By ARIADNE WILL
Sentinel Staff Writer
Zak Kirkpatrick has been playing music for years.
Now 32, Kirkpatrick has been playing guitar since he was in high school, and has been writing songs for just as long.
“I remember writing stuff in high school – and who knows how good it was,” he said. “I just kept writing.”
Born and raised in Juneau, he and his wife moved here seven years ago, where he works for Allen Marine and where the couple has been raising two sons.
Kirkpatrick has continued writing music, and until recently didn’t think he had enough material to produce an album.
“I didn’t even realize the amount of work I had amassed until one day I sat down and decided to write out the names of all the songs I’ve written,” he told the Sentinel. “I was like, ‘Oh wow, there’s more than enough songs here to do an album.’”
Zak Kirkpatrick. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
But even with so much material, Kirkpatrick is starting by releasing single tracks.
“Headed West,” Kirkpatrick’s first single, is now available on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.
It’s the first of his songs available on a mainstream outlet, but Kirkpatrick says he’s been releasing on his personal platforms for a while.
“I’d write a song and eventually decide to put it up on my own personal social media pages or YouTube,” he said. “I got great feedback that made me feel like continuing on.”
He says he’s now planning on releasing a second single in about a month, and hopes to have an album out by late summer.
Kirkpatrick has been working with Chance McCoy, a Grammy winner and former guitarist for the band Old Crow Medicine Show. Kirkpatrick said he and McCoy connected over the internet.
“Chance had been looking for artists he wanted to work with after his time as a musician and wanted to be a production artist himself,” Kirkpatrick said. “We linked up and (our) styles fit really well.”
Kirkpatrick plans on flying to McCoy’s West Virginia residence later in the year to record his album, but says that for now the two are working remotely.
“These first ones we’re doing in a distanced way,” he said. “Technology is just amazing these days – I can do stuff here out of my home studio in Sitka, Alaska, and he can do stuff out of his studio in West Virginia and we can come together.”
Kirkpatrick says that his greatest successes as a musician are when his songs feel true to those listening.
“I wrote this song about the young boy who goes off and fights overseas and comes back injured physically and emotionally, and his reunion with his mom after that,” he said. “The mother of a wounded warrior came across this song. She said something like, ‘This is true,’ or ‘This is all true.’”
Kirkpatrick has never served in the military, and says this song is based on stories he’s heard and read. But much of his other music is rooted in his own experiences, and in Alaska.
“I’ve got deep ties to Alaska. My great-grandparents immigrated from Sweden; my grandpa built himself a boat so he could start fishing and became part of this Scandinavian fishing family in Southeast Alaska,” he said. “That definitely plays into some of my songs.”
He said the Alaska references in his music include mining, logging, and fishing off the coast of Chichagof Island.
And he says that if people are looking for pop country, they won’t find it in his music.
“Some people could listen to my music and say, ‘Huh, he considers that country.’ I absolutely do,” he said. “(They) might listen to it and say, oh, that’s folk or folk rock or bluegrass. But from the beginning of country music it’s never been just one thing – it’s always evolved.”
To learn more about Kirkpatrick’s music, and to stay up-to-date on his music releases, follow @zakkirkpatrickmusic on Facebook and Instagram.
