Tim Kasher, hurting and happy

Tim Kasher keeps very busy, and given the emotional outpouring in his music, it’s amazing he isn’t exhausted.

If anything, Kasher sounds quite happy. The frontman of Cursive and The Good Life is on the road in support of his second official LP, Adult Film. The follow-up to his solo debut, The Game of Monogamy, is just as crushing, but putting what sounds and feels like a mid-life crisis out for the world to hear is something he seems used to.

“I think that I’ve just become more adjusted to that and just after putting a few records like this out, I think I just kind of arm myself to this stuff,” Kasher said.

Adult Film‘s release date is Oct. 8, but the entire album is already streaming over on pastemagazine.com. Still, in a more traditional vein, the singles are the standouts so far. “Where’s Your Heart Lie” is very fuzzy and absolutely devastating, with lines like, “Goddamn, what’s wrong with me? / I’m ruining your love.” Then there’s “A Lullaby, Sort Of,” a gentle acoustic guitar-driven song on which he wonders if a father and son could have settled their differences before the father died of cancer.

It’s not easy to hear, except that it is. Both of those songs are beautifully arranged. “Truly Freaking Out”‘s wow-wowing synth is straight fun, and “American Lit”‘s organ provides a great psych pulse. And, anyway, Kasher enjoys sharing the music live.

“I’m about to start touring the songs and that’s an exciting part of the process — exploring the songs live with people who have taken an interest in it. It’s pretty rewarding … It feels good write something and have people respond to it well,” he said. “That constant conversation about ‘What are you writing for?’ — whatever stupid fucking cliches — ‘Does it have to be hung on the wall to be art?’ I don’t know. You have to balance that with this thing where you’re just feeding your ego.”

Kasher has been writing songs for his indie rock bands Cursive and The Good Life since the late ’90s and early aughts, so he’s no stranger to any of this. Switching between different projects doesn’t seem to be a problem.

“There’s definitely a shift in style and tone. I think it’s a writing muscle — I think it’s dorky when people call writing muscular, but since a lot of people say it, you understand what I mean,” he said. “It’s all really subtle. There’s a difference in the songwriting approach. Not the basic approach, I think that’s always the same, but when I work with one of the bands, they are let in on the songs at a really early stage, and that’s what’s significantly different, in my mind … You’re bouncing all these ideas off each other and there’s all these other people improving the songs. Whereas with this, the way I approach writing the song is the same, but it ends up staying in this insular world in my head.”

So, for now, Kasher is in solo mode, touring Adult Film through mid-November, with a stop at the Larimer Lounge on Sunday.

“It keeps me pretty busy, but it’s also that I’m not really busy,” he said. “I’m doing something I enjoy.”

Contact Ashley Dean at 303-473-1109 or dean@coloradodaily.com. On Twitter: twitter.com/AshaleyJill.