Roadside Graves – Where the Water Flows from Stereopathic on Vimeo.

If you can, see these guys live. They love doing what they do, they care about their music, and most shows end with them getting in the middle of the audience, banging on drums, starting singalongs, and working for their money.

If I could find the time to write more, Stereopathic’s readership would have, by this time, been subjected to a lot more semi-literate posts on Metuchen, New Jersey’s Roadside Graves. The band released my favorite record of 2009, My Son’s Home, a sprawling and ambitious 18-song record dense with beautifully-detailed characters and stories related via singer John Gleason’s bourbon-throated rasp. Since I still don’t really have the time to write, I’ll spare you any further rock-critic-journalist hoo-hah. “Writing about music…” goes the oft-quoted (and rarely attributed) aphorism, really “…is like dancing about architecture.”

Well, a few months back, when 2010 was still just a glimmer in 2009′s eye, I asked John Gleason to dance about the architecture of the Roadside Graves. The man was good enough to spend four hours (including a soup-and-Family-Guy break) typing out his answers. He didn’t flinch, and the results are well worth reading.

This interview goes out to y’all on February 23rd, the day the Graves’ first long-player, If Shacking Up Is All You Want To Do, is re-issued by Autumn Tone Records of Los Angeles, California. In another month, AT will drop the band’s new extended-player, You Won’t Be Happy With Me. At the end of the interview you’ll find some songs and more links to all the aforementioned.

How autobiographical are your songs? Or, put another way, who are your songs about?

50/50. Even split. Let’s imagine listening to a song about a guy who drives a ’93 Chevy Malibu (his wife’s grandmother gave him) on the NJ Turnpike every day for an hour to teach elementary school, drives home, reads, drinks bourbon and showers. Basically that’s my reality. If I was Nicholson Baker or Raymond Carver I may be able to make that interesting to other people. I can’t, so instead what I grab on to are the thoughts I have while driving that hour to and from school. Should I just hit this car next to me? Does the band I’m listening to have a secret Christian agenda? Why did I not shave for work? Are indie bands not trying hard enough? How many fingernails are scattered along my dashboard? Did the toll collector just brush my hand a little too long? How upset will I be when my dog dies? Why do puppet creatures look better than CGI creatures in movies? Should I stop drinking coffee? I imagine most people have similar thoughts so I try to inject my thoughts into the fictional characters in the songs, or if the song is autobiographical I add some white lies, functional fibbing. I explain to my second graders every year the difference between a fib and a lie, simply if your Mom asks you how her hair looks and you say “beautiful” even if it doesn’t then that’s a fib, everything else is a lie! I’m insecure and miserable most of the time (I was on Accutane twice), I hope that comes through in the songs, I can only assume that most people feel the way I do. If they don’t then they are probably content with what’s on the radio and answer a question like “What kind of music do you listen to?” with “Oh, whatever’s on the radio”. I’m so jealous.

Related to that, what’s more worth singing about: yourself, or other people? Which one is more interesting to you as a songwriter?

My goal I guess is to create a song about someone else who thinks/feels something in a way that other people can identify with, and the only way to achieve that is to allow yourself cautiously into each song, regardless of the subject mater, and to create it in such a way that it feels original yet still familiar enough to be welcomed and warranted to be played again.

I have no interest anymore in writing songs solely about myself, I’m convinced I’m not a good subject despite that lately most people think that everything they do is worth displaying to the world. You get trapped, if you read daily online about strangers basting a turkey, finishing a paper, complaining about traffic, or providing the address of the coffee shop they are occupying you too will feel empowered to share the mundane. Shit, I’ll admit just a few weeks ago I went on Twitter and wrote about how much I love ice sculptures. That’s not necessary. But that’s where you start. As a songwriter you need to self-purge then evolve. After a year or two the amount of whisky you drink is no longer a subject worth exploring.

Any thoughts on what makes something worth singing about in the first place?

Anything that someone might find offensive.

A lot of your songs have a palpable background texture to them—it’s not difficult to picture your songs in a particular setting. Perhaps that’s because we hail from the same region and we’re about the same age—and so I’m able to picture it quite clearly—but perhaps it’s because you still live (near) where you grew up and that has trickled into what you do. Do you feel rooted where you live? If not, do you feel rooted anywhere? Either way, how does that affect what you do in RSG?

Well I tried to leave a few times. I’ve been lucky enough to visit places that I would have called home: Savannah, Madison, Reno, and Montreal. I even had a teaching job in Las Vegas, but New Jersey is a cuddly and ill-mannered beast and I’ll never leave. Besides the obvious turmoil of leaving family and friends I believe there is a certain pride bestowed upon those who grow up and live in New Jersey and I’d hate to lose that. I feel rooted because I can identify with the chaos of the Turnpike, the choices of a good late night diner, the comfort of walking a downtown, the liberalness of the people, the half price colors of the thrift stores, and the nearness of the cities. We are small, crowded, over-taxed and passionate. We constantly have to defend our state when traveling/touring the country. It shows in the songs. We are constantly trying to prove ourselves as a band, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Do you love New Jersey? I’m not being ironic—there are parts of Jersey that I myself love (western Hunterdon County, Delaware River, Pulaski Skyway & environs). Tell me about something you dig about where you’re from, something that makes the place yours.

I’ve lived in Metuchen, Hightstown, Mount Holly, and Haddon Township. Each had their own something to love: rivers, Indian restaurants, bridges, train stations, bars, county libraries. Funny you mention Pulaski Skyway, I must have drove that road every weekend in high school to get to Maxwell’s in Hoboken to see any band on the record labels I loved like Simple Machines, TeenBeat, Merge, Dischord, Shrimper, etc. There is nowhere to pull over on that road, always imagined I’d die on the Pulaski Skyway.

Atlantic City is easily my favorite place in New Jersey. It’s a sad place. Grand casinos that are always two years behind Vegas run along the boardwalk and marina yet the rest of the town looks lost and forgotten. My father and I spent a lot of time together shooting craps when I lived with him. I met my wife there at a dance club called the Casbah. I’ve only danced a handful of times in public, outside of weddings, mostly because of the obnoxious amount of alcohol it takes for me to forget that I’m dancing. But that night it worked, she bought me a beer and said she loved Nick Drake and Bruce Springsteen. It’s the place I drive to and walk the boardwalk aimlessly when I can’t figure something out or am feeling a little too frazzled by the world.

What aspirations do you have for the Roadside Graves? Is this the sort of thing that’d lure you away from teaching for a time?

Maybe? Depends. I hate being away from home and I enjoy teaching. It would have to be too dumb to say no to. For example: If say Bon Iver, Will Oldham, Kris Kristofferson, Nick Cave or anyone I truly admire wanted us to tour with them. Until then we are a very small band. It’s thanks to blogs like yours that anyone out of the Tri-State area recognizes our name. Our last tour we played some shows to roughly five people. It’s also quite disorientating to travel the country in a van eating Ramen noodles. You fall back on habits you thought you could control. You sit for hours. You look like a criminal.  I’d like to imagine that I could continue being in the Roadside Graves and still teach second grade.

I called you a lapsed Catholic in my best-of. You laughed and wrote, “I can’t help it, I was born that way.” Did you have the usual Irish Catholic upbringing-and-then-departure, or does your iteration of this story have any peculiar twists?

Well, when I was young religion wasn’t a choice. You were born into it, as simply as saying I was born in New Jersey. My parents went to church every Sunday and sent my brother and I to Catholic School. I hated it, only later did I find out that both of them hated going to the school too when they were young. Again it wasn’t a choice. I was an altar boy and my brother sang in the choir. On the first day of First Grade I received detention for spitting on someone’s shoe, in third grade we put a kid’s head in the toilet and flushed, in Sixth grade we had peeing wars under the bathroom dividers (who ever got the most pee on the other kid’s shoes won!), in eighth grade I was suspended for writing a story that involved a boy and a dog who fall into a fantastical puddle filled with naked mermaids. It was hell and I fought to get out. My parents divorced, and then I had my choice and began public high school. I haven’t been to church since. My mother explains that church was there to teach us boys morals. I’ve obsessed over that in many songs, it seems so strange that parents rely on religion to teach right vs. wrong. Are they worried their own failures have made them incapable of being a model? Is the thought of God’s punishment just scarier than Dad’s hand? So yes I’m a lapsed Irish Catholic, and eager to break the cycle when I have a child of my own someday, until then my three dogs are free to worship as they please.

Related to that, how does your Catholic background affect what you’re doing in RSG? How has that influenced you (or anyone else in the band, for that matter). There are the things you’re aware of, and the things you aren’t, of course, but give it a shot.

It soaks it. Ah, the guilt.

I don’t think the rest of the band cares about religion much. We’re all confused by the world at large, and busy keeping each other sane, and showing up to practice each Sunday.

Are you a good reader? What do you take away from other art forms—for instance, y’all name-checked Deadwood as an inspiration for MSH—when you write a song? Does literature figure into it at all?

A good reader? I’m an avid reader with an insatiable appetite, but I’m a poor reader, I need to re-read to comprehend and I can’t retell a plot accurately. I should have been a librarian and tended bar at night. I like to read three to four books at a time (currently: Book of Genesis by R. Crumb, Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman, No One Belongs Here More than You by Miranda July, and Swamp Thing Book Two by Alan Moore) possibly because I’d rather not be alone with my thoughts, possibly because I have ADD, but even more so because I find books, movies, and music so satisfying. My Son’s Home was loosely inspired by a Steinbeck novel and Jeremy and I are currently writing songs based on the Outsiders, but above all I admire and consume because I am a fan.

Any bands out there that you care about, or that you think RSG could learn a thing or two from? You ever gonna do the Wilco avant-noise thing? You list a lot of groups like The Band, Dylan, Springsteen as influences, and it shows… So, what is it about that music that makes sense to you, that is something you want to keep going?

I care almost too much. Each morning I listen to a new record before work. You can always learn something. The Court and Spark were an influence on our last record, especially their record Witch Season. Richard and Linda Thompson’s I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is a continuing influence, it could be the only perfect record I own, there are no flaws. We were fortunate enough to play with Megafaun twice. I’d say easily the best band we’ve played with and the most important to watch closely. They have an uncanny ability to be engaging, unusual, and welcoming to their audience. A lot of indie bands look good but seem uninterested in what they are doing. Megafaun make a point to connect with their audience by including them in singing, playing, and simply allowing themselves to show that they are too enjoying the music they make.

If we ever make a noise record I would want it to be catchy. Not sure if that’s possible. But I’d like to leave the possibility open just in case. We try to change each record slightly, enough to keep us interested in experimenting with our sound.

Writers tend to list us as being influenced by the Band, Dylan, and Springsteen and those are accurate, but we are not limited to them or necessarily trying to sound like them, we are humble enough to know better. Though we do give Bruce a nod twice on our new EP the piano intro to “Demons” and the reference to Tunnel of Love (my personal Bruce favorite) on “Hearts”. Inside our band are six members with scattered musical influences. Some of the band doesn’t even like country/folk music and would prefer Talking Heads and Lightning Bolt. My initial vision of the band was Peter, Paul and Mary drunk, or the Clash covering the Magnetic Fields. I like sad songs I can sing along to with in the car.

RSG’s first record is shortly being re-issued, and there’s a new EP imminent. What signs of progress—musical, lyrical, maturity-wise, outlook, anything—do you see when you compare the two records? Speak for yourself and for the band as a whole…

Our first full length If Shacking Up is All You Wanna Do is diverse in subjects (Jesus makes pancakes, suicide, Utah has tragic and beautiful bartenders, a creepy motel owner watches a girl die) but clearly set in a simple country and folk landscape. The new EP You Won’t Be Happy With Me is quite the opposite. The music is dynamic and diverse and pinches between many genres while the subjects of the songs are simply about relationships and marriage.

You said in an interview with Stereogum that you’ve tried to be a positive male figure in your students’ lives. What does a positive male figure look like? What are you measuring yourself against when you think about that? What, in particular, does an American man have to fight against in order to be that man?

Oh man! Before I even attempt to map out what a positive male figure may look like, please let me make a quick disclaimer: I fail at about all I am about to describe, we are talking ideally here. When I originally said that I was thinking in broad strokes, imagining that for my students I could represent an adult male in their life who actively gave a shit, listened intently, admitted mistakes, and spoke to them honestly and openly. Beyond the curriculum and the expectations of administrators and parents you have a responsibility to be real to these kids and to attempt to understand them. Each child should be treated differently, as every adult would like some consideration for what happens outside of work, each child comes to you with their own set of outside factors that influence their behavior and learning styles. If a seven year old is coping with his father leaving I would hope I could offer some words, some compassion, and create a classroom atmosphere that provides a temporary escape from the realities at home. I always hated school, I try to remember that when I teach. A positive male figure is humble, accepting, concerned, aware, forgiving, patient, and entertaining. I’m measuring myself against the failures of my teachers and my father.

Thank you for reading.

Listen to the Music!

Demons

from the forthcoming EP, You Won’t Be Happy With Me (coming 3/23/10)

Jenny Jump from the newly-reissued LP (as of 2/23/10), If Shacking Up Is All You Want To Do…

West Coast from 2007′s damn good No One Will Know Where You’ve Been

Lift Up The Gate from the best record of 2009, hands-down, My Son’s Home.

The Roadside Graves on Myspace. I’m sure they’re on Facebook, too, but, well… eh.

Buy the music!

Autumn Tone Records’ Roadside Graves page

emusic.com has two different pages (you’ll need to sign up)

Insound may love vinyl more, but they do sell the CDs

…or you can go to dumb ol’ Amazon.

Get the rest of the Roadside Graves’ great session at HearYa, and while you’re at it, take a listen to the version of Wooden Walls here.

At 8.00 p.m. we quite magically waltzed through the black door in the brick wall. There we were, the Goonite Club, 69 Rosebury Ave, Clerkenwell, London, ECIR4RL, a location that not even MapQuest could find that we reached through a metro station of which no one seemed to be particularly aware. Never mind, we were there, and on time. A muddy hall opened into a dark room with brightish youngish punkish things vaguely rocking out, and a man in a striped shirt shook my hand. “Ian,” he introduced himself, “Shall we have a drink?”

Next door at The Wilmington at Arms, the entire band gathered around the table and we fell into the land of Pocketbooks– the everyday world of a pop band in London that hasn’t jumped the Atlantic.  Spidery strings trail from their niche to those celebrated puddles of genius across the British Isles and Europe. A week before we came, Pocketbooks opened for their old friends, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and a few weeks later, they planned to participate in Indie Tracks, a music festival held on a 1950′s steam railway in the middle of the Derbyshire countryside.  This isn’t about where they’ve featured or who they’re connected to, though, this is about Pocketbooks, an unassuming, unaffected indie-pop group of the pure at heart from central London with pure voices and the innocence of the undiscovered

“How did we get our name? That’s a good question ‘cause we literally have no idea,” says Ian. Andy, the band maestro and song-writer, admitted that he doesn’t know the answer to this particular question – but a pocketbook is something that you might carry with you everywhere, like a note book, and that’s how he envisions Pocketbook songs.

Andy writes with the lyrical wit of Belle and Sebastian that rhapsodizes on the charm of an ordinary day, and, rather than believe that circumstantial trivia is a mundane necessity, I’ll take Pocketbooks word for it that that moment just might have changed my life. His songs describe that moment at the bus station, the glance that you catch from across a street, the “Fleeting Moments” that perk an ordinary day.

Back in the Goonite Club, standing tiptoe in the audience, and skipping across the playground and swinging up, up and up into the sky with the helium bubble-pop, I felt that Pocketbooks would be lifted up and float away if I let go of the string, just like that pink balloon that slowly became a black dot and was lost beyond the clouds once at the county fair.  Andy’s tenor and Emma’s sparkling voice harmonize about a little of this and a little of that – sugar and spice and everything nice, their songs are made of things that I would be delighted to find in my pocket any day of the week.

Pocketbooks’ 1st album, Flight Paths, debuted into the hard world on July 13th ‘09. Cheers.

The Olympia band was started by songwriter Nicolaas Zwart, and the music’s topography reflects his rolling memories and past.  His love for mid-century American literature chimes through the songs, John Updike and Thomas Ford swim through the music in a “really obscure way,” he says, “It’s there through the lyrics, the feeling through the movement.”  The panoramic fantasy of the real Desolation Wilderness that borders Lake Tahoe in California, near to Zwart’s childhood home, is reflected in the band’s ambience.  The topography of the band’s music lazily follows the geography of lakes and mountain vistas and meets Updike somewhere upstream in the retro haze wafting amid what Zwart calls his “punk-rock ethics.”  “It’s where the sound does not drive [the music],” he explains, “The morals and ethics do.” 

Desolation’s next full-length album is scheduled for release in August.  They’ve offered a tasty nibble to hold you off till then in the form of their advanced single No Tomorrow, just released last week.  You can also download gems streamed with cameo appearances of friends like Ashley Eriksson and Eli Moore of LAKE and Shelby Turner (now Desolation’s bass) of Sundance Kids from the archives of Daytrotter.

Molly is a freelance writer and a recent graduate of New St. Andrews College with an interest in postcards and goldfish.  She interned for The Loop 21 and keeps – sporadically – the blog A New Amsterdam.

Kicking off Stereopathic’s busy week, tonight at Mikey’s we present the brilliant and intense Richard Buckner, touring in support of Merge’s recent digital reissues of three of his fine and criminally out-of-print records: Bloomed, The Hill, and Impasse. Sam Dickison and a few friends will open; door at 9, and ten American dollars gets you in.

”
Richard Buckner: Polly Waltz (from 1997′s Devotion + Doubt) . . .

Then, Friday at the American Legion Cabin, Seattle’s Sera Cahoone will bring us her elegant and beautifully-arranged country-folk-rock, playing songs off her self-released, eponymous debut record from 2006 and 2008′s superb Only as the Day is Long. Spokane’s Karli Fairbanks and Bluesy Betsy Olson opens; door at 8, eight dollars gets you in, and three dollars puts a pint of Mirror Pond Ale in your hand.

”
Sera Cahoone: You Might As Well (from 2008′s Only as the Day is Long) . . .

Capping off the week, this Saturday back at Mikey’s, Portland’s Weinland bring their ornate and melancholic indie folk to Moscow, touring in support of their brand-new (as of April 21st) record Breaks in the Sun, an album “committed to 2” tape amidst sleep deprivation, whiskey consumption, and trust” and released by Portland’s Badman records. Adam Shearer and company will be playing songs from Breaks and last year’s La Lamentor, and will be joined by Leonard Mynx and Audie Darling. Door at9, and eight green dollars lets you in.

”
Weinland: The Letters II (from 2009′s Breaks in the Sun) . . .

AD: You hear a lot of things about artists who grew up in remote or removed evidence, fashioning their own sense of what music should sound like based on their limited resources. Are we going to see those same unique things? We’re having this sort of homogenization of culture thanks to television and the Internet. Is that going by the wayside?

JR: I think it is. This is a conversation I’ve had with my friends for some time. I think with the cost of gas over the last couple of years, I think it’s out-priced a lot of bands from touring. And I think a bunch of this – I’ve always kind of crossed my fingers that might happen so we might see more regionalism in music. Bands that stay more regional rather than touring the country all the time. That’s something I saw a lot growing up in the Northwest. I wasn’t right next to the epicenter, but all that stuff to me was really important. All the regional music was what I listened to first and foremost. It’s almost a shame that a band is owned by the world the moment they put stuff online. I kind of wish it wasn’t that way because things are so exposed over night that it doesn’t give time enough for that individuality and originality to really take hold. I think people already, out of the gate, they’re listened to and, I don’t know, the internet is a bizarre thing in that kind of way.

In the coming months, we hope to post quite a bit more about the bizarre thing Ringle mentions here. In some ways, Internet has created a new kind of pop shelf life, flurrying excitement and purple prose over songs and records digitally leaked months before their official release dates, and then forgetting about those songs and records the moment the next leak hits the torrent sites. Internet has helped mute, in part, the din created by the mainstream outlets… by creating just as clattering and irritating a din of indie noise.

On the other hand, Horse Feathers is a band that everyone here at Stereopathic discovered via Internet… in part, because we can’t help but wander the modern music distribution landscape; in part, because we’re in the same town Ringle grew up in, so we’re subject to the same geographic constraints he was, and we have to find music somehow…

Find out more about Horse Feathers here. And come see them at the Nuart this Wednesday. Regardless of how Internet might change the influence and distribution of music, it still can’t bring bring a band to you in the flesh. We’re limited by corporeality as far as live music goes, and here’s to that.

Now, more internet music distribution:

Horse Feathers – Curs in the Weeds mp3

Poster by David Dalbey

First, here’s a brief review of Beasts of Seasons that we posted a few weeks back on the Stereopathic blog. My question is, did we land anywhere near what you intended with the record?

Thanks for that review. It’s deeply encouraging when someone writes about your music, and is able to explain it better than I could explain it myself. The line that struck me most was “Beasts of Seasons gives us a gracious portrait of an artist who looks inward and finds other people, who looks outward and finds herself.” I hadn’t thought of it in those words, but that rings so true to the ideas/feelings that inspire me. I like the idea of looking inwards and seeing other people, and looking outwards, and seeing ourselves.

From what I’ve read of yours, you seem to be very precise and deliberate about your songwriting process. “Sweet Deception” and “Come by Storm,” as they exist on Daytrotter, bear a basic resemblance to their much more ornate versions on Beasts of Seasons. Given the volume of collaborators you had on the various songs, how precise and deliberate can you be in the recording process?

I like to go into recording having some things, very specific and sure and known…and then a few things left up to mystery. In working with other musicians, I like the idea of letting them improvise, and them create their parts “in the moment” with the songs. Other parts were developed over the course of playing with a band over the past two years. More than anything else, I tend to be very protective of space, when it come to the recording process. Space and silence are so wired into my music-making. I love orchestration, but want the songs to take deep breaths. That feels important to me. I feel so fortunate for all of the musicians that gave their time and talents to this record, but would never want to lose the lose the songs in the quest for grand arrangements. Structurally, very little changed between the original versions and the versions on the record.

I do tend to be very deliberate in my song writing. Maybe, sometimes, too deliberate. I’ve been challenging myself lately, to let my writing go a bit, to have more of a stream of consciousness. But ultimately, I suppose it’s a good thing to be disciplined with songs.

Given that you “take great care with words”, and seem to have a strong ability for poetic thought, why set it to music? In your opinion, how does setting these thoughts to music change them?

I suppose I approach songwriting in a couple of different ways.

The past year I’ve tried to focus on writing for the sake of writing. Writing without thinking of the end product. I keep notebooks of thoughts, or words that I like, or phrases that come to me. Some writings trickle down into songs and some don’t. I try not to worry about where things will end up, initially. Words find new meaning in the contexts of songs, and little phrases become parts of larger narratives.

Certain lyrics, though, would never have come to me outside of the context of music, without the inspiration of notes and strumming the guitar.

What singers do you admire, and who do you hope you sound like?

Well, I hope to sound like myself. I think to hope for anything else would be a failure on my part. I do admire old Appalachian folk and Delta Blues music. I am also inspired by old Jazz singers, the way they use their voice as an expressive instrument.

You grew up in a small logging town in southern Oregon—which one, might I ask?—and now you live in Portland. What imprint did/does your upbringing have on your music? You seem to be in a certain community in Portland, a community of people that seems to have something to do with one another, at least musically. Was the small town a place where you had community? When did you start to feel situated in a certain group of people?

I grew up in a little town called Coquille. It is near Bandon and Coos Bay, in the South Coast region of Oregon. For better or worse (mostly for better), community is the essence of living in small town, and definitely influenced my understanding of the world and of relationships. I didn’t play music within the indie music community, for my first few years in Portland. Mostly, I was intimidated by the idea of a scene. I didn’t keep up with music, and rarely went to shows. It seemed really foreign to me. My first few years, I felt set on making music in a different context. I played “shows” every Tuesday night at a residential AIDS care facility called Our House of Portland. Those two years, more than any other time, influenced my understanding of sharing music for people.

I guess I began to feel at home within the community after recording my first record. I timidly approached Adam Selzer about recording some songs for me. Adam has made some of my favorite records with his band Norfolk and Western. I was a fan of his, and he agreed to record some songs. Adam brought in most of the musicians, and by the end of that record-making process, I had a handful of new friends. All of the musicians that played on my record were also playing in other bands. I got to know those bands, and so on and so on. I think my initial reluctance to approach the music community was partially misguided (based at least partly on fear). Some of the sweetest, most genuine people I’ve ever met, are people playing music in Portland. I feel supported, and feel a genuine sense of belonging. It is such a precious thing, community. I am reminded, almost daily, how fortunate I am.

Does the place, the physical place, with its smells, weather, history—terroir , as a vintner might summarize it—affect your music in ways you’re aware of?

I believe place certainly affects my music, in ways that I am aware of, and maybe more so, in ways I am not aware of. I read a few interviews with bands recently, where they stated that because of the internet and touring, there is no such thing as a “Seattle band” or a “Brooklyn Band.” I would have to disagree. I am not a band per se, I am just one person making music, but I can’t imagine my music would be the same had grown up in New York or the Southwest. I am really sensitive to space, it affects my mood, my thoughts, the way I interact with people. If I am going to be authentic in what I do, place will always play a part in what I am doing. Similarly, when I travel, I am missing a different home than a band from New York or Austin, and that longing for home is a part of me.

How hard is it as a touring musician to be rooted in the place where you live?

I have traveled so much in the past few years, I imagine it affects my music as much as it affects my mood and understanding of life. My family all lives in Portland now. That is a very tangible “rooting”, more so than any sort of scene I belong to.

Beasts of Seasons is divided into two sections—Communion Songs and Funeral Songs—and you have spoken of how you saw two themes emerging as you wrote these songs. I think the “funeral” theme is in plain sight, but how does the Communion theme make itself known? It’s a theologically-charged word—how familiar are you with those associations? If so, did you mean to draw those in? Why unequal time for Communion Songs and Funeral Songs?

Actually, because the first song, “Shadows on Parade” is so long, the parts are pretty equal in length.

I use Communion, both in the theological sense, and in the non-theological sense. I suppose I meant connection, but wanted the word to have some connotation of the sacred or transcendent (and besides, “connection songs” sounds pretty cheesy). I grew up in the Episcopal church, and communion was one of my first experiences with the idea of sacredness. I have friends who grew up in other traditions and have a completely different vocabulary for communicating the idea of transendence. Communion carried a certain weight for me. I used the phrase “communion songs” in the song Postures Bent, and the phrase stuck with me.

The song “Glory”—how is it a Funeral Song? The verse about your father’s voice—particularly that breathtaking line about it being “dressed in anger, swollen with grace”—it’s surprising, not least because it’s de rigueur nowadays to be resentful and one-dimensional about one’s upbringing. But you come across as astonished and grateful—and the refrain, that you “have not seen such glory since” suggests that those things are now absent. Is that so?

I can’t imagine writing a resentful song about my family. It wouldn’t be possible, whether it’s de rigueur or not.

“Glory” is a song of loss and of new life.  I have experienced both, and both are present in family life. The song is not specific to my family, but a collection of images.

In making a collection of songs centering around mortality, I kept coming back to tenderness in relationships. You can sharpen your philosophy and your understanding of death. You can circle around and settle on a certain perspective or subscribe to a certain doctrine. But at the end of the day, if you’re on an airplane, going down, it’s the faces of those dearest to you that come into your mind.

The song is a showstopper in most ways, but especially lyrically. It’s essentially a collection of moments in which you find examples of grace and glory. Do you find that you recognize those moments as they’re happening, or is that usually something that strikes you in memory?

Like all things, I am sometimes aware of things in the moment, and sometimes only aware of things in hindsight. Those aren’t specific memories, but a series of images that came to me one afternoon.  They do remind me of my family, but aren’t specific to my family, exactly.

We live in a culture that is largely innoculated from death, that hides it or calls it by other names. You wrote many Beasts of Seasons songs overlooking an old cemetery, and that had a clear effect on your thoughts and songwriting, though it didn’t seem to make you morbid. Death, clearly, sunders relationships, ends communion, is an enemy to be contended with. How would you say you contend with it? What wards off morbidity?

I’m not sure when I first realized that all of these songs dealt with mortality. It just seemed to hang in the air. I’m not interested in looking into the darkness for the sake of writing dark songs. I think I was dealing with fear, through the process of writing these songs. But, even in the darkest circumstances, there are moments of hope, of tenderness, of reverence. That is something that inspires me. I feel like these songs are the most hopeful songs I have written.

I learned that songs about death are ultimately songs about the urgency of life. The word reverence isn’t really tossed around or used in much music. But I cared deeply about the record having a sense of reverence, for life, for relationships, for things outside of ourselves.

You deserve an easy, rhetorical question. Is there a better city in the United States than Portland?

I’ve enjoyed many aspects of many of the places I’ve visited. But it would be hard to live anywhere else. Portland is pretty special (even if it is being overrun by bands).

Brendan is not this guy, nor was he this guy, and he is not at all cool with this particular namesake. He does occasionally guest on Stereopathic Sessions with Larson and Josh, and is staggered at how inarticulate his words are about the things he loves the most.

Go see them in Moscow, on April 1st, at the Nuart.

Low Red Land – “Dog’s Hymns”

Low Red Land – “Landmark”

Nate is a land and music surveyor. He lives in Moscow with his wife and two children. He is not from Moscow, but he likes it here and wants there to be more music of the live variety.