Rita Brinkerhoff gives Blondie Brunetti a touch of the mystic

“I’m a total goofball,” Rita Brinkerhoff, the enigmatic frontwoman for local psych-rock band Blondie Brunetti, tells me. “So sometimes I think that people think what I’m doing is ironic or sarcastic, but it’s totally not.”

Brinkerhoff is sporting a rainbow-colored hairstyle, her bangs cut straight across her forehead — playful fringe above sparkling eyes. She’s got a joyful, mischievous air about her, so it is no surprise that audiences might hear the music of her seven-year-old band Blondie Brunetti, with its songs about man-eating minotaurs, and not take it seriously. But just because something seems a little fantastical, Brinkerhoff says, doesn’t mean it’s not earnest.

Ahead of Blondie Brunetti’s Saturday-night gig at the Brick, I spoke with Brinkerhoff about the evolution of her band and the intersection of music and myth.

The Pitch: Give me some background on Blondie Brunetti.

Brinkerhoff: I’ve been doing it since 2009, when I was living in Portland. The friend I was crashing on the floor with when I moved there had, like, a display-model piano — the kind of thing traveling salesmen would take to apartments and be like, “Listen to how good a piano would sound in your apartment!” I’d never done a lot of playing or recording by myself, but I started messing around with it and learning how to play by myself, learning GarageBand and that kind of thing.

The first show I played was after I moved back to Kansas City, and it was just all covers — a lot of R&B. I was doing R. Kelly covers. The band has had a few different incarnations, and eventually I had a full band, and there was a time when we were doing sampled GameBoy beats with 2000s-era R&B songs.

Eventually, we started writing some original songs — me, our guitarist Don Beasley and our drummer George Magers. Celina Curry just started as our keyboard player, and she’s fantastic. So now it’s just me getting used to singing in public with original material, and there’s this direction where I’m not the sole writer in my band. We write everything together.

You’ve got a busy life outside of your band, with a full-time job and a
side job as a tarot card reader. What do you get out of Blondie
Brunetti?

I’ve always loved being onstage. I was in a band here
when I was 18 to 20, and when that band fell apart, and it was like,
“I’ll try this another way.” I’m lucky to do what I do. I can’t really
imagine not performing at all. I don’t even really think about it. It’s a
thing I’ve always done in one way or another.

The way that I’ve
been songwriting for this version of Blondie Brunetti is sort of
mythologically based, with influences from Greek and Roman mythology.
The tarot cards have influenced that a bit. There’s also the way it [the
band] relates to my profession: I manage a salon in the Crossroads, and
there’s so much image stuff. I’m around people that are really visual,
who talk about that a lot, and now that I’m just singing and not playing
instruments, I’m thinking more about what visual and costume elements I
can bring to the band.

Tarot readings are an actual business
for you — Skeleton Key Tarot. That’s such an interesting part of what
you do. How did you start on that path?

I was raised with it. I’m
a second generation reader; my mom ordered these cards [that I use]
when she was pregnant with me. My brother and I grew up pulling a card a
day — like, “Here’s your intention for the day,” or “Here’s a tip or
something to think about.” So for me, it doesn’t feel very esoteric at
all. I was raised Wiccan and with some New Age kind of stuff, so it’s
always been there.

The way I see cards is that they’re a
perspective tool. They’re divided by human experience, so whatever you
pull is going to correspond to your life. There’s always some way to
apply it to your life. You pay me to get a reading because I’m
intuitive; clients tell me as much or as little as they like. Sometimes
they’re like, “I need a reading because I’m at a point in my life where
there’s a lot of stuff going on,” or sometimes they’re like, “I want a
reading about romance.” And then it’s just interpreting the cards for
that person. Like, if a certain card comes up for you, here are some
things you might want to think about.

It’s totally random.
There’s this energetic element that’s there — that isn’t science — and
it’s always worked for me. Tarot readings aren’t for everyone, just like
religion isn’t for everyone. [Laughs.] But I’ve had so many people
approach it like, “This is bullshit, I don’t believe this,” and I’m
like, “You don’t have to believe anything. We’re just going to pull
cards and talk about them.” It’s not like “I am Madame Marika and I will
tell your future” or whatever. Reading is not a performance. It’s just
intuition. We all have it. It’s psychic work, but I’m not a psychic.

You mentioned that tarot influences your music writing. How so?

Some
of the cards have an archetype or base in history — the Devil or the
High Priestess. So it’s like, “Let me think about if I was this
character,” and it’s a song or perspective through my own lens. There’s a
song about being a minotaur and eating men’s dead bodies. [Laughs.]
That’s not a tarot card, technically, but those cards are part of my
everyday life and sometimes they speak to me in a certain way.

It
sounds like it’s been a long, sinewy journey for Blondie Brunetti. What
has been the biggest challenge for you in the band’s seven years?

The
switch from covers to original music was a slow process — that happened
over a few years — so that wasn’t really a huge challenge because it
happened gradually. The biggest challenge has been getting used to
having a band of people that are all good players and learning how to 
communicate in that context where you’re collaborating. I’m used to
doing it on my own and having the final say, and the biggest challenge
has been shutting up and giving it a minute. I’m very impulsive and fly
by the seat of my pants, and I’ll be like, “Oh, we should do this or
that,” and they’ll be like, “Dude. This is the second time we played
it.” So it’s just learning how to give embryonic things room to develop.

Blondie Brunetti
with Krysto Strange
Saturday, April 30
The Brick
1727 McGee