by Tom Gilmore

The husband-and-wife duo of Brett and Rennie Sparks, more commonly called the Handsome Family, have just released their sixth album, Singing Bones. Recorded in their garage in Albuquerque, NM, it's a link to, rather than a break from, their prior recordings. Musically, you're not likely to notice a difference; Brett sings in his no-friend-in-the-world, trademark bass, and the lonely sounds of autoharp, singing saw, and pedal steel are used in varying degrees.

While they are clearly influenced by old-time music (they cover Bascom Lamar Lunsford's 1928 version of "Dry Bones" on the new CD), they're not simply nostalgic for another era. Their live shows see them accompanied almost exclusively by a drum machine, with Brett's brother occasionally sitting in on drums. Whereas one song transports you to rural America circa 1930, the next might force you to make connections between then and now. It's more that they've homed in on the otherworldliness of early American music, as opposed to paying a faithful tribute by using the prescribed instrumentation. Call it the New World seen through an old sensibility.

Singing Bones begins with the story of a haunted lake: "Come with me to the forgotten lake/ Where covered wagons / And the wings of missing planes/ Float between blind fish." Soon after, "24 Hour Store" portrays a place that feels like the consumer equivalent to the lake: "Ghosts fly up the aisles/ Across the shining floor/ Opening and closing automatic doors." Elsewhere, a man tells the story of how he willingly descends a bottomless hole, sliding further down only because he believes it's not bottomless. And somewhere else a man loses his dog, his wagon, and finally, with "the sun died out," lies down among toads in defeat. But as much as their music portrays the world of the fallen and forgotten, it also portrays a world of its opposite, one of splendor and redemption.

Before heading off to Europe in support of their fine new album, Rennie Sparks, lyricist, autoharpist, and wag -- among many other things -- took time to answer some questions.

Tom Gilmore: Let's predictably start right at the beginning: For as long as I've followed you, I have no idea how the two of you met. Tell us the story.

Rennie Sparks: We were in a French penal colony in the South Seas. I helped him smuggle out a note to his mother in exchange for a coconut full of crickets. Either that or we met in college on Long Island. I can't remember which.

TG: I've been absorbing your newest release for the last week, and it's great. Unlike some groups who make a point of going off in different directions, surprising their listeners, you don't. The biggest shift I see is probably between Milk and Scissors and Through the Trees, and since then you've been amazingly consistent. Say something about this. Any tricks up your sleeves for the future?

RS: The time between Milk and Scissors and Through the Trees was a very difficult time for us. Lots of personal problems, our drummer quit, we had terrible jobs. But, Through the Trees was written after many months listening to old folk songs, finding great comfort in their bittersweetness. It was the beginning of our own dream of writing songs to soothe a dark heart. Before then I don't think we were very clear on why we wanted to write songs. Now we both feel committed to trying to create beauty, mystery, magic -- these are the things that make life worth living. However, for the next record Brett and I have agreed to switch roles -- he'll write the words and I'll write the music. Should be a lot of two-chord songs about beer.

TG: How was recording Singing Bones different than recording the others?

RS: It was the first time we had a separate room to record in (a converted garage). That was a great luxury. We also had more free time and we had a lot of musicians who were eager to help us out.

TG: You're in the middle of a tour right now. What are you listening to traveling from town to town?

RS: "Coast to Coast" on the AM [radio] every night. Last night they discussed the magnetic explosion that recently blew off the sun and should completely disable all telecommunication tonight and tomorrow. A few days ago they played ghost tapes which are recordings made in empty buildings that, when played back, reveal ghosts whispering to us. The scariest one was a woman who kept asking, "Where am I?"

TG: Tell us a story about life on the road -- what's one of the more unusual experiences that would make it into the Handsome Family travel diary?

RS: Yesterday a guy at a bar told me how he had a childhood friend who arrived at his house one day all covered in blood. When they cleaned him up they found no wound. "How did you get all covered in blood?" his mother asked the little boy. He replied, "I've been eating grapes off the dog." On investigation, it was discovered that the dog was covered in ticks.

TG: Your live shows are funnier than most stand-up comedy routines. Does that cutting repartee between you and Brett exist around the house -- say, when you're making dinner, or cleaning out the refrigerator?

RS: Around the house we wear shrouds and ashes and beat ourselves with oak brooms. Oh, I don't know. I suppose we have a good time together. We must or we wouldn't spend almost every waking minute together all the time.

TG: What's one of Brett's odder habits? And what would he reply is yours?

RS: He travels with a shoe horn. I find that somehow very disturbing. On the plus side he has a gift of looking at any dog or cat and immediately knowing the animal's correct name (even if their owners don't). Since Brett is sleeping right now I'll answer for him about me. He hates the fact that I've had one guitar pick for about ten years now. Very un-rock.

TG: Everyone I know playing music similar to yours hasn't resisted a certain temptation that you have. That is, sooner or later, fiddle, banjo, accordion, etc., or any combination thereof, makes it into the live set. You must have considered it at some point. Is it simply because it's more manageable as is?

RS: Well, we're guilty too. We have had banjo and accordion on a few occasions. I also regularly play an autoharp. I get tired of the sound of guitar/bass/drums all the time. But, it is hard to get, for example, a musical saw on a plane to Europe.

TG: Greil Marcus somewhat famously praised you, essentially picking you out as the bridge between what he calls "the old, weird America," and the present. It's almost as if he took the torch from Mother Maybelle Carter, and handed it off to you. I was pretty familiar with your music when I read his comments and I remember thinking, "He's right." At the same time, I could see how it could be interpreted as a mixed blessing, as in, "Oh, we're important and meaningful and now there's pressure." What do you think?

RS: How could we ever complain about that sort of thing? We were at a seminar at the Getty Center in LA where Greil was speaking. We had never spoken to him at that point. In the middle of the lecture (titled, "Uncle Dave Macon: Agent of Satan?") he started speaking about us. We both started crying. No joke. It was very, very gratifying to be recognized in that light. It's never bad to feel that others take your work seriously unless you've got a lot of self-hatred. When I was younger every time anyone said anything that was even slightly complimentary I felt like I was being stabbed. I'm much better now.

TG: Speaking of Mother Maybelle, there aren't too many people who play the autoharp. How important is she to your musical upbringing?

RS: I actually never heard or saw an autoharp until I was in my late twenties. But, once I saw someone play one I really wanted to. It's so comforting to hold and strum. Maybelle Carter was an amazingly talented musician. She invented new ways to play the guitar and the autoharp. I'll never be anything but a light strummer, but that's okay by me.

TG: Can you remember the record or song that you made you think, "I want to make music like this"?

RS: Yes. It was Vic Chesnut's Little. It was a huge, huge epiphany for me. I was a writer who had never thought about writing lyrics even though there were a lot of lyrics I liked. Little made me see how any life experience can be used to paint a beautiful picture.

TG: How does your songwriting process work? Lyrics or music first?

RS: Lyrics first, after much painful revision, then music in a burst of inspiration. Brett seems to work much more quickly than I do. Takes me months to get the words done and then he'll have the music done in a week.

TG: Do you miss Chicago?

RS: The sky is beautiful here. The air is thin. Everything shines with a dreamy light. Do I miss running through icy streets with the wind whipping against me? What do you think?

TG: To somebody who has never heard the Handsome Family, how would you describe yourselves?

RS: Arsenic and old lace.

TG: Your music explores some pretty dark subjects: murder, insanity, eternal loneliness. Meanwhile, we're very much a country that's culturally swimming in the opposite. How do you counter somebody who says you're too dark or that these subjects are too depressing?

RS: I tell them that to try and avoid darkness is to not live life fully. Grow up. Pain and death are natural parts of life. They cannot be avoided. We protect children from them because we feel they can't handle it, but if you want to be a grown up then stop avoiding your own experience. The dark moments of life are the very things that make us understand what beauty and joy are and how important love is. You can't ever appreciate beauty and love without feeling their absence.

TG: Increasingly, it seems young people are awakening to older music -- whether it's old-timey, bluegrass, country, or blues -- do you see this? If so, how did it happen, because I can't see a bunch of execs sitting around and tossing that out as a marketing strategy.

RS: I think that in a world of glossy newness and insincerity, the discovery of something real, something with a history, is an extraordinary moment. The first time I heard the Louvin Brothers singing I felt my heart crack open like an egg. The timeless beauty, the great yearning was something that made the juvenile angst of rock and roll seem as dull and lifeless as dryer lint.

TG: Who's a group/artist working out there right now worthy of more attention?

RS: There are so many musicians out there who never get anywhere because a lot of the music industry is focused on juvenile drama, the cult of personality, skinny boys with big voices, little girls with their belly buttons out. What are the grown ups supposed to be listening to? Kenny G? Unsung people/bands I love: Chris Ligon, the Aluminum Group, Little Grizzly, Church Camp, the Clampett Report.

TG: Your first two album covers have dogs and since then they've been shots of nature, increasingly stark and less serene. Wanting to make the connection between this and your music, I saw it as some large, apocryphal story unfolding through images, and it won't end well for us humans. Will the next cover feature fire? Too, given a choice, would you rather the world ended in fire or ice, and does it matter?

RS: Extreme cold and extreme heat end up feeling the same, so no matter. I like to make album covers out of images that I find mysterious. I like to stare at them and not know exactly why I like them.

TG: What are some of your non-musical influences?

RS: William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Bruno Schultz. Romantic painters. Squirrels running across a lawn.

TG: Living or dead, who would you sell your soul to see perform and who would open?

RS: I would have loved to visit Tibet before the Chinese invaded and its great mystery and magic were scattered to the winds. The chanting monks of Tibet must have made the entire earth vibrate in the 1600s. For supporting act, maybe Leonard Cohen. I don't think he'd say no to a trip to ancient Tibet.

For more information:
www.handsomefamily.com

This interview originally appeared on earlash.com.

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Author T.Gilmore writes regular music reviews and is an occasional columnist at Inversion. He is neither fascist nor communist, nor is he republican, democrat or liberal. He lives in New York City and is not working on his first novel

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