Beth Kille Band (album release), Jules Iolyn

The new Beth Kille Band album, This Open Road, has been long awaited by fans and hard-earned by Kille and her band. The group entered the cloistered pandemic life with some creative momentum, enough so that they emerged with half an album recorded by the summer of 2022. That's when guitarist Michael Tully was hit with a kidney cancer diagnosis. Tully is back on stage with the band just in time for the release of the album, which features a rollicking blend of styles from metal to Gaelic rock. With Jules Iolyn.

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Joe Severson

Beth Kille Band pauses for a moment on stage.

Beth Kille Band

media release: On Friday, May 26, 2023, at 7:00 PM the doors will open at Madison’s High Noon Saloon and Beth Kille Band will unleash their long-awaited third album, This Open Road. Despite the smooth sailing implied by the title, the 5-year journey to this record’s release has been fraught with roadblocks. 

A global pandemic made it difficult for all bands to perform, rehearse and co-create in the months after the stay-at-home orders of 2020. But for the band’s award-winning guitarist, Micheal Tully, there were some major detours - including an emergency appendectomy in January of 2021 which revealed an aneurysm forming in a major artery, and then a diagnosis of kidney cancer in October of 2022 which required the removal of his kidney.

“We were playing a casino show in Davenport, Iowa and it was pretty clear he was having pain in his side,” stated band leader Beth Kille, recalling their January 15, 2021 show, “but he gutted it out and finished the show.” At 3 a.m. though, Tully called Kille’s hotel room to say he was in excruciating pain. 

“She told me she was in mom-mode,” Tully said, when he expressed concern to Kille about her having to drive him to the hospital in the middle of the night. His band members (including Tony Kille on drums and Michael Mood on bass) reluctantly left him overnight in Davenport to recover from his surgery, played as a trio in Riverside, Iowa the next night and picked him up on the way home the next day. It was at that point he shared that his surgeon noticed an aneurysm forming in a major artery near his appendix and that would require another surgery to prevent rupture after he recovered from the appendectomy.

“We were about half-way through recording at that point but obviously we had to put healing and recovery first,” explained bassist Michael Mood, who recorded and mixed the new album. Life for the band seemed to finally be creeping back toward normal in the summer of 2022 when another bump in the road came in the form of a cancerous mass found in Tully’s kidney. Doctors recommended removing the kidney to keep the cancer from spreading.

Despite their concern for his health, Tully’s bandmates were confident he’d pull through. “Anyone who has seen Michael Tully on stage knows he’s tough as nails,” drummer Tony Kille said. “We knew we’d have to wait for him to recover but there was never a question in our minds about whether he’d get back up.” He will be monitored by his healthcare team, but he’s back performing, and they are all cautiously optimistic about his prognosis. He says he is ready to rock for the May 26 album release party.

The album features 10 songs penned by Beth Kille and embellished by her bandmates, featuring styles from Americana, to metal, to Gaelic-rock as well as an a capella piece. Song titles like, “Drive in the Dark,” “Faster,” “Stuck” and “One Way Road” seem to capture bits of the band’s adventures over the past few years. 

When asked about her hopes for the album and the future of the band, Kille replied, “We’re just hoping for an uneventful ride in 2023.”