Meet the band: R. Ring

Mike Montgomery and Kelley Deal (Credit: Provided)

Members: Mike Montgomery, vocals, guitar; Kelley Deal, vocals, guitar
Hometown: Dayton, Ky. and Dayton, Ohio
Latest projects: Well, they get together and play…
Sounds like: Two guitars, two voices

Kelley Deal is known for her work in The Breeders. Mike Montgomery is known for his work in Ampline and as an engineer, producer and part-owner of Candyland Recording Studio. Together, they've come together as R.Ring, a casual musical relationship where they can enjoy making music without a commitment.

Sheltered from this winter's latest snowstorm, following a cancelled gig in Dayton, they sat down in Kelley's music studio to talk about the venture.

You met through your mutual acquaintance with the Buffalo Killers. Can you tell me a little more about that meeting and how you paired up?
Deal: We were doing a song called "Scalding Creek" – we got the Buffalo Killers. They had played Breeders ATP (All Tomorrow's Parties), and when we were going to get together to rehearse, I remember thinking, "I wonder if they know a place to record." So they had me show up at Mike's place, at Candyland. And we just set up and Mike put mics out and they were all like, "Let's go and record this." And that's how I met him.

So what made you decide to work together?
Deal: I liked the way he mixed; I liked when he talked about chords and sounds, I was like, "Yeah, yeah. Exactly! Yeah." So that was a good thing. … He was invited to play a CD release for a band at Southgate and asked if I wanted to do it with him. It was kind of like a what-would-we-do kind of thing, and he had sent me a couple of songs. One song in particular called "You Belong to the Steam," it was so beautiful, and you could hear exactly how it could be done. … Kim is real busy doing stuff with The Pixies, so rather than waiting around for Breeders stuff to transpire, this has been really good for me to sit down and practice stuff, write new songs, and kind of stay busy doing stuff.

In your own words how would you describe the sound of what you are doing?
Montgomery: I don't know. Two guitars and two voices (laughs)... there's not a whole lot, just playing songs.

Deal: It's weird. It is challenging to because you can't rely on the other dude: "Oh, here's the lead guitar part that's really pretty, that's going to be a Band-Aid over this really shitty rhythm part that I've got right now." It is really challenging to do that. It's kind of a naked feeling because you've got just two guitars and two vocals, and that's it. It's been challenging stripping down songs that are already down. It's kind of an exercise too, in finding out what makes the songs actually work versus what is just chaff. And that has been really interesting.

Whose songs are you stripping down?
Deal: We have some of Mike's songs and we have some of my songs from The Kelley Deal 6000 or stuff that–we're actually working up new songs too. We've got a little bit of everything and we've got a couple of covers.

One of you lives in Dayton, Ky., and one of you lives in Dayton, Ohio. That's not a huge distance, but it's not around the corner either. Does it make it hard to work on things together?
Montgomery: Kelley has a work ethic that's unlike most other people I've played with. Normally, you show up and just play for a couple of hours. But I think, one of us has to make a long drive, and once you've done that, you'll play for seven hours straight. It's not the typical practice where everyone drives down the street, you know, has a beer and sits around in between. It's not convenient – not that it's inconvenient – but because there's a little more effort in getting there, I feel like it's more focused.

Deal: One of the things that I've found interesting, as he said, I'm at my studio all the time, and he's going through my amps, which is a different amp for him, it's a different wall that he's looking at. There's a different floor, and it's just nice to get out of the same old that you're used to. Sometimes you just need a different floor to look at.

Short-term and long-term, what kind of plans do you have for R. Ring?
Deal: Not… really. Is that weird?

Montgomery: I don't think either of us – we enjoy playing together, but we haven't put anything on the other one, like, "We're making an album, or we're going on this tour!" I think since we both have other bands that we do that with, this thing has just been a way to get together and work on songs. And maybe, maybe when the songs are ready, we'll have, we'll decide maybe we want to do something with them. I don't know. It's just kind of loose. It's loose and fun. We're not fucking printing up T-shirts and stuff.

Deal: I want a T-shirt! We need a T-shirt!

Montgomery: No. (laughs) You know what I mean?

Deal: I want a T-shirt!

How did you come up with the name R. Ring?
Montgomery: I don't remember. It was old finger prints of something, and it had all the digits, like what finger would be what to identify it, like thumb, index or whatever, and r. ring was your right ring finger. I just, that's where it came from and I attached all this meaning to it in my own head, which everyone is free to do, so, there you have it. That's where it came from I guess.