GARY Louris, the longtime frontman of the now defunct Jayhawks, is up on the roof of his home in Spain – in Puerto Santa Maria, the town Christopher Columbus also called home more than 500 years ago – where a dog is looking up and barking at him.
“The wind is blowing. It’s a weird scene. I’m looking over the town. Everything is white-washed,” Louris says.
“People don’t go out until 10 p.m. Even at midnight, the playground is full. It’s very unlike Minneapolis.” Last year, Louris and his bandmates from the indiesupergroup Golden Smog left America and Americana behind to record “Another Fine Day,” the band’s third album (due Tuesday), with producer Paco Loco. The band, which plays at the Bowery Ballroom July 26, lived and worked at Loco’s studio, just five minutes from the beach and 10 minutes from Louris’ house.
“Everything happens at a different pace in Spain,” says Kraig Johnson (ex-Jayhawk and Run Westy Run, now in the band Iffy). “We had great meals. Paco’s wife made flan every night.” Paco’s wife, Muni Loco, also sang vocals on one new song, “Cure For This.” Jeff Tweedy (Wilco) and Jody Stephens (Big Star) couldn’t be there to enjoy the flan, but they joined the others – Louris, Johnson, Marc Perlman (Jayhawks) and Dan Murphy (Soul Asylum) – a month later in Minneapolis to finish recording.
With input from all members beforehand, they finished the songs in the studio.
“I made a big to-do that we start these songs as a group,” says Louris, who flew to Chicago to work with Tweedy. “We made some effort to get together and come up with ideas – meeting at people’s homes with just one mike set up and people playing. We arrived in Spain with 25 ideas, not songs.” Even Louris, a self-admitted control junkie, was able to let go for the sake of the more democratic process.
“It was liberating,” he says. “I wasn’t able to let go in the Jayhawks. I’m not the greatest collaborator. But I hear a band more than a backing band.” Golden Smog started in the late ’80s, when Johnson asked Louris and Murphy to play an acoustic show at Minneapolis’ 400 Bar, where the three covered stylistically diverse songs from Dinosaur Jr., Jim Croce and Bread. The evolving band’s first EP, 1992’s “On Golden Smog,” included covers of songs by Thin Lizzy and Bad Company (with Soul Asylum’s Dave Pirner singing “Shooting Star”).
They followed it with an album of originals, “Down by the Old Mainstream,” in 1996, then “Weird Tales” two years later.
“I didn’t realize it was eight years since ‘Weird Tales’ until someone told me,” says Johnson. “Who knew if there would be another one?” But with the Jayhawks finally disbanding last year, Louris, Johnson and Perlman had plenty of free time to work on the latest Golden Smog album.
“The stars aligned in a weird way,” Louris says.
“And now I have time to do another one.”
