“Life is simple when you’re on the road.”
Kristin “K Man” McNulty is the front man of ska band K man and the 45s. He has a laid-back, friendly voice, and it’s hard to imagine him speaking without a huge grin plastered on his face.
And he’s not joking. The band are true road warriors; all five members cram into a van and book it across the country at least twice a year.
For McNulty it’s an escape of sorts, a simple “straight line” that strips away the complications of daily life and replaces them with eating, sleeping, partying and playing music.
“When you’re home you have to think about home stuff; you have to deal with the regular world,” he says lightheartedly. “I’m probably more comfortable [on the road] than anywhere else.”
That home is Montreal, where he works as a youth intervention worker.
His voice takes on the slightest edge when he talks about his job. It’s an intense one. The day before the interview he watched a kid almost die in front of him, he says.
But he explains that anyone who knows him realizes it’s the perfect fit: he would never do a job that he doesn’t feel good about doing.
But that’s a different life. McNulty says he tries not to put those experiences into his music. He tries to come from a different space to keep it positive and fun.
“I feel like I’ve been a warrior for so long that it comes out in the music,” he says with a deep laugh.
About six years ago, however, he gave it all up.
“I just became tired of it all,” he says.
The hard-partying lifestyle and wrangling to keep his band together had taken its toll.
He vividly remembers driving with his former band from Montreal to Ottawa for a gig—a four-hour drive. They got stuck in traffic for a couple of hours and, as McNulty says, “all of a sudden we ran out of drugs.”
Instead of continuing to the gig, they had to turn around and go back to Montreal to restock.
After too many experiences like this, McNulty says, he just needed a change. So he dropped everything: he quit his band, stopped working and took a break.
But before long, the road and the music called to him again. After six months, friends started approaching him, telling him nobody recognized him anymore and he needed to play music again.
Shortly after, he formed K man and the 45s. He hasn’t looked back since.
His new band, he says, is more focused. They still party, but now they put the show first. And now it no longer feels like a chore.
“We gathered all our experience of fighting together and turned it into something positive,” he says, “it’s like I’ve finally found my people.”
Gearing up to start a 14-stop, cross-Canada tour later this month, McNulty says he feels like he’s on fire, better than he has in years.
“I want to attack the world again,” he says.
Trevor Nichols
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