Keith Kelly pays homage to his no-longer-guilty pleasure—a kiss-cam classic—with a short film featuring an in-love and liquored-up Frankenstein
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I initially reached out to Keith Kelly for an interview back in 2018, at which point I only knew him as part of psychedelic indie-pop group Monogold. It wasn’t until I circled back a few months ago that I was introduced to Keith’s newest project, Jelly Kelly—a nod to his childhood nickname—under which he and his band dropped a *very* rad record in December.
At 21 minutes, Fresh Paint is a fast and fun listen, composed of surfy songs, songs you soak up and maybe sway to ( “First Lips” legitimately makes me want to slow dance) , and songs that—when presented live and loud—inspire the sort of beer swigging and head shaking that tend to result in hangovers and (mild) cases of (totally worth-it) whiplash.
Trust me. I know from experience.
And, along with the five excellent original tracks, there’s Fresh Paint‘s funky finale: a super weird and wonderful, totally unexpected cover of Sixpence None the Richer’s late ’90s banger “Kiss Me”—the video for which I’m beyond stoked to premiere here.
In an email, Keith was kind enough to tell us why he chose to cover this particular song and share how the Frankenstein-themed video came to be:
“I’ve always jokingly played the chords to this song during sound checks or when another member is tuning, etc., and it’s always got such an immediate reaction! Just as a brief little chord thing, people always knew exactly what it was.
For me it was always a secret guilty pleasure from when I was a kid. Even the video featuring the lovely Freddy Prinze Jr., whenever it was on I would ‘accidentally’ misplace the remote or something, even if I was by myself! Of course later, when I grew up, I realized you like what you like regardless the style and genre. I like Glenn Miller and King Diamond, and Neil Diamond for that matter and Big Black. Whatever you like, you like, and that’s what makes music amazing.
So I did my own, sort of twisted and simple version of the song as like a one-take bonus type track at the end of the new record Fresh Paint. People always dug it, so a few days before Halloween my girlfriend (Xristina Bride of Frankenstein) and I decided to put our costumes to use and make a quick, fun, quirky, little vid. Frank’s a little tipsy wandering around aimlessly looking and daydreaming of his long- lost creature love. Hope he finds her in the end, cuz ya know, when love dies all ya need is a blast of lightning.”
There you have it. Watch, enjoy and then go listen to the hell out of Fresh Paint…
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find a monster to make out with.
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Catch Jelly Kelly LIVE on the Bands do BK radio show on Radio Free Brooklyn on February 6th and at Our Wicked Lady on February 18th!
Listen to Fresh Paint on Spotify and keep up with all things Jelly Kelly on Instagram @jellykelly_music
Feature image (video still) provided by the artist.