NOTE ABOUT THIS FEATURE: There is a quote in one of my favorite movies High Fidelity, based on the wonderful Nick Hornby novel of the same name, that goes something like this: “What really matters is not what you are like, but what you like…books, records, films—these things matter”. While I somewhat disagree that it doesn’t matter at all what people are like, I do agree that it matters very much, and is very interesting and often revealing, what people like in terms of pop culture and media.
I thought it would be fascinating (hopefully!) to hear from the important and interesting people in Utah government and politics about their tastes in culture and media and how they consume news and entertainment. I believe that shared appreciation for culture and media can be a unifying force in a world that seems to find new ways to separate and divide us.
We sincerely appreciated Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson being our first participants for this feature.
Our desire is for this regular feature to provide an informative and entertaining glimpse into the lives and minds of key decision-makers and influential political players in the state, and perhaps provide a good recommendation or two in the process.
We were very pleased to have Utah State Senate Majority Assistant Whip Kirk Cullimore agree to be our next guest on the Utah Politico Pop Culture Rundown. The transcript of our conversation, which is lightly edited for clarity and concision, is below:
Justin Y. Allen, UTPOL Underground Contributor (JYA): Senator Kirk Cullimore, thank you for taking time today to be our next guest on the Utah Politico Pop Culture Rundown. I really appreciate your willingness to do this for a few minutes today.
Senator Kirk Cullimore (KC): Happy to be here. This seems like a fun feature. I’m excited to see everybody else’s responses. People who are much more sophisticated than I am…
JYA: Whatever! It’s going to be clear to anybody who doesn’t know you just how culturally sophisticated you actually are. I think people will be impressed with your background. Let’s get into it. Before we get to the music stuff, I wanted to ask you a little bit about movies. What are some of your favorite movies of all time? Do you have like a top-five favorite movies that you can think of? What are some of your go-to movies?
KC: So this is probably where I’m not going to impress anyone very much. My wife and I saw a lot of movies pre-COVID and we have for my entire adult life. We see almost everything that comes out.
JYA: The movie theaters will be depending on you to come back…
KC: They will! Jordan Commons has missed me. I’m getting personal phone calls from them. The thing about movies and me is that when I go to see a movie, it is a time to just go and be brain dead. Okay. I can see the same movie multiple times because I don’t remember seeing it the first time. And so there are movies that I remember that I love that I don’t necessarily remember why I love them. But one that comes to mind from the last five to 10 years is a show called About Time. Have you seen that?
JYA: You know, I think I have. With Rachel McAdams and…
KC: Rachel McAdams and that English dude from a bunch of other stuff…
JYA: Domhnall Gleason? Yes, that was a great Rom-Com.
KC: Yeah, that was a great show. I appreciate that it brought into perspective the good things in life and not to take relationships for granted. That show is probably on the more touchy-feely side of things for me. I loved Inception. I think that a lot of Christopher Nolan’s stuff is awesome. I like his Batman films. You definitely can’t go wrong with anything with Leo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy. Going back a little further in time, I’ve always loved The Saint with Val Kilmer. Yeah. One thing that attracts me to a movie is the soundtrack and the soundtrack for The Saint was awesome.
JYA: Yeah, I remember that. Six Underground by The Sneaker Pimps was in that. Remember that song? I think that was part of that soundtrack.
KC: I do. That was on The Saint for sure. Another show that we like, and this is a little bit touchy-feely, but my wife and I saw Moulin Rouge early on when we were dating. And I just love that show. It’s probably the music aspect of it, but that show was pretty cool to me.
JYA: It’s hard not to like that one. I didn’t realize how talented and versatile Ewan McGregor was until that show.
KC: Right? Another Baz Luhrmann film that I like is his version of Romeo and Juliet. That is another film with a great soundtrack too.
JYA: I love that show. We’ve got a lot of overlap on our movie tastes for sure. Have you revisited Interstellar lately?
KC: No, I haven’t watched that recently, but I do love that film.
JYA: When I first watched it, I wasn’t sure if I liked it. I really, really loved Inception. I think Interstellar was after Inception and I had built my expectations up too much. We watched that again during COVID when we were watching lots of movies as a family and we loved revisiting that, so if you haven’t watched that one recently, you might check that one out again.
KC: We’ll pull that out. That was Matthew McConaughey, right?
JYA: I love Matthew McConaughey. I think he’s awesome.
KC: Another show that comes to mind was a film with Tom Hardy and Shia LaBoeuf set during the prohibition days called Lawless.
JYA: I haven’t seen that one. I will have to check that out. Tom Hardy is very reliable. Shia LaBoeuf a little less reliable probably…
KC: Right. Yeah, I thought that was cool. I’m all over the map, I guess.
JYA: No, those are great. On the comedy side, can you think of some movies you like when you need a guaranteed laugh? Any that you’ve seen 100 times but you will watch when you need a laugh?
KC: Yeah, I’m very sophomoric and my sense of humor hasn’t graduated from junior high, so Dumb and Dumber. Let’s go with the Adam Sandler classics. More recently, I thought Pineapple Express was hilarious.
JYA: How about any family favorites? Maybe even from when you were growing up? Was there like a Cullimore family favorite that you guys had that you’ve kept watching now with your family?
KC: Thinking back to when I was growing up, I think of Princess Bride and the Back to the Future movies and some of those 80s shows. Goonies and other classics like that. With my kids, we hit most of the Disney shows and the Pixar films and all that.
JYA: I feel like my kids watch the Marvel movies like we watched some of those classics like The Burbs, Goonies, the Back to the Future movies, etc.
KC: I love those. Now that you mention it, my kids do watch a lot of the Marvel movies. And I like those, but they’re not way up there for me.
JYA: Are you a scary movie guy?
KC: No, I’m not. I appreciate thrillers, but I don’t really get into the horror films too much.
JYA: I’m not a big horror person myself. I appreciate some of the classics like the original Psycho from Alfred Hitchcock.
KC: When I was 11 or 12, I spent a few weeks in Japan as a foreign exchange student. I know you’re very familiar with Japan. And I lived with a family that didn’t really speak English all that much. That trip really broadened my horizons because I had not been exposed to a whole lot yet in life. For some reason, these Japanese “brothers” and I ended up watching a Friday the 13th movie. And that was not a smart idea. It scared the snot out of me. Staying over there by myself in Japan, that was a pretty scary moment. So maybe that turned me off to horror films for the rest of my life.
JYA: Ha! I’m just imagining young Kirk having these nightmares with a Japanese version of Jason from Friday the 13th. That is hilarious. How about TV? Do you guys spend a lot of time watching TV? When I say that, that could be Netflix or binge-watching something on Hulu or whatever…
KC: My wife watches a lot of series, so every once in a while, I’ll come in and catch part of an episode, but I don’t watch too much. When I do watch something, I like to watch historical fiction-type things. So lately when I’m doing some cardio at the gym, I’ve been trying to work through the Vikings series. I watched Chernobyl on HBO not too long ago. I thought that was kind of cool. Last Kingdom is another that is historical fiction. Other than that, I pretty much only watch TV for live sports.
JYA: What sports are you into?
KC: Oh, college football is king. And then I also love soccer in most forms. I watch a lot of English Premier Soccer and the Champions League over there. Also the International stuff when it comes on. And I love Real Salt Lake.
JYA: Did you watch the European Championship Final?
KC: I did. That was kind of fun. Penalty kicks are rough. That’s the hardest part of soccer for me–when it comes down to that. And I felt heartbroken for that 19-year-old kid that missed that final kick.
JYA: Yeah, it was brutal. I’m an Arsenal fan and he (Bukayo Saka) plays for Arsenal.
KC: I love Chelsea and Jorginho missed his right before. Had he made it, it wouldn’t even have come down to that kid.
JYA: That’s right. That’s true. Any TV shows you liked when you were younger?
KC: I love Seinfeld. I love Arrested Development. Going back to the junior high years, I liked Saved by the Bell.
JYA: Which Saved by the Bell character did you relate to? Were you a Zack attack guy?
KC: At the end of the day, I was a Zack attack guy, but I don’t know if it was because I identified with Zack or just because his love interest was Kelly Kapowski.
JYA: That was an aspirational thing! That makes sense.
KC: I was probably weird as a kid. I watched a lot of MASH. It was a good show, though. You know, there were funny episodes and they had their very serious episodes.
JYA: Any documentaries or news shows that you like on TV?
KC: I do like a good documentary though. The Ken Burns stuff is all good on PBS. I used to be a little bit more of a news junkie, but in the last few years I don’t watch much news at all. You can get news from so many sources now. By the time you watch the news, you already know all of it already.
JYA: I want to pivot over to music, because I know that this is a big part of your life. I know you play an instrument. Tell me about your life in music as a performer.
KC: I primarily play the violin and the piano. I started violin when I was about four years old and piano when I was about eight years old and did that a lot through my childhood and ended up majoring in music in college. And so it’s always been a big part of my life. After getting my degree in music, I taught music for six years before deciding to go to law school. And now I’ve got all my kids that play various string instruments. Growing up, I played in orchestras, bands, quartets, everything. So, it’s a big deal in my house.
JYA: So did having that background inform the kind of the music that you were into as a kid or that you are into now?
KC: I think so. Interestingly, as much as music was forced on me by my parents, my parents are not that musical. The breadth of music they listened to was not necessarily that wide, you know? So, as I got to college and studied music, I realized that I didn’t know a lot of the classical music that some of my colleagues knew. Growing up, my Dad listened to a lot of classic rock. I love the Beatles—they are probably my all-time favorite band. My dad was coming of age just a little bit after the Beatles, so he was more into Led Zeppelin and that type of classic rock. My mom’s taste was probably a little bit more poppy. I didn’t love a lot of music that she loved. I’m not a fan of Abba. So that was kind of my experience with music growing up.
JYA: That also would have been about the time of The Bee Gees.
KC: To be fair, I do love The Bee Gees…
JYA: Did you see that documentary on The Bee Gees on HBO? That really was an eye-opener for me because I had been one of those people that just sort of lumped them in unfairly as just part of disco and it was really fascinating to see their whole career and their process of creating their sound. I am definitely now more sympathetic towards them for sure.
KC: Yeah, there’s something about their harmonies. I think when families harmonize it just sounds better. The Bee Gees, The Jackson Five, The Osmonds…it just comes together so well for some reason.
JYA: Does that work with instruments as well? When the Cullimore children are playing their different stringed instruments, do we have the same thing happen?
KC: Ideally. We try. You don’t have the genetic vocal cords that kind of resonate a little bit better together, but we try.
JYA: What instruments do your kids play?
KC: We’ve got three violinists and two cello players right now. My oldest also does viola and then our baby, who is not really a baby anymore at 6, will probably start the harp here pretty soon. So we’ll mix it up a little.
JYA: That’s awesome. I’m one of those people that quit way too early and didn’t continue investing in that talent, unfortunately. So, I do respect those of you who have devoted your time to really cultivate that gift.
KC: It’s fun and enjoyable, but it is a lot of work.
JYA: Any other bands that you have enjoyed either in the past or recently? Is there any recent music that has stood out to you as being interesting?
KC: I’m of the opinion that good songwriting peaked in the 70s and then again in the 90s. We still had some through the 2000s and it’s pretty much dead now. I would love to find some good songwriters again. I asked my kids, “Hey, who are the good bands? Who are the good songwriters?” So far, they have not pointed me to anybody. Another musician, though, pointed me to Jacob Collier. He’s an English guy that is a musical theory genius and puts together great pop/R&B-type tracks. I’ve enjoyed his latest album. Listening to Jacob Collier then lead me to Childish Gambino which I’ve really enjoyed also.
JYA: Well, maybe I’ll give it a shot with some newer suggestions. I try to keep up on it. I’m not going to totally disagree with your statement, but I’ll try to shoot you if you a few ideas of some good recent stuff. But serious question… I am interested to ask you this because you studied music, you teach it, you understand it from a theory standpoint. Is there a point where we’re just not going to have any new places to go with music? I just think about all the music that’s been created and is being created. At some point, will it all just be derivative of something else that’s already existed?
KC: That’s a good question. When I was younger, I used to think the same thing because I tinkered with songwriting and actually took a bunch of songwriting classes in college. And I thought, “There are 12 tones in a scale and then you just repeat, so are we going to get to the point where it’s all been done?” I would think the same could potentially be said for any art form, the spoken word, and the written word and all that, right? At the end of the day, there are maybe no completely new ideas, really. But there is a lot you can do still to present similar ideas and forms in new ways. With pop music, sometimes we get stuck in these certain forms, and then you have somebody like Radiohead that comes along, you know?
JYA: Great shout-out to my favorite band of all time. I appreciate that.
KC: Yeah. I love Radiohead. Ok Computer, Kid A…I’m not sure which one’s better, but those are two of my favorite albums.
JYA: That’s perhaps the trickiest question of all time. Yeah.
KC: So, I think there’s still a lot of ways to reinvent songwriting and to be new. Even bringing back old stuff is cool. So I will take that back a little. This is kind of the poppy side of me, but Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak recently recorded as the duo Silk Sonic. And they’ve only come out with one song so far called Leave The Door Open. When I heard that, I thought “That’s a really great song”. And I’m excited for them to come out with more stuff, even though that’s not my typical genre. That was some good songwriting and some good crafting.
JYA: I want to spend a little bit of time on this because one of the last times we were grabbing lunch you told me that it was your dream at one point to be a major music producer. What made you interested in that? How far did you pursue that?
KC: Interestingly enough, a lot of the songwriting classes I had in college were focused on the lyrics and the form of the song. And for me, being a musician, I always heard the songs and the chord changes, the chord progressions and the harmonies, and that was always more important to me. So listening to some of the albums at the time, I would ask myself why I like something and it was often the production–making it clean track, bringing in different sounds, making the sounds work together, the use of the guitars and the drums and all of that. And so that really began to interest me. After graduating from college in music, I thought about going to a sound engineering production school, and actually sent an application. And just the way things worked out with family and everything at the time, I ended up not going, but kept teaching music and later decided to go to law school for some reason.
JYA: Where was that school located? Was that in LA somewhere?
KC: It was actually in Phoenix, but I think a lot of the internships coming out of that school were in LA, Nashville, New York and so on.
JYA: Fascinating. Has that industry been a casualty of the changes in technology in music that record companies don’t invest as much in music production as before?
KC: I don’t think so. But I also think that because of technology you can do so much at home and you don’t need big studios anymore. But there’s something to be said for people who still know what they’re doing and can do it right and make it sound good. Another casualty of the technology changes that we’re dealing with in music is that people don’t appreciate hearing an album as a whole; sometimes even having concept albums and stuff like that. Now so much of music is just released piecemeal and you never have that bigger piece of art to appreciate in the form of a whole album.
JYA: Totally agree. Did you ever get into jazz music much?
KC: Yeah, actually I studied jazz piano at BYU. I love jazz. I’m not as well-versed as some, but Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue is a great album. Sonny Rollins has some classic albums, of course. I love Herbie Hancock and Bud Powell because I play piano. One artist that is a little bit more poppy and recent that I love is Harry Connick. He’s super talented. Back when I was teaching music, I went to Jazz at the Sheraton. They used to do those monthly shows there and I went to a lot of those. There were so many of the big names in the jazz world that played there. That was fun.
JYA: I was not into jazz at that point. I wasn’t part of band or anything, so those shows weren’t on my radar at all. And it really bums me out because I would have loved to have gone and seen some of those shows.
KC: Around that time, I was playing in little jazz trios sometimes for weddings or party gigs or whatever.
JYA: Speaking of live music experiences, do you have a favorite live show or concert of all time? What was the first concert you ever went to? Do you remember?
KC: I do and it’s super embarrassing, but I’ll tell you anyway. So it was in 1989 or 1990 when I was 11 or 12. I went with my mom and my sister to New Kids on the Block at the Marriott Center.
JYA: They’re gonna have a revival, I’m telling you.
KC: They are. So that was the first one, but I went to a lot of shows through my high school days and into college. In high school, I got big into the ska scene down in Utah County. So a lot of shows like that.
JYA: Have you talked to (SLC Mayor) Erin Mendenhall about this?
KC: No, but I did read her Pop Culture Rundown though. And I saw that she attended some ska shows.
JYA: She referenced the Jazz at the Sheraton shows and ska shows! You guys must have run into each other back then and just not known each other.
KC: We probably need to check notes and to see if we were at the same Ska-lloween or something like that. There were a lot of cool Ska shows down there, even with some good local bands. One that I remember was from Ogden called Model Citizen. I don’t know how long they were around, but they were pretty fun. I also remember seeing The Aquabats and Big Fish. I saw No Doubt before they got big.
JYA: Yeah, they were actually kind of a ska band before they went Top 40.
KC: And that’s about the same time I was also getting big into grunge. I saw Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, and Stone Temple Pilots. I love Tom Petty. More recently, being a piano player, I love Ben Folds and the shows he does with symphonies. I’ve seen those a couple of times and they are pretty fun. We also regularly see the Utah Symphony.
JYA: I love the symphony. Any favorite symphonies or classical compositions? Either that you like to listen to or play or both?
KC: I’m partial to Romantic Period pieces, particularly from Eastern Europe, Russia, and Scandinavia. I love Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak from the Czech Republic. I love Edvard Grieg. I learned the first movement of Grieg’s Piano Concerto at one point in my life. So that is the time period that I’m particularly partial to. I will always listen to violin concertos no matter who it is. When I listen to classical music now, it’s primarily violin music. I’ll listen to Itzhak Perlman from a generation ago; or from our generation, I listen to Joshua Bell, Ray Chen, and Hilary Hahn. I love hearing all their albums.
JYA: That reminds me that one of the performances I saw at the Utah Symphony this spring was The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams. That featured a really beautiful solo violin performance that was very moving. Changing subjects a bit, any memories of junior high slow dance song favorites? It could be a positive memory or a negative memory, but there has to be a song that transports you back to junior high. What embarrassing guilty pleasure junior high slow song was playing.
KC: The first song that comes to mind is Forever Young by Alphaville. Yeah.
JYA: Perfect. That’s one of the ones that comes to mind for me as well.
KC: Depeche Mode. What was that one song?
JYA: Somebody?
KC: Yeah.
JYA: That’s probably my favorite junior high slow dance song of all time. I’ve got that seared in my memory forever.
KC: I love Fields of Gold by Sting. It seems like they played that at a lot of dances.
JYA: Yeah, that’s right. I think we’re about a year or two apart, so we were in junior high roughly the same time. That’s funny. Well, in the interest of time here, let’s move on to something else. We could talk just music for probably two hours. What are some books that have made a big impression on your life? Are you a fiction person or more of a nonfiction reader?
KC: I particularly like fiction, especially historical fiction. There’s an author called Conn Iggulden from England who does a lot of historical fiction series books. One that I particularly loved was called the Conqueror series. It’s about Genghis Khan, his son, and his grandson Kublai Khan. In fact, it inspired me to want to name my son Khan. My wife vetoed that, but the compromise is that his middle name is Khan. So his name is Kobe and I call him Kobe Khan.
JYA: She was probably concerned that it was going to be construed more as a Star Trek Wrath of Khan callback…
KC: I brought that up because I’m Kirk, and he’s Khan, so I thought that would work too! Other historical fiction that I like is Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth. It’s one of the best books ever read. I love his Century trilogy, On Wings of Eagle, and Eye of the Needle is what I’m reading right now.
JYA: We talked a little bit about this earlier, but how are you getting news these days? Do you read newspapers? Are you subscribing to magazines? Are you just finding sources that you trust online, either on social media or websites? How are you gathering information these days?
KC: I peruse all the local headlines every morning and will click on things that I think I need to be aware of a little bit more. Then I’ll peruse the national headlines on multiple sites like Fox News, CNN, aggregation websites like Drudge Report and stuff like that to just see what I need to know. I’ve avoided most social media for a while now. Twitter used to be my source of updates, but I’ve got away from that for about a year.
JYA: Good for you. I blame most of the ills in the world of the past 10 years on the proliferation of smartphones and social media. So I think avoiding Twitter is a smart strategy for mental health, honestly.
KC: I’m probably as guilty of this as anybody, but it just gives you a surface knowledge of stuff. You see a headline, and then most people probably don’t even click on the article, you know?
JYA: Yeah, for sure. Any magazine subscriptions either to your house or to an iPad?
KC: No, not really anymore. I should be better about this, but I have this thing we call the Suzuki guilt. Every free moment, I feel like I should be practicing with one of my kids. Whether I do it or not, I sit there and just feel guilty about not doing it.
JYA: I often think that the number one thing that I do during my day is remembering things I should have already done, but have not yet. I’m kind of romantic about magazines. I have always loved magazines and I still subscribe to a few, both hard copies delivered to my house and some delivered electronically to my IPad. Are you guys a theater family? Have you acted in any theater productions? I should ask that first…
KC: A little bit, actually. When I was younger, I was in some Capitol Theater performances and even had some speaking lines. Maybe I should be embarrassed to admit this. but I did some singing and dancing a lot growing up. I spent some summers performing at Lagoon. I was in one of those performing shows and then I was in a barbershop quartet in Pioneer Village. So I’ve done some performing, although that was not necessarily acting. We appreciate the theater. We regularly go to the Hale Center Theatre and we go to the shows at the Eccles quite a bit.
JYA: Any podcasts that you enjoy listening to?
KC:
I don’t mean to disappoint you, but not really. Somebody will recommend one and I listen to a couple of episodes, but there’s not one that I regularly listen to.
JYA:
Alright, you’ve been very gracious with your time here. Please indulge me by allowing just a couple more questions to wrap up. Any upcoming pop culture that you’re looking forward to? Any movies or books coming out later this year or next year that you are excited about?
KC: I’m excited for movies just to come back out again, period. We haven’t had a ton of good shows. And maybe I’m a little bit old school, but I actually like to go to the theater. So the releases on Netflix or HBO Max or anything like that just doesn’t do the same thing for me. I’m excited for concerts to come back. I’m excited for your recommendations of actual songwriters around right now.
JYA: Challenge accepted! So I want to end with this question. What is your favorite place in the state of Utah, your favorite place in the United States outside of Utah, and your favorite place in the world, outside of the United States?
KC: In Utah, I love to get away to the mountains. That’s my dream vacation. I’m more of a mountain guy than a beach guy. And with the Cottonwood Canyons in my backyard, it’s an easy escape to go up, do some hiking, and walk around with the family. I have a friend who got me into splitboarding this past year, so I’m looking forward to doing more of that.
JYA: Splitboarding?
KC: Yeah, splitboarding. It’s like cross country skiing. And when you get to the top where you’re going, you can hook those two skis together, turn the bindings, and it’s a snowboard down the hill. I enjoyed it a lot, so I’m looking forward to doing more of that. So, we like the mountains and my in-laws have a place up in the Uintahs. So I love to get away to either the Cottonwood Canyons or the Uintahs and that’s my favorite place in Utah.
Outside of Utah, it’s hard to beat DC either culturally or historically, because it’s got that European feel, has a lot of history, and there’s a lot of fun stuff to see. But I would still probably rather go up to Montana and just get away from everything at Glacier National Park or Flathead Lake.
As for the world, I went to Scandinavia and St. Petersburg, Russia when I was 18. And that trip was just magical. I loved everything about it. And I haven’t been back so maybe I’m building it up in my mind a lot, but that was super fun. Recently, I went with a couple of my kids and my wife to Austria and the Bavarian part of Germany. So here again, with the Bavarian part of Austria and Germany, you have mountains and history and stuff like that.
JYA: Scandinavia’s got some of that too, right? The fjords and all of that good stuff. Did you try to hit all of the countries in Scandanavia?
KC: We did about a day in Helsinki, and then Stockholm, and Oslo, a couple of days in St. Petersburg, Tallinn, Estonia then down to Copenhagen.
JYA: I would love to do that. I haven’t been to any of those Scandinavian countries. Like most of us in Utah, I’ve got some Danish background and some Scandinavian heritage, so I should go check that out at some point.
Kirk, thank you so much. This was fascinating and so fun. We’ve got a lot of overlap on our movies and music tastes. I sense that we’re gonna have to go travel to see Radiohead if they ever tour again anywhere near us. We’ve got to go, right?
KC: I’m there for sure. If Rage Against The Machine ever gets back together during or after COVID, that would be fun too. That’s kind of my guilty pleasure. I guess. I love Rage Against The Machine, Tool, A Perfect Circle, Deftones… that sort of stuff. I almost forgot to mention the concerts. I was at the infamous Spanish Fork Rage Against the Machine concert.
JYA: Oh my goodness. Maybe you can refresh our memory for those who happen upon this who aren’t familiar with that? When was that? Maybe 1996?
KC: ‘96 or ‘97. Rage Against The Machine decided that as part of their tour they would come to the Spanish Fork Fairgrounds. And whoever books the Spanish Fork Fairgrounds did not know what Rage Against the Machine was or thought it was something else. I guess about a week before the show, they learned who Rage was and it got them all paranoid. So the town of Spanish Fork shut down the day of the concert and they brought in police force from all over the county to line the streets to make sure that some riots didn’t happen or something like that. The Spanish Fork Fairgrounds rodeo grounds turned into a big mosh pit.
JYA: Well, I’m glad that nobody was hurt and that is not surprising that there was an overreaction to Rage playing. Anything else to share with us?
KC: No, I don’t think so. I’m looking forward to you doing more of these. It’s been fun.
JYA: It has been fun and interesting and really informative. I think people are gonna be really fascinated to hear your music background. I don’t think too many people know that about you, unless they know you really well. That’s an unseen side to Senator Cullimore.
KC: The more important side!
JYA: In all seriousness, I think oftentimes political figures become these one-dimensional characters that people just sort of see and they almost lose their humanity and people just view them as a Boogeyman or something like that. And so if people read some of these things, hopefully they see some of that humanity restored, and that you share a lot of common interests. Maybe there’s a Radiohead fan out there who reads this and thinks, “He can’t be too bad of a guy if he loves Radiohead”.
