(initially ran in june but perfectly in sync with the sold out show tomorrow night @ the cat as well. enjoy.)

Bowerbirds are a magical act both on record and in a live setting. On their previous pass through these parts we arranged an interview that was thwarted by the health of the band. Luckily they rested rather than answer questions and despite raging fevers all around, managed an amazing performance (read for yourself.)

Following a tour opening for The Mountain Goats and then a headliner journey, they are back out on the road with some exciting news. As front man Phil Moore explains, their full-length “Hymns For A Dark Horse” is about to be re-issued via one of the coolest labels around in Dead Oceans, “with two new bonus tracks, a new and different (more instruments, different vocals, etc.) recording of “La Denigracion,” from “Danger at Sea,” the e.p. that we put out a couple years ago; as well as a brand new song, “Matchstick Maker.” Having heard these songs live I can vouch for the need to rush out and purchase this version of the album!

Now that he is full of chicken soup and ready to make the trek up and down the East Coast and onward to Europe, Moore had a chance to e-chat with us and we are as grateful for his words as we are for his music. Enjoy:

I recall how excited John Darnielle (Mountain Goats) was to take you on tour with him and share your music with his audience - how did you meet John? Did he force you to listen to death metal before each show?
I should have met John a long time ago, when I was going to high school in the middle of Iowa and playing shows at the college there with my art rock band. I never did though. I did meet his now wife, Laura, as she played in an excellent punk rock group, Socket Wench. It took us both moving out of Iowa to North Carolina, where the music scene is far more supportive, to get to know each other.

He and Peter and John are such great tour-mates. None of them would force anything on us in fear they could permanently scar us.

How was the touring experience in front of his unique crowd?
He does have a unique crowd. We found that we got a lot of fans because John was really supportive of our music, but we also had people who would have preferred we would have just gotten off of the stage, to get on with the good stuff. I think this is mostly true of any band that has a strong following like the Mountain Goats.

My last Goats related question (promise.) Now that Darnielle is located in Carolina; including yourselves - does that make the music scene 4 people? Seriously, how is the local collection of musicians?
Mountain Goats are one of the most known bands in the area, but the local music scene here in the triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) is sooooo good. There is a large and great collection of musicians.

Not only are the bands great here, but everyone is really supportive of each other. I was talking to a friend who moved to Seattle recently and they were talking about how the scene is way more
competitive there, but that it is not that much bigger or better than the Triangle. Rosebuds. Megafaun. Des Ark. Bon Iver (via Wisconsin). Midtown Dickens. Phon. Utah! Eberheart. Bellafea. David Karsten Daniels (via Seattle). Future Kings of Nowhere. Proof. Goner. Physics of Meaning. Wes Phillips. Mark Paulson. All of the Trecky Records groups. These are just our closest friends and only some of them and just a few of the great bands that come from the Triangle.

I saw the magical photo of your Airstream in the snow. Are you traveling the country on tour in something larger than your home and do you miss that silver beauty?
Bowerbirds tour in a minivan currently. We set up a bed in the back so we could fall to sleep in a pinch. And yes, we do miss our airstream and the surrounding quiet woods. Touring is excellent, but we are all busy people. Mark has a lot of different projects, including restoring his house and writing his own music (which is amazing). Beth is an accomplished visual artist and needs time at home to do most of her art. We all love home.

Dead Oceans has one of the premier rosters today - how did deciding tore-release “Hymns for a Dark Horse” with them come about?
We met Phil from Dead Oceans in Austin the day we opened up for John Vanderslice at the Troubadour and even though it wasn’t our best show to date, he enjoyed the music and we struck up a conversation about at least staying in touch. When Phil called us up from our way home from tour to see if we were interested, we didn’t think twice about it. Dead Oceans is a great label and we feel super grateful to be signed to it.

What’s your favorite song by another artist on Dead Oceans?
We just got off of touring with Phosphorescent and as I tend to really enjoy the bands that we tour with a lot by the end of the tour especially, I’m really into all of those songs off of Pride right
now. I also love Citay and White Hinterland and being able to see them live in Austin was a treat.

At what point in the process of writing songs on the side from your previous band, Ticonderoga, did Beth start to join in adding vocals and her self-taught instrumentation?
Beth joined the Bowerbirds on accordion and bass drum about a month before our first show. She had played clarinet in her middle school’s band before that, but Beth can do anything she wants. She is really intuitive.

I heard that Beth couldn’t wait for actual accordion lessons so she taught herself - has she gotten any better on tour - and would that ruin the simple charm if she did?
She has gotten really good at the accordion for only having played it for a few years. She can play complex parts on both hands at once which is a lot more than most “indie rock” accordion players can do.I think her charm comes from elsewhere and that won’t change. Her accordion playing will naturally get better and better, but I don’t see that making the parts she writes becoming too over-the-top. She puts the songs first when she writes parts for them.

Your acoustic playing merges gentle strums with a plucky picking style (”Dark Horse being my favorite merging of the two) - who influences your playing?
Nick Drake got me on this path several years ago. I get really interested in Mali kora music, Toumani and Mamadou Diabate in particular, and though I could never be able to play at that level I am obsessed with the poly-rhythms involved in that music. I love the Nonesuch explorer series, The Zimbabwe mbira (thumb piano) music recorded in the 70s is so good. It’s hard to understand exactly what is going on, but I love it and it has been very inspirational for me. Charles Mingus is very influential to me. I try not to let the playing get in front of the song writing however. The songs come first.

When you surge your vocals together in an almost hymn-like fashion it seems to provide a release of sorts. How does that develop in the songwriting process - is it organic?
It is organic, though I remember Mark accusing our old band of matching every note with every syllable in a sort of plain way. Once I quit doing that, It sort of set some of the melodies free. It’s
fun to sing like that anyway and sometimes when I listen to my past voice I wonder why it took me so long to let go.

The set up is pretty straightforward but the recording of Hymns is really warm and close yet has a “room” feel and in general is just perfect for what you do. Tell me about the recording process -
If you have seen us live, you will know basically what our recording process is like. We set up in Mark’s wooden living room and play, save the violin and some background vocals. We use a lot of room mics, some of them made by Mark himself. It’s usually one take if at all possible.

There is a literate nature to your songs - what are you reading currently?
I’m reading Joy of Man’s Desiring, by Jean Giono.

Is the beard required when you live in the woods?
It’s a lot easier, so yes. I can’t believe I shaved for so many years, given my laziness.

How weird is it becoming something of a blog sensation in this new marketplace, especially playing a rustic, traditional style of music?
I’m still trying to figure out what blogs really are. I’ve heard that people can make a decent living writing about bands on blogs. I don’t know how that is possible, really. Though, it’s great, very DIY, put the power back into the people’s hands, I guess, unless there is something else I don’t get. Is there a lot of corporate backing?

Sorry we didn’t get to chat last time but we are really looking forward to having you back here with the also fabulous Bon Iver!
Yeah, sorry we got to these questions so late. We had a great show in DC even though Beth and I had 103 degree fevers with bronchitis. The crowd was awesome and if I remember correctly it was a Sunday night, so thank you everyone for the great show. Deleted Scenes was amazing that night and a really hard act to follow.

Come out and see how difficult an act Bowerbirds can be to follow August 1st at the wonderful Black Cat with Bon Iver.

Space out at myspace.com/bowerbirds

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