Search - Kyle Craft :: Dolls Of Highland

Kyle Craft grew up in a tiny Louisiana town on the banks of the Mississippi, where he spent most of his time catching alligators and rattlesnakes instead of playing football or picking up the guitar. He?s not the product of a musical family, and bands never came through town. It was only a chance trip to K-Mart that gave him his first album, a David Bowie hits compilation that helped inspire him eventually to channel his innate feral energy into songwriting and rock and roll. That self-made talent drives every note of Dolls of Highland, Craft?s exhilarating, fearless solo debut. ?This album is the dark corner of a bar,? he says. ?It?s that feeling at the end of the night when you?re confronted with ?now what??? Craft knows the feeling well--Dolls began to take shape when everything he took for granted was suddenly over, including an eight-year relationship. ?All of a sudden I was left with just me for the first time in my adult life,? he says. He ventured far away from the ghosts of his home in Shreveport, Louisiana to make a new life for himself in Portland, Oregon, living under a friend?s pool table while he demoed new songs and tried to determine what came next. The album was tracked at a home studio in Shreveport, where Craft briefly returned for an intensely-productive reckoning with his past. ?I dedicated the album to Shreveport and called it Dolls of Highland for all the girls and ghosts in town who influenced it so strongly.? Craft then returned to Portland, where Brandon Summers and Benjamin Weikel of The Helio Sequence helped move the album from its DIY beginnings to a more fully realized work. Craft played most of the instruments on the album, and the record captures the power of his live performance. And then there?s Craft?s unforgettable voice ? ?I?m fully aware that I have a very abrasive, very loud voice, but Bob Dylan is the one that taught me to embrace that,? says Craft. Craft?s talent and singular creativity move the conversation into new and unpredictable places. And this album is very much about moving forward. ?After everything fell apart, it didn't take very long for me to learn who I was and what I should be doing,? says Craft, who is walking out on the other side with Dolls of Highland.