The Accidentals – Time Out Session #2

By starrymag | May 15, 2022

By: Jamie Steinberg

 

 

 

Q) How would you describe your sound?

Sav: Our marketing team would very much like to know the answer to this question as well…[laughs] It depends on what we’re up to! Our TIME OUT project is more songwriter/Americana, and our 2021 album Vessel is a pretty good reflection of our band sound – indie rock and indie folk rock with strings.  Katie [Larson] and I switch between guitars, electric basses, mandolin, violin and viola, cello and more and Michael [Dause] plays a full drumkit and sings with us in three-part harmony, so there’s a lot going on.  If we had to squeeze it into an elevator pitch, we’d say we’re a little bit like if the Indigo Girls started making punk folk music with strings.

 

Q) Who are some of your musical influences?

Katie: Sav and I met playing violin/cello in our public high school orchestra – we were the oddball kids staying after school and jamming to all different styles, folk, rock, pop, jazz, etc. In 2020 we wanted to pay tribute to some of our favorite artists, so we started a series of live, one take cover songs and called it “Play Your Paragon.” The artists range genres and generations, from songwriting icon Joni Mitchell to Australian rocker Courtney Barnett, to the Indigo Girls, Alabama Shakes, Big Thief, Brandi Carlile, etc. – all badass women who inspire us with incredible writing and musical skills. We’ll be releasing a full album of covers later this year!

 

Q) Talk about the story behind your new song “Eastern Standard Time.”

Sav: This is a song I wrote with songwriter and storyteller Peter Mulvey, a musician bred and based in Wisconsin who is known for touring across the country on his bike with his guitar on his back, sharing songs and wisdom along the way.  We met years ago playing at Frederick Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, Michigan and I loved every song he played.  We were totally geeked to get together over Zoom and co-write a song.  Peter brought the concept and hook to the table and since I’m from Michigan and he’s from Wisconsin, we started talking about our shared love of the Upper Peninsula and decided to write about its beauty.  We called it “Eastern Standard Time.” Peter flew in guitar tracks for the record, and we added banjo, mandolin, cellos and violins, upright bass, electric guitar and some incredible percussion from our drummer Michael and Nashville percussionist Eric Darken. Then, we released it to the world. Two weeks later, the US Senate unanimously voted to get rid of standard time in 2023…[laughs] We like to say we’ve already iconicized a moment in history now! Just a year early.

 

Q) The song was born out of the pandemic. What do you think it is about the song that fans connect to?

Sav: The whole TIME OUT project – both Sessions #1 and #2 – were born out of the pandemic.  It’s actually what caused us to pivot away from the recording process for Vessel (which we also did during quarantine) and start recording these songs.  Time Out Session #1 is all about the grief and challenges with mental health we all experienced in different ways during this time. Whether it was the isolation, the loss, the loneliness, the bewilderment – there was a lot to talk about. When we first wrote “Wildfire” with Kim Richey we knew songs like that needed to be released to the world as soon as we could – so people who listened to them would find some solace that they weren’t alone in their grieving.

Time Out Session #2 is sort of the light at the end of the tunnel.  Songs like “Eastern Standard Time” talk of the beauty that exists outside of ourselves, in the places we may perhaps take for granted – the routes that lead to unexpected places, the spontaneity of the journey.  We are all easing our way back into a broken world and picking up the pieces to build back some normalcy.  I think we go forth looking at everything a little differently, including and especially the world around us.  Maybe that’s what people find in the song.  Either way, mission accomplished.

 

Q) How does the video for the track play into the message behind it?

Katie: The music video is all gorgeous drone footage of Northern Michigan filmed by Elijah Allen. When we first saw a clip of him ice skating across Lake Leelanau we stopped dead in our tracks. It evoked all the emotions from the song and visually captured the adventure of the unknown, the fragility of our environment and the beauty of our home state. We immediately reached out to ask if he’d be down to collaborate. He said yes and put together the whole edit. We were blown away.

 

Q) What is your songwriting process? Do you need music before you can create lyrics?

Sav: It depends!  For co-writing I tend to only come up with a verse or chorus and put it to a chord progression, knowing that it may – and should – change throughout the course of the session.  A lot of times the ideas will come from notes I make on my phone, which come from eavesdropping conversations; scenes in movies where there’s no dialogue but the message comes through loud and clear; lines in songs or books I really like and want to paraphrase and put into my own work. Once I find two or three lines I think may work, I usually put them in a word document and start shuffling them around.  If I get stuck writing, I pick up my guitar; if I get stuck on guitar, I go back to writing.

 

Q) How much of hand do you have in the production of your music?

Sav: Our last three releases have been self-produced and engineered ourselves, with the exception of some songs off of Vessel, where we worked with producers John Congleton and Tucker Martine respectively in their studios.  Michael and I went to school for audio technology and the three of us are ten years into this career – at this point we know our sound, our gear and our goal and all three of us feel comfortable both in front of and behind the board. That being said, we’ve worked with tons of engineers and producers before this and the majority of them worked with and treated us as equals in the production side of things. Every relationship is different depending on how you go about it and what your goals are. For us, we treat our music with a lot of intention – we tend to be perfectionists and we’ll do tons of versions of the same song until we get it right.  Nowadays, Michael has a studio in Grand Rapids, and we have a studio in Nashville, so we’re able to produce/engineer/record music not just for ourselves, but for other artists doing session work and working as actual producers and engineers for their projects.

 

Q) What are some themes you explore on your new EP Time Out Session #2?

Katie: Like Sav [Buist] mentioned, the new EP opens up to a lot of hope and healing. All the songs are co-writes with artists who inspired us to become writers in the first place, many of whom we’d never met in person before we started writing over Zoom. Every time we came to the table, we were worried we’d be awkward, but there was always a spark. With Gretchen Peters we bonded over the Emily Dickinson quote “hope is the thing with feathers.” With Maia Sharp it was revisiting old baggage in “Just a Town.” Time Out Session #1 was about the isolation we were going through and on this record, we were doing a lot of reconnecting. Having our Nashville studio space up and running allowed us to bring in some of our favorite studio musicians (Dominic Davis on bass, Jesse Isley on electric guitar, Fats Kaplin on pedal steel, Eric Darken on percussion) and even the songwriters themselves to play on the record.

 

Q) What are your personal favorite tracks off the EP and what makes them so special to you?

Sav: I’ll list two tracks. The first is called “Leave it in the Dust” and it was written with Gary Burr and Georgia Middleman, two legendary artists in their own right. I came up with a verse and a chorus and sent it ahead of time and the song became the way that Gary and Georgia, Katie and I related to each other. Those themes of travel, of yearning for the road and yearning for home and struggling with the transitions between – those were real to all four of us.  We were able to write from such a genuine place as a result.  There’s a line that says, “The burden gets so heavy / with dreams that you can’t trust” and it gets me every time. I start school at MTSU for biology in the fall, and as excited as I am to spend half of my time doing left brain stuff and the other half of my time using my right brain, I’m nervous, too.

The other song is called “Remain the Same” and it’s one we wrote with Tom Paxton. There’s a sixty-year age gap between him and us, but we still find something to write about every Monday, as we have for the past two years. This song was the first song we ever wrote with him, and we wrote it shortly after a childhood friend of mine passed away suddenly. Tom has lost so many people in his life, and he knows how to navigate that grief, especially when you lack closure. Together the three of us worked to say what I could never have said alone. That’s really special and that’s what music is for.

Katie: My favorite moment on the EP is actually the outro of the last song, “Wide Open.” The chorus is “These things don’t come cheap, it’s easier to stay asleep, but I know I have to keep my heart wide open even when it’s broken.” Instead of resolving, the last chorus hangs on to the words “wide open” over layers of creeping strings, mandolin and guitar. The instrumental goes on for a minute or so since we planned for it to fade out. But when our mixing engineer sent us a version without the fade, we realized it was the perfect end to the album, a mixture of fluttering hope, apprehension and beauty.

 

Q) The EP features some great collabs with Gretchen Peters, Beth Nielson Chapman, etc. What does it mean to you to connect with this caliber of musicians?

Katie: TIME OUT has become a really special project to us, on a musical and personal level. We joke that co-writing is the introvert’s fast track to friendship, you enter the room as strangers then leave knowing each other on a deeply vulnerable level. We just got off tour with Beth Nielson Chapman, Maia Sharp and Kim Richey and hanging out on the van rides was just incredible as being onstage together. Their music is so inspirational to us, and it made it even better to get to know them as people. Beth had this magical bag on tour that she’d pull something new out of every day – like showing us how to use her exercise rope at a gas station, how to make our own jewelry or even things like how to do Win Hof’s breathing techniques before the show. They are master storytellers onstage and off – we learned so much.

 

Q) What do you hope listeners take away from checking out Time Out Session #2?

Sav: I hope listeners hear their own stories in these songs. Music, for us, has always been a form of free therapy. It’s a way to recover and heal by finding connection and comfort in each other. We did exactly that in working with these writers. Regardless of age, gender, background or anything – we found something in common, feelings and stories and fears and insecurities and we wrote from a genuine place within ourselves to put music to it. I hope people find commonalities and connections not just with the songs, but with people who are different than them. Music is the ultimate connector – it bridges all gaps.

 

Q) You’re currently out on tour. What songs that you perform continue to be fan favorites?

Sav: We’re actually playing some of the songs off of all three of our releases for the first time! Since we put out most of the new music during the pandemic, we’re finally able to bring these out to see the light of day.  So far, we’ve heard a lot of “woo” when we say we’re about to play our song “Wildfire” and the same happens with “Eastern Standard Time.”  Then again, songs like “Waste” and “Slow and Steady” off of our album Vessel are total rockers and they’re perfect for summertime outdoor shows. So we’ll just have to see!

 

Q) Who would you most like to collaborate with on a song in the future?

Sav: I would love to write a song with Ani Difranco or Brandi Carlile one day. They’re both such incredible writers and I look up to them not just as musicians, but as role models in the industry for me.

 

Q) You are a part of social media. Why is that such an important way for you to connect with your fans?

Katie: I think the pandemic really showed us how much we as artists rely on our community of fans, friends and music lovers. When lockdown started and we were adjusting from playing two hundred shows a year to spending all our time recording in an attic – livestreaming was our social outlet. We were constantly asking for people to share small things they were grateful for, book recommendations or song requests and it made us feel connected beyond the music. Luckily, we’d already cultivated a really supportive online community over six years of non-touring. We had a Facebook group called the “Famgrove” (after the song “Mangrove” off our first album in high school) where we’d ask for advice, share unreleased songs or have goofy Photoshop battles. In 2019 we expanded that to Patreon where Sav and I do things like take turns writing a weekly tour blog. Now we have a Book Club and Throwback Album Review Club where Patrons recommend their favorite albums, and we discuss them together over Zoom. It’s opened our ears to a lot of new music and inspiration. We still consider ourselves socially awkward people, but with music as common ground it opens up a whole world of meaningful conversation.

 

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and your work?

Sav: Thanks to all the people who make this world so much brighter. Whether it was a gas card in the mail or a box of homemade baked goods at the venue – whether you hosted us in your home and let us sleep on your couches or bought tickets to a concert on a Tuesday night even though you had work in the morning. Whether you braved winter storms or drove more than three hours to get there; whether you sent an email saying you appreciated what we do; if you joined our Patreon and hopped on to our book club or album review club; if you shook our hands or got something at the merch table; if you supported our Kickstarter or got vinyl off our website; if you told a friend to go see us in concert; if you went out to see our friends’ bands play; if you’ve stopped to listen to our music floating over the festival grounds or through a hazy bar or in the dusky light of a basement bookstore  – YOU are our heroes.  Thanks for convincing us this is possible. Thanks for giving us all the reasons why there’s hope for humanity after all. We really do love ya.