welcome to Ralph's World, where you can check your preconceived notions about saccharine kids' music at the door. Chicagoan Ralph Covert was making grown-up rock with his band, the Bad Examples, and teaching songwriting at the renowned Old Town School of Folk Music when he first dipped a toe in the proverbial sandbox. Teaching music to toddlers, Covert found himself writing songs with kiddie themes -- but with enough musical muscle to capture their parents' interest. One such parent was Jim Powers, owner of the Chicago indie label Minty Fresh, home to bands such as the Cardigans, Tahiti 80, Aluminum Group, and Papas Fritas. Powers and Covert struck up an agreement that's so far yielded four Ralph's World albums. Drawing on an array of styles -- from folk to jazz to polka -- to flesh out his acoustic-driven rock tunes, Covert has earned praise from toddlers, grade-schoolers, and parents, none of whom can resist singing along with his clever wordplay and merry melodies. His latest, Peggy's Pie Parlor, should turn even the biggest grumps into polka fans. Barnes & Noble.com's Amy Barkat spoke with the charming Covert on the cusp of the disc's release and discovered that when it comes to music, age ain't nuthin' but a number.

Barnes & Noble.com: Your previous album, Happy Lemons, had a sort of a jazz feel, while Peggy's Pie Parlor has some folk-rock plus a hearty dose of polka. Do you have a different vision for every record when you set out to record?

Ralph Covert: Not so much on an album-by-album basis. One of the fun things about doing a kids' record is that you get such a pure sense of play with different genres. As a songwriter I very much enjoy the challenge and fun of being able to write. Also, the kind of players that we are working with have a curiosity for sounds and styles that is not superficial. For instance, on Bottom of the Sea, with "Surfing My Imagination," I deliberately looked at the kind of harmony structures that the Beach Boys layered, and the engineer actually went as far as to get the box set and see where the different instruments are isolated, and listen to the exact size reverb chamber that they were using at that studio in California in the '60s. Part of the fun and challenge for us is not just copping out on those things and sort of digging in.

B&N.com: You have a lot of guest musicians on Peggy's Pie Parlor -- Sam Lay and Ted Lang, just to name a couple. What's their reaction to playing on these songs?

RC: They love it. Musicians are big kids. For them it's a just a chance to play on great songs with great people. I knew I wanted to write a polka. And a friend of mine actually teased me to write a pie polka because of the alliteration, and I said, I'm going to take you up on that challenge! I had picked up a vinyl copy of a record by Eddie Blazoncyk Sr., who is a god of the polka. And I played and listened to the songs and musically took apart what made it a polka. His son is one of the great modern polka guys -- he was up for a Grammy this year. I called his son and asked, "Would you be willing to flesh out this polka?" And he said, "Well, let me see if I can arrange to get my guys in there to play it." I said, "I can have my guys do it." And he was like, "Oh, but, I don't know" -- meaning, I want it to be a real polka. I told Pickles Piekarski, my bass player, and Matt Walker, my drummer, what Eddie said, and they became nervous about the polka! Eddie wanted me to overnight him the rhythm section of the polka so that he could let me know if what they played was really a polka. And hey, I respect that. They just wanted to do it right, and I love that passion that they bring to it.

B&N.com: Do you have any other favorite tracks on the album?

RC: The "Go Go Pogo" was a fun one. That was actually my favorite song when I was five. It was from Walt Kelley, the cartoonist who did "Pogo," the cartoon strip, which was kind of the "Doonesbury" of its age. And in 1948 or so he made a record of songs, and that was the title track. The copy of the vinyl I have has my name written on it in my childish scrawl, so that goes back to the dawn of my awareness of music. That's a favorite one. I also think there a couple of songs on this album that rock harder, like "All I Wanna Do Is Play."

B&N.com: I love that one! Another great track is "The Mighty Worm," which is about individuality and self-esteem. But I just love worms, and that's a great name for a song.

RC: Every summer my daughter Fiona goes to a summer theater camp that takes place at the Lincoln Park zoo. And at the end of it they put on a big show, and they asked if I would do the music for it this summer. "The Mighty Worm" was the song I wrote for Fiona's age group's play. The verses are about what happened in this particular play, about a queen who was making the animals do things that the animals were not supposed to do. And as you've said it's about individuality, and as a songwriter I wanted to get inside the idea that everybody has their strengths. Instead of doing the cliché thing, like giraffes and their long necks, I was pointing out that whale: He's not fat; he's good at keeping warm! That's why he's like that -- it's his strength! And the worm: He's not blind and legless; worms are incredible diggers!

B&N.com: You mentioned your daughter Fiona -- how much of an influence does she have on your songs and your writing?

RC: We recorded the second and third albums together. On Happy Lemons, she wrote the song "Puddle of Mud." We were writing, I was playing guitar, and it had just rained. We kind of collaborated on the melody and singing along, and then I just talked to her about the mud puddle. Like, what is a mud puddle to you? What does it make you think of? And most of those words are straight from her, telling me what her experience was and what her ideas were about mud. I brought that song into the label initially, and they said, "It's a really nice song, but it's a grown-up song, Ralph. The lyrics are not going to engage kids." And then I said, "Fiona wrote the words."

B&N.com: Have you any particularly fond encounters with your young fans?

RC: Sometimes I'll do birthday parties or small private shows. I did one a couple of weeks ago. I don't know how you can get better than this in life: The birthday girl and her best friend and one of her younger sisters, they're all around my feet just watching. The three of them spontaneously lean over and crawl over and hug my ankles. Their cheeks are on my shoes and they're just gazing up at me, completely blissed-out happy. The one mom got nervous that I was going to be upset or anxious. And I said, "Really, I'm okay with being loved this much." Also, you get the "Bono Syndrome," where when they meet you, they just completely go catatonic. Or they just start crying or they have to pee. And the parents have to say, "It's okay." It's overwhelming.

B&N.com: Before your kids' music days, you were in the band the Bad Examples. Do you still play or perform with them?

RC: We do occasional shows. We were at our peak playing 250 shows a year in America and Europe. And that's a lot of work. I think we did 3 or 4 shows last year, and it's great to get together. I've made music with those guys in various permutations for 10 or 15 years. The guy who played guitar on "The Mighty Worm" and "Banana Seat Bike" and "All I Wanna Do Is Play" is Steve Gerlach, who is one of the major guitar players in the Bad Examples. And they love it! I don't view the Ralph's World stuff as being anything other than an extension of what I've always done. I don't view it as a left turn into kids' music. I love writing songs and recording songs and playing songs, and the only way I know how to do it is to make great records.

B&N.com: Does the kids' stuff come at faster pace, writing- and production-wise, than rock music? You seem to do a couple albums at a time.

RC: Now that's always been one of the great running jokes within the Bad Examples -- I'm such a prolific songwriter. The one problem that plagues most bands is having material. Our problem is that we've always had too much material. My goal when I was younger was always to write a hundred songs a year. That's one of the great things about the kids' records: It's been an outlet for being prolific. Two albums -- no problem!

February 19, 2003