Q&A: Old 97’s

Old 97's are (left to right): Bassist/vocalist Murry Hammond, Vocalist/guitarist Rhett Miller, drummer Philip Peeples and lead guitarist Ken Bethea (Credit: Lisa Johnson)

When the Old 97’s are ready to work on a new record, they like to get back to their Texas roots. “We are a Dallas band,” bassist and sometime lead vocalist Murry Hammond affirms. “We simply live a couple different places.”

The alt-country/roots-rock four-piece—led by Hammond, who lives in Los Angeles, and singer/guitarist Rhett Miller, who lives in New York’s Hudson Valley—often reconvenes at Dallas’ Sons of Hermann Hall, a “cozy Texas ballroom with hardwood floors” where the band played many a show in their early years. More recently, the hall has served as an informal practice space where the group would convene to, as Hammond puts it, “drink their beer and rehearse and write songs.”

For the latest Old 97’s album, the band did actual recording and pre-production at Sons of Hermann—partially to weed out what Hammond describes as a “glut of material” and partially to inpart some of the raw energy of their live shows into the final studio tracks. The fruits of those efforts are a two-part set called “The Grand Theatre.” “Volume One,” released in October, has already been widely hailed as the band’s liveliest work in years.

From his home in Los Angeles, Hammond discussed his songwriting contributions to "Volume One," as well as the story behind Miller’s surprising collaboration with Bob Dylan, the untimely end of alt-country magazine No Depression's print run, the future of his and Miller’s popular side project, the Ranchero Brothers—and the hazards of playing alongside one of the most famously good-looking frontmen in roots music.

Is “Volume Two” going to be in a similar vein to “Volume One”?
Oh, absolutely. It’s the same pile. And some of it is already mixed and done from the same session as the first one. It’s absolutely supposed to be the other half of a double record. They’re meant to be of one mind.

As I was listening to your song “You Were Born to Be in Battle,” I was thinking that it’s really too bad Johnny Cash is no longer with us, because it sounds like something he would cover for that American Recordings series of albums he did.
Well, thank you for that—that’s a high compliment. When my son was born, I wanted to write a song as if I’m kind of talking to him over his crib rail, just telling him about life, good and bad, with lots of finger-wagging warnings.

How old’s your son?
He’s three and a half. And he knows that’s his song. “Daddy, that’s my song, right?” “Yeah, that’s your song.”

Rhett has a co-writing credit with Bob Dylan on the song “Champaign, Illinois.” How did that come about?
It was a song Rhett wrote back in…probably ’96. He wanted to do it as an exercise of writing his words to somebody else’s song. So he did that to “Desolation Row.” And I’ve wanted to do it for years and years. I was like, “Gosh, it’s a really good song.” And basically, a behind-the-scenes thing happened where our manager knows Dylan and knows the people he works with. So it got past the gatekeepers and Dylan thought it was interesting enough to say, “Well, I want to read the lyrics and I want to see a little video of Rhett doing the song.” So Rhett had a good video of it, and I guess he typed up lyrics on his mobile phone on the spot, and sent it in. And Bob thought the lyrics were cool and saw the respectful way that Rhett was doing it. So yeah, he thought it was cool.

That’s awesome.
Yeah, it is awesome. One of these days I’m gonna sit down and kinda go, “Holy crap! That was almost one degree separation from Bob.”

You mentioned earlier another band that you and Rhett used to do occasionally.
In the old days, Rhett and I would, for additional grocery money, we’d go out and do two or three sets at local bars. We called ourselves the Ranchero Brothers. It functioned as a way for Rhett and I to work up new material in front of an audience. And we still do—we did one a month ago in Los Angeles. You know, we just get up there and act goofy. The idea is, we’re the Everly Brothers, playing Old 97’s songs. One of these days, we’re gonna get a Ranchero live record out. It’s kind of existed in the fan circles via bootleg and tape trading and all that kind of stuff.

How did you and the other guys in the band react when you heard about the demise of the print version of No Depression, which did so much to support Old 97’s over the years?
When I heard the news, I was kinda sad about it, but I was also thinking, “Well, OK, that’s the deal. It’ll transform itself.” I was mostly just concerned for the individual people that run No Depression: Kyla and Peter and Grant. I just really wanted them to be OK financially, because you can’t hardly make money off an online thing. And I know that magazine didn’t make anybody rich, but at least they had a living of sorts. But yeah, I didn’t have a funeral for it, because I knew they were still kicking and breathing, and I need to be a big boy along with every other reader and go, “OK, we’re marching into the digital realm with you.” Let’s just hope the people doing it will be fed and still inspired enough to do it.

On a more personal note: Is it tough being the good-looking one in the group? Do the other guys give you a hard time about all those girls asking for autographs?
I’m really sorry; you know you’ve been talking to Murry, not Rhett, right? I knew as soon as I got the call for the interview, “Oh shoot, they wanna talk to Rhett.”

Well, for what it’s worth, my fiancée, who’s a longtime Old 97’s fan, insists that she thinks you’re the cute one.
Well, I appreciate that. As I’m looking down at all those girls who couldn’t get in front center, so they’re in front of me, but their eyes are off to my right somewhere—I will remember that your fiancée said that.