The continuation of our three part interview with longtime Sojourn worship leader/ drummer Alex O’nan of Interstates, an exciting new band that mixes electronic beats with live music and compelling video footage. Interstates has just been signed to a two-disc record deal with The Record Machine. They are set to release a new CD during a record release party at The 930 on May 2, and will then go on a cross-country tour with label-mates, Foxhole.
Here, Alex talks about the history and development of the Sojourn music ministry and our various worship CDs, as well as the formation of Interstates, a discussion of instrumental music (can it be “about” something?) and more, and we’ll include mp3 links as well. For more music, as well as videos, visit the Interstates official website from our Helpful Links section.
WK: How has the music (at Sojourn) changed between then and now?
AO: It has gone from being a hodge-podge of players to a band hand-picked by Mike (Cosper). And going from then to now, it’s just a product of maturing in musical ability, in musical tastes.
WK: Now it’s like, instead of just picking people who are available, it’s picking people who play together well.
AO: Matching musical styles - I mean natural styles. In Before the Throne - that was a fantastic album and you look at how many people had their hand in writing each individual song but then keeping the same players and the same vocalists together, it really made a fantastic album from front to back. Every song fits into each other song. And you look at the CDs that preceded that. The very first CD I don’t think will ever be released (ed. note: it was a live CD called “The Reverance and the Noise,” and it consisted of one original song, “Fall,” by Sojourn’s first songwriter, Jeremy Quillo, along with covers of hymns and popular worship songs). It was on the first Sojourn anniversary — we recorded about eleven songs, I think, and we had about three different drummers so it was like a great first attempt, during a Sunday night service.Â
Eddie (Morris, a Sojourn worship leader and owner of Ear Candy Studios) brought all his recording equipment to the church, and we recorded, basically a select group of songs we were playing at the worship service.Â
After that was Jeremy Quillo’s album (With The Angels), then the Christmas album (Songs for the Advent), then These Things I Remember. Then Chad Lewis’ album (Fading Grass), then Before The Throne, then the new Christmas one (Advent Songs). So if you go back and listen to them, just the quality of the musicianship and the quality of the sound has grown and matured.
WK: So which ones did you play on?
AO: I played on the very first one, the live one we recorded on the first anniversary. I didn’t play on With The Angels - Miguel (Monroy) did all that. I played on the original Songs For The Advent and I played some on These Things I Remember.
WK:Â Let’s talk about Interstates and Of Asaph. Are they the same? Are they different?
AO: Let me start with Interstates. Interstates started basically when I got my first computer. It was Christmas one year and my dad got me a big dull beige desktop machine, and it came with a demo of “Fruit Loops.” I abused that demo…I basically just left that computer on seven days a week because if you closed it you couldn’t save what you worked on.Â
I would be working on a song for weeks and I didn’t want to close it, because I didn’t want to lose the work I had done. Eventually I learned I could hook up an external tape recorder and save it, but anyway, I made a demo and that’s how I got started in electronic music. And that’s basically what Interstates is, although it’s taking a different form with the live show, having Kyle on guitar and me on drums.
It’s probably been ten years since I got my first computer… and just over the course of that time, I went through a lot of stuff with life and just growing up as a person and as a musician too, and that’s very evident in the songs ‘cause the first few songs I would take samples off of old jazz CDs.Â
I would make my own samples because it was a sample off a CD that was just drums. I would cut up on the computer, each individual drum-hit when it was drums, or if there was a part where there weren’t any drums and no vocals or anything I would cut that part and use it as my melody and kind of mess with it.
As I learned the software more and more, I started to integrate basslines and make my own melodies and then when I got a Macintosh, I bought Reason. Using that - that whole process — I just spent a great deal of time learning what each thing does. It takes a lot of time.
So Interstates started a long, long time ago. And then when I got home late and didn’t feel like going to bed I’d just sit in front of the computer and write music. But Of Asaph was the main thing, definitely, because I didn’t know how to perform electronic music in front of an audience. I seriously doubt if anybody would come to see somebody just hit a spacebar and then a song plays. There was no performance aspect to it.
But with Of Asaph, even before Brian left, the frequency of practices stopped, so I started pouring a lot of time into electronic music, and I wanted to play shows and Kyle and I would ask different people maybe twice a week to come play with us because we wanted to have a band.Â
I wanted to perform this electronic music live and to have a performance aspect to it.
And I think it’s really cool, it’s very meaningful to me because laboring over something like that, obviously you feel part of that. But now, inviting Kyle who is definitely my best friend, into that and him being about it and wanting to spend a lot of time getting a live guitar part over top of the music and making sure that the guitar isn’t standing out too much and making it blend with the music:  it’s a meaningful thing for us to be doing something together as great friends but also as musicians, because it gives us that outlet to do that and I know everybody has that urge for a creative outlet. If we weren’t playing music, we’d be feeling it, and craving it, so when Of Asaph stopped playing together it was just a natural thing; it just took a while to figure out what to do.
WK: I was wondering if you could tell us a little about your collaborations — anyone in particular you might be collaborating with?
AO: I’m currently remixing some songs by a conglomeration of musicians that’s called Every Gentle Air. It’s on our (Interstate’s) new label, The Record Machine. So I remixed that song and they enjoyed the remix of it, and I’m working on a remix of a Brook Wagner song and I’m also working on a remix of a Daniel Dixon song. I’m working on a remix of a Sufjan Stevens song. These, of course are not really collaborations, because the song is already written. But a true collaboration will start soon with Brooks Ritter and my wife Laura Beth. We are going to start leading, approximately two times a month at Sojourn, Interstates-style worship, where we’re taking worship songs that are known by most Sojourners and we’re transferring them into the computer and having Kyle play overtop of them and having Brooks and Laura Beth singing the song. So out of that, I’d kind of like to make Interstates and Interstates worship very similar. I’d like to at least explore the possibility of having Brooks and Laura Beth singing on original Interstates songs, and it wouldn’t necessarily be worship songs. I think we’ll know if it has the potential to work with vocals in Interstates songs if the vocals work in the worship setting. But it would just be fun to try.
WK: So do you think that music that is instrumental can be about something?
AO: Yes. Classical music is a great example of how music without words can have meaning.  Just as music with words can have a lyricist that writes very obscure lyrics that sort of mean something but sort of don’t mean something: it means more to the person who wrote it than it does to the listener. Not so much that it means more, but it means different things to both. And the listener can add his own meanings as well. If a person writes an instrumental song that has meaning to them, and if a listener is moved by it and adds meaning to it, ambient music is a great example of something that doesn’t need lyrics to have meaning.
Hear Interstates perform “Uniforms Forever�
WK: If you were going to make a mix CD of five to ten songs you would say have inspired you, what would they be?
AO:Â The “Alex O’Nan was stranded on an island and could only listen to these 10 songs for the rest of his life” Mix:
1. Broken Social Scene - Capture The Flag (You Forgot It In People)
2. American Football - Honestly? (American Football)
3. Biz Markie - Nobody Beats The Biz (Goin’ Off)
4. Cass McCombs - Petrified Forest (Dropping the Writ)
5. Del Rey - Malvado I (Speak It Not Aloud)
6. Casino Versus Japan - Theme From Lazy Day (Hitori + Kaiso)
7. Snapcase - Priceless (Progression Through Unlearning)
8. Stars of the Lid - Requiem for Dying Mothers Part 1 (The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid)
9. EPMD - Crossover (Business Never Personal)
10. Paul Newman - Dawson 1, Oklahoma 0 (Only Love Can Break Your Heart)
This concludes our time with Alex O’nan of Interstates, Goldsmith French Fry, Of Asaph, and Sojourn music. Special thanks to Will Kotheimer for conducting this interview, and to Alex for being so open during the process, and for supplying the mp3s we’ve brought you over the last three days. Also thanks to Sojourn visual artist Mickie Winters for supplying the photos of Alex and Interstates. Check out Mickie’s official website for a look at her vibrant work.
Visit sojournmusic.com tomorrow for a new announcement regarding the next Sojourn worship CD.
