The Old Ceremony’s seventh full-length album, Earthbound, signals a creative evolution, with the band embracing the expansive sound they’ve honed over two decades of collaboration. The album features 11 original, intellectually rich tracks written by founding member Django Haskins, whose insightful songwriting has earned him admiration among literate folk.
He has also been a continuous member of a group touring in tribute to the iconic rock band Big Star for over a decade. This tribute, organized by Big Star’s drummer Jody Stephens, has included performances from notable artists such as Jeff Tweedy, Kurt Vile, Sharon Van Etten, Chris Stamey, and all the members of R.E.M., among others.
Following a long gap since their 2015 release, Sprinter, the band’s creative process was molded by the pandemic’s constraints. “We had come out of the pandemic and a fairly slow period of band activity,” recalls frontman Django, “but I’d been writing a song a week over a couple of years and had a big stack of new material, so we were really just sifting through these songs and seeing which ones worked best for us.”
This abundant collection of songs became the fertile ground for Earthbound, a dynamic exploration that unfolded naturally during recording. “The recording itself was very free-flowing, creative, and painless because we’ve played together for so long. We finished all the recording in two long weekends,” he adds. While Earthbound incorporates a more stripped-down lineup than their early years as an 11-piece ensemble, the experience of working with larger arrangements continues to inform their sound.
The album was recorded at Overdub Lane in Durham, NC, and co-produced by Thom Canova. What drew you to this studio and Thom as a collaborator, and how did his input influence the sound?
We were all familiar with Overdub Lane through previous sessions, both with this band and other projects. It has a great setup for performing live in the studio, and a beautiful grand piano, but more importantly, our longtime engineer and collaborator, Thom Canova, works out of Overdub Lane regularly and is intimately familiar with its quirks. Thom has always been our “fifth Beatle,” and communicating/collaborating with him on the fly is often wordless and instantaneous. He’s creative and open to experimenting but he also has a real sense of songs.
Earthbound includes 11 new songs that emerged from over 100 songs written during the pandemic. How did you navigate such a large pool of material, and what was the selection process like for deciding which tracks made it onto the album?
I would bring a few out at each rehearsal and we’d try them. If it worked well, we’d put it in a live set and see how that landed, or didn’t. I generally had a sense of which songs would be obvious TOC contenders, but occasionally ones that I had pegged as solo acoustic tunes, like “North American Grain” really clicked in the band context.
How did you channel the emotional weight of that period into your music, and what do you hope listeners will take away from Earthbound in the context of the world’s ongoing struggles?
The reason we picked Earthbound as a title (and title track) is that it relates to the ideas of finding a way to be grounded in a difficult world. It also refers to our eventual destination, which is to say, underground, so it works in a few different ways. “Here Comes Another Cloud” is probably the takeaway I’d like people to have (though “Picking My Battles” and “Hangman’s Party” are also in similar veins lyrically), which is to find a place of acceptance of things as they are. Yep, here comes another cloud, but I’ve seen this before and I can handle it. That’s the idea at least.
The album seems to capture a wide range of moods and themes, from the folky, philosophical “Too Big to Fail” and “North American Grain” to the raw, gripping “Valerie Solanas.” What role does diversity in tone play in your songwriting?
I’ve always loved different styles of music — jazz, folk, rock, classical, country, medieval choral stuff, French chansons, punk rock, new tango, etc. I don’t really have a choice about it; it’s the way my brain works. So we’ve always had a really broad palate, for better or worse.
The Old Ceremony has gone from an eleven-piece mini-orchestra to your current five-piece lineup. How has this shift affected the band’s sound, and how does it guide your approach today?
Well, the shift from 11- to 5-piece happened about 18 years ago, in the early days of the band, once we realized that taking an 11-piece on the road was impossible. But I think having had that early experience of the large ensemble made us think differently in terms of our arrangements: individual instruments didn’t have to fill so much space, and conversely, we wanted to use very diverse sounds like vibraphone, violin, synth, etc.
You’ve been part of the Big Star tribute tours for over a decade, performing alongside a diverse range of artists. How has performing these classic songs with such a varied group of artists impacted your approach to live performance?
The experience with the Big Star group has been a huge part of my life for 12 or so years, and I am really grateful for it. Getting to know and play with so many people who had previously existed only on my turntables has been a thrill, to say the least. It has become a family, and other collaborations have grown from it: Mike Mills played and sang on our last record; Gary Louris and I became great friends and started our own psych folk duo, Au Pair.
None of this would’ve happened without the Big Star thing, and — to give credit where it belongs — without the quixotic genius of Chris Stamey, who put the whole thing together, along with Big Star’s Jody Stephens.
The Old Ceremony has shared bills with the Jayhawks, Chuck Berry, the Mountain Goats, and more. Are there any moments that have left a lasting impression?
All of those that you mention were memorable. Performing with Chuck Berry was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, though. Seeing the man who basically invented rock and roll guitar playing still ripping after all those years was inspiring beyond belief.
After two decades, what still drives you to create music with The Old Ceremony? Is there something about the band’s chemistry or the creative process that remains particularly fulfilling at this stage in your career?
We’ve grown up together in a lot of ways. We are gentler in our interactions and more balanced in our goals. Basically, we do it because we love it, and we want to reach people for the simple reason that we want them to enjoy what we are making. All the “star maker machinery” B.S. is long gone – and good riddance!
With Earthbound now out in the world, what’s next for The Old Ceremony? Do you have plans to tour, or are there other projects on the horizon?
We are in the midst of playing shows around the new record. When that winds down, I’d imagine we will turn back to that stack of new songs and see what we want to make of it next.
Finally, you’ve certainly influenced the Chapel Hill/Durham, North Carolina music scene, but how has the local scene influenced you?
The local scene has influenced us all along. There have always been so many great bands here, and a sense of supporting each other that we really don’t take for granted. I mean, at this point half of them have been members of The Old Ceremony anyway.
