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Multi-Instrumentalist McKillip Discusses Evolution Of Music Career

For every venue in the greater Jamestown area that has hosted live music at any point over the past few years, chances are good that Adam McKillip has performed there.

Since first discovering his affinity for music nearly two decades ago, the 28-year-old Jamestown area native has steadily developed a reputation as a consummate performer of many instruments and many musical genres.

From his first musical foray as an elementary school concert band saxophonist to performing and recording with a regionally renowned outfit that has opened for the likes of 10,000 Maniacs, McKillip has time and again proven himself an unequivocal asset to the wide variety of bands and musicians he has performed with. And as an instructor with Infinity Visual and Performing Arts, a local organization that he credits with his own development, he is paying forward his many talents to a younger generation of upcoming musicians.

The following is a brief transcription of an interview conducted by The Post-Journal in order to track the playing career associated with one of the area’s more visible and well-traveled musicians:

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P-J: It seems hardly a week goes by that I don’t see you playing with one band or another, or even a solo set somewhere around town. How many projects are you currently involved with, and what instruments are you playing in each?

McKillip: Right now I’m playing out with Ridiculous 6, formerly known as Sweet Ass Cream Corn, and I do electric guitar with them. I also play mandolin with a group out of Erie, Pa., called Smilo and the Ghost, and I have an acoustic guitar duo with my friend Melanie (Luciano) called Wyldwood, but we only play together once in a while since she now lives in Syracuse. And for my solo gigs I mostly play acoustic guitar; rarely electric.

P-J: It seems you’ve been playing constantly and consistently for several years now, and music has clearly been at the forefront of your life for a long time. When did you get your start in music and how did you come to familiarize yourself with so many instruments?

McKillip: I technically started playing music when I joined the Fenner Elementary School concert band in fourth grade. I “played” saxophone. I didn’t particularly enjoy the saxophone so much, but I joined band almost out of necessity and stuck with it. Shortly after that I remember seeing someone playing a mandolin at the Reg Lenna (Center for the Arts) and thinking it looked really fun, so I got my first mandolin from Germaine and Pappalardo when I was 11 and started taking lessons with Bill Eckstrom. When I was in sixth grade Bill told me — jokingly, I hope — that he wouldn’t give me anymore mandolin lessons unless I actually started practicing my sax, too. But music is just really awesome, and it just steadily grew on me the longer I played. I started to notice that whenever I listened to music I wasn’t ever really interested in or paying any attention to the lyrics, it was the music that moved me.

After I learned the basics on mandolin I also bought a banjo from Germaine and Pappalardo, and I took banjo lessons from Bill as well. Sometimes there was a gap between when my banjo lessons would end and when my mom would come and pick me up, so during that time I started teaching myself basic guitar chords while I was waiting. That led to my mom buying me my first acoustic guitar. I followed that by picking up the bass guitar for my praise band at church, and then one of my friends let me have his ukulele and I taught myself that. I also was a student at Infinity from 2005-07, and I studied with Bill Ward in the Infinity Acoustic Project — where I first played banjo before moving to mandolin. So there was a lot of crossover in the way I went from one instrument to another, but I’d say guitar and bass were the main instruments that I taught myself to play.

P-J: When you decide to start playing out for other people rather than just yourself, and how did gigging progress into a full-time endeavor?

McKillip: I think it originally started with the bluegrass jam they had at Doo-Dahs Tavern in Busti, which is now the Busti Tap House. That’s where I started playing mandolin out. I don’t know that I was really too invested in playing music out until I met Gary Krueger at JCC in 2007. Gary and I formed a duo called Omnisun and we played a few gigs around town. I think my first actual gig was at Carol’s Silver Dollar on Second Street in Jamestown, where Omnisun opened for the Steve Johnson Band. I also did a few solo gigs at my church, Emmanuel Lutheran. That’s when I started to take music seriously, because I had to learn three hours’ worth of songs to play those gigs, and that gave me a good basis for what it took to play for an entire evening. I remember playing a show at the Sherman Hotel, and I also played a few Toys for Tots benefits for The Resource Center because my mom worked there. For a couple years, I was a member of the Jamestown Harmony Express and they helped me to develop my vocals quite a bit, but when my own gig calendar started to fill up I had to quit that group.

I also played in the JCC Rock Ensembles for around seven years, from 2007-14, and those shows helped me a lot because I got used to playing a bunch of different music styles with a bunch of different people. I met Melanie at Rock Ensembles in 2011 and we played together regularly for about two years. We still play once in a while, whenever we can get back together again. I got involved in Sweet Ass Cream Corn in 2008 because I was working with Bob Volpe at Germaine and Pappalardo. That lead to me playing with Headbangers Ball, but I haven’t played with them since about 2013.

P-J: What are you up to now?

McKillip: As far as solo stuff I’ve been playing places like Sensory Winery, 21 Brix Winery, Brazil Craft Beer and Wine Lounge, the Wine Cellar, the Edinboro Lake Resort, the Great Blue Heron Music Festival and the Gathering at Chaffee’s music festival. I also regularly play in high school musicals. I’ve been involved with the Southwestern musicals for the past two years, and also recently have been involved with the musicals at Falconer and Jamestown.

I’ve also been doing some cool stuff with my most recent band Smilo and the Ghost, which I joined in 2014 after I met Tyler Smilo while I was living in Erie. We’ve played some pretty awesome shows over the past three years, with the biggest one being last year during the 8 Great Tuesdays music series in Erie. We opened for 10,000 Maniacs and got to play for a few thousand people in the process. We also recently recorded a CD that we’re tentatively calling “Ghost Writers.” We recorded it at Sonic Farm Studios up in Colden, near Buffalo, and had it mixed and mastered at GCR Audio Recording Studios in Buffalo — which is owned by Robby Takac of the Goo Goo Dolls. It’s pretty much done as far as the studio aspect, we just need to get it printed and pressed.

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For more information about McKillip’s upcoming area performances, find his musician profile, @MandoMcKillip, as well as his other bands on Facebook.

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