Nine-year-old Kirkland Leach wants to be the first rock star on Mars.

Another day, another song for Kirkland Leach. This one, written and recorded in the Alberta-neighborhood garage of friend and collaborator Shane de Leon on the last day of June, is particularly topical. It starts with a swirl of psychedelic sound effects and a ghostly falsetto chanting the phrase “yeller seller.” A skittering programmed drum beat flutters up, then Leach, in a faux-gruff voice, cuts in: “Use Kaboom, Michael Jackson, you’re getting dirty…. Hi, I’m Billy Mays.”

Too soon?

If this tune—which continues for 3 1/2 minutes with the late infomercial pitchman chiding the recently deceased King of Pop for not using his cleaning products and ends with Leach growling, “It’s a turdy-dirty situation”—were the creation of, say, some lame radio shock jock, it might be poor taste. But coming from a towheaded 9-year-old, it’s not just weirdly charming; it’s kind of brilliant.

“Weirdly charming” and “kind of brilliant” effectively summarizes The Adventures of Rocketboy and Egypt, the second album Kirkland has released under the nom de rock Road Race. “Yeller Seller” is not on it, but there are 11 other songs like it, each created in the same on-the-spot manner: Kirkland improvises a keyboard part, de Leon adds live drums and electro-spaciness, then Kirkland dubs in freestyled lyrics about fleet-footed superheroes, volcanoes and DJ Shadow. Culled from literally hundreds of these sessions—according to de Leon, who put out both Road Race records on his North Pole label, Kirkland can generate up to four songs per day—it’s like a greatest-hits collection of songs nobody else has ever heard. Well, not the studio versions, anyway.

“I have done 2,003 concerts in my life,” Kirkland says, adding, “not all of them are public.”

Whether or not an audience is needed for a performance to technically be considered a “concert,” Kirkland certainly qualifies as an old pro. He started playing keyboards at age 2; at 5, he began recording himself. In between, he was diagnosed with autism, later determined to be a mild form of Asperger syndrome, which would manifest itself in an obsession with numbers—he knows precisely how long all of his songs are, as well as their beats per minute—and sudden, violent outbursts that were, ironically, often triggered by sound.

“Until he was 6, most music agitated him,” says his mother, Dani Spencer. “He would try to listen to music, and he would get angry or annoyed by it…, but his own sounds never annoyed him. Every night once he finished recording, he’d put on headphones and sleep all night listening to his music.”

Two years ago, Spencer, a single mom, enrolled Kirkland at the Children’s Club, an after-school program in Southeast Portland that employs autism specialists. That’s where he met de Leon. A member of local experimental outfit Miss Massive Snowflake, 38-year-old de Leon was struck by Kirkland’s talent. “One of the first songs I remember him playing, he was playing piano with this other kid, and they’re both singing along, like, ‘When you die in a war/ You won’t see your family no more.’ Then they’d say, ‘When you die in a war/ You won’t see teacher Shane no more.’ It got really powerful after, like, 15 people’s names.” Earlier this year, de Leon began providing Spencer with state-sponsored respite care. He watches Kirkland an average of 20 hours per week; most of that time is spent recording.

It’d be easy to dismiss Road Race (which, Kirkland says, is actually his fifth band) as a novelty act, but de Leon says the response Kirkland has received at his 10 or so legitimate gigs transcends gimmickry. In fact, his songs impressed guitarist Bill Horist (whose résumé includes collaborations with avant-garde demigod John Zorn) enough to contribute to Adventures of Rocketboy. Leach has big dreams—he wants to be “the first rock star to play a show on Mars”—but for now, he seems content to continue rocking around town, crowd or no crowd.

“If he’s sitting in the grass, playing keyboards, or if he’s in front of 250 people,” Spencer says, “it’s the same thing for Kirk.”

SEE IT: Road Race releases The Adventures of Rocketboy and Egypt Backspace Friday, July 10. 9 pm. $5. All ages.

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