Check out the inside cover
of the new Old 97's album, Drag It Up, and witness a band with
wall-to-wall grins. Why so happy? I mean, didn't they take Rock 101? Rock bands
aren't supposed to smile in photos. No way.
Well, for one, the Old 97's are hardly your typical rock band. Or
country band. Or country-rock band. Or whatever. They've defied cliché with
their smart and spirited twang-pop sound ever since their debut with Hitchhike To Rhome in 1994. Moreover,
collectively they're one of the most down-to-earth, easy-going groups of
musicians around.
But it's tempting to read
more into this message of joy, for it's fair to suggest that over the last
couple years before the band started making Drag It Up in earnest that things were anything but happy within in band inner-circle. A "hiatus" is how
the group officially described its two years of downtime as frontman Rhett
Miller embarked upon a solo career with the 2002 release, The Instigator. That kept Miller in the game, but his O97 mates --
guitarist Ken Bethea, bassist Murry Hammond, drummer Philip Peeples -- left on
their sidelines waiting. As Miller concedes, the chapter was "the biggest
sort of long-term challenge that the band has endured."
Last year the Old 97's
decided that it was time to be the Old 97's again. It was determined that the
Dallas-rooted outfit that had charmed audiences and critics over five albums
through much of the '90s and into the new century had reason to venture forth
again. Drag It Up is the result, the
band's first for independent label New West Records.
Drag It Up is not just a return in the literal sense, but in an artistic sense as well, to
the tone of the band's earliest days. Recorded in great part on eight-track in
a small studio in San Diego with rockabilly/roots producer Mark Neill, the
effort departs from the crisp, pop wizardry of the quartet's three Elektra
releases (2001's Satellite Rides,
1999's Fight Songs, 1997's Too Far Too Care) in favor of a
stripped-down style more akin to Hitchhike To Rhome and that album's follow-up, the essential '90s alt-country (or
country-rock or indie-twang-punk-pop, or whatever it is you feel most
comfortable calling it) work, Wreck Your
Life.
But, while the first track,
"Won't Be Home," with its rat-a-tat locomotion and soaring choruses,
is quintessential Old 97's -- assuming there is such a thing -- ample parts of the
album unearth some new turf for the decade-old group. Most notably, there's a
greater abundance of moody and more serious contemplation, slow motion and, in
the case of "Valium Waltz," simmering psychedelia. A little more
challenging then "Timebomb," indeed, but worth the effort. Drag It Up also boast Bethea's debut on
lead vocals on the silly but madly infectious "Coahuila" and Hammond
singing what might be his most straight-up rock song to date
("Smokers"). All plenty rewarding.
At its best, Drag It Up captures a group that sounds
at ease, assured, accomplished, inspired, matured -- as if finally free of the
far-stretched dreams and demands of mainstream acceptance. It also intimates
the obvious yet welcome feeling of old friends recapturing what it is that
excited them about devoting their lives to making music together in the first
place. Such emotion and unity is also suggested in the album's liner notes,
which include dedications to Hammond's father Donald, who passed away this
year, and hellos to Aidan Merritt Peeples, Eliza Rose Bethea, and Maxwell Iahn
Miller, otherwise described as "the three newest satellites to our Old
97's family."
Family. That's it. Hence the
smiles.
MoMZine
tracked Hammond and Miller down while the band was on tour in Birmingham,
Alabama. As a group with such a passionate following, we decided to hit them up
with questions posed by the fans themselves. The response was overwhelming, the
questions impressively insightful. The lesson: smart bands spawn smart fans.
Say that ten times fast.
-- Neal Weiss, July 27, 2004
Mike Polkalba, Pittsburgh, PA: What inspired you to
re-capture the sound of the earlier Old 97's CDs on the latest CD as opposed to the
poppier sound of more recent albums?
Murry Hammond: Really, it was kind of in response to where we were at. We had gone of
this arc of being more poppy and then we took a break. And in getting back
together, in trying to make things like they were before the break, we sort of
wanted to remind ourselves in a very real way why we wanted to do this band, why
we like this band. And what it comes down to is, four friends being in the same
room and coming up with a very basic sound. And we thought it was important to
put that unique sound out there -- no bells and whistles. And in many ways make
it one of the most raw records we've done. It's not as raw as Hitchhike To Rhome because we're playing
so much better, but we wanted to record the mustard seed of what we're all
about.
Rhett Miller: When we were first starting out, the reasons for our cheap recording
were necessity and lack of choice. This time around we thought it would be cool
to try and capture the way that our band really just sounds when we set up in a
room. So, the end result was the same, we wound up going to a more live
approach and a smaller, less tricked-out system, and what we got I think
captures some of the best elements of our band -- our live show, our history,
and the chemistry that we've developed after ten years of doing this. That's
why it sounds old-timey.
Gerald Barker, Cookeville, TN: How did Rhett's solo
CD and tour affect the group dynamic?:
Murry: It
didn't affect the group dynamic at all. All it did was make us unemployed for a
couple years. But the group dynamic is exactly the same as it was. It's never
changed. Rhett may not like that as much, he gets to be the boss in his solo
world but has to be some ol' 25% schlubb in this world.
Nick Ritrovato, Bridgeport, PA: Rhett, now that
you've released a solo disc and have toured solo, has it changed how you
approach working with the band?
Rhett: It
makes me appreciate the band's chemistry, even though I did have a lot of fun
playing with the Instigators. Also, it made me more open to being in the studio
and flying by the seat of my pants. That was what Jon Brion and I did for
months for The Instigator. Not to
mention, I did a lot of touring as a solo-acoustic act and that gives you a lot
of confidence, because if you can stand up in front of thousands of people,
opening up for somebody, so they're not even your fans, and do it every single
night, I feel pretty strong as a performer.
MoMZine: Rhett, were you happy with the commercial
results of the solo album and will there be another one:
Rhett: Well,
you know, I would always love to be fuckin' Elvis… There is always this moment
with the Old 97's and even with The Instigator, it's like we've always
been on an upward trajectory, so our career arc is forever rising. I felt good
about The Instigator. If anything it
made it possible for me to do stuff as "Rhett Miller" for the rest of
my life and also we can do the Old 97's
for the rest of my life, so I'm kind of set.
MoMZine: Talk about the moving from Elektra to New
West Records. Does being back on an independent label change your goals, alter
your potential definition of success?:
Murry: It
doesn't alter my definition of success. We became successful in my mind in
1995, because all of our goals were met that year. It's been icing on the cake
for years. The biggest difference with being on New West than Elektra is that,
you know I didn't realize it so much during the Elektra years but I feel kinda
more relaxed, like there's less expectation and more room to just be whatever
we want to be. I sorta thought I had that during the Elektra years because we
kinda did whatever we wanted to do but there's a real basic relaxed feeling now
that we're with a label that loves what we do. "We love what you do, we
love what you do," they say. That's kinda what Elektra would say to us but
there were conditions along with it. Now it's just kind of a free-for-all. We
wouldn't have been able to turn in the New West record to Elektra.
Rhett: We
talk about this a lot, ten years in. It's nice, we're all back together for the
last month… We all feel very successful. There are peaks to which we still
aspire but we all feel pretty good about it. Indie vs. majors: I don't know. We
never really got much grief from our major label, although it is nice to know that
instead of the dozen or two dozen people out of the hundreds that work for your
label [Elektra], everybody that works for the label [New West] is a champion of
the band, knows who we are and likes us. That's cool. We had a pretty good
experience with Elektra. It was bound by its major-label status big time,
beholden to its shareholders… it does feel a little more artistic on New West.
Dan Price, Chicago, IL: I read somewhere that Rhett
handed out copies of David Bowie's The
Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars to the band
before recording the new album. Were any of the Drag It Up songs influenced by this?
Rhett: I
did do that, it was the most recent release of the two-disc set Ziggy Stardust. It was more about the
way the band sounded because Bowie had just made Hunky Dory and he had this band -- they hadn't been together as
long as we had -- but they were fucking on all cylinders. And so he took them
in and captured it, recorded the album quickly and it was just about good songs
presented well. I remember when I handed it to Murry he goes, 'We're not gonna
sound like David Bowie, right?' I think some of it got in there. I know Ken's
been listening to it a lot.
Paul Barr, Downers Grove, IL: What advice did you ignore early on in the
band's existence that you wish you hadn't and who offered it?
Rhett: Well,
I could talk about our name because there have been times when the adjective
'Old' has rankled me. But I don't dwell on the regrets much, in fact I try to
shove them out. I feel pretty good about everything we've done. The best answer
is the UK, that's the thing that we've most neglected and I watch my peers go
over there and find the respect that they sometimes don't get over here and
make dough and travel around Europe and have fun. The UK specifically and
Europe in general, we dropped the ball. We've never had a manager that would
focus on Europe and thought it was worthwhile. So hopefully this is the album
where that changes and we exist in the UK, especially when most of my favorite
artists are from fucking London.
MoMZine: Compare then to now. Anything you most miss
about the early days?
Murry: The
thing I miss about the early days is that we lived in the same town. And I miss
the simplicity of the small places we used to play. I miss the beer joints, the
little dives. I don't think it's ever been like that since. It was so cool,
such a simple discovery. Everything after that is real fun, we've done some
pretty fun stuff -- TV, big festivals, big theatres, opened up for people we
like, things like that -- but there's just something about the first time.
Rhett: The
thing I miss about the early days is the simplicity. Now I've got a wife that I
love and a kid that it fuckin' breaks my heart every minute I'm not with him --
those were the days that we could do whatever we wanted. We could sit around
and play washers in the backyard and get drunk and stay up 'til the middle of
the night and write songs and smoke cigarettes. Dude, I can't smoke, much less
find hours in a row to drink beer and write songs. But that's just mortality,
aging, human experience.
Joe Arena, Appleton, WI: I have been out on a few
message boards for Ryan Adams and have one question and hopefully clear the air
on this subject: are there any references made in any of your songs to Ryan
Adams?
Rhett: No.
I would be hard-pressed to tell you what any of my songs are about anyway, and
I've heard this before, about even "Crash On The Barrelhead," and
some girl yelled it out about "The New Kid" the other night, but no.
I have never considered Ryan Adams during the process of songwriting. He has
not entered into any of my songs as a character nor does he as a person or his
music affect anything I do when I'm in my basement with my guitar and writing.
Jessica Mayle,
Richmond, TX: In ten years and six albums, there have to have been a few
spats. What's been the biggest inter-97 fight or argument of all time? Was it
over a girl or a song? Any alcohol or bloody noses involved?
Murry: We're
like any other band that goes on for a long time. We have those brother-type
arguments. We'll all get cranky at the same time, usually because we're playing
at eight o'clock in the morning for a TV show or something like that. Nothing
too terribly big. Usually it comes down to road fatigue, somebody gets cranky…
usually Rhett gets cranky. Nothing too terrible. We don't have that one big
story…. [laughs] I remember Ken stormed off the stage one time because Rhett
was nit-picking at him about something but I can't remember what it was. We
actually get along so good that there's never really been one big battle.
Rhett: If
you're looking at the sort of long-term difficulty, my solo record turning into
two years of hard work and downtime for the band was the biggest sort of
long-term challenge that the band has endured. There have been blow-ups about
songs, what songs are going to be on the record… There were two weeks of
rehearsal leading up to Fight Songs
that we did in the Sons Of Hermann Hall in Dallas where we were set up on the
stage facing each other. And I had a lot of songs and the boundaries of the Old
97's' sound were being stretched. I was
listening I think to Belle & Sebastian's record, If You're Feeling Sinister, and Chappaquiddick
Skyline, and I was wanting something a little more pretty. And the band is a
fucking snot-nosed Texas bar band in some ways. And there were a couple of
weeks where it got really intense, and there where epithets hurled. But what
are you gonna do? We survived it and I think that record is great and the band
warms up to it with every day that passes between those fights and today.
Eugene Unger, Easley, SC: If you could be another
member of the band for a day (which includes a show), which member would you be
and why?
Murry: I wouldn't
want to be Rhett because they run him crazy. I think being Ken would be fun. He
wouldn't make me too drunk and he has his own fist-pumpers in front of him at
shows. And he'd still hang out with the family after the show.
Rhett: Ken.
You know what I would do if I was Ken for a day? I would play everybody in
whatever game was around, because then I would win for once, because Ken wins
everything -- air hockey, PlayStation football, any card game, board game. And
then I would enjoy whatever it feels like to feel completely comfortable doing
absolutely nothing, not worrying about anything or anybody but my own pleasure.
Ken can't respond to this but he is a very Dionysian person. I would fucking
love it, because I'm a hummingbird over here.
MoMZine: What would you like people to say and
understand about the Old 97's? What
should it say on the band tombstone when it's all said and done?
Rhett: Quality.
I would like people to remember us as a great band that played great shows and
made great records. Not necessarily a band that sold a billion records or
self-destructed or married a movie star, whatever, just as a high-quality rock
'n' roll experience.
Justin Castillo, Portland, OR: What would be the
first sign that you've sold out?
Murry: One
good sign would be that the Old 97's
show up for a show and the members had changed [laughs]. Murry's not there
anymore. Ken's not there anymore, Philip's been replaced by some world-class
drummer. That would be a good sign. That's usually the sign I use for everybody
else. If band shows up and it ain't the same members, somebody sold out.
Rhett: You
sure that shouldn't be "What was
the first sign?" That whole concept of selling out to me is so disgusting.
It's like, am I not supposed to feed my child? Of course I want to make money.
I've never made anywhere near the amount of money that my contemporaries that I
went to high school with, they are all doctors and lawyers, I've made on
average what school teacher makes. Not that I'm complaining, obviously I'm
happy now and I have a home and a family -- life is good. But if I'm ever able
to build a tennis court, it means I've sold out. And I'm pushing for that
fucking day!
Mark Rosen, New Paltz, NY: Which song from your
catalog do you think is most likely to eventually appear in a car commercial?
Rhett: Duh,
"Won't Be Home." Ford needs to use this song: "[sings] I was
born in the back seat of a Mustang…" They could get Bob Seger to sing it. Maybe
that would be the sign that we'd sold out.
