Retired electrical worker helps spark careers

ASHLAND -- Leave it to a master high-voltage electrician to like a little AC/DC style of music.

While Ashland resident Gary Kesling is retired from his electrical work day job, the 58-year-old can't stop rocking and putting more than a little jolt into the region's music scene.

Like a heavy-duty power strip, Kesling is plugged in and has helped energize the local scene on many levels.

In addition to being the drummer for The Return, the classic rock band that's been rocking Tri-State festivals and clubs since 1967, Kesling is the owner of 9Lives Records/2Cats Studios that's been helping out a slew of acts from around the Tri-State and around the globe all by hanging out in his basement.

From this low-ceiling band-cave studio where even Bronson Bush has to "strike a rocker pose" not to hit his head, Kesling has helped create, manufacture and distribute more than 40 CDs, and more than 1,000 songs for indie artists from around the globe.

While Kesling is often helping indie musicians get heard, he from time to time has some pretty well-known folks drop into the six-foot-high basement for a session with Kesling and well-known studio engineer Steve Hoffman, who's spent most of his career on the road running sound for Exile.

In fact, Kesling was watching "Late Night With David Letterman" back in mid-December when the show featured Steve Martin and fellow banjo picker Sammy Shelor, who had just been recording in Kesling's basement.

"We've been working on a new album with Steve Shelton and it's a bluegrass album with a real who's who in bluegrass on it and Don Rigsby producing it," Kesling said. "So Sammy had just been here banging his head in the basement and a month later he's on Letterman."

A diabetic who has to take five shots a day, Kesling said his small music business really got ramped up two summers ago when he had to take an early retirement from his dangerous job working high-voltage lines.

Kesling credits his wife Brenda for pushing him to buy a four-track cassette deck to record The Return, which had always gone to The Recording Workshop near Chillicothe, Ohio, to make their records.

"How many people have that guitar under their bed they haven't touched in years or may have a pottery wheel they never use?" Kesling said. "She basically gave me an opportunity. We'd raised the five kids and she basically said if you'll use it then let's buy this and let's see where it goes."

The 2Cats/9Lives have roamed a little bit of everywhere.

A self-professed computer geek, Kesling said it didn't take long for his music business to grow into the one-stop shop it is today, offering everything from flash-driven websites, CD manufacturing, digital distribution (on 122 download sites including iTunes) and recording in his state-of-the-art studio.

Thanks to bartering sessions and work with veteran musician and guitar aficionado George Borst, Kesling's studio has the most powerful ProTools board; and; because of his quiet cul-de-sac neighborhood (he's got young doctors on either side), complete soundproofing.

"I feel like I need to give him (George) credit for helping me take that leap," Kesling said. "It's still a little home recording studio, but you can't get any better equipment. The weakest link here is me."

While Kesling's company still does CD manufacturing, he said once he hooked up about five years ago with IODA (the Independent Organization of Digital Artists), he's concentrated on getting his artists on the 122 download sites available.

That worldwide distribution has caused him to now have a roster of 36 bands from around the country and to receive submissions that range from bands in the Ukraine to hip hop artists out of Trinidad.

And Kesling has just added his first author to the roster, David Williams, a southern rocker from Huntington who goes by "Alligator Jackson."

While he's got such bands as Tango Kilo out of California on the label as well as some local acts including Derailed, Larry Pancake, Paul Callicoat and others, his best selling artist happens to be one of his old co-workers, Brad Taylor of South Point.

Taylor's recordings of turkey call and gobbles recorded under the name "Tree Top Turkeys" have been red-hot as ringtones and his recordings have been used by the National Wild Turkey Federation to help turkey hunters distinguish the particular calls.

"I keep using this analogy that people would string lines across the Big Sandy River and the more jugs you hang and the more hooks you hang the more chances you have to catch a fish," Kesling said. "The more artists and the more places we have to sell, the likelihood of having something happen to help these artists grows with each release. That is kind of my philosophy. I'm not rich at all but I also don't need anymore than what I have. I am pretty blessed. I get to play music every week and have an awesome family and more food than we need."

While the studio has been popping off with more than 300 days of recording last year, Kesling's band, The Return with Dave Copley and Mike Fitzpatrick, has been busier than ever playing Rally on the River as well as some epic seven-hour gigs at Frogtown in Ironton.

"We started in 1967 and to have the same band since 1967 is absurd and I'm not sure why we've put up with each other for all that time," Kesling said with a laugh. "It's like we're brothers and we fight like brothers and we definitely know each other's faults and you think man I can't put up with that any more and then there's some kind of magic that started back in that very first practice.

"There's something strange that happens -- that physiological and mystical connection when you're making music even if no one else is there. We spend a lot of times playing to nobody and still something happens and I think that happens at almost any kind of event like in sports a connection is made when everybody is working on the same plan. You're on this soul level and you make a connection and it brings you some kind of peace."

Lori Wolfe/The Herald-Dispatch

Gary Kesling has been in the band The Return for 45 years and in the past few years has had a label 9 Lives Records/2 Cats Studios, in Ashland.

Lori Wolfe/The Herald-Dispatch

Gary Kesling has been in the band The Return for 45 years and in the past few years has had a label 9 Lives Records/2 Cats Studios, in Ashland.

Lori Wolfe/The Herald-Dispatch

Gary Kesling has been in the band The Return for 45 years and in the past few years has had a label 9 Lives Records/2 Cats Studios, in Ashland.