The Acorn: Sharing Family Secrets

11/30/07 12:30pm

by Alyssa Noel (CHARTattack)

The Acorn, an Ottawa band known for their sprawling yet accessible pop songs, recently released an album based on lead singer Rolf Klausener's mother's life.

Glory Hope Mountain chronicles the fascinating tale of Gloria Esperanza Montoya's journey from an abusive home in Honduras to a penniless arrival in Montreal. Klausener spoke to ChartAttack about the challenges of making the elaborate record.

ChartAttack: This album has such an interesting back story and I'm sure you've spoken to many media outlets about it. Are you sick of telling this whole story over and over again?
Rolf Klausener: No, definitely not. It's something I've been working on for a few years and I'm happy to talk about it. I can say pretty honestly that I'm really proud of the record. Obviously, you're going to do the bad interviews now and again, but for the most part it's been really wonderful.

I found listening to this album that you'd have to listen very carefully to pick up on pieces of the story. Why did you decide to share the story behind this album rather than let it sit and let people interpret it on their own?
It was a pretty conscious decision. I didn't want to pretend like the album wasn't about her. I didn't want to pull a Neutral Milk Hotel and say there might be a story but I'm not going to tell you. I didn't care to mask the story in any kind of mystique. It is what it is. People write albums for whatever reason they do, and this wasn't necessarily more special than anything else. I just wanted to let people know what it was. I didn't give tons of details in press releases. I was kind of hoping if I answered a few basic questions in a press release, interviewers or people listening to the record could know the back story and listen to the music as opposed to being like, "I want to know what the story is about."

I read that you spent eight hours interviewing your mom.
It was over two months. She came over every week and we sat down for an hour and we recorded the conversation and I basically walked her through her life up to a little bit before I was born. It was a little bit of a selfish process. I wasn't even sure if we were going to record the record. But it was something I wanted to do for a long time. We do have a bit of a tradition of family documentation in our family. It was kind of like here's a good excuse to do it.

What were those hours like?
It was a pretty emotional process. At times it was very matter-of-fact. At times, she would tell me some very basic stuff and then there were other sessions that were very gut-wrenching and hard to hear. And it was hard for her. She's an open book. She'll tell you anything, but at the same time if something bad happened she'll just leave it behind. So to drudge up all this stuff was challenging for her.

Did you hear a story and think right away, "I can translate that to a song?"
In the interview process I was never thinking, "What kind of song is this going to be?" There was one moment and it was when she told me about the flood. It immediately jumped out and I did imagine some sort of narrative. But overall I wasn't thinking about it at all. I was just thinking about interviewing my mom. The process of recording the record was very segmented. It was interview then research then percolating for about six months then writing and recording and writing and recording. I was too busy taking everything in to think about what songs any of the stories would make. That came later. I really and truly had to sit there for about nine months after the interviews and let them percolate. I didn't know how I was going to do it because I had never done it before. It was really frustrating and I went through a period of really bad writer's block. I was literally trying to write every day in the summer of 2006 and that's why we did the Tin Fist EP because I needed a break from making the record. What I didn't understand was that if you want to do this in a natural way you have to let the stories sink in and absorb them and come to terms with them. I really had to do that. And it was kind of naive of me to think that I was going interview my mom and then just be like, "Alright, now I'm going to write a song." It was totally naive and hence why it took so long to record the album.

I also read a quote where you said you felt almost selfish for focusing on one story while there are so many horrible things going on in the world. A bit of time has passed since the album came out. Can you see universality in it now and how it might touch people?
It wasn't necessarily the content of the record. I wasn't worried people weren't going to be able to see themselves in the record or see something they could tie themselves to. I honestly didn't care about that. And that's what I meant. The whole process of this was really selfish. I spent two years of my creative life on it. I put my professional life on hold. The ironic thing was I wasn't even seeing my mom much the whole time I was writing and recording. I wouldn't see her sometimes for two months. And she was like, "What the hell's going on? Don't you love me? Don't you want to see me?" I'm like, "I'm writing a record about your life!" I wasn't worried about that stuff. I'm not a 19 or 20-year-old kid. I have responsibilities. I have student loans. Everyone in the band lives a very real life. One of us owns a house. One's practically married. A lot of us work and have debts and we're trying to do the band in a realistic way. When I'd sit there for days on end I would be thinking, "I should be working." I put everything on hold to write this record. And my mom's not super-well. She suffers from chronic pain. I could be making more money to help her, to support her. That's when you feel really selfish when you're like, "God, what am I doing with my life?" I'm just sitting here making a fricken record. It feels juvenile and it feels like a misplacement of your energy. But I've had a few conversations with friends who kind of made me realize that in the end it is a good thing. And spending this much time on something could mean I'm able to help her in different ways.

What do you think of music as a mode of storytelling?
Personally, I think music is a beautiful way of telling stories. Every culture has a tradition of storytelling through songs. When I was growing up I loved those stories on seven-inch records where you'd read along. I loved that and I've never really separated the two. Obviously, there's music that doesn't tell a story, but certainly there's a whole sect that does. I think "Peter And The Wolf" is a great example of music that tells a story. You can hear the characters and the movement of the story all in the music. "Peter And The Wolf" is one of my favourite pieces of storytelling music. Actually, when I was doing research for the record and learning about the tradition of a lot of these native Honduran cultures, there's a lot of specific references to how music isn't necessarily seen as something you create. Music is its own entity and instruments have a life of their own. They have an energy of their own. Which I know sounds kind of flaky, but it's a really interesting way of looking at music. They looked at music as something humans channel, they don't create. "Even While You're Sleeping" was a song that embodies a lot of those themes and ideas. They just kind of looked at music and songwriting as something that transcends humanity and we're just there as a funnel basically. Music as storytelling was a recurring theme in the research process anyway.

How important was it for you to include some elements of Honduran music in this album?
It wasn't important at all. It was a very serendipitous, organic decision. It wasn't like, "Alright, interview, research, stories, learn about the music, put it together." I had interviewed my mom and one of the grants was already written. And then as I started to really sit with the stories more I started thinking, "Man, I really don't know anything about the culture that surrounded my mother and the music. It might be interesting to do a little research." When I tried to do some research on the web, I didn't find anything. But I didn't know about words to search. I didn't know about tribes, I didn't know about the styles of music. I started talking to a friend who is friends with an ethnomusicologist in New Zealand. So I emailed with that person quite a bit and she told me a lot of the key words and genres to be looking for and she gave me some great references to look for in the university library. Then I went to the university library. And as I started to read the material I got wrapped up. I became fascinated with the culture and the music. I wanted to know more about it and I wanted to hear it. Eventually I found three Smithsonian field recordings from the '50s and '60s. The whole time it was a very secondary element to the process. We were all conscious of the fact that we didn't want to just record a rock record. We were interested in exploring other palates, other colours. This was exactly the palate I was looking for. Obviously, it's good that it came from the culture my mother grew up in, but I loved what I found. It provided a lot of inspiration.

It kind of feels like you guys are on the brink of becoming one of the next big names in Canadian music. Do you feel that way at all?
You're like the fifth person to ask me that question. I don't know how to answer that because music and culture are so mysterious and you never know what the hype is going to be. I don't know if it's necessarily what a lot people want to be listening to. If that happens, if we're afforded the opportunity to play a lot, that's great. Really, I hope people like the record — which isn't really diff than any other record. If people are saying that, that's great because I have a lot of debt. The entire band has been making changes to try and do this full-time. If we can, talk to me in six months. I'll be the most excited person. But how I feel about that? I don't know. It's kind of like someone telling you they're going to buy you a really nice Christmas present but not knowing if they're going to.