Saturday, June 7, 2008

Interview with Jason Hammel of Mates of State

By Brenna Rushing

I recently spoke with Jason Hammel of Mates of State, who was preparing to play alongside The Flaming Lips, Cake, and Tilly and the Wall at the Wakarusa Festival in Kansas the next day.

The band consists of Jason and his wife Corey, who create their music with a set of drums and an organ. For the current tour, they added a cellist and a violinist player for some extra pizzazz.

They have two little girls that are on tour with them, Magnolia (4) and June (5 months). He had a lot to say about his family life on the road, and their new album Re-arrange Us.

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Terri Loewenthal

Mates of State

PegNews: How’s touring with two kids, a nanny, and two extra members of the band (a cellist and a violinist)?

Jason Hammel: It’s been good, it’s a lot more hectic. Getting everybody going in one direction is hard. We have a crew of 10 people basically. The shows have been good. Strengths have been added to certain songs.

Magnolia just got done with school, she thinks it’s vacation. The little one’s like “I can sleep anywhere, whatever man.”

PN: Why did you choose cities that were across the country from each other to live in (San Fransisco, Lawrence, and Connecticut)?

JH: Some of the places were kind of random. I grew up in a small town in Minneapolis. I wanted to get away from there. I wanted to go to a college that I could afford, that had cheap out-of-state tuition. So I went down and visited Lawrence.

When Corey and I met, it was the same move to San Fran. I’d been there one time, Corey had never been. As soon as we graduated we packed up all our stuff and moved there and ended up loving it. Later, we thought, “Do we want to stay here forever? Because it’s comfortable…and we may never move again if we put roots down here.” So we decided to try out the east coast, and move as close to New York as possible. We bought a house, but we ultimately want to get back to California.

PN: I’ve heard that you guys might move to Austin, is that true?

JH: Austin was high up on the list. We love that town. We’ve been there hundreds of times it seems like. We’ve recorded records there and we have lots of friends there. Austin and Chicago are on the top of the list. I would love Texas.

Every album was made in those different locations, how did that affect them?

A lot of it’s circumstantial. We had friends and people we wanted to work with who lived in various cities.

It’s sort of inspiring to leave home and record a record somewhere. So far we’ve been lucky to do that, especially over the course of multiple albums.

The city gives the record a little bit of its flavor. It’s beneficial in having a variety amongst our records.

PN: What kind of feedback have you received about the album?

JH: I think good. I try to concentrate on the live show, more so than reading reviews. I can’t lie, I read some early ones, before the record was even released to see what people were going to say. Across the board they’ve been pretty good.

We’re proud of the album. Now we just want to bring it to the people in the live setting.

I’ve heard mostly good things, 85 to 90% have been positive. They still think it has the Mates of State energy despite the lack of the organ that was used on the previous 4 albums.

PN: Are there any other ways it differs from your other albums?

JH: I feel like we took more care with the song structures. A lot of times we’d write parts for previous records and have 10 parts and just throw them together. Then there’s a song! This time we thought it out. We thought “Let’s see what we can do with 4 or 5 parts and try to come back to something and make it work within the song.”

PN: How did the AT&T commercial come about?

JH: I don’t even know. AT&T was looking for music to go in the spot, and our name got thrown into the hat. I think the song fits, it’s sort of upbeat and it came at a good time for us. We were working on an album, and we wanted to not tour so we could focus on the record. So that cash that we got from the commercial allowed us to do that. It allowed us to not be on the road, and make the record we wanted to make.

PN: Both of you majored in non-music departments, would you ever go back and use them (biochemistry for him and teaching for her)?

I’m still interested in being a dr. or a surgeon. It’s a lot of school too. The healthcare system is really messed up, it’s hard for doctors to navigate the insurance companies. In some ways I feel like I dodged that bullet.

I could say the same for Corey. She loves teaching and she loves kids. But now we have our own kids so maybe she’ll teach them. I know she would still probably enjoy it.

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“Re-arrange Us” was released May 20th. It is being sold nationwide at Best Buy, Target, and any other music distributors.

They will be playing in Dallas at the Granada Theater on June 11th.

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