Cincinnati singer/songwriter/musician/actor Kurt Deimer has been busy. He just wrapped up a tour with Mushroomhead, has a new movie coming out and is getting ready to head into the studio to work on new music before heading back out on tour in January.
Deimer's hard work ethic and message of positivity in his good old-fashioned rock n' roll has been gaining more and more attention including drawing the attention of Tesla bassist Brian Wheat, who has gone on to become Deimer's manager.
Recently, Deimer checked in with Rock Life to talk about all of the roles he is juggling.
Rock Life: How is your day going?
Kurt Deimer: A little cloudy here. I just woke up in Bloomington, Illinois and am just chilling before our show tonight. I'm just relaxing in my hotel room.
RL: You are coming to the end of your tour with Mushroomhead. Has that been going well?
KD: Everything's going great. We are cramped on stage to say the least because Mushroomhead has their water drums and all of that, but we are doing the best we can. Last night I was out in the crowd. You have to adapt to whatever room depending on the size. Everything has been going good so far.
RL: What can people expect from one of your sets?
KD: Just our pure, original form of rock n' roll like back in the seventies or eighties. If you would have gone to see AC/DC they were the way they were and he sang the way he sang or Van Halen whose first tour were as support for Black Sabbath. They had their own style and I feel we do too. I'm in my element when we are out on stage and I'm sharing my message.
I'm sharing with you my thoughts that I've kept inside me for a lot of years. Instead of going to a therapist I'm just talking to the crowd instead. I'm singing things that mean something to me and hopefully they will take something from my lyrics. It's all about positivity and treating people with kindness.
RL: Any future touring plans?
KD: After this tour wraps up, I'll be going back to L.A. in November. I've got to film some promo stuff for the character in the movie I just shot in March with Bill Moseley and Lin Shaye called Scared to Death. I play a character called The Grog. I'm a horror icon and I'm doing a bunch of green screen stuff for the movie promo.
After that, we're going to finish our debut album. We're going to put out a double album with like sixteen songs in the first quarter of next year on vinyl and all of that. Then, I plan to chill for a couple of months before we head back out on tour in January with Tesla.
We're also going to be doing some headline dates going back to some of the cities we just played. Then, in March, we might have this big tour that I can't really talk about yet.
RL: How did your friendship with Brian come about?
KD: Well we went out with Tesla the first time in September of last year and we have been able to grow and build our fanbase. Then, when we were in Midland, Texas and I was just sitting out in my little soccer chair just having a smoke Brian walked by. He doesn't really talk to people, but he stopped and said to me, you guys f*cking rock! He said he really liked my vibe and he shared some music from his side band away and we just hit it off.
We never talked about him managing me. About a month after that, I was back out in L.A. and my management at the time were milking me and not doing anything, which is typical of L.A..
I called Brian and said look, you built this thing from your garage when you were a kid and I built my various companies above my garage when I was younger and now they run themselves. We're business men first and I just need somebody who is not L.A.-ish if you will. I need someone who is real and has my back and will fight for this like I do. He agreed and we came together and he began managing me and protecting me from all these people.
That was December of last year and here we are today. We're really good friends now and he has my back. I've never had that before since I got back into the music business.
RL: What made you decide to get back into music?
KD: Back in 2017, my oil brand was getting placed in some movies and stuff. The guy who was responsible for that told me that Trading Paint, the John Travolta was interested and I said, okay we can do that,but I'd like to get a cameo in there.That's how I ended up presenting the check at the end of the movie. I was at this dirt track in Alabama filming a scene with Travolta, Toby Sebastian and Shania Twain and I just took that as a sign.
I never thought I'd be a actor. I was a musician when I was 20 and then I got into acting. Then in 2018 I got into the Halloween movie and was killed by Michael Myers. At the end of that year I was filming some other stuff and was full blown into acting when I met a gentleman in Birmingham and he had three songs that were pretty cool but his voice was pretty generic, like a wedding singer. I thought I have a pretty unique voice, let's see what I can do with these.
We ended up continuing to write together into 2019 and put a demo together. When 2020 hit I took it out to L.A. and then with covid hitting in March, my manager took it to one of the big producer mixers out there who had worked with Green Day on American Idiot and had won Grammys and all that. He liked my whole vibe and how different I was. It all just kind of took off from there.
RL: Have you always been into horror?
KD: I love horror, but I also love action and comedy so I'lll probably be doing all three as time goes on.. Horror is just such a unique genre that it made sense to start there first. It's a great way to cut your teeth. It's a great platform.
I'm actually writing another movie right now called Two Donkeys, which is kind of like a Dumb and Dumber western. We're afraid to ride horses so we ride donkeys with the bad ass people who help us. Bill and I are working on that now, but the sky is the limit.
RL: What is your go-to horror flick?
KD: My fave is The Devil's Rejects. I love that movie. The original Nightmare On Elm Street is great and the 2018 Halloween was better than all three of the most recent ones.
RL: And what is your biggest goal moving forward?
KD: Every night when we play me and the guys just say here we are on our way to Madison Square Garden. So our goal is to play every night as if we're on our way to the Garden. We want to play all over the world and play festivals and share my thoughts and message with that world. You only live once and we just want to keep that momentum going.