Ex-'Top Chef' contestant has love affair with music
Kevin Gillespie is the co-owner and executive chef at Woodfire Grill and a former contestant on “Top Chef.” He was so popular on the program that he took home the “Fan Favorite” prize. And while cooking is his daily passion, he’s long had a love affair with music.
I’ve been into music ever since I was a little kid. Even in elementary school I dressed like I wanted to be in a band: I wore music shirts and ratty jeans and combat boots. I thought I was a little punk rocker, but I looked like some vagabond off the street.
My parents are a little younger than most people’s, so they were still big into music. My dad would always be blasting David Bowie and the Who, and it just kept carrying over into my life. I idealized that rock-star lifestyle. I grew up in a family without a lot of extra cash, and like a lot of people, I wanted to make the situation better. Music always compelled me, and so I wanted to grow up and travel the world and be a rock star.
I realized "I don’t play a musical instrument," so I decided to play the drums. It came naturally to me. I taught myself and started playing in a band in high school. I missed 110 days of senior year because of my band. At that point I was already kind of jaded with the music industry -- when you play a lot of shows for little money and ride around in a van. I knew I couldn’t be able to keep doing it. I loved it more as something to inspire me and not be part of the day to day.
The whole time I’m living this torn life: Part of me wanted to go to school to be an engineer, and then the other part of me wanted to cook for a living. I left my band and I never really came back to it, which is funny because I’m kind of having a revival in my interest now. I swear there’s not a day that goes by I don’t look at drum sets online. It was a release for me.
Music kind of takes over some days. I listen to a number of different variations of hard-core punk, metal, indie rock. It’s hard for me to choose because when I was younger it was angry and intense, but I’m not really angry anymore -- I just appreciate the musicianship of those bands.
The interest in music will always be there, and it still has a ton to do with what I do today. I force onto my diners my own music. We play what I want to hear, and I’m notorious for playing things people don’t want to hear while they’re eating. I put together these playlists and I get a little wacky with them. I put on a band called Blood Brothers. They have two lead singers; one has a normal voice and the other sounds like a child being tortured, and their music is really intense. My little sister works [at Woodfire Grill]. She heard it come on and bolted to change the song. She said, "Kevin, you can’t play Blood Brothers in the dining room!”
