Pitchfork

Photo by Steven Gullick

The aptly-named Sojourner box set-- which lands August 7 on Secretly Canadian-- finds Jason Molina and Magnolia Electric Co. offering up four CDs of new material recorded with four different lineups in four different places, plus a DVD documenting life on the road, and a few perhaps eyebrow-raising bonus goodies.

Pitchfork caught up with Molina recently to discuss the big box-- his gift, of sorts, to fans and to his label. He talked about the struggle toward a great record, the recurring imagery in his songs, and, yep, life on the road. Along the way we also got Jason's take on the present state of music and learned why touring is the ultimate test of a band's chops.

Our sojourner, based in Chicago but temporarily living in London, naturally has heaps of tour dates lined up as well. But first...

Pitchfork: Let's talk about the Sojourner box. So there's CDs, a DVD, postcards-- and a medallion?? What's the deal with that?

Jason Molina: It's honestly just a little tiny pewter medallion, with this image from the cover of the box on it, that actually has a loop so you could wear it if you wanted. But the idea was, we have this box set, which is basically as over-the-top as you can go and still be respectful of the music. It has a lot of stuff in it, but with the themes of traveling and endless displacement, I thought [it needed] some sort of relic that you could take with you. You might not be able to take the music with you, but this is something to throw in your pocket, or just throw in the glove box of your car when you're doing a roadtrip. That's all it is. It's not a big deal at all.

The funny part is that people just think that it's so weird. Because it's almost like-- I don't know if you've ever seen it, but Aerosmith, when they did that fucking pile of shit record Honkin' on Bobo-- which I know you've never heard because you must like music, but Aerosmith has made some awesome stuff-- I was at a record store, like the first week the record came out. And they had this limited edition Honkin' on Bobo miniature harmonica, like the kind that you could get out of the crane game at the IHOP, just this little piece of shit thing, and it was packaged [together with the CD] literally like a G.I. Joe action figure, and I was thinking, "Your old, hardcore fans are not going to appreciate this."

Maybe if you had put a real Hohner harmonica in there, and even put a little songbook in there-- like, how to play the harmonica to the harmonica parts on this record-- your fans would like that. But this is something that even young people are going to fucking throw away! And honestly, I saw this in the dollar bin not even a week later, because even the people putting them up in the record stores were like, "It's shitty packaging. It's this fucking piece of shit trinket crap, and it's making people not want to buy it."

Plus, the record's called Honkin' on Bobo.

So I didn't want anything to happen like that with this box set. If I could have my way, which you know, I can't-- in the long run, there's just too many people who buy our records-- I wanted everything to be handmade. I wanted it to be hand-silkscreened, and I wanted the boxes to be individually [made].

But we can't do that, because we're talking tens of thousands of records; we're not talking hundreds anymore. So I looked at these concessions I had to make, and I'm perfectly happy with it. There's nothing I would have changed about it. And I think that the label did an amazing job, and the bravery of Secretly Canadian to do this, when ultimately what they wanted was a retrospective of the decade working together. I said, "What if I gave you something that's not a retrospective?" And I gave them all new material. So I think that it shows a hell of a lot of balls for a label to do that, really it does.

Pitchfork: What was it like recording at Sun Studio? Was there a presence there? Ghosts or anything?

JM: Well, I mean, you don't go there if you're not looking for that kind of stuff. There wasn't really any time to plan that; it just sort of was dropped in our lap. In lieu of getting paid for a live show in Memphis, I asked if they could just book us a midnight session at Sun Studio-- which is something insane like $75 an hour, it's really affordable-- and so I just went in there. I actually wrote a song while I was there, did a traditional song, re-did "Hold on Magnolia", and did a song that I was working on with the band at the time.

And yes, there's magic where you want it to be. This is a room with just acoustical tile ceiling and just the most-- it's like your basement. There's nothing in that room that makes you sense that you would crank out amazing music in there. But honestly it comes down to the performance. Because even if you pick up the most rickety microphone, if the performance onto tape is amazing and if the material is amazing, there's nobody that's going to criticize the recording quality. So recording at Sun was fantastic for us.

We were also on tour when Johnny Cash died, and for some reason I thought that it would have been a great capper to finally get to record in that room. Every time we go on the road, the first thing I think of when I get on the plane-- and I hate flying-- is what legendary musician is going to die on tour? And sometimes it just hits me. The night before Ray Charles died, I dreamed that he died, and I woke up the next day and he was, you know, it was in the paper. Tammy Wynette, I was doing a Tammy Wynette song on this one tour, and there was one night I just really didn't want to do it for some reason. But I did it anyway, and that night I found out that she died. And it was the night that I really didn't want to do that song.

Pitchfork: Oh my. But you're doing quite a bit of flying soon, aren't you?

JM: In just a couple weeks we're going to be hitting Australia [and] New Zealand, then we'll be doing the entire North America tour, then come back over here for a solo tour in Italy.

Pitchfork: With all this time spent on the road, do you feel like there's a place you can call home?

JM: Right now, no. No way. It's ironic because I've incorporated so much and studied so much of country music lyrics, blues lyrics-- I dig deep into what the songs are saying. But those ideas of displacement and just the endless wandering around, not knowing what the end goal is, become more and more heartfelt to me when I hear them, because it's what I've been going through since I started this.

Because in the end, I didn't sit down with goals in mind of what kind of career I would have or how I would be perceived as an artist. I just started out recording songs. I had no plan. I thought I was going to be in the army, or I thought I was going to be working on an assembly line. I wasn't planning on all these years later doing interviews and touring around the world.

There's nothing glamorous about it, probably because I didn't have that set plan. I see these young artists and some artists that I've even given the kick to-- they've sent me a demo and I got their career started in some way by getting them signed to a label or something-- and I see that they're living much easier than I [am]. These people, from the start, are getting the kind of treatment and respect that I never had, that I had to work to get. There's no jealousy or weirdness about that, but I sit here and think, "Am I really two decades older than everyone? Am I at the end of something, or am I at the beginning of something?" So the idea of having a home is sort of in line with feeling like that right now.

Pitchfork: What has changed in recent years that's allowed these people to get a boost so early on?

JM: Well, there's a lot of things. I admit right away that I don't keep up with current releases. I have favorite record labels; I have favorite bands that I've followed for years. To me, the number one way to discover new music is when somebody gives me a demo. Being someone who tours around the world, I have the luxury of having fans come up to me and hand me demos. Sometimes it's, "This is my friend's band, I think you ought to check them out." I mean, this is the exact same way I got my first record made: my friends giving my demos to Will Oldham. It was the exact same way. So I keep abreast of what's very new [in that way], to the point of unsigned bands.

What has changed? Of course the internet has changed everything: the way that people are experiencing a band first. I think one thing that's also changed is you're getting people who are putting together basically a full record-- fully conceived, they've got the artwork and everything-- and they hand it to you, but these aren't people who have any live touring experience. And sometimes not really any live experience.

In that way, it makes it sort of a dangerous time, because you have this great bunch of music-- and you can't fault good songwriting, you can't fault good production, you can't fault good recording, it's right there in front of you-- but you have these people and it's never occurred to them to go out and play. I mean, the way that I discovered bands in the old days was going to see hundreds of bands a year. I didn't buy records, there was no internet, I wasn't reading magazines to find out who's the cool new band.

When your favorite band comes to town, the best thing you can do as a music lover is go and see the two opening bands, and I've always approached music like that: go see the unknown factor. And right now I see a lot of the unknown factor that's less than mediocre. They're not playing music because they have to play music; they're playing music because they've heard music.

Right now I think people's ears are just saturated with stuff, so you're getting the kid who's having to process Lightnin' Hopkins and Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, and Big Black, all at once. And this is something that evolved much more slowly in a time that I remember.

So I would say what's changed, the internet has changed the quality of the live music in a negative way-- but in a positive way, these people are putting out fantastic first projects. Can they take it on the road? I don't know. Do they have the bravery-- I mean, the straight-up balls-- to play outside their little town?

Anybody can stand in their bedroom and make a song, and make a brilliant four-track record; I think anybody can do that. But I think that the magic only happens when you're willing to take it to that next town, the town where you are unknown, you don't have a single fan there, and you go up there and you open for the band that sounds just like Nine Inch Nails, when you sound just like Dinosaur Jr.

Pitchfork: What then keeps you out there? You said you never had a precise goal or plan, so what drives you?

JM: Well, I don't think I've made a very good record yet. I'm always shooting for something great, the greatness in my mind. I'm not looking for anyone else to say, "Hey man, you made a great record." I'm looking for myself to be satisfied with that record. And in my twisted way of thinking about making records, I want to approach it in sort of a National Geographic way, where I'm taking candid photos of something that no one has ever seen, which basically is just documenting an actual group of musicians in the studio, doing a song.

I don't want to be like Jeff Lynne, where I'm the producer, the songwriter, the musician, the engineer-- that's not the way I want to do it. I've been writing songs since I was a little kid, and I have no aspirations to be famous or known in any kind of way. So now I'm at a point where, because I've done this for so long, I have to consciously try to be one step ahead of even myself. People are expecting a certain kind of record from me each time, and so am I, but I try to be that little step ahead, making a record that is surprising. And to me, the lyrics are so much more important than anything else when I approach writing a song. So I hope that when people go back and look at the catalog, they'll see there's some sort of linking from record to record, even though they may sound radically different.

Pitchfork: One of the major Magnolia/Ohia talking points-- or criticisms, depending one who's doing the talking-- is the recurring use of imagery, the many mentions of moons, devils, roads, and such. Indeed, I wouldn't put it past some to claim they're not really surprised by each new record. What do you say to that?

JM: Oh, I sing about what I know, so, honestly I-- you know, when I pick up an Iron Maiden record and they're singing to me about Alexander the Great, they're singing historically. There's no reason for me to believe that this is a guy that's actually singing from the experience of having lived in the time of [Alexander].

And also, when Dylan is singing about a lot of the civil rights stuff, which helped to mark him forever as being the cultural icon that he's become, he's singing about all this civil rights stuff which he knew dick about. He knew about it from the newspapers, he knew about it from the radio, he knew about it from friends and friends of friends, and I'm sure that he got some firsthand knowledge, but the guy was recording and touring and stuff. This wasn't a guy who was, you know, absorbed by that stuff, he wasn't in the middle of that stuff, and yet that stuff is very strong in the catalogue.

But for me, I never wanted to sing about things I didn't know about, and this is just the way that I interpret day-to-day life. And if people are critical of this sort of snake eating its tail with the lyrics, I have nothing really to say to that, because what I'm offering is something that I believe to be true.

Pitchfork: You say you haven't yet made a great record. What do you see your output to this point as, then? Are they sketches in preparation for the masterpiece?

JM: Not sketches, but-- because I have seen the music world change, I know that, in that way, I was at the cusp of something. We were buying seven inches, and we basically had a record label in the Midwest. It wasn't really tape trading, but what we would do is, anybody who could find the newest record by whatever band it was, people would pitch in their money. We'd buy the seven inch, we'd buy the hard-to-get records, we would put it on tape, and then we would trade those tapes. And we would do this, because it was the only way we could hear new music.

So the way I look at my output has been to sort of see myself as being part of that generation, and then trying in my very abstract way to get into this new generation-- because I know that people are going to the internet for their first experience with a band. They're hearing one song and then they go see the band, and then they have so many kinds of demands that they put on the band, based on, probably, not having seen a lot of bands. They just hear a song that they think is great, then they buy the ticket and come to your show.

I don't want to get too deep into figuring out where I came from or that I have some big manifesto about where I'm going with my songwriting. I'm just trying to make really good songs. A beautiful thing to see is, the audience sort of shapes their own style or aesthetic. There's people who are like, "Well, I like the solo stuff so much better than the Magnolia stuff," and there's people who love the Magnolia stuff more than the Songs: Ohia stuff, but basically they all still stand there, they pay the same amount for the ticket, and they all stand in the room and they watch that show. And while I'm kicking, I hope that I-- I just try to be contemporary in my own way.

Pitchfork: How do you intend to adapt to this new music culture?

JM: Well, I don't have to fight it, for sure, but honestly I'm so busy. This is classic Bob Dylan, this speech right here, but: I'm so busy working on what I'm writing now, that I don't have time to sit down and see how the new culture goes. I just don't have time. Because when you're writing all the time and you stop, it's like self-inflicting a flat tire on your bike. What am I going to do? Well, I'm going to have to fix this fucking flat tire, and in that time I'm going to sit there and observe how the new music culture goes. And then I'm going to be reflecting back on pros and cons of the era that I'm from. I don't want to do that, man, I just want to keep plowing ahead and keep writing new songs.

Townes Van Zandt is a great example because you listen to those songs and go, "Jesus, the production is fucking horrible! Who in the world thought that two different flute solos were going to be put into this arrangement? Who in the fuck thought that this weird delay drum was going to be important in this song? Who the fuck thought that?" But you know what, the song was still great, and it's still in my record collection, and I still listen to it. And that's what I'm going for, just the quality of the songs, and that's the best I can do because-- I'll let those other bands be the hip, awesome, famous bands. I just want to write great songs.

Pitchfork: Do you think you'll ever arrive at the great album you speak of?

JM: I think so. I think it's going to happen. I'm trying to do it, but when you don't have that clear vision in your head of what that's going to be, then it's impossible. But I always think a record needs to be a collection of very strong songs; it needs to be a collection of songs that are related somehow sonically. The arrangements need to place them side by side. I don't know if I'm going to be able to just sit down and do it on paper, you know, how to get it. I think I still like the random factor. But I think that by doing a record or two a year, which I've done since I started, I might get it. I'm not guaranteeing that I'll get it, but I might just hit it. And you know what, I probably won't even know. Because I'll probably still walk away thinking, "I can do something somehow better, or somehow I could have done that better." But honestly I haven't put out a record that I wasn't happy with or proud of.

Pitchfork: So it's just a matter of taking it to the next level each time?

JM: When that starts with songwriting, that's an attainable goal. If you want to talk about crazy production, of course we could sit in the studio with a producer, and they could say, "All right, let's make you sound like the Cars, let's do this to the guitars."

I mean, can you really see us ever making a record like that? I don't think so. We could end up with something that sounds just lightyears different from what I've been doing the whole time, because I've never really worn the stripe of being a folk singer, or worn the stripe of being an indie rocker, or worn the stripe of being a rock n roll guy. I've always seen it as just songs. And I hate all those scenes.

Pitchfork: Do you feel as though you exist outside that? Or do you ally yourself with a certain scene?

JM: No, I just think I'm a songwriter. I'm a songwriter, and I have a fantastic group of people who support me, a fantastic record label. I have a fantastic band and I have fantastic fans, who come and see me no matter what's on the stage, they still come. And that's what I always looked for, some sort of longevity. I wasn't looking for some sort of quantifiable success. I was always looking for being able to do this ten years hence, ten years hence, ten years hence... And here I am.

Pitchfork: So what's next after the touring, in terms of releases and such?

JM: Well that's the 10 million dollar question, because we really need to see how this Sojourner record is received. This is my gift to the fans who have been with us for all these years, have come to all the shows, have bought-- so many people have bought every single record. And I really tried to the best of my ability to make a really, really-- unfortunately you have to buy it, so it's not really a gift-- but I really did try to make something that no other artist had done, and I tried to keep an eye to the ground for the quality of the music, the quality of the song, and the variety. I really did try to do my best, so I want to see how it's perceived from the fans, because the ultimate criticism will be, "It's too expensive, it's too much, why didn't you just make one record that had everything on it?" And then I'll work from there, because right now we just have to worry about doing this big tour and writing new songs.

Pitchfork: Sounds good. Anything else that you'd like to share with our readers?

JM: Well, make sure that somebody in Chicago is watering my plants.

Dates:

08-05 Byron Bay, Australia - Splendour in the Grass Festival
08-07 Melbourne, Australia - The Corner Hotel
08-08 Sydney, Australia - The Annandale Hotel
08-10 Auckland, New Zealand - Kings Arms
08-11 Wellington, New Zealand - Bar Bodega
08-23 Bloomington, IN - Bluebird #^
08-24 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle #^
08-25 Minneapolis, MN - 7th St Entry ^
08-26 Omaha, NE - Waiting Room #^
08-27 Kansas City, MO - Grand Emporium #^
08-28 Denver, CO - Bluebird Theatre ^
08-29 Salt Lake City, UT - Urban Lounge ^
08-31 Vancouver, British Columbia - Richard's on Richards
09-01 Seattle, WA - Mural Amphitheatre (Bumbershoot Festival)
09-02 Portland, OR - Someday Lounge ^
09-04 Arcata, CA - Muddy's Hot Cup ^
09-05 San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill ^
09-06 Los Angeles, CA - Echo ^
09-07 Pioneertown, CA - Pappy & Harriet's Pioneertown Palace %
09-08 Pioneertown, CA - Pappy & Harriet's Pioneertown Palace *
09-09 San Diego, CA - Casbah ^
09-10 Phoenix, AZ - Modified Arts ^
09-11 Tucson, AZ - Club Congress ^
09-13 Austin, TX - Emo's ^
09-14 Oklahoma City, OK - Conservatory ^
09-15 Denton, TX - Rubber Gloves ^
09-16 Houston, TX - Rudyard's Pub ^$
09-17 New Orleans, LA - Howlin Wolf ~
09-18 Memphis, TN - Hi Tone ~
09-19 Jackson, MS - Hal & Mal's ~
09-20 Birmingham, AL - The Bottle Tree ~
09-21 Atlanta, GA - The Earl ~
09-22 Athens, GA - 40 Watt Club ~+
09-23 Columbia, SC - Columbia Music Festival Association ~+
09-24 Mount Pleasant, SC - Village Tavern ~+
09-25 Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle ~+
09-26 Charlottesville, VA - Satellite Ballroom ~+
09-27 Washington, DC - Black Cat ~+
09-28 Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church ~+
09-29 New York, NY - The Blender Theatre at Gramercy ~+
09-30 Portland, ME - Space Gallery #+
10-01 Cambridge, MA - Middle East #+
10-02 Northampton, MA - Iron Horse #+
10-03 Montreal, Quebec - La Sala Rossa (Pop Montreal) +
10-04 Ottawa, Ontario - Zaphod Beeblebrox +
10-05 Toronto, Ontario - Lee's Palace +
10-06 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick #+

# with Thousand Arrows
^ with Golden Boots
% with Camper Van Beethoven
* Jason Molina solo
$ with Bright Men of Learning
~ with Drakkar Sauna
+ with the Watson Twins