Kevin Devine, on heels of successful Kickstarter, to reunite with Miracle Of '86 at Maxwell's

Singer/songwriter Kevin Devine will reunite with his old band The Miracle of '86 at Maxwell's on Friday, June 14.

Kevin Devine

has had quite a year. The Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter’s Kickstarter campaign to fund two albums – a solo project, and another with his longtime backing ensemble the Goddamn Band – raised nearly $115,000, considerably more than twice its goal. He’s toured Europe on his own and the United States with Bad Books, the collaborative project he created with the indie-rock band Manchester Orchestra. And on June 14, he’ll perform at

Maxwell's

with the group that launched his career in the early ‘00’s, t

he Miracle of '86

, with a second show at NYC’s Mercury Lounge the following night.

“I really never thought our band would play together again, it wasn’t even a flickering thought in my head as recently as a year ago,” Devine confessed. “That band broke up nine years ago and we’ve all gone on to other things.”

Miracle Of '86 (referring to the Mets World Series victory of that year) was formed on Staten Island in the late Nineties by high school pals Devine and Chris McAllen. Guitarist Mike Robertson joined the group in 1999 and drummer Mike Skinner solidified the lineup in 2001; the band went on to some local success and limited touring, including the release of 2003's well-received album Every Famous Last Word. But the group disbanded a year later, with Devine pursuing a solo career and McAllen moving over to the Lilies. Skinner and Robertson both found success working behind the scenes as producers, engineers, and professional songwriters.

In 2010, Kevin Devine & The Goddamn Band put together a special show at Maxwell’s to celebrate the re-release of two of Devine’s early solo records. “The rehearsals for that were so much fun, and it occurred to me that Mike (Robertson) had played guitar on those records,” Devine said. “We hadn’t talked at that point in four or five years, but I emailed him and asked him if he wanted to come up and play with us. His response was very warm and he explained that he couldn’t get out of work to do the shows, but the tone made me think that he was very receptive. I was pretty messy in my early to mid-twenties, and I made some poor decisions and did some things I’m not proud of, and I wasn’t happy with the way we had left things. So I just suggested we get together and we had lunch, and it was really nice. We talked for over two hours, and a door was opened.”

Somewhere along the line, the concept of a Miracle of ’86 reunion came up and everyone agreed that it might be possible. “The band was really fun but bands break up, and by the end everyone wanted to kill each other, so there were some thoughts about if we really wanted to go back there,” Devine admitted. “But in the end, we all thought it would be good idea.”

“Then Hurricane Sandy happened, and one of my best friends in the world, Chris O’Brien, lost his house on Staten Island,” Devine said. “Everything destroyed, wiped out. McAllen and I had grown up with Chris, he was always the kid in the Staten Island hardcore scene, he never played in bands himself but he was a fixture at every show we were at. When stuff like that happens, you talk to ex-girlfriends you haven’t talked to in ten years because you want to make sure they got through the storm all right. It brings a lot of people together. So I wrote to McAllen, since his parents still live on Staten Island, and made sure they were all okay. And I thought, if this band was ever going to play again, this would be the perfect reason.”

Miracle of ’86 wound up putting on a show at The Full Cup on Staten Island which sold out as soon as tickets went on sale. Proceeds were divided between Staten Island Strong, a local Sandy relief organization, and the O’Brien family.

The Miracle Of '86, seen here in 2002, will reunite for two shows the weekend of June 14-15 at Maxwell's and NYC's Mercury Lounge.

“Once we got past that initial awkwardness, which was a little weird at first, it was just great - a lot of fun, a lot of stories,” Devine said. “Played the songs and they sounded really good. It was a treat. So after the show, we were thinking, well, there’s some interest here. We heard from a lot of people who couldn’t get tickets because they sold out so quickly, or couldn’t get to Staten Island. It wasn’t like when the Pixies got back together, we didn’t mistake it for anything that big. I think Miracle’s biggest record sold 2,000 copies, and our longest, broadest tour got as far west as Omaha and as far south as Birmingham. So we can’t go and do a tour and have it be worth anybody’s time, but the idea of doing a weekend seemed very feasible.”

“Well, we don’t hate each other, we don’t want to kill each other anymore, we really enjoyed playing together, we still like the songs... What if we did a New York show or a New Jersey show? We put the feelers out and it worked out perfectly,” Devine explained. “Mercury Lounge and Maxwell’s are two places where we played a ton. And I’m hoping both shows will sell out. Back when Miracle of ’86 was playing those clubs the first time, we weren’t selling out anywhere, so it will be nice to have played there, gone on and done other things for nine years, and then come back to those places and have them actually be full.”

The Miracle of ’86 shows will offer a respite for Devine, who’s been spending most of his time writing and recording the two albums that he funded through the crowd-sourcing site Kickstarter.

“It was a six month process to make the decision to do it,” Devine explained. “And over the course of the six months, I flip flopped back and forth a hundred times. Yes, I’ll definitely do it, no I definitely won’t do it, everything in between, and finally, it was probably a 51/49 decision to go with it. I genuinely thought that 50 grand, for two records… to anybody, that’s a lot of money. And I thought, we’re either going to fall flat on our faces, or we put it up for 45 days and maybe we just squeak through and raise the money. And then, for whatever reason, it raised like 64 grand in the first day, and it hit the goal in nine hours.”

“It’s almost impossible to talk about stuff like that, because it’s money, it’s numbers, it’s nothing I’m used to talking about,” Devine said. “But to me, that was genuinely shocking. In an amazing way, in a beautiful way, obviously. To break it down to a record industry perspective, I spoke to labels about making these records. And I wouldn’t have been able to go to any record label on the planet and say, I want to make these two albums, and I want to be able to promote them, and I want you to give me a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars to do that. They would have just smiled and said, ‘best of luck with that.’ So I feel like I’m lucky, I’m grateful, and I’m acutely aware that this is more about the audience than about myself. They spoke very clearly, and it eradicates a lot of fearful anxiety I had about where I was with my career. You think you’re connecting with people, but you’re never really totally sure. But this, it’s more than the money, it’s the audience telling me that they value what I do. It was overwhelming in that sense. It was my audience saying ‘we don’t have how your music comes out, or with whom, or through which channels. We just like that you make it, and we want you to keep making it.”

The Miracle of 86 and The Great American Novel will be at Maxwell's (1039 Washington Street, Hoboken) on Friday, June 14. A few tickets are still available at www.ticketfly.com and at Tunes Music (225 Washington Street, Hoboken.) Showtime is 8:30 pm. Miracle Of '86 will also be at The Mercury Lounge (217 East Houston St. NYC) on Saturday, June 15, with Hopewell. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster.com.

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