Interview: Kera Schaley
A Chat With The Cellist From Swan Fungus' Archives
It’s embarrassing, the amount of times I have to search the archives of the old blog to answer questions about my own life. Again, yesterday, I found myself on the back-end of Wordpress reading a post about a meal I ate in 2007. It was for the dumbest possible reason, too. I was out with Adam and Jen at this restaurant helmed by a popular LA chef. I could have sworn at his first restaurant, his mother worked beside him in the kitchen, and one time she sent me out a free dessert. Turns out either she didn’t, or I didn’t think to mention it in my review. Dumb questions like this arise several times a month, and the blog holds all the answers.
Earlier this week I got a birthday notification that sent me back into my archives again. It was for Kera Schaley, who I first met back in 2010. Since we’re Facebook friends — like a lot of random people who have passed through my life — birthdays became synced with the calendar on phone at some point. So, happy (belated) birthday, Kera!
I feel like my original interview with her was something of a landmark event on my blog. I see it referenced a lot online whenever anyone “discovers” that she played cello on In Utero. Hell, it took Rolling Stone Magazine until 2023 (!) to write a whole article profiling her, claiming it was the first time she ever spoke about it. Thankfully, someone on Reddit (correctly!) pointed out that she’d given an interview before. With lil’ ‘ol me.
This interview deserves its place on the Internet even if the old Swan Fungus has gone away. So here it is in its entirety, hopefully to help provide some color to her life story outside of just the Nirvana stuff.
Note: I’ll probably start re-posting more of my old interviews here in the coming months because some of them were pretty good!
Originally published March 22nd, 2010
Just about a year ago I posted some music from an incredible band called Diaper. The album, The Brown Suit, was pretty much non-existent as far as Google was concerned when first I heard it. The only information I had when I wrote up my little review was that the band consisted of Todd Rittmann, Pat Samson, and Kera Schaley. Todd and Pat later went on to play in U.S. Maple. Kera’s name you might recognize from the credits of Nirvana’s In Utero. She played cello. Anyway, with any obscure album I write about, I do not expect any kind of response other than one or two people emailing me to say that they enjoyed it. When I saw that Kera had taken a moment to correct some improperly-cited information regarding the recording of The Brown Suit, I was giddy. We started emailing back and forth as I wanted to learn more about the record. Eventually I asked if she would mind subjecting herself to a full interview. She said yes. Then she didn’t respond to me for months. Then I would email her a reminder every few months without trying to sound like a nag. Finally she answered all my questions, and I am very happy to share them with you today. Enjoy!
EL: …By the way, I read the Albini reference on his own website’s forum, so my lack of conflicting information told me to go with it!
KS: My original band from Chicago just released a CD of all our recordings, which really were done with Albini, which is how I met him in the first place. He was very good at recording the cello. that band was called dOUBT. The release is from Johanns Face records. There is a MySpace for it in case you are interested. It’s really hilarious… it was the early ‘90s so it cracks me up every time I hear it. I have a MySpace for Martyr & Pistol but it doesn’t have much going on right now because all the band members are gone and I am about to regroup with the original drummer.
EL: So you want to answer a few questions? You seem like quite the storyteller…
KS: Yes ask away, I was trying to think of stuff to tell you but it was kind of late at night so my brain was a bit fried. I should have been a writer… although it is never too late. Oddly enough I work in Banking Operations — but we have a softball team and I spin a pretty good play-by-play yarn for the bank employees after our games.
EL: Well Kera, tell me a little about yourself. Where you’re from, when you took up cello, do you play other instruments?
KS: I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. In fact every house I ever went in to as a child looked like the ROSANNE show. My house was very different as my mom was artistically inclined and my dad was a writer. They tried to bring as much culture as they could into a ranch development. I started playing cello in the 4th grade when they came around to all the classrooms and gave the option to get out of class for an hour every week to take lessons. Ironically I picked the cello because I was a very lazy kid and it had the only person sitting down when they demonstrated the instruments. Eventually because of my back I now have developed a way to play standing up.
Diaper - “Spineless Beast”
EL: I read online (the same place I mistakenly read that Steve recorded The Brown Suit) that you played cello in another band in Athens. That doesn’t appear to be either of the two bands you mentioned… one says Chicago and the other Montreal… wait, maybe there’s more than one Martyr & Pistol. What band was that in Athens!? Tell me about it?
KS: The band in Athens is Martyr & Pistol, but some Canadian Western Swing Band stole my name. They insist they came up with it on their own but I don’t actually believe them. I don’t really do Martyr & Pistol anymore, but I have just started working on a duo with a modern take on some Irish folk.
EL: How did Diaper form?
KS: Well Todd Rittmann and I went to high school together and we saw each other at a show downtown. Some other people from our high school were playing, and it was like a little reunion of the small group of punk rock kids from good old Hoffman Estates High School class of ‘87. He said he and his friend Pat were going to record some music and wondered if I would add to the mix.
EL: You mentioned before that the songs, though they sound grim, all have a punch line. Could you elaborate?
KS: There is a real air of sarcasm in the city of Chicago. We all have it. Must be in the air. Or in the fact that it is so cold it hurts to go outside most of the time. Someone once described it as, “I’m kidding, I’m not kidding, but I’m kidding.” Most of us have a way of turning serious situations or ideas into something humorous, but without actually making light of the situation.
EL: How did you come to write the songs for The Brown Suit? Was it collaborative, or was there a single songwriter?
KS: Every Diaper song was written in one day and recorded in two, and no one was on speed. Usually Todd had something he was working on or developed something on the spot. I usually made parts up later and wrote lyrics the night before we would record.
EL: So the guy with the complicated name recorded it. Hmm… he did a great job. Where was his warehouse? Was it a complicated or simple studio? How did he record the band?
KS: Rich was also a friend of Todd and Pat’s, and he recorded the actual album. There are earlier recordings that we did with Scott Schenke. He had a 4-track that we were helping him play with. I don’t know why but I kept calling him Rob. He looked like his name should be Rob, and no matter how many times they told me his name I still called him Rob. So he called me Laura and all was well, since we were both very good at our Mary-Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke impersonations. Rich Hoogteijlingen had a studio in his basement. He lived out near my parents not far from Elgin, Illinois in a town called Cary. Some of the record was recorded in an old barn just for fun. Then we re-recorded some of the cello and vocals at the studio. The cello didn’t sound very good from the barn recordings. They had gotten a cello from someone for me to borrow, and when I opened the bag it was in pieces. So I had to put it back together, and it kept going out-of-tune while we were playing.
EL: Did you tour at all for the album? Where did you play? What was the reaction like? Did people get the humor, or did they just see it as grim?
KS: We did a show in Athens, GA which is where I was in school at the University of GA. I love Athens and I have moved here to stay since 2000. There were a lot of people at the show; they had done a little write up that said “Tri-Fold Live” that drew some people. It was in a Mexican restaurant called Frijileros. It was in ‘93. Later that year my friend Jason Emond and I came to Chicago, and I did a solo performance to open and then Diaper played. It was at the Bluebird Lounge. That was it for our live performances.
EL: How the hell did you make the cover of SPIN? What issue was that!? What’d they write about you?
KS: OK there was absolutely NO Cover on SPIN magazine!!! There is an old issue of SPIN magazine that was lying around Rich’s studio with J Mascis on the cover, and he was seriously dressed like a pimp. Big rings and some sort of velvet outfit. The cover had the words “J MASCIS IS GOD” on it, so that all just turned into a joke. I believe that if you pay someone at SPIN they put your song on a compilation that they send out to all new subscribers that month. I doubt anyone has one, but Rich tried it just for fun and used the song called, “J Mascis Is God” dressed like a pimp on the cover of Spin Magazine.
Diaper - “J Mascis Is God”
EL: Did Diaper record and release anything other than The Brown Suit? Was that album issued on vinyl, even?
KS: Rich just made some CDs and he probably still has some because I think it was less expensive if you made a whole bunch. I did have Steve Albini somewhat master the recordings that Scott did and I have those on a CD and a DAT Tape somewhere.
U.S. Maple - “The State Is Bad”
EL: Do you still maintain a relationship with the dudes, Pat and Todd? If not, or if there was some horrible falling out, I apologize in advance for drudging up a potentially bad memory.
KS: They went on to form a band called U.S. Maple with the guys from Shorty, both Chicago bands. U.S. Maple did very well so I kind of lost touch with them. I think Todd now is playing with Cheer-Accident, also a Chicago band.
Cheer Accident - “In The Wings”
EL: Lastly, I have to ask about recording In Utero. Anything you could remember and write about that session would be very cool to hear.
KS: I was still in school in Athens, but flew up to Minneapolis to spend the weekend. I really just wanted to hang out with Steve since we barely got to see each other. It was kind of an odd atmosphere. They were all pretty quiet. Chris was writing an article about the war in Yugoslavia and Dave was chasing his fiancée around the house. He would tackle her and loom over her on the ground pretending like he was going to drop a giant spit ball on her face, but at the last minute he would slurp it back into his mouth. Ah, young lovers. Courtney arrived with Francis and they were also very quiet. I kept to myself as I didn’t really have anything all that exciting to say, and they were complete strangers. I didn’t know anything about Nirvana other than the songs I had heard in public places. I went to the studio the next morning after I arrived, and Steve played the song “Dumb” for me. I wrote a part for it and then Kurt came in and listened, told me what to leave out and what to keep. Then he asked me to play around with “All Apologies.” Most of the cello on that was me just messing around and then Kurt had me learn one specific line that he wanted everyone to be playing the same thing on. I sort of thought they were going to scrap the cello on that one, but it stayed in. Since everyone involved had a huge falling out due to a completely fictitious story made up by a writer for U.S. News and World Report, I never actually got a copy of the album. Nor did I ever hear from them again. There is a nice comment by Courtney Love in the unauthorized biography where she is trying to insult Steve, but alludes to me in some derogatory fashion.
“The only way Steve Albini would think I was a perfect girlfriend, would be if I was from the East Coast, played the cello, had small hoop earrings, wore black turtlenecks, had all matching luggage, and never said a word.”
The excerpt appeared in the Chicago Reader so everyone I knew sent it to me. I wrote her a letter to basically make fun of her for the comments, and received a phone call at 2am which I barely remember. She invited me to her show in Athens but I went to Augusta to see friends instead.
EL: Thanks Kera, you’re wonderful and I like you!
