Interview: Swingtown Creator Mike Kelley

By Ali Trachta in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 12, 2008 5:54PM

Mike Kelley's new show Swingtown was supposed to premiere last winter, but the writer's strike shut down production. Instead the hour-long drama debuted on CBS last Thursday, and Kelley actually sees the delay as a blessing in disguise. The show is set in the summer of 1976, and as he astutely points out, it parallels this summer in the sense that tides seem to be shifting. Politics are reorganizing, minds are changing, and our ideals are in a state of metamorphosis. For that reason, Swingtown, though set in the past, works well alongside today's pop culture.

Kelley, a Winnetka native, has written for such successful shows as The O.C. and Providence, but as the creator and executive producer of Swingtown, this is his first independent venture. He's a bit of a nostalgiaholic, so when he decided to write his own show, he focused on his childhood. It turned out that a few fuzzy memories plus imagination and a kickass soundtrack equaled a show based on his parents' wild party days with their sexy swinger friends. From that idea, he created a story that on the surface may appear to be about suburban sexcapades, but Kelley hopes on a deeper lever encourages us to be introspective, honest, and open to talking about things that people tell us not to. We snagged some quality phone time with Kelley from his L.A. office to get more dirty details on the neighborhood gossip.

Chicagoist: When did you get the idea to create Swingtown?

Mike Kelley: When I was working on The O.C., my boss, who was also my boss on Providence, said it was one thing to write other peoples’ scripts, but you should really challenge yourself to do something that’s personal to you, that has your own voice, before you get stuck in the rut of doing other peoples’ shows. So I quit. I went off and started thinking about what stories I had to tell. I’m a very nostalgic guy by nature, so I called up my mom and asked her to send me a bunch of photos from the family album. As I was sifting through them I couldn’t help but notice how awesome and young and vital her friends were, and what a great time it was, and how much fun they seemed to be having. That interspersed with the family photographs and the time period, and the 70s XM radio station, and Swingtown was born.

C: Is it your nostalgic nature that drew you to writing a show about the past?

MK: I’ve always loved 70s music and the overall time period. There’s something very simple about the 70s. There’s something very innocent, and just fun. I didn’t actually set out to write a period piece, it just came naturally.

C: How did your parents initially react when you told them you would be writing this show that is loosely based on their wild past?

MK: They were fine initially because they didn’t think that anyone would ever buy it. [Laughs.] No, they were supportive. It’s more imagination than anything else. It’s inspired be people and by images from my childhood, but the things you see from the top of the stairs as an 8 or 9-year-old kid, they tend to get a little bit embellished over time. I think that these stories, while rooted in events from the past, are really wholly imagined. They’re fine, they’re proud parents. My mom is especially excited. Their friends all get together and watch the show.

C: What has the buzz been from Winnetka since the show premiered last Thursday?

MK: I think a lot of people were like, ‘Where was I when all this was going on?’ [Laughs.] I only hear from my family and my friends, who probably protect me from the more negative things that are being said, but mostly people are excited. Mostly they think it’s fun and don’t take it too seriously, and are enjoying a little bit of notoriety. Even if it’s a little bit more imagined than earned.

C: Beyond the fact that the show is loosely based on your childhood, were there reasons it was important to you to set the show in Winnetka? Was there anything you found about that setting that was necessary to the show?

MK: Yes. I think one of the rules for writing is that it ought to come from a place of authority. It lends credibility to your material. If I were to set this someplace else it just wouldn’t feel as organic to me. I can make references to Northwestern, and the Chicago Cubs, and any building that I want in the city and know exactly where it is and what I’m talking about. I think that if I were to have set in anywhere else I would’ve had to do copious research, but wouldn’t have felt it was coming from a place of authenticity.

C: How close to home did you keep the characters? Are they based on specific people or are they more of a general hodge-podge?

MK: It’s definitely a hodge-podge of people that I knew. I do think that more than anything, those characters have essential parts of my personality infused into them. I don’t know that I’m fully schizophrenic [laughs] but there are definitely multiple parts to my personality, and I used those parts to help create each of the main characters. You’ve got the adventurous Laurie, you've got BJ the observer and you’ve got the parents, who are struggling with how to be a moral authority. And then you’ve got the crazy party swingers, not to say that I’m necessarily into that, [laughs] and the sort of uptight person that is struggling with how to incorporate changes. All those parts are parts of me.

C: Did you think at all about a target audience when you were writing the show?

MK: No, I don’t think you can. I think you just have to write the best story you can and try to create the most interesting characters. I think the problem that comes, in network television certainly, is that they’re trying to guess what the masses will allow into their living rooms, so that’s why everything seems the same and homogenized. That’s why cable programming tends to stand out because all that comes from a place that didn’t start with, ‘Well what’s going to sell the most Fritos?’ It starts with a creator, a storyteller, asking, ‘What’s the story I want to tell?’ That’s what I started from. I didn’t really do this with audience in mind.

C: Since this show was originally shopped around to cable networks, did CBS change it much?

MK: I wrote the script originally for cable, and that script was written and done. When CBS said they wanted to do it I was quite skeptical. But they said, ‘Look, all we’re asking you to do is cut out the graphic images, the nudity and the language, but otherwise you can keep all the adult content, the drug references, the sex references, etc.’ In a lot of ways it actually freed me up from having to pander to that part of the job on cable where you’re kind of forced to up the ante every week as far as the shock value. This way we get to be a little bit more clever about how we tell these stories. It’s more about who is with whom and under what circumstances. It’s more about who it is that goes behind the bedroom door and shuts it rather than what actually goes on. It’s more about the situation than it is about the act.

C: It allows the viewer to focus more on the story and less on the sex.

MK: That’s what we’re hoping.

C: Is this show in any way indicative of your feelings about marriage, relationships or tradition in general?

MK: Yeah I think it is. I think a large failure in our society...is making marriage work. It just doesn’t seem to. And I think that’s because the roles are set up to keep couples from being honest and open with each other. I think once you take those rules away, and you still want to be together, that’s a truer union. It’s about reexamining the structure. I think marriage is totally valid. I think partnerships are essential to the community, and for children and the world, but I just feel they need to be examined in a more adult way instead of sort of a patriarchal mandate from your church or your society at large.

C: How did it happen that Liz Phair signed on to do the score for the show?

MK: Liz and I went to high school together. Actually I think we went all the way back to I think 4th grade. I hadn’t spoken to her in a long time when her album came out in the '90s and sort of shook up the industry. It’s one of my favorite albums of all time. One of my ‘desert island’ albums. Later when I moved to L.A. we sort of reconnected and we saw each other around and became friends again in the last 10 years or so. When I wrote this show I asked her to read it, and she loved it and said any way she could get involved she’d love to. I don’t think at the time she knew what she was saying [laughs] but when we submitted the pilot and she saw it, she thought it was something that she could take to. And indeed her music is such an essential element to the show. It elevates the material beyond anything that we could do without it. We are very very lucky, and as the series moves forward the music becomes more and more of a touchstone for everyone - where the characters are, what the stories are that we’re telling. It’s just beautiful and I’m really lucky.

C: You’ve written for other very popular shows, but this was the first that was really your “baby.” How did watching this pilot differ from watching any other episode that you’ve written? Were you able to close the critical eye and enjoy the moment?

MK: I had a great night. It was a lot of fun, and I was able to put it all aside. I think if you don’t do that, or at least try to do that, then what’s the point? I made a conscious effort to really try to enjoy myself. I had a big party here with all my friends and the people that helped make the show what it is, and it was a really perfect night to just celebrate. And everyone that tuned in seemed to ‘get it,’ and enjoy it, which was really, really nice. I’m well aware of the people out there that are very nervous about this show and have negative things to say, and I just was able to ignore them and not worry about what the ratings were going to be. We were lucky they were strong. Hopefully we’ll continue.

Swingtown airs Thursday nights at 9 p.m. on CBS.