Steve Kilbey of The Church puts the ‘pro’ in prolific

Every conversation comes with the potential for doubt, greatness, joy and pain. In its simplest forms, communication is about connection. Some people communicate with words, others with expression and a few with music. Steve Kilbey, bassist, vocalist, and leader of the legendary Australian band The Church, does all three with admirable aplomb.

While Kilbey is not a household name, The Church had a huge hit in 1988 with the song, “Under the Milky Way,” and the record it came from, "Starfish" (1988), was certified gold. With over 20 Church records (not including live records and compilations) and 30 solo records, including multiple collaborations with other artists, Kilbey is one of the hardest-working musicians in history. Most recently, The Church released the excellent record The Hypnogogue in February, and the band will be playing multiple tracks from it at the concert on Friday night in Chandler at Wild Horse Pass Casino.

We got on a Zoom with Kilby last month as the 69-year-old musician was enjoying what seemed like a lovely morning in his native Australia. It’s always odd to speak to someone who is experiencing a different day on the calendar than you, but Kilbey couldn’t have been more accommodating. He was thoughtful, forthcoming and even a tad playful, though he forgot we could see him and most of the Zoom call was spent looking at the side of his face as if he was holding the phone up to his ear.

Phoenix New Times: So, you have one of the biggest catalogs of anyone I've ever interviewed. How do you keep that going? Are you constantly making music?
Steve Kilbey: Yeah. Constantly. As we stand here now, I have, I think four albums in the pipeline and ready to come down the tubes. I'm constantly making music. I'm constantly collaborating. I'm constantly playing around with people doing things. It's just, you know, that's all I do. Like, I'm not good at anything else. So I've just really specialized [in music during] my life ... making music, it's all I really do. I write lyrics and I make music and I don't watch Apple, so I'm not very good at anything else at all.

Did you know you wanted to do this at an early age or did it dawn on you over the years?
I was precociously interested in music and when I heard some of my dad’s records, I fell in love. My dad was a piano player and loved music, although he wasn't successful and didn't have a really professional career, but we had some records and I used to listen to them and I realized now in my own, sort of 4-year-old way, that this was what I wanted to do. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we had a Frank Sinatra record called "Only the Lonely."

It was Frank Sinatra singing all these torch ballads with Nelson Riddle arranging. I realize now I was listening to it and sort of analyzing it and thinking about songs and words at a very early age in my own childish way. When The Beatles came along, I was like 9, and I was very interested in that. A year later, my dad bought me tickets to see the biggest bands in Australia. They're all doing a package tour and I went along, and I just couldn't believe it.

When I saw the guitars and heard the drums and I saw the girls screaming, and I saw these young guys on stage doing their thing, I was just totally sucked in. From then on, I really didn't try very hard to do anything else because I felt my sort of destiny was to be a musician. I had a ridiculously disproportionate confidence in myself, that this would happen for me. And it did, you know, eventually, after a while. I just never could think that I wouldn't make it. I still put everything I had into it.

Now I've got thousands of songs out there. So yeah, I don't cut the head off the boots, you know, and go “How’s this all working?” I just accept it. I sort of feel like I have a deal with the universe. I'm not very good at many things, but this thing works for me and I trust it. I can always create music and I can always write lyrics and create melodies. So, whenever I want, on cue, so that's what I do.

So, how on earth do you choose a setlist with the catalog you have?
Well, it's hard. Yeah. It's like I know we've got 500 songs to pick from and we can only play 25 in a night. So, we're kind of obviously playing, you know, “Under the Milky Way” and “Reptile” (both from "Starfish") and “Metropolis” (from 1990's "Gold Afternoon Fix") and the songs that are popular in America. In Australia, it is a bit harder because The Church had some early hits that weren't hits in America, so we don't have to play them in America but in Australia, we have to add in some of this early stuff.

I think "Hypnogogue" is our best record, and it's going down so well. A large chunk of our set will be from "Hypnogogue."  The rest of it is sort of like interesting deep cuts. Things we haven't played much before. We’ll also play a couple of more songs off "Starfish" because that was our big album in America and sold the most copies. I know we fiddle around with it and try it out and we get it to run and then we usually keep that set for the whole tour, and we get better and better. We play for just about three hours. The whole thing becomes a show.

The room you guys are playing in at Wild Horse Pass has a really killer sound. Do you like playing bigger or smaller venues?
I'd like to I like to play as big as possible, obviously. ... You know, I would never ... if I was playing big places, I would never say, “Hey, let's go and play some small places.” I would rather be playing as big as I could get. I guess if I could ever get to the stage where I was like playing really nice, say, 2,500-seat theaters, I would I'd be happy with that. Forever. But you know, forever isn't very long when you're my age.

The Church. 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 6. Gila River Resorts & Casinos – Wild Horse Pass, 5400 Wild Horse Pass Blvd., Chandler. Tickets are available here.