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Features Flying High Sunday, April 06, 2008 Gary Louris Releases A Superb Solo Album And Reunites With His Former Jayhawk Colleague Mark Olson. By Brian Wise
It sounds like faint praise indeed to claim The Jayhawks as one of the most under-rated bands of the past two decades. It underplays that band’s catalogue of excellent recordings and its undoubted influence over what came to be known as the alt.country movement.
While Uncle Tupelo, and its subsequent offshoot Wilco, were the early darlings of the genre (if you could call it that), The Jayhawks seemed to better capture and keep alive the spirit of musicians such as Gram Parsons. At times you might swear that either Louris or his co-founder Mark Olson were the reincarnations of Parsons and, like Gram, they refused to stand still.
While other bands treated some of the music as museum pieces, The Jayhawks evolved, fusing their own amalgam of rock and country. That background is important in understanding where Gary Louris comes from and where might go.
The Jayhawks did not break up in 1995 when Olson left to spend more time with his partner Victoria Williams and to start The Original Harmony Ridge Creek Dippers. Instead, Louris and his remaining bandmates decided to continue and produced two more acclaimed albums – The Sound Of Lies and Rainy Day Music - before stuttering to a halt.
More than a decade later Olson has claimed that the reason for his departure from the band was that he ‘flipped out.’ But now he is back working with Louris. They toured together three years ago in what is the closest we are likely to come to a Jayhawks reunion for now. They have also recorded an album together – described by Louris as ‘a pretty quiet record’ - due for release later this year. Olson’s own superb Salvation Blues was released to great acclaim late last year.
There is also a Jayhawks live album (and DVD) slated for release, as well as a ‘best of’ collection from Golden Smog (a Louris side project). Louris has recently produced both The Sadies and Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion.
“People still say, why did you break up,” says Louris, “even this last break up where we really put an end to it - put a period at the end of the sentence and said, ‘Okay, we are really done.’ I’m like we were together 20 years! Even The Beatles were only together for 10 or whatever…….or The Clash, or great bands that I love. It’s tough to maintain the freshness of it.”
“The Jayhawks were selling as many records as they ever had on Rainy Day Music,” he continues, “and we had more people coming to our shows. We were kind of on an up swing. But still there was that feeling that we were getting tired of the sameness. We didn’t see a change in the scenery so much. I think we needed to move upwards in the success ladder to keep it interesting for us. I think everybody started looking at it more like a job. It wasn’t because we didn’t love each other because we did. It’s not like we didn’t enjoy playing with each other. It just wasn’t as much fun anymore.
“But with Mark, when he left there were a number of issues. He was just kind of tired of the big music game. There were a lot of factors. Whether he regrets it or says he wishes he could have seen it through a little longer - but you do what you do and here we are.”
“If we played anymore Jayhawks shows I would want Mark involved,” says Louris when I mention that the band managed to continue despite Olson’s absence. “Because now we’re friends again I realised how much I missed him in the band.”
“It depends on how you want to measure success,” says Louris about the achievements of The Jayhawks. “It’s all relative. I try to look at what we have and not what we don’t have. I’m proud of the band and I feel like we did what we could. Would I have liked to be more successful? Sure!
“I have friends that are incredibly talented who can’t get arrested and compared to them I’m like this superstar,” he laughs. “Then other guys…..I compare myself to other bands who’ve gone on to gold and platinum and I feel a bit of a failure. It really depends on what you compare yourself to.”
Louris is about to go out on tour to promote his debut solo album, Vagabonds (which comes with a bonus acoustic disc in the USA). It is produced by Chris Robinson from The Black Crowes, whom Louris became friends with when they were both on Rick Rubin’s Def American label.
“Before I did my record in January of last year we did a Mark Olson and Gary Louris record where the two of us wrote some new songs,” explains Louris, “and we tried to think of somebody who would help us guide the ship and make us feel comfortable - someone we knew who would handle the music with care and respect - and Chris was the guy. It went so well with him for that record that I decided I wanted to work with him on my own record.”
“He’s well-rounded,” says Louris of Robinson. “He knows Stockhausen, Faust and Neu! and he knows Big Star and he knows The Beatles and he loves The Byrds. He loves, of course, the music that the Crowes are known for but he is a pretty well rounded musician.
“I grew up listening to a lot of pop music and pop rock and art rock way before I listened to any roots rock. It just seems that the softer, rootsy music is more suited for my voice and my song writing. But it doesn’t mean I’m not well versed in other kinds of music. The same with Chris: he just knows a lot about all kinds of music.”
“I was very happy with the way it worked and the musicians we brought in,” responds Louris when I tell him how good the album sounds and what a fine job Robinson has done on production. “It just gelled right away and it was just a really kind of magical experience.”
It is amazing, given Louris’ history that Vagabonds is his debut solo album and comes after a recording gap or more than five years.
“Well I drag my feet at that!” he laughs. “I was enjoying decompressing from the whole ‘tour, record, tour, record, promote’ merry go round and really just enjoyed being the family man and dabbling in things that I hadn’t had time for in the past because I was always touring or working on Jayhawks records.
“I did a lot of co-writing and a little bit of film work. Of course, we did a couple of Golden Smog records and just a little producing. So I’ve been busy in certain respects.”
Louris also reveals that his wife opened a store and he ‘wanted to return the favour after all these years’ by helping her. “She kind of held down the homestead. I thought I could stay at home to help her get started a bit.”
“So all those things kind of added up too,” he adds. “Also there is a little reluctance to an indecisiveness on my part on how I wanted to record this record and with who. It is sort of a clean slate with me all of a sudden now. I had the opportunity to do whatever I wanted. I think after that Olson-Louris album I was out in Los Angeles and it just felt like home again to record out there. I’d liked the people I’d met and I kind of galvanised a plan working with Chris out in LA working with this group of musicians.”
Those musicians include the Laurel Canyon Family Choir including The Bangles' Susanna Hoffs, Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis, and Chris Robinson himself.
While there are the obvious links with the past, there are also other interesting references. No one would ever claim that Skip Spence was an influence on Louris’ album but he is a fan of the Moby Grape eccentric and there is a line in ‘Black Grass’ that immediately recalls Spence’s solo work: ‘there’s a fly on the wall.’
“That theme seems to crop up a number of times in the various songs I write,” admits Louris. “There’s a dragonfly or flies. There seems to be something that’s cropped up.
“Actually ‘Omaha Nights’ is more a reference to the song ‘Omaha’ than the city of Omaha, Nebraska. It’s more about somebody sick listening to their favourite music which in this case was the song ‘Omaha.’ So there are little reference to Skip here and there but I have covered some of his music in the past.”
On ‘To Die A Happy Man,’ one of the most beautiful songs on the album, the lyrics belie the music, in the same way – I mention to Louris - that Ray Davies writes upbeat music underneath dark words.
“I think it’s talking about the beautiful struggle that is life in general,” explains Louris. “It’s hard - it’s miserable and it’s wonderful and everything in between. I think I tend to write songs that sound pretty but if you listen closely to the lyrics a lot of the time they are a little on the dark side. I think it’s got to be that way. You can’t have too much saccharin.”
“Ray is one of my favourites. I’ve been listening to a lot of the Kinks lately and I think I’m going to cover a song or two of theirs on my next tour - not ‘Lola’,” he laughs. “Something a bit more obscure. I always admired Ray as a real songwriter’s songwriter. He has this tendency to write these little jaunty melodies but they are these strange little photographs of life.”
“The McCartney records are the same thing,” continues Louris. “You can’t compare it to him at his peak. If you just listen to them without the bias of who he is, it’s a great record.
“I’m trying to be somebody who maintains and does his best work, as he gets older as opposed to being a shadow of his former self. Maybe that’s part of the charm of not being incredibly successful. I think I still have that - trying to prove myself all the time. I know a lot of people have sold a lot more records than I have and they have a harder time even drawing the number of people that I draw because they had radio hits or whatever. I mean all those people’s luck has run out and that’s harsh when you sell a few million records and then you’re your next record you’re selling like 15,000.”
“It’s easier to stay on the sidelines,” reflects Louris about the post-Jayhawks years. “As long as I didn’t put out a record I didn’t fail. It’s out and I can see what the reality of the business is now, but I think I’m just getting going here. I’m hoping my career is going to be a little bit like a smaller scale Neil Young career. (My CSNY is Golden Smog). He can go out and play with a band, he can play solo. I’m hoping to play shows with a band and hoping to go with an acoustic guitar and play.”
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