Oregon Music News

If there’s anything that Portland goes nuts over (besides really good beer), it is melodic, quirky pop music.  So much so, that at times it gets to be too much and can be, well, boring.  Recently, a band that used to be called Church–until some Aussie rockers of the same name asked them to change it–has grabbed Portland’s attention.  While they offer music that is oh-so-Portland, it shines out among the usual drab contenders by virtue of the emotional pull this band exudes over their audiences. 

Oregon Music News recently caught up with Lane of Hosannas, one of Portland’s favorite avant-pop collections, to talk about their new album, Then & Now & Then that was released May 11 on Hush Records. Their new album compromises re-releases of their first two EPs and a few new tracks.  To celebrate the release, they played a show at Mississippi Studios where several friends and guest musicians joined them onstage, including violinist Shannon Steale, who plays with Typhoon and Ah Holly Fam’ly, and saxophonist Alexi from Ah Holly Fam’ly.  The band rolled through a set that included some older songs, recreating them with the fullness of the complete band lineup now.

After the release gig, they embarked on yet another tour, this one covering a lot of Western America, and it wraps up in Bend at this Friday, June 18th at the Rise-Up International Warehouse.

The first question I have for you: Are there any interview questions you positively hate answering?

Hosannas: Haha, that’s a great question!  Uh, no.  We used to always get asked why we chose the name Church.  There’s really no great answer.  After we changed it to Hosannas, people kept asking why we changed it.  Not to be sued?  It’s one of our least favorite things to talk about but now we don’t have to so much.  As far as being called Church, in one way, it’s less serious than people think, you know, it’s more a casual thing.  It felt right.  Kind of like what the music was.  Hosannas means a cry for safety.  When we were changing our name we tried other things that were separated ideologically but it seemed so forced.  We’re totally keeping with the mantra, we’re still playing Church songs.

You guys have built quite a reputation as a touring/working band.  Describe the touring process: How do you guys relax?  Fun aspects?  Not so fun?  Any crazy stories?

I think we really get along great.  We haven’t had a huge fight at all really.  One of the things we hate is that we tour so much we have to constantly be booking because we book ourselves.  Sometimes we have to spend the entire day in a university library booking shows.  We’re trying to plan our days off really well for this tour at national parks.  Hiking is a key thing for us if we have any time.  On Brandon’s birthday recently, he and his girlfriend hiked Multnomah Falls and 15 of us met him at the top with a cake.

Let’s talk about the album.

It’s quite an honor to have a label representing us like Hush.  I was into them back in Florida and never thought I’d ever get to work with them.  It’s great because it saves us  a lot of work: We don’t have to hand-stamp them or burn them, haha.  It’s been a journey putting it all together.  We’re really excited.  The order of the songs are much better and everything’s remastered.  It’s a much better product.  It’s an honor to have people like Hush helping you create something important and being a part of such a long process.

What drew you to Portland?

Brandon and Richard are from Santa Rosa.  Cristof is from Ventura, CA.  He went to college at the University of California, Santa Barbara with Brandon where they met and started playing music.  They moved to Portland and started playing shows as Church.  I’m from Florida, moved to Portland and fell into the band.

What would you say is the recipe for success in the Portland music scene?

I was talking to this  guy at the market today who thinks his music is too straight-up pop to succeed here.  But it can also go the other way where it’s too experimental.  But right now, I think there’s a combination where people are looking for simple melodies coupled with something a little more strange and non-conventional.

In the two years since Loch Lomond released their first proper band album, Paper The Walls, this lovely chamber folk outfit have made that slow steady climb up the hill toward international renown. Much of it has been on the strength of their sharp and often dramatic live performances that swing from small fragile moments that hinge on the interplay of a finger-picked acoustic guitar and singer/songwriter Ritchie Young’s falsetto to clattering, shuddering crescendos that resemble woozy sea shanties. The quintet have taken their live show around the U.S. with startling frequency, including last year’s month-long jaunt as openers for The Decemberists.

This spirit is captured most immediately on the band’s latest release, the five-song EP entitled Night Bats. It starts with the most indie pop recording Loch Lomond has done to date before falling into another dreamy sway. Along the way, they make time to add some muscle to an older song and cover a vintage ’60s-era Bee Gees classic, finishing it all off with a rousing and haunting closing track that will linger in your synapses well after it has stopped playing.

Oregon Music News caught up with Young after an afternoon recording session at OPB and before the band geared up for their CD release show at his new club The Woods.

Why did you decided to just release an EP at this time rather than a full-length album?

Well we have a full-length that we recorded this last year. It’s called Little Me Will Start A Storm and it’s going to come out in spring of 2010. We had this window of time to come into the studio and record and mix and master in 20 days. It was really great to do something where we didn’t micro analyze every part of it and second-guess everything. In the end, we decided to kind of remix a few of the songs with Tucker Martine. And it has been since August 2007 since we released anything on disc, so we did this EP. I like it a lot. I think our full-length is a little more experimental than anything we’ve put out before. The EP is the cross between the old Loch Lomond recordings and our new material.

The first two songs on Night Bats – “Ghost Of An Earthworm” and the title track – have a fable like quality to them. What was the inspiration behind these two?

When I was 14, I saw an episode of Ripley’s Believe It or Not and in it was an Indian peasant who in his backyard saw these giant glowing earthworms. About six months ago, I had this really vivid dream that I was one of those worms but that I had swallowed a skeleton and could walk around. “Night Bats” is essentially a love song about a person I was dating. She was very much a day person and I was very much a night person, so there was this real love/hate relationship in the way we looked at the world. It showed me that you can be not right for someone but still care about them very much. So, I put that in a fable setting, and wrote a not vague metaphor for that situation.

You also re-recorded an older song, “Spine”, for the record. What prompted you to revisit this one?

I recorded the original recording five years ago, with just me and another person. But the way we had been doing it live and it had life and energy and we’re going to start playing it again this year. It’s a fun song. And we were really tired of ending out set with that song, “Tic”. We had being doing it for so many years, that we felt we needed a crescendo at the end of the set. So we decided to retool that song and give it life again.

How about the Bee Gees cover on the album, “Holiday”?

That song was chosen for us by a friend of ours, John Brophy, who is just a huge fan of music; he runs Baby Ketten Karaoke. He was putting together a compilation and he said, “I really want you guys to do this song by The Bee Gees.” At first I said, “No, that’s not right for us” But listening to it, I realized that in a weird way that recording was an influence on the band that we’re not even aware of. It sounds so much like what I hope Loch Lomond sounds like to people.

It feels like, with this new material especially, you are really putting the focus on the vocals and pushing that forward in the songs. Was this on purpose or am I just imagining things?

Yeah, on this new record and the EP, the vocals driving force them. For about a year, we have been really focusing on the vocals for live performances. Before, a lot of the focus has been on the instrumentation of the band. I think that we want to keep that a huge part of what we’re doing but have the vocals be the most present thing. And it’s just really fun to sing with people that love singing. You know The Flash Choir? Watching them, you can tell everyone involved just loves singing. Watching them perform is such a huge rush. Even when I’m sick onstage with the flu and having a fever, or I have a toothache, when I’m singing it just kills all of that. Of course, when you’re done singing, it all comes back…

Loch Lomond went on tour with The Decemberists not too long ago. What was that experience like?

It was amazing. They were total professionals and really sweet to us. No rock star attitude at all. It was a fantastic experience. For me, I get really excited and overwhelmed that we play a show where there was 200 people there. Then we were playing to 2,000 to 4,000 people a night for almost a month. It was really an eye opener.

You also opened up a venue in Portland, The Woods. How did that get started?

At the end of The Decemberists tour, I was talking with my roommate Vivian Lyon about it. She’s a lawyer, but didn’t want to work for anyone and I was getting tired of looking for work after touring. It was a lot of planning and somehow it fell into line. I really didn’t think it was going to happen. We couldn’t get loans to start it up, but the economy fell to the point that it allowed some people with an idea to just run with it. It’s been like going to school for opening a business. I’ve learned a lot and I have so much more to learn, but it’s been fun.

During 2008, an engaging series of electronic pop tracks started appearing on the Internet every other weekday, the musical creation of an enigmatic figure known only as Podington Bear. These quickly drawn sketches were surprisingly rich creations, free of kitsch and full of warmth. All told, Podington released 156 tracks in his initial run, all of which were available as a podcast (natch) or in a collected 10-disc box set.

Before the year was out, P. Bear had earned himself thousands of fans worldwide,  including the folks at This American Life who chose some of his tracks as bed music for their popular radio show. As well, Podington Bear’s true identity was revealed to be none other than Hush Records owner Chad Crouch, who capped off this disclosure with a live performance at the 2008 PDX Pop Now Festival.

Well, after a much-deserved respite, Crouch has decided to slip back on the cozy costume and is creating new Podington Bear material, this time as weekly podcast that he introduces, narrates, and above all else, charms the listener into willing submission right before playing his latest tracks. You can check out the new episodes and subscribe to the podcast at the Podington Bear site or Hush Records’ website.