A Conversation with The Jayhawks’ Mark Olson and Gary Louris – HuffPost 9.23.11
Mike Ragogna: Let’s talk about your new album, Mockingbird Time. You guys had last gotten together for the project Ready for the Flood, right?
Mark Olson: That’s right, and we toured all around, and at a certain point, we touched base with the Jayhawk fan base, and they gave us a directive to come back with the full band and do a show for them because they’d never seen the full band live. That’s what we’re in the process of doing. We just did a two week tour in Europe and that went over gangbusters like we never thought.
Gary Louris: We’re #12 in Norway, Mark.
MO: Yep, we’re #12 in Norway.
GL: With a bullet…eh I shouldn’t say that..could be kinda weird. Climbing up the charts in Norway. That’s our target area.
MO: Yeah we love it there.
MR: Nice. Do you have a major European audience?
GL: Well, I think we started from like…I’m always surprised some of these bands never worked the other side of the pond, the ocean. Since Hollywood Town Hall, we’ve been going over there and touring just as much as we do here, sometimes more. Mark and I kinda live over there part of the time. So yeah, it seems this last trip like there were more people than ever. While we were gone, more people hopped aboard, which is fine with us.
GL: Well, I think the music ages well, and just the fact that we had a lot of reissues and we have a new record, so there’s a lot of activity in the Jayhawk world.
MR: My personal favorite track on the album is the first one, “Hide Your Colors,” and it’s…
GL: …all down hill from there. (laughs)
MR: (laughs) No, no, no! I’m gonna get into some of the other songs of course too. But with “Hide Your Colors,” I felt that was my favorite anthem on the album because of the loyalty topic, having your brother’s back. I’m big on that stuff. What’s the story behind the song?
GL: Yah, it’s about having your brother’s back in a way, and melodically, it just kinda came out. I brought it to Mark and we finished it together, but the idea just came while I was driving around, and it was right around when the bridge collapsed here in Minneapolis–the 35W bridge. People pulled together. In desperate situations, people seem to come together.
MR: When you’re writing, are you inspired by events or is it more personal? I guess I’m asking how you write?
MO: Well. I store incidents up in my head, and then rethink dramatic things that I possibly have made up about people in my own life, and then write in a very quick fashion when it’s put to me. That’s sorta how I do it. Pretty straightforward. Once I’m on something, I go for the finish line, and I do the zen thing where you just empty yourself and you try to just come up with interesting lines that sing well that have to do with timing and tempo and melody so it all works together. You just do it without much putting it off, or thinking about it too much, because when you store things up in your head for future recall, it doesn’t really come out the way you stored it, but you still have that initial idea.
MR: Gary, how about you?
GL: Well it’s different depending on the song and whether Mark and I are working together. In general, personally, I tend to just babble. I do the zen thing to where you just turn your conscious mind off and tap into what’s going on inside whether you stored it or you’re channeling it or whatever. That’s how I do it, I try to just roll the tape–the virtual tape–and just start doing something with that without thinking myself into a corner. When Mark and I work together we feed off each other and we both work very hard on the song, but we’re not ones to keep rewriting the same song. We tend to work quickly, and Mark tends to say, “Let’s get these lyrics done.” I have a lot of songs without lyrics because I tend to get lazy; that’s usually the hardest part.
MO: Yeah and I think also, at least when Gary and I get together, we don’t necessarily have, “Let’s write a song about…” this specific thing. I think you notice that in most of the Jayhawk’s tracks. I like songs that way. One I can recall: Richard Thompson’s song about this Vincent motorcycle. Its a very specific topic, and we tend to not do that. We tend to keep it open a bit when we write, and that’s kinda fun. So there’s both ways, everybody does it differently. But we don’t necessarily say, “Okay, we’re gonna write a song about this specific type of car or this specific thing that happened.
MR: What are the dynamics like in the studio once you guys bring your material in?
GL: Well, of course, we work on it together before we get in the studio. Each record has been different. This record is unique because we really haven’t been a working band in a while. We didn’t have a PA. We didn’t have a practice space like we used to, so Mark and I really worked hard on the songs, and then brought them to the band and really developed them in the studio. The studio was the first time Tim played a full kit of drums on these songs, and the first time I plugged in electrically was in the studio. We used the studio as a rehearsal space in a way, and then just because we were trying to be efficient with time and Mark was really in the middle of touring his brilliant solo record Many Colored Kites, we had to work very efficiently, so we did vocals first, really concentrating on the vocals and the drums and acoustic guitars. That was a little different for us, it was a great vibe.
MR: Nice. With Jayhawks material, it seems like it’s about getting the vibe of the song as opposed to anything else, isn’t it?
GL: Yeah, I think you hit it right there. That’s what all the albums have been about, heading towards that goal. When we were first together, we were a bit out of the mainstream; we were leaving the vibe undefined, and they were defining things in strict terms. We were trying to define the sense of belonging, unbelonging, sadness, and happiness–a different topic was on our minds.
MR: What’s interesting about that is that you’re making people think about and add to the discourse with your songs.
MO: Certainly. I remember reading an article about Irish traditional songwriting, always leaving spaces between the lines for people to fill in and interpret the song for themselves. When you get specific, you tend to fall into clichés. We hint at a lot of things, but we leave that space open. Sometimes, we’ll get people that tell us what our song was about, and I’ll think, “That’s not what I was thinking, but that’s almost better!”
MR: Also I wanted to touch on a few other songs. I have a couple of favorites on here…
MO: Obviously! (laughter).
MR: “Make him stop,” right?
MO: Bring it on, bring it on.
MR: Okay, dudes, I’ve been following The Jayhawks for years, and it never ceases to amaze me; you can’t really be categorized though it’s obvious yet you do have influences. Maybe, The Byrds, The Everlys Brothers, Aztec Two-Step?
MO: What was that other group?
MR: Aztec Two-Step. Just threw that in there to be random, really. They had their self-titled album on Elektra years ago. If you get a chance, check it out, it’s a classic. Anyway, my point here is that regardless of who your influences are, when you come together, you’re making something very unique. That’s where I was going, and that’s what I feel “Hey Mr. Man” represents.
MO: Well, that was the first song Gary and I wrote for the new record together. We were both happy that it sounded different than anything else we’d done up to that point. Looking back to it, we both felt like it had a little Buffalo Springfield.
GL: Yeah that’s what I thought.
MR: Yeah, it’s a beautiful track. Now, “Guilder Annie.” I’m not going to pretend like I know what’s going on with that one, but I do like the idea of getting down on the pavement and seeing things from that perspective.
MO: (laughs) Well, the funny thing about that song, and I’ll let Gary talk about this more, but his wife was named Annie. She came to Holland and we used to have fun because back then, they had guilders. She wanted to borrow some money, so Gary jokingly…
GL: …pulled out the wallet.
MO: (laughs) I’ll let you tell more about that.
GL: It’s funny because it’s really about someone I was married to, and again, some of these songs are mixed with fiction.
MO: Yeah, really fiction.
GL: The subject matter was really brought up by Mark.
MO: We laughed at the same time. It was a fun memory so we wrote it into a song.
GL: Right, and it just got mixed in. We spent a lot of time in Holland. She’s a really sweet woman, we’re still friends. It’s just about when she’d come over and watch us in the early days, and the fun days in Holland.
MO: We had our pockets full of this weird money, and we used to play poker with it. In earlier years, every country had their own money, so we’d end up with all these strange coins and we’d play at these poker games with absolutely no meaning to the money we were using. (laughs) I’m sitting next to an old uncle of mine and he’s a big poker player, so he’s laughin’ about that…aren’t you Joe.
“Joe” GL: To a degree. (laughter).
MO: He was stationed in Panama for a while. But he knows about playin’ poker.
“Joe” (GL): We’d swim in the Atlantic in the morning, and then the Pacific in the evening. That was something else.
MR: (laughs) I don’t want to interrupt, but you know, you guys seem very close and how could you not be, you’ve been making music together fora long time. What are your dynamics together now compared to when you first started.
MO: Gary?
GL: We’re better friends than we were back then. We’ve learned to appreciate things, and each other. Everyone’s trying to respect each other’s ways of how they like to tour. So far, it’s been great, at least on my side. Maybe Mark wants to tell me something, I don’t know. (laughs)
MO: Oh no, just from my side, I’m a different person than when I was first in the band. It’s more about a lot of things in life. The band is a big part of that. Appreciating other things farther down the road…things have changed.
MR: Because of your private lives and maturity, that must add to the quality of your writing and how you function together.
MO: Yeah, it does. I wish I could have the mental and emotional stability that the years bring back in my twenties. That would’ve been great. (laughs)
MR: You know, it’s funny, I got to spend some time with late teenagers over the last year or so, and I’ve learned a lot. That’s an amazing age, from 18 to 24, when you can do no wrong and you just want to do things your own way.
GL: We were in our late twenties when we started. We’re old souls in a way. Our music is mostly not geared to the teenager, though it is for all.
MR: What kind of advice would you have for new artists?
GL: Good luck! (laughs) I don’t know. Mark?
MO: My advice would be to accept that things have changed. They have to come up with a new way of reaching people. Get a job that they enjoy and try to record themselves. Try different types of music, whether it’s mixing classical and ethnic or whatever you want to do. I think that now…it’s sad to say, but we’ve reached the end of the album as an art-form that Dylan and The Beatles laid out. We’re at the end of it now. You can’t really think of it any other way when everyone’s got iTunes and they only listen to one song at a time — they don’t put on a record and listen to both sides. We’re still old adherents to that code of honor. I’m sorry to say, the ones coming up after us probably aren’t thinking that way, but it’s going to be something new!
GL: Yeah, they don’t think of it in terms of this song goes up against this other song. My little piece of advice would be that if you really love it, and it feels like it comes naturally to you, then do it, but don’t look for the quick hit. It’s about longevity. The quicker you rise, the quicker you go down. A lot of people are disappointed if something doesn’t happen quickly. But we’re an example of a band that stuck it out for a long time, and our fans are really loyal because we built it from the ground up instead of doing the short cut.
MR: So, essentially, what you’re saying is that it’s all about the art and craft.
GL: And it’s hard work. It’s a job too.
MO: Yeah it’s about the art, you have to work hard, but you need to get someone to believe and invest in you. It’s hard to do it on your own. It’s actually getting your music in other people’s hands.
MR: That’s a great point, and speaking of music, one last thing I wanted to ask you about is the song “Stand Out in the Rain.” I love the line, “Take me down to the river tonight and stand out in the rain.” Again, pure feeling, right?
GL: Well, that one was a Buffalo Springfield/Neil Young kind of image about coming from Minnesota, the sense of America–nature, having a spiritual importance. So, that was, “Take me down to the river tonight and stand out in the rain.” The idea of standing out naked in the rain is sort of a spiritual idea, I guess. We were pushing the envelope on those two (acts). I think they were big influences on us and maybe we were trying to carry that “forward, soldier on” and all that stuff.
MO: They’re short songs, but there’s a number of grip-ish songs that definitely don’t have a clear chorus. They’re just a lot of different parts that just go into scene changes, imagery, a journey through different parts. But somehow, if we take one part out, it all falls down. Things just flow. Its become a different way than we didn’t use to write. Mark and I find that way of writing interesting.
MR: Is this inspiring work for your next album?
MO: We’re talking about that. When we finish this touring though, we’ve got such a schedule up ahead of us you wouldn’t believe it. It’s coming down on us right now and it’s all the way to next summer.
Transcribed by Lani Aulicino