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We have a general standard and we aren't going to work on a song that's not up to that standard. Both of our minds move in around the same place. We're both trying to meet that standard, and we try to change everything a bit so each of our songs is a little different from the others. -Mark Olson |
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Mark Olson
Life's Warm Sheets
There's a strong fight towards the light and an embrace of everyday pleasures in Louris & Olson's recent work, evidenced by the hard won resilience drifting through Ready For The Flood, Louris' Vagabonds and Olson's marvelous 2007 solo debut, The Salvation Blues (JamBase review). Having survived a painful divorce and the inevitable confusion and self-recrimination that follows the dissolution of a long-time connection, Olson's lyrics and melodies have taken on a richness of late born of heavy things that he transforms into positives.
Some people came here to die
We came here to live
There's a hope in our heart
There's a future in our souls
"It's also in the actual playing and making of music. When I pick up a guitar and start singing it tends to be melancholy. So, just in my basic melodies and basic chords, the first thing I tend to look for is something melancholy. Then, I try to build it up into melodic things that aren't so dark, basically. That's what comes naturally – my voice is kind of low and like that – so I try to do what doesn't come natural, what doesn't come easy [laughs]. That makes for a more complete song," says Olson, who also offsets his downward tendencies with sly, offhanded humor. "Yeah, I do! That's how I am. When I'm feeling good in life I tend to laugh a lot. It's also talking to myself sometimes. I overhear someone and then I have a conversation with myself if I have something funny to say about it. If somebody's around maybe I'll say it to them, if I think they'll get it [laughs]."
Someone who gets his jokes, so to speak, is clearly Louris. There is a down-in-the-marrow unity of voices when Louris and Olson get to harmonizing, with just-rough-enough symmetry that's not far from the clapboard chapel music of the 1920s one hears on scratchy 78 records but given a stately, purposeful pace, each tune finding its footing with unhurried sureness.
"We don't so much have a brother thing, but we do have sympathetic voices. But, we don't sound the same. They're very different voices but it's a true sum-is-greater-than-the-parts thing. Fans call it ' The Univoice' [laughs]. Tim [O'Reagan] in The Jayhawks has a great voice, probably better than Mark or I, but I think Mark's and my voice have a unique quality where you just couldn't plug in somebody else," says Louris, who's fully aware that Flood is probably not the album diehards longing for another Hollywood Town Hall or Tomorrow The Green Grass were awaiting. "Most musicians, artists, whatever, need to be ahead of their audience and not cater to it. Hopefully it leads them along. They might not get it right away but a few years later they say, 'Oh, I see it now.' But, it doesn't always happen immediately."
"I think we've both continued to be somewhat adventurous. That's the thing for me, where it's at is being curious, and each time you do something you try to spark your curiosity, which in turn sparks other people, too," says Olson.
EPK for new album
Here's the duo's recent Letterman appearance, where they played one of their new standouts.
We travel back to 1995 and the old Jon Stewart show for this performance of "Blue," simply one of the greatest songs of the past 20 years.
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