Tonight, Americana folk rockers Over the Rhine will be performing at the Cedar Cultural Center. Husband and wife duo Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist are touring in support of their recently released, fan-funded album, The Long Surrender. Recorded in LA with Grammy award-winning producer Joe Henry, the album is a beautiful showcase of Over the Rhine's signature sound, combined with something new, surprising and fresh.
For an in-depth interview on the creation of The Long Surrender, check out the band's website here.
Thank you to Linford for a delightful interview.
The show is tonight - with Lucy Wainwright Roche opening. Doors are at 7pm. Tickets are $25 in advance and $28 at the door.
Michelle: So - I did some reading before creating my questions and I found that really incredible interview about the album on your website. I thought that was amazing and I don't want to reinvent the wheel, so I'll put up a link to the interview [see above]. I thought we'd start out by going way back. I saw that that name Over the Rhine comes from a neighborhood in Ohio?
Lindford: That's right.
Michelle: Can you tell me about that neighborhood?
Linford: It was considered the bad part of town. The neighborhood of Over the Rhine was separated from the downtown part of Cincinnati by the Eerie Canal. Way back in the late 1800s, when they crossed over the Eerie Canal to go into that German part of town, they began saying they were going over the Rhine. When Karin and I started the band, we were doing most of our recording at a little third-story bedroom overlooking the activity of Main Street. We ended up borrowing the name which ended up sounding weird and magical to us. It stuck and we've been called Over the Rhine ever since.
Michelle: Now, have you ever actually been over the Rhine in Germany?
Linford: Yes, several times. And in Holland and wherever else that river winds. That's always a little moment of excitement when we make the name literal. And, of course, when we do on rare occasions make it to Germany, they're very curious about the name, because the Rhine river is seen as the source for artistic output, part of a great inspiration.
Michelle: Speaking of musical inspiration on the Rhine, did you ever get a chance to see the Lorelei?
Linford: I don't believe so.
Michelle: I used to live in Germany and there's a part of the Rhine that's extremely treacherous for boatsmen and there's this legend that there was a woman they called the Lorelei sitting on the cliffs, singing the sailor's to their deaths.
Linford: Oh wow.
Michelle: It's a pretty amazing little corner. They just have a statue up there now, but especially when going by it on the river - there's this huge intimidating cliff and you can imagine how treacherous that must be in the dark.
Linford: Boy, there's a song in there somewhere.
Michelle: There's a beautiful poem by a German romantic poet, a very traditional poem, about the Lorelei that I had to learn in German class as a little girl. I know that you guys are very inspired by poetry as well - I saw that a lot of songs on the new album were directly inspired by poetry?
Linford: That's right.
Michelle: What other non-musical sources of inspiration do you have?
Linford: Ah - thanks for asking. I was talking to Joe Henry recently and we were both saying that it's hard to talk about our music only in terms of other music. I immediately think of certain authors that have been important to me. I think we want our songwriting ultimately to remind us about how we want to live. So anything that has functioned as a teacher or anything that has been an inspiration will creep into the songs, invited or uninvited.
Michelle: Sometimes things really crop up.
Linford: Yeah. Other writers are important influences - it could be someone like Annie Dillard or Dylan Thomas or various poets that we've encountered. I also think the fact that we've remained rooted in Ohio has influenced our music.
Michelle: How so?
Linford: Well, the fact that we both have some history here. The fact that Karin and I spent significant chapters of our childhood in Ohio connects us to a particular piece of earth in a real way. It's hard to put it into words, but I think sometimes, when people uproot themselves quite young and move to a place like Nashville or LA to pursue music, I think that there's a little bit of a disconnection that happens with one's personal history. I think the fact that we have stayed in Ohio has subtly influenced our writing. It's almost like there's something in the water, or something intuitive underneath it all that is connected to the earth.
Michelle: Do you think the fact that you geographically relocated to record The Long Surrender helped make this album such a surprise, because you had been so Ohio-based before?
Linford: Yeah, The Long Surrender was the first record that we recorded out on the West coast and Joe Henry put an amazing band together. It was like leaning into a really good dancing partner. Karin and I did, for this record, want to leave what was familiar and go and be surprised. That influenced every aspect of the record and recording. But the postscript is that then we come back home and put the record together in the rooms that we wake up in every day. A number of pictures on the record were just taken standing in the road by our house or standing in a field nearby.
Michelle: I'm going to have to take a closer look at that, because through your interviews and how you talk about your music, I think you're one of the few artists where I can really picture the house that you live in, this pre-Civil War farmhouse. I have definite images of how your living space looks and I think that comes from, as you said, your music being based in one specific location.
Linford: We've been trying to decide whether we could ever invite people out here for some sort of gathering or outdoor concert on our land. But I'm almost afraid that that will eradicate the mystery.
Michelle: That's something that could be potentially amazing, but I imagine for you as artists - as personal as that space is for you - really frightening to invite other people into, to open it up to that kind of judgement.
Lindford: Part of the beauty of having our little hideaway farm on the fringe it is a place to disappear and feel rejuvenated. So it's an ongoing puzzle that we haven't quite solved, but we do feel the desire to share this place. Maybe we share it via our music.
Michelle: I definitely think you do. With very few artists do you get such a strong mental image of the space that they must occupy. Speaking of spaces, I know that you've said The Long Surrender should really be in a single sitting and I would agree, even though I've only listened to the album - well, in a single sitting, but I was always doing other things, which I don't think was fair to the album. But ideally, where should someone be when they listen to this album?
Linford: In a comfortable leather chair, looking through a window where some of the panes of glass are a little bit wavy. I don't know...
Michelle: I like that.
Linford: Maybe with a good beverage in hand. I do hope that it is a record that people surrender 55 minutes of their lives to - the record as a complete experience. I hope they walk away into a world that feels a little bit different. But I also hope that it's a record that people can hear a song or two and still find something good. The way Joe sequenced the record, in terms of the order of the songs, it feels, to me, like I'm being invited on a journey of some kind. I like that feeling of entering in and being taken somewhere.
Michelle: I read this - and I was really surprised, because I hadn't heard it before - but this is a fan-funded record? How did that process go? Where did you find the idea?
Linford: It's not an original idea, because a number of songwriters have been taking this approach. When we had the opportunity to work with Joe Henry, it really felt like a little adventure was unfolding, so this idea arose. We began wondering what it would be like to invite people who had discovered our music to come along with us on this adventure. We had some fun with it and the response was timely and generous. Our fans stepped forward and quickly paid for the project. We found the humbling and inspiring - there was something communal about the process. It was almost like they bestowed a blessing of some kind on us in advance. Some of them are already asking, "When can we do it again?" I think it was a good experience for everybody. Some of the letters we got - I hadn't really thought about it - but for some people it was the first chance they had to actually make something like this.
Michelle: I think that's one of the great things about how the music industry is changing. In many ways it has been very hard for artists to have their worked pieced up and sold - or not sold. But now it seems to be shifting to get the listeners far more involved in the process of creation and I think that's going to be really interesting.
Linford: I agree. It feels like the middleman has been removed. It's really satisfying to make a direct connection with the people who are interested in your music.
Michelle: I completely agree. And on the other side, artists these days seem so accessible and so open to sharing things with their fans - not just the end product, but everything in between.
Linford: That's been exciting to me. As burnt out as everyone can become on Facebook, to hear songwriters who have been huge inspirations to me and maybe songwriters who I've fallen out of touch with, I'm now able to hear them commenting on their day-to-day existence in a way that is really fascinating to me, as someone who loves music.
Michelle: So - to wrap things up - I'm curious. What's the best live show you've ever attended?
Linford: I'll give you my top five. Karin and I and two friends one time made a pilgrimage to the Beacon Theatre in New York to see Tom Waits on a Saturday night. Everywhere you looked in the audience it seemed like there was an actor or another musician. We saw everyone from Liam Neeson to Elvis Costello - it was just a really interesting audience. That was an amazing performance. We just got to see Lucinda Williams solo, with just her acoustic guitar for an entire evening - that was incredible. We saw Leonard Cohen on his last tour. He's someone in his 70s, at the height of his power, his voice has never sounded better, singing these incredible songs - some of which he wrote thirty years ago and it makes me wonder, how do you write songs that feel so good thirty years later? I want to write those kind of songs. We got to see Elvis Costello with just his piano player - an incredible concert, again where the band was sort of out of the picture and you could really see right into the heart and soul of the song. And number five...we got to see Crowded House one time in front of a hometown crowd in New Zealand, at an outdoor festival. That was pretty amazing. The right concert at the right time - it just...
Michelle: It's a very special moment.
Linford: Yeah, thank you.
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