Interviews

Glasswerk meets: Mark Olson

• 4th Sep 2014

We had the honour of catching up with Mark Olson, founding member of The Jayhawks and now striking out again with another solo release in the form of forthcoming record ‘Good-bye Lizelle’ released 26th September on Glitterhouse Records. Here, he tells us about the inspirations behind the new record and few secrets from his personal life…

When I first started playing music…

I started playing music in Minnesota when I was 12. I played the flute in the school band and ran to school pretending the flute was a peace pipe. I also went to French camp at that age because the counties in Minnesota have French names because the voyageurs came there first with their canoes and I always imagined music as some type of poetic, foreign language venture with a flute floating on top.

I lived for many years in the desert then after my start in touring music and, here in the heat and isolation, I found a way to catalog themes and points of view and word ideas and to focus on making an album with an overall sense of time and out of time atmosphere; the mood and atmosphere being more lyrically driven than effects box driven. Ingunn is my wife and a very talented, natural musician – she ran across the street and into the woods when she bought her first guitar, she was so excited to write her own songs. She rode with a djembe on her back to high school everyday and when I found out she played the djembe, that was the exact hour and beginning of our band.

If I had to choose a new name for the band it would be…

Cincinnati Zoo 1914, because the last passenger pigeon Martha died on September 1st 1914 at the Cincinnati Zoo. There were billions of them and they killed them off in 100 years. Every late August in Joshua Tree I always tell people that soon, on September 1st, you will hear gunfire at dawn. You will awaken and it will sound like someone is going to hit your bedroom window with pellet shot. Each year September 1st is the start of dove hunting season in the California desert. On the morning of the 100 year anniversary of the extinction of the passenger pigeons I sat on the porch at dawn and listened to the sound of shotguns blasting sleek, beautiful, historically and religiously significant small birds out of the sky.

I knew I was onto something when…

I found a Nagra for sale. I am into recording in various locations. Moving the studio every few hours around the porch, the yard, the county, the nation. I can hike with the studio and run it on batteries. I can record on a boat while I am fishing and drinking Kool aid. The method to all this madness is the edge of the mind, just outside the reach of the rational is the floating music, the anti-jingle music, the music that Komitas put together. He is the best example of supreme music picked up on a muddy farmers alley and taken to the mountain top!

My biggest non-musical influences are…

Memories of the way I imagined life was for my family and repeated kickings of myself for not being able to hear anymore the tone of my Grandmothers’ voices calling me. I remember my Grandmothers, I spent an inordinate amount of time with them. I lived with them from age 15 – 25 with travel breaks. I remember them, They were so incredible. I see them still when I breathe.

I’m most proud of…

In the album department, the new record Good-bye Lizelle. The building of it on the Nagra, the stops, starts and breakthroughs of the recording and writing process and Ingunn and I staying in Armenia for a while. Writing songs and walking through the parks in Vanadzor and always believing we could mix beautiful Armenian instruments into our songs.

My ideal support slot would be…

Incredible String Band circa Woodstock era when it was a 4 piece. Oh the joy, people floating on music and singing poetry, what songs!

Something I haven’t achieved yet which I’d like to is…

I have not achieved on my solo and Creek Dipper records a fan base that knows very much of the material. I have been writing towards the mountain and the wind. I have made 10 full albums on my own and with the Creek Dippers. I have out run any audience that would be trying to follow me. I mostly play my songs to people that are hearing them for the first time and that is a challenge. If you see me running along a highway in the evening that’s me working up another album! So I would like Good-bye Lizelle to get known.

My favourite place to hang out is…

After the temperature is 110 day in day out in Joshua Tree, I like to sit on a chair in the yard just when the sun goes down and let the first cooling get a hold of me. It is the general feeling of the pain is over, the danger is past, all quiet now, peace at last, it is a overpowering feeling and I stay out there until I am cooled down!

I can’t stop listening to…

Here is a short list: Rachid Taha and Gigi Ejigayehu Shibabaware are my listening and faves the past years. Jacques Bertin is a musical poet I listen to. Comes a Time by Neal Young, early Joni Mitchell and early rock Beatles, Byrds etc.. also Silvio Rodriguez from Cuba. He could be the greatest songwriter. That guy can crank out the songs!

I’m not ashamed to admit that…

I can`t keep up with all the great music in the world. The past years brought to our home Sayat Nova, Gigi, Komitas. Youtube videos of folk guitar from Africa. Once i find something I am not searching for awhile I just go over it and get to know each track.

If I could wave a magic wand and make anything in the world happen it would be…

No more guns, everybody trying to make their life better for their family.

Catch us next…

On tour starting in Finland, Italy, Norway then hopefully The UK!

‘Good-bye Lizelle’ released 26th September on Glitterhouse Records