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Interview with Gary Louris

This is a near-complete transcript of a phone interview done by John Davidson with Gary Louris on February 21, 2003. Select quotes of this transcript were used for publication by City Pages and are copyrighted by City Pages. The rest of the transcript is the work of John Davidson and is copyrighted by John Davidson. This transcript is for educational use and may not be used for any other purposes without the express permission of the owner(s).

Was your recent health crisis truly scary or what?
It was pretty scary for a few days. Like most things where you don't know what it is, sometimes it's the worst not knowing what's wrong. Although they diagnosed it pretty quickly once I got in, then they had doubts for a few days thinking it was even more serious. They just did a lot of exploration, I'll just say, and then found out that they were right initially. It was just a virus.

I guess the doctor didn't tell you to swear off the smoking and drinking and rock-n-roll lifestyle.
I'm sure he told me that it's probably not a good idea to smoke, which I knew and still know. I think with drinking it's just the common sense of moderation.

Not that you're old, but you're at least slightly older than people that go out to clubs to see bands. As you get older do you feel more disconnect between your fans or does it all kind of seem the same.
No, our fans are like my friends-they're pretty diverse in age and gender and interest. I actually don't. I actually think that we all kind of as a band, feed off of the energy of younger fans.

As you get older then do you get tired of the whole rigamaroll of touring and other aspects of the career?
I think most people, no matter what their job is, they feel that way. There are good things and bad things about it. But I'm reminded constantly of how lucky I am. There are parts of it that you like more than others; recording/writing/playing is of course the best part and the rest of it is kind of a necessity. If you're gonna buy into selling records then you kind of have to go along with it.

How did the Jayhawks form?
Boy, you're really going back. Well, Minneapolis, as I'm sure you know, back in the 80s, was a small town. Like most towns, there are certain places that people hang out with if you want to see music and girls and what would be considered the hipper crowd to hear cool music. So, you tend to run into people. Mark Olson and I had run into each other for quite awhile. I think Mark was in a rockabilly band called Stagger Lee, and I was in a rockabilly band called Safety Last. One time, Mark Olson actually auditioned for Safety Last since our bass player wanted to move to guitar, but that whole thing didn't happen. But you know, I knew Mark, Mark knew me. Marc Perlman I knew through friends back in the early 80s. I just kind of bumped into them one day after they'd already started the Jayhawks, so the Jayhawks had a little head start before I joined. They had a guitar player named Steve Retzler and he quit after one show; they had invited me to come see them play. I ran into Mark and Marc and they said, "We're playing at the Uptown bar, why don't you come down and see us." I think they were trying to recruit me but didn't really know how to ask. So, I saw their first show; most of it I missed but when they were done they came over and basically asked me if I wanted to join and I said, "Okay."

Had Safety Last petered out at that point?
It was done. I actually was kind of the road dog, the guy of all the people in the Jayhawks who had been in a touring band who had recorded.

You were the pro!
I was the pro; I was the guy who didn't know if he wanted to do it. I'd just kinda quit, so they kinda coerced me. At the beginning of it, I was just happy that, after being in a band and doing all that stuff I just wanted to sit back and play guitar and not do much else.

Had they written songs by then?
Oh, Mark Olson had written a lot of songs. He was in this period where he was writing and everything was a song. He had the "chicken song" and the "door song" and he was very prolific. I went to see Mark play, basically a solo show, at the 7th Street Entry, and that kind of really peaked my interest. That's when I really thought, "This guy's got it, and I wanna be a part of it."

So when you first started playing was Mark the de facto leader or was it kind of an open book as far as throwing in whatever you wanted to?
It was pretty open. Mark was the leader, there was no doubt about it as far as he was the singer.
But as far as it being open you could add whatever you wanted…
We didn't really talk about it; we were a band and I played guitar. Like I said, I was just happy to be a sideman at the time. At the time, it was just fine to play the guitar. Actually, Mark really encouraged me because he knew that I'd written songs in the past and sang. He encouraged me to get involved and eventually I kind of just got more and more involved. Mark was never like, "This is MY band." It was pretty democratic, and everybody kind of did their thing.

By the time you got to recording the demos for Blue Earth, were some of those songs that you had brought to the band or were they all pretty much Mark's songs at that point?
Blue Earth had evolved to being more of a team. Even early on, on the very first record [the one on Bunkhouse], we would sit together and write songs. By that time, we would be considered more of a songwriting team I guess in that we worked off each other. We're kind of skipping a period there, but at the very beginning we pretty much interpreted Mark's songs. But pretty early on, it started developing into Mark and myself kind of envisioning ourselves as a songwriting team, though it wasn't necessarily 50/50 it was definitely heading in that direction.

Was there a competitive creative environment where in essence you made each other better?
I think so. I think anybody in a songwriting team atmosphere will feel like they are competing with another person but it's usually a healthy competition. It was for us. But I think we put our names on everything. That way, the best songs would come through and we wouldn't be trying to check the credits to make sure every other song was a Louris or an Olson. And that was a good way to do it; I'd recommend [that] to any songwriting team. Somehow it evens out and ends up being better for the music if you're not checking the credits.

Did you end up shopping the demos [for Blue Earth] a lot or just focus on Twin/Tone?
When we first started, we kind of had a quick start. We had a lot of friends and we knew a lot of cute girls, and that's always why guys come. I think from day one we had a good little crowd, and there was a buzz about us because nobody else was doing what we were doing. And we were pretty loud at the time. I remember this guy Billy Batson, a sound guy at the 7th Street Entry, and we'd finished playing and he said something like, "You guys just finished a country set for this audience and they didn't even know it. They sat through something and you were kind of able to slip one past them. They're listening to country music in kind of a rock-n-roll bar." That's what we were doing early on, we were playing what would be considered the blues scene on the West Bank. Back in '85 there were no other rock bands playing [there]; we were the only one. It was really kind of a hippie and blues scene. So, we were doing our own kind of thing. It was just…we were kinda hot, and we started getting interest really early but I can't remember all the names of the labels.

Majors or local [labels]?
No, they were national. But they were small. I wanna say I.R.S.; that kind of thing. Some label on the West Coast that was kind of like I.R.S. It wasn't Rounder…it was kind of hipper but I can't think of the name of it. But we had label interest pretty early on. And that just became a long and winding road. We thought things were happening quickly, but little did we know that it would be six years later before we got signed to a major. We just had a lot of friends and a lot of fans at labels, but they were usually one or two steps down on the rung and could never get Mr. Big to sign off on us. We'd get a lot of people who would be like, "Here's a thousand dollars, go make some more demos." Whether it was A&M or Atlantic or any number of labels, they kept saying, "Well, this is cool but I really don't know what to do with it. Back in '87 there wasn't really an alternative country scene. And I think people just didn't know what to make of it, but that it was good. That's when we accumulated a lot of demos and a lot of them are sitting in our practice space that we'll probably someday put out. And that's basically how we ended up with Blue Earth. By the time Blue Earth was being assembled, I had quit the band. I had quit the band in '88 because I was in a bad car accident. I had seen the band kind of stall. We'd kind of gotten out of the blocks quickly and then all of a sudden, we just kept not being able to get anywhere.

Was it a combination of kind of going through a medical recovery and saying, "Ahh, do I really wanna do this anymore?
Well, I wasn't 20 (years old) when I started in the Jayhawks; I was 29. You know, I was in my mid-30s and I'd fallen in love-and when I fall, I fall pretty hard. I didn't wanna go on the road and be gone for a month at a time. I was into this girl, the band was not making any money…I really didn't know what was happening. And I was in this car accident, so maybe this was a time to change. And that's ironically when Dave Aire stepped in from Twin/Tone and said, "Well, let's put all these demos together and we'll get this producer, Tim Rondonelli, to come in and you guys can fix them up. Overdub the vocals, add some guitars, make 'em sound more like a record." So, they started doing it without me. They got a different guitar player in there. But again, like back in '85, I was kind of courted again. I think one by one they kind of came and said, "We'd really like you to come back." Because this wasn't really a long period of time when I was out of the band. It was probably like four months or something. So, eventually, I came back and it's part of the reason we're still going. I saw the band without me and I didn't like that, so I got a taste of what it's like not to be in the band. I didn't like that. So I came back and we overdubbed the rest of Blue Earth.

So it's all your guitar work on there and nobody else's?
No some of it is still this really really good guitar player named Dan Gaarder. He actually still plays with Trailer Trash. Dan's a really great guitar player and a great guy.
Was that kind of uncomfortable when you took your role back from him?
No, I don't think so. I don't think they played more than a couple of shows with him, if that. I know they played one, because I actually snuck in and watched! I actually put on a disguise. I put on a stocking cap and a fake mustache.

You've got to be kidding me!
No, and I snuck into the Entry and watched them. I thought, "This is like watching your wife sleep with another man. It was weird. They were all wearing vests, and I decided they needed my help. (he laughs) They were like four or five guys all wearing vests, and they didn't know that it didn't look good. So then I came back and things really started to go.

Well, when you made the leap to Hollywood Town Hall and the big time, were you confident in what you were doing or did it all kinda happen so fast and you found yourself in California writing a record and spending a lot of money. Were you anxious about it or intimidated?
Well, we were scared. When you sit around hoping for something for six years and then it happens, then you don't wanna screw it up. We had gone from making a bunch of demos to going to L.A. and walking into a studio where you realize Leon Russell did a lot of great things and Gram Parsons and the Byrds all recorded there. You know, you kind of freeze. And we kinda froze. We knew we were good, but we also knew that this label (Def American) was the only label that wanted to do anything with us so we didn't wanna blow it. And, we really had a hard time getting going with that record. I think our drummer kind of suffered the most whereas the rest of us could kind of go on and fix our parts and get used to the studio, the drummer had to be on from day one. And he wasn't. And it didn't work out so well. It got real ugly.

How did working with a guy like George Drakoulias, where you were in a situation were you were thrown in right away with a name guy, did that just add to the pressure or was he able to ease you into it?
Well, George really isn't an "ease you into it" kind of guy. George is more like a "don't embarrass me" kind of guy. But that's just the way George…he's really a sweetheart, he just has a funny way of showing it sometimes. He's rarely going to be like, "Well, that's okay, you can do better." He'll give you shit. He's really smart and he's really funny and he's gonna be a kidder. Sometimes that can be hard if you're nervous. But George was THE man. He was the one who heard us and flew out right away and signed us and produced us and had a vision. He was really into 60s/70s music at that time, and I think he was working with the Crowes and sort of saw them as his Stones and we were kind of his Byrds. To this day, the Jayhawks would have probably hardly made much more than Blue Earth without George.

So was he an influential producer in as much as he gave arranging…
Arranging not as much. I think we pretty much had the songs written and arranged. There were certain songs where he had suggestions, but in general he was more of a vibe guy and getting a performance. Getting a guitar solo out of me, just basically getting really cool sounds. He was a perfectionist about the take, especially the rhythm. Although our records are considered somewhat ragged, they were pretty labored over in those early days. It was not an easy process. We also had to fire our main engineer; we had to shut the whole project down while we were out there-the tapes fell apart because the engineer didn't know how to edit correctly. There were a lot of disasters on Hollywood Town Hall, but somehow it was our moment and we came through. That was the record that if we hadn't made it, we'd have all gone back to day jobs. But it wasn't easy.

Tell me about writing "Blue." I think out of a dozen great songs that you've written, that one will always stick out.
I'm not really sure. I remember having just the basic song worked out, and then going over to Mark's apartment when he lived on West 7th in St. Paul up above this little café called the Day By Day Café. Going up there and having this riff and the basic song, playing it for him, and instantly he got excited and he and I finished it. And it happened real quickly. The way we used to work at that time, we would both have guitars but one of us would wander to the other room and we'd both be singing different things and we'd kind of catch what the other guy was doing. And half the time we were both wrong but it was better than what had been said…it would be like, "What was that you just said? Was that something? No, but that's cool…" So we'd write that way. That's how I remember it. Now, he mentioned in an article, which is possible-maybe we finished it this way: we were also working on the Maria McKee record and there was a lot of time sitting around in the studio while Maria was figuring out what she was doing and I think we may have finished it out in L.A. Otherwise, all I can say is it kind of wrote itself like a lot of good songs do. People a lot of times say, "Why don't you write another 'Blue'?" and I'd like to. But I didn't set out to write "Blue" and it just happened. That's kind of how it's got to happen.

Was it one of the one's where you wrote it and said, "Damn, this is a pretty good one!" or are there many that you've felt that way?
Oh yeah. There have been a few songs, some on this record. "Blue", I just remember, playing it before people knew it, playing it at shows, and just thinking, "Wait until they get a load of this one," because it just had an effect on people. You'd play it and people would say, "What's that song? I've heard that song before." That's usually a sign that it's gonna be good. We kinda knew…everybody at the label and George just kinda knew and had earmarked that as being the next single.

Is that exciting when you have a song that you feel really great about, the band feels really good about, and then you bring it to George who you know is harder to please, and you know that you have a good one and he agrees.
I don't really remember that. It was just kind of a consensus when people heard it. I don't remember playing it for George and he getting all excited about it. You just gotta know George too. He's just one of those guys who's just, "Hey that's great." Sometimes, but you get your compliments through the backdoor sometimes. But they come.

When Sound of Lies came out, it was so much better than I thought it was going to be. As a long time fan, I was sick to my stomach that one of the things I valued so much about the band-the blending of your two voices-was gone. But I felt the tone of the album overall was perhaps bitter. Was the writing and making of that record all what was happening in your life or was the songwriting process similar to the way it's always been?
I read a review about Sound of Lies the other day, and it had a really great review about the Sound of Lies and it said that it was the first time our band sounded possessed and I guess I agree with that. It was possessed. It was kind of a "Fuck it!" period, where it was mixture of being liberated and feeling like we had to reinvent ourselves because we're not going to carry on like Mark never left. So, it was liberating but it was very scary and an incredibly depressing period for me because not only Mark leaving but marital problems where you just stop eating and start drinking. But all the doors were open and we just said, "We can do anything we want on this record. We're gonna do it in Minneapolis." We took a viewpoint of it being an indie record, an art piece if you will because I think that the Jayhawks have always been more than what they appear. There's always so much more below the surface and we're not a band of guys who sit around and read No Depression and listen to the Flying Burrito Brothers all the time. Of the favorite bands, a lot of guys like Television and the Only Ones and weird English bands and some pretty dark stuff. So that was always laying there. And once Mark left, it was like, "Well, this might be the last record we ever make so let's do a lot of the things that have been there but we've never really explored." Kind of a no rules situation. That, and having Kraig Johnson in there, who's always willing to go weird, and working with our old friend Brian Paulson, and really being left alone in Minneapolis as opposed to being in some L.A. studio, it all just facilitated into making a very strange record. Everybody was also rushing to fill the hole when Mark left so to me it has a little bit more of a full band creativity to it than maybe some of the other records where it was more of a Mark & Gary show and everybody else kind of filled in. All those things kind of added up to make for the passionate fans, that's their favorite record. For the majority of people, maybe the least favorite, but for the diehards, the people who come up at the end of the shows that's their favorite record. For me, it's a hard one to listen to because of all the things that went on.

It's one of those records where the writing was bursting to get out. One where it was obvious you had something to say.
A lot of those songs were set up to be co-written with Mark, and he just…you know. He said he liked what I had, he didn't have any suggestions. And then he started playing what he had, I liked it. But pretty early on in the process was when he kinda bailed.

Looking back on it, could you have seen it coming, that move by Mark?
Oh yeah. I think we both realized that one or the other was probably…it was such a struggle at that time for creative control. By that time we'd been together for ten years. That's longer than the Beatles, I think. Most bands stay together for two or three years. I think it was just inevitable. Mark Olson had moved to California. He was spending his time devoting himself, rightly so, to his wife, and I think that he was, kind of already in a different place. Even during Tomorrow the Green Grass we were kinda heading to that. But we're still friendly to this day. But the days of four guys just going to the practice space and kind of jamming something out was gone. You had a guy in California and three other guys here…it's hard to make that work. We were headed down that road and it was coming. I think it had just played itself out when you're that long together. Unfortunately during most of those years we weren't putting out records-we should have been, but some people don't realize…they think we put out two records and then Mark left. But we were together seven years before Hollywood Town Hall came out.

So by the time you were working with Bob Ezrin on Smile was that a striking change of producers, going from Brian Paulson to him?
Well yeah.

I've read that you had about 50 songs to demo…
We've always had a lot of songs. 50 good songs? No. (he laughs.) We had fifty song ideas that were cool, that's all. I think that's the difference between this record and Smile, was that we just kind of went demo crazy. We had a bunch of new gear that we'd bought to make a new studio and as much fun as it was to make those demos, sometimes the writing process gets a little lost. I think we weren't really sure of what we had. I think we had a lot of cool sounds, but it was hard to judge what kind of record we had or how strong the songs were. But with the new record it was strictly the acoustic and bass and drums and vocals. And does it sound great this way and then cool it will sound better with just a few more things on it. But with Bob Ezrin, we've had a lot of really great producers. We started with George Drakoulias (I'm not gonna count the earlier stuff in this) and George is a really great producer; we made two records with him. And then Brian Paulson is also a very cool producer and then the legendary Bob Ezrin. And then Ethan Johns and Rick Rubin.

How much was Rick involved?
Rick was very very involved in the new record. Like he is with most of his projects that I know of, he spends most of his time with the artist making sure everything is planned out and that the songs are the best they can be. He gets everything aligned with the engineer and then he kind of hands it off. He lets the people he trusts do all the day to day stuff and then Rick will keep an eye on everything. Which is what he does with the Chili Peppers-that's what he does with the Jayhawks. I would send him demos, just basically me and a guitar or me with the band with a few vocals. I would fly out to L.A. and figured, "Well, this is the first day so he'll probably spend an hour with me." But he spend eight hours, until about three in the morning. We were there on the couch playing the demos and having the acoustic guitar in hand and he would say "Stop, that part could be better," or "That's great!" or "Can you make that better?" and we'd sit there and play until we thought we made things better. He'd make suggestions usually right on, and if I didn't agree with him he'd defer and say, "That's fine." Rick's real good; he doesn't hold an instrument and he doesn't tell you what to write or make suggestions to words or chords. He'll just sit there and wait for you to change it to where the point that it's better. And then you just see if you agree with him or not.

I love how the album came out.
Well, we did that about three times before the record was done, and after struggling getting who we wanted as an engineer, Ethan Johns was available and that was someone that I was interested in working with. Rick met him and really liked him and he was the day-to-day. Between Rick and Ethan, we really had all bases covered. Ethan is a very headstrong producer himself: very headstrong, has a vision. So, to get two of these people both working on the record was really great. It wasn't always easy, because I don't think Ethan is used to having any direction. He doesn't like being told what to do. He doesn't like to have to answer to anybody. There were times where we were turning in the rough mixes and it was almost like an assignment where we'd have to wait for Rick's approval. But it was a back-and-forth deal where they had to meet in the middle. I'm sure there were things that Rick gave in on and some that Ethan gave in on and some we ourselves did. But in general, and I think the main point for anybody who's going to be working with anybody, because we chose really great people to work with you can let go of certain things because you trust who you're working with.

Was that something that you recognized right away, that these were people you trusted or does it take awhile as a musician?
We just happened to know that along the way in our career that we'd gotten people who were really good producers and didn't really have any second thoughts about it. You don't want to get into the studio and start second guessing the producer. That's really an awful situation to be in. Most people need an outside opinion-you can really get lost in your own head and be objective. It's very important to get the right people in there and I think we happened to get the right person at the right time and Ethan especially for this kind of record. So Ethan was pretty much the day-to-day guy who got everything down on tape to bounce things off Rick. Rick really didn't have much to change from the rough mixes; it was in the mixing process where we started having some things that maybe ended up being a little bit of a struggle.

Why two versions of "Stumbling Through the Dark"?
We started with the acoustic version and had recorded it, and then Tim was like, "I hear it being this way," and both versions worked so well…you know, I think the record's too long but not because the songs aren't good enough. Most records should be about 12 songs. But you know, nowadays you don't put out two records a year, you put one every three so it might be 2010 before your next record. So, we couldn't decide which one was better. We tried to crossfade it where it starts out acoustic and then goes into the electric but I felt that it watered it down too much. I liked it the way it is. Getting back to Smile though and working with Bob Ezrin, if you ever get the chance to work with Bob Ezrin I recommend it. He's not only a great producer but as a human being. He's a fascinating to be around. He may be one of the smartest people I've ever met and charming.

Like a musical smart guy or an intellectual smart guy?
Kind of a MENSA kind of guy. But very charming and a real, real, loyal person. To this day, he'll still call me. I haven't talked to him lately, but we've maintained a really good friendship and I think that's great for me because he's a really great producer and a great guy. Now, he took a little bit of flack for some of what he did, but we were all day and we all agreed to get a little nuts.

Well, he helped you make a great album.
Yeah. There will be a few purists who say we did this or that but I think the point that Bob added was…it was a little bit like Sound of Lies where we said, "Why can't we do that? Who says we can't?" Bob, when he gets into the studio is like a 20 year old kid. He gets all excited and it's infectious.
It's been interesting to watch the creative relationship with Tim and watch his role become more obvious to the band. Is it reaching a sort of similar point you had with Mark?
No, it's a different thing because Tim is Tim and Mark is Mark. We work differently. Tim is much more of a private person when it comes to working on songs. Without speaking too much for him, I'll just say that Tim likes to work by himself and then will present things to the band and ask for input. In general, he's just the kind of person who'd rather be tinkering and working on things on his own rather than sitting down across from me with an acoustic guitar. That's just the way Tim works, so it's always going to be different (than Mark.) It's less of a songwriting "team" atmosphere but it's a different kind of collaboration. We have Marc Perlman, myself, and the fact that we play them together as we go along. I think the way we go about playing and developing the style of the and is heavily dictated by the band as a whole and Marc Perlman has a big influence. Everything we do, whether it's touring or whatever, I call him the conscience of the band. What are we doing this for, he's just kind of the guy who's usually right about things.

Do you still feel like you have a strong connection to the clubs in Minneapolis as a local or do you feel like you've transcended that because you've been around for so long?
I guess I really don't know what you mean by that.

Well, when you start out and you're first playing you know all the people on the scene and you're the hot act and really down with everything but as you get older your fans mature and it's not the same as when it's only your friends at the show. So I guess what I'm wondering is how, as you're growing older…
What's this growing older part of the article? I can see I'll have to edit that…(he laughs)..the ailing heart…No, actually you know a lot of those clubs aren't even there anymore. I actually have a stronger relationship with the club owners now than I ever have, I guess because we've been through the wars together and they've become friends of mine. Like Steve McClellan, who's one of the more important people in the rock world, especially here. I think he's actually finally part owner of the First Avenue-I always call him the Jack Nicholson of Minneapolis-but Steve is always someone I've always known and over the past couple of years we've become friends. When I was sick and just got out of the hospital Steve knocked my door with a pizza in his hand, delivering me dinner. The 400 with the Sullivans-Tom and Bill, I just know those guys so well. I don't feel a distance because we've been through it all, I think it's the other way around. We try to be loyal to First Avenue as much as possible or the 400 if we're doing an acoustic/Smog kind of thing, even though we might be able to get more money somewhere else. We always feel like we wanna work with those guys.

Did you ever get the temptation to move to L.A. or another city?
Not really. There have been times where we've thought about moving-I think about it all the time because of the weather-I just don't like the weather here.

When you did the acoustic trio down here it was really illuminating. I always thought that your songs were so good that it would be obvious in a stripped down setting.
Yeah, that was our first show. We'd flown down to Atlanta the first time we did it. Well, we did it in Chicago for the first time in a little bar and to be honest with you, it wasn't that good because we were still trying to figure it out. Atlanta, to this day, is one of the greatest shows we've ever played, just because we didn't know what to expect. It was sold out, or pretty close to it, and we didn't expect that. It was like this triumphant gig, it was wonderful. Actually since then, for better or for worse and I think better, we've learned how to do it in more of a true acoustic manner. That was a little closer to being a rock show. So we've actually honed it to where it's a little less rock show, gotten Tim to play a little more acoustic, Marc has gotten a little more into playing mandolin, things like that. So it's evolved but that was still a great show.

Had you already planned on making a stripped down album?
I don't think that was the case. I think we were already planning on making an album like this as opposed to coming out of an acoustic tour. I think that it was kind of just a coincidence. It was a way for us to tour without having a record out. Being a band that hasn't sold ten million albums, it was easier to tour as a three piece when you don't have a record out.

Was the songwriting process different; when you went to Rick were the songs you took ones that you had been playing out?
The writing process was very much different than Smile, in the fact that we were really into the idea that we could play the song on an acoustic guitar and then add vocal; that's the way you could figure out the song was good. One of the things we learned is that it's fun to play with the studio gear but you can kind of get lost in the process and lose the actual song. That's something we were focusing on for this record: is the song great, and is it great being played on an acoustic guitar or in an orchestra. So that was the approach and we just happened to touring acoustically because of economics and actually, if we ever got a criticism it was that we were loud as a full band and sometimes people had a hard time hearing our vocals. Basically the appeal of the band is probably not our stage presence or looks or the way we move, it's the songs and the singing. And the fact that the band plays well. But the songs and the singing: this is the way to hear it. Some people prefer the acoustic approach; it's not really a long-term deal for us but we've learned things that we will apply to it. We will tend to get quieter or we may even incorporate some of the acoustic elements in the show in the rock format. Actually, partially because I got sick and then we had to cancel a bunch of things, it seemed to be the way that the powers that be wanted things done. The record comes out April first but we really won't be playing as an electric band until May.

So can you keep doing this indefinitely as long as the fans support it? It seems like you've made it past the point of burnout.
Well, I think that we will do it as long as we have a record that's better than the last record. Each time, it all comes down to, "Are we writing great songs or are we just coasting?" Sometimes I wish we could just…it all really just starts with the songwriting and if there's no songs there then we aren't gonna want to record and if we don't record then we're not gonna want to tour. One of the highlights of this record for me was the recording of this record. We recorded most of it live; all the vocals were done live. Not all the backgrounds, but the leads were. If you hear the song, you're hearing the three or four or five guys who were recording it at that time. If you were to turn up the acoustic track, you'd hear my vocal or vice versa, and I just think that makes for more of a convincing performance. Tim did the same thing. The bass/drums/guitars/vocals are pretty much live on all songs. There's a few songs where we brought in a few people and that was entirely live.

Were you just working with guys like Jakob Dylan because they happened to be in the area?
Jakob will be the first to say that he just stopped in and just sang a part. Jakob's just a friend of mine, and I'd stopped in to his session and he stops into mine in L.A. That's not saying I don't appreciate it, it's just that I don't wanna make a big deal of it. Chris Stills and Matthew Sweet were also involved and they're involved because I thought they could help make the record better. But the core of the record is Tim, Marc, and I. Ethan had a lot to do with it also. The title can be looked at like the blues as in sad. But it could also be looked at as contemplative. It's supposed to be more introspective and maybe melancholic than pure depression. It's more that.

Did it seem self-evident because it was in the chorus of a song.
Well, when Rick gets involved he gets really involved. He gets involved in the title, the cover. It's great to have the head of your label care that much. It's great; he tells me that he loves it, that he still listens to it. He wants to be involved all the way through. The title was one thing that we would go back and forth where we would talk and try to think of titles. We went through the lyrics and found a lot of illusions to weather and clouds.

"Come To the River" seems to be the epic rock song of the album whereas the rest of the album seems more spare. Was it long in developing?
Yes, I guess it was. That one went back and forth and was one of the last ones to develop. But on the other hand, it was easy to record since it was live. I think maybe Ethan overdubbed multiple dulcimers or something. It rocks pretty well considering there are no electric guitars.

Would you want to have another player again like a pianist?
I dunno. We're pretty happy with a four-piece. It's a lean machine in a way that really opens things up. There are always going to be songs where it would be nice to have keyboards on. But does that mean that you have a keyboard player up there for the full two hours just because a third of the songs would benefit from it and then the rest of the time it just kinds of fills it up? It's probably not worth it. But if you can find that perfect person who can play keyboards, maybe a little bit of banjo or mandolin or electric guitar, then that would be great. If that person comes along then we might have a fifth member but otherwise we're not going to just pick someone up.

Well, and with the body of work you have out you can easily fill a setlist without a song like that.
Yeah, but I still am limited in the fact that the first two records that there are certain songs, like half and half of each record, where I don't feel comfortable doing some songs. There's a lot of stuff there, but I don't feel like I wrote them all. I can't play "Two Angels." Or "Wichita". Or "Ten Little Kids," or "Miss Williams' Guitar"…those are more Mark, and I don't feel comfortable. So, the body of work is large but it's not as huge as if I'd been the sole writer from 1985. Although now with the last few records alone, we could play a different set every night.

With different players as well.
Yeah, I don't see it that way. Maybe it's because I've forgotten. (laughs) To me, Tim's been in the band for 7 years and it's hard to remember anyone else. It's been me, Tim and Marc for a long time. Karen left the band and then that Olson guy left…we've had two different keyboard players, you're right, and four different drummers. And then Kraig. So there have been a number of players, but I always think of us as Tim, Marc, and I nowadays. It is a band, I can't stress that enough. Everybody's stuck with it not because they made a lot of money but because they believe in the music.

It seems like the perfect label.
When we were in Nashville playing acoustically, we met with them and went into this big conference room and when we walked into the room the first thing they said was, "What would you think of us releasing a vinyl boxed set of all your work?" Records? Vinyl? That's the kind of thing that makes your jaw drop. So, we couldn't be in a better spot. I don't think anybody thinks that we're gonna sell ten million records but everybody's in it for the right reasons. They all love the music and they want to see the Jayhawks do better than they've done in the past. Take it up a step.

So where's the boxed set?
Hah, it's coming. Not yet. (he laughs.)

And what about the Bunkhouse record?
I dunno. Neither Mark Olson nor myself are that interested in doing it. You know what, it's really not that good of a record. A lot of bands peak on their first record, like the Clash and the first Clash record. Not the Jayhawks. The Jayhawks were a band in search of us. The kind of music takes time to develop. It's a bit of a mature style. It takes awhile to learn how to do it and we didn't know how to do it then. It's much more interesting to fans than us. There may come a time but it never seems to be the right time.

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