A newcomer on the local music scene serves notice: That's MR. BIGGINS to you
Wednesday 29 January @ 11:23:44 |
 by P.J. Morel
My dad knows a guy who’s in the conversion van business. This guy’s huge, and in more ways than one. First of all he’s one of the largest conversion van dealers in the state of Ohio (and they buy a lot of conversion vans in Ohio.) On top of that, he’s also a middle-aged former football player with a John Madden physique. This enormous man with an enormous personality goes by the endlessly funny name “Big Boy.” Yup, Big Boy: it was his nickname growing up—he was a big boy—and it just sorta seemed to fit. So it stuck. There’s something both charming and a little bit disconcerting about a childhood term of endearment persisting into later life. My dad drops in on this guy for a visit, and his secretary pages him, “Hey, you got a call on line three, Big Boy.”
Kevin Hagen can relate. He, too, was a big baby, though time and tide have whittled him down to the sort of physique that befits a folky. Still, he’s Mr. Biggins to those who knew him back-when. “I was a big, fat baby, and my dad was really into ‘The Lord of the Rings.’ So it was kind of a hobbit, ‘Baggins / Biggins’ thing. I dunno. It evolved into Biggins and it just stuck. Family and family friends all call me that. None of my peers call me that. But I thought it was more interesting than just going by Kevin Hagen.”
In a way, the name fits Hagen’s music, or at least the way he relates to it. This is a kid whose first musical memory is of his father singing Cat Steve’s “Moon Shadow” to lull him to sleep—a song that he still performs in concert. Ditto for the Elton John tunes that filled his childhood. “My dad was the biggest Elton John freak ever. I didn’t necessarily like it when I was younger. In fact I hated it, ’cause he would play it all the time. I love it now.” Like a nickname, you ultimately can’t choose your influences: it’s just what sticks. Now those early memories have come full circle, providing the emotional and musical foundation for a performer who came of age playing Dave Matthews songs ‘round the campfire.
Hagen’s current musical career is a sort of second wind for a kid who grew up making music. Sitting in the Chatterbox Pub on a Friday afternoon—a bar that Hagen’s dad owned when it was a “grungy dive bar” back in the ’80s—Hagen remembers where it began. “I was about 5 or 6. It’s kinda funny: right down the street, too, was the first guy who taught me piano. He taught me…I don’t remember what it was, probably some Bon Jovi song that was big in the ’80s. I was really interested in music, so my parents hooked me up with some lessons at MacPhail. So I did, like, classical there, basic stuff for a couple of years.”
He eventually got beyond the usual Schirmer Library piano lessons, exploring jazz and blues before he even got to high school. But then his penchant for making music petered out. “It was kinda weird: I liked music, but it wasn’t my focus, you know. I always kept with it. For a long time my parents were like, ‘we’ve already spent all this money, we’re not letting you quit now.’”
Then a revelation came for Hagen right at the end of high school, when he started to find his own voice as a musician and a songwriter. “I got into Dave Matthews a lot. I picked up an acoustic guitar, and that’s when I started singing too. Dave Matthews—for me, at the time, it was like, ‘Man, here’s a guy with kind of a weird, funny voice, and he’s doing his own thing,’ you know. So it kinda made me feel like it was OK, whether or not I really liked my own voice.”
Since then Hagen has established quite a repertoire of original material, which he performs on both guitar and piano. A regular gig playing Mondays at the 400 Bar have given him the opportunity to work things over. And while a number of contemporary folk and folk-inflected musicians have had a strong influence on his approach to music (notably Matthews and local fave Mason Jennings), Hagen’s songs evince his interest in a variety of musical styles. A listen to first solo recording, Biggins Begins, shows him giving the nod to Ben Folds’ plaintive crooning, Tori Amos’ dark introspection, and even the lyrical flow of, er, Bone Thugs ’n’ Harmony.
That last suggestion inspires a laugh from Hagen. “Some people have made that joke—that you’re the only folk guy that’s been inspired by Bone Thugs ‘n’ Harmony. Well, it’s not quite that. I did have phase where I liked gangsta rap and stuff.” On the song in question, “Overkast,” Hagen spits out a terse rhythmic stream of lyrics. “That song was a process,” he explains. “I had a piano part that I loved—I had it forever and never wrote anything for it. Finally I started goofing around one day with the band and singing lyrics like that, really fast. I thought it sounded cool.”
“One of the coolest things about writing is that it’s always different,” Hagen continues. The subject of songwriting makes Hagen visibly more animated. “There are a couple of songs on the record that were written like that [*snaps*]. Actually, two of them, I can remember, I woke up from a nap and they were just there. “Life,” the first song on the album: I woke up from a dream and I just had this whole thing going in my head. It was mostly just lyrics, so I said, well, just keep it simple. It’s a kind of blues song. It seemed to write itself.”
Hagen is a relative newcomer to the Twin Cities music scene, but his songs seem to have struck a nerve, and he’s starting to build a following. With real presence as a performer, and impressive songwriting chops, he’s definitely one to watch out for.
Mr. Biggins Plays Mondays at the 400 Bar. See him this Mon., Frb. 3 with Verbena. 8 p.m. 21+. 400 Cedar Ave. S., Mpls. 612-332-2903.
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