Stephen Montoya
Ever since local musician/music producer Brian Kieta heard the opening chords to U2’s 1987 album “The Joshua Tree,” he knew what his musical mission was; to create an album of sonic excellence that evokes a sense of spiritualism at the same time.
The only catch to getting this goal achieved was — well — time. Add to that the cost of creating a quality album and you get what Kieta has today — a fifteen year-long project that may still be in need of a little tweaking. However, this scenario isn’t one of tall wishes and no hard work. In fact, Kieta has been busy over his lengthy career as a musician and music producer, helping everyone else get their musical projects completed, all while putting his own years-long project on the back-burner, time and time again.
Outside of his musical persona of just plain Kieta for anyone already familiar with his work, this North Texas musician was also part of the Christ Chapel Bible Church in Fort Worth for seventeen years. Since 2000, Kieta was the worship pastor, who besides playing music for the church also headed up creating a state-of-the-art recording studio to record church music.
“[The church] really supported me with writing and producing music,” he says. And so basically, I would accrue gear, learn how to use it in a kind of self-taught way. Basically everything that I do is from just having to learn how do it, because again, they supported me in it. They saw something in me.”
Outside of the studio, his instruments of choice are the guitar and the piano, but if push comes to shove, Kieta is also proficient in several other instruments that include the bass, and drums to name a few. He’s like a one-man band.
Stephen Montoya
Ironically, the song that has carried him across the threshold of confidence is a simple but poignant piano ballad written for one of his daughters titled “Be Who You Are.” This somber melody garnered him a grant win at the 2021 Sounds of Resilience soiree held at Bass Hall, where he performed this song live while in attendance with five of his musical peers who were also recognized. This accolade combined with the buzz surrounding this original song was enough of a catalyst for Kieta, that he’s decided to finish his longtime album, as a way of staying true to what he calls “God’s Vision.”
“When I was a kid, my dad’s company had a box at Summit Arena, where we could go to all of the events,” Kieta says. This being the height of the 80s, Kieta had the privilege to see U2 during “The Joshua Tree” tour along with other musical icons like Bruce Springsteen, Def Leopard, and Billy Joel all when he was in middle school.
“This is where I got tunnel vision about wanting to be a musician myself,” he said. After witnessing a blistering guitar solo from Journey lead guitarist Neal Schon in the 80s, Kieta asked his mother for guitar lessons the very next day.
“It was during that time that I was just like, ‘dude, that's what I want to do,’” he says.
After a year of guitar lessons, Kieta also picked up a four-track mixing console that he would use to create and experiment making music with. Both the guitar and the four-track would play a pivotal role in Kieta’s journey to becoming a producer and working musician. Today, Kieta has a working studio just south of Fort Worth in the small suburb of Burleson. The elongated room turned sound studio was designed to his exact sound specifications, which also boasts a state-of-the-art mixing board and high-def smart TV console.
Stephen Montoya
With a long history of playing live music and recording behind him, Kieta says he felt like he’d run out of excuses for why his fifteen yearlong album project hadn’t been completed.
“It's really interesting because, some people are Uber and almost overly confident in their music,” Kieta says. “They're like, ‘man, I'm awesome.’ You're like, ‘bro, tap the brakes. You're not awesome yet.’ But you have that confidence thing. I didn't get any of that. And so, it was very easy for me to work on other people's music because I was still making music. I was still doing art. So, I was still checking these boxes as an artist, but that key component of the writing of my own songs and then the releasing them out into the wild … I always just found an excuse to put it off.”
Kieta says he decided to really get moving on this album after he came to the realization that he didn’t want to go through life with any regrets.
“I'm not going to have these songs and keep them to myself. And that's actually the origination point for that song, ‘Be Who You Are.’ I wrote this song because I started to see the same struggles in my daughter, and I was like, ‘oh, crap, you don’t want to go through the same journey I’m going through.’”
Inadvertently, Kieta’s advice for his daughter rang true for himself and in a practice-what-you-preach scenario, he flipped the narrative on himself. “I just decided it was time to stop living in fear.”
Kieta’s next step was to create a YouTube channel explaining his years-long project, what it meant to him and why he’s doing it. A GoFundMe page was also linked to the video, which quickly amassed enough funds for Kieta to complete his project. And although many of us from the “old school” think about an album drop as a whole piece of work in a series of 10 to 12 songs released all at once, Kieta says he has another plan. He’s releasing sections of his work as singles, so as to keep the momentum of his songs in the zeitgeist of music fans’ psyche longer.
Stephen Montoya
“I’m not as big as like a Chris Stapleton,” he says while shaking his head. “He can drop an entire album of music and the masses will hear it. Me, if I were to release my album tomorrow, it would be like dropping a pebble into the ocean. After the ripple is gone, that’s it.”
With that in mind, Kieta says he’s releasing one song at a time to give it more “breathing room.” That and he’s still unsure if he wants the 12 songs, he’s created to be separated into two EPs (short 4 to 6 song albums) instead. This forgoes any album titles he might have for now.
“The Record is a Jesus record, full stop. No apologies. This whole record contains songs that praise God. But it doesn’t fit that mold all the way, because it's not meant to," he says. "It’s more of a sonic offering along the lines of ‘The Joshua Tree’ where the songs are of a spiritual nature with a great soundscape."
