I traded all my stops for a pillow made of rails.

THE "AIN'T SUPERSTITIOUS, BUT..." INTERVIEW: MURRY HAMMOND



The Old 97's founder on punk rock ideals, joining Patsy Cline with Noel Gallagher and the prolonged birth of his new solo album: "Before, I just had no enthusiasm for doing a solo record, because I thought there was no point in doing something if I didn't have something to say."

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In a perfect world, Murry Hammond might have been able to get out on the road a little more this year to push his new solo album, I Don't Know Where I'm Going, But I'm On My Way. After all, he said he doesn't want to disappoint any of his fans.

As it goes, we'll have to settle for a handful of solo dates between now and year's end. But Hammond will be the first to tell you that timing always seems to work out in the end, and while he might not be able to strike out on his own that much at the moment, it's for good reason.

The Old 97's, which he founded with Rhett Miller 15 years ago, are incredibly busy promoting their latest record, Blame it On Gravity (proving to be both a critical darling and one of the band's most commercially successful outings to date), and he's also got a new son, Tex, at home who doesn't like when his pop's not around.

"And being away from home for a long time is very uncomfortable," he said. "It's of tantamount importance that he doesn't suffer just because I'm a musician."

It's a highly unlikely prospect. Hammond audibly beams when talk turns to his son, and our interview was momentarily suspended because Tex began crying for daddy.

So perhaps it's striking in a way that a devoted family man who finally found the voice to do a solo record in weekly sets in the First Christian Church in Burbank, Calif. still writes songs tinged with regret and heartbreak.

For longtime 97's fans, I Don't Know Where I'm Going… (which can be streamed online at Last.FM) is the solo album that you could expect was brewing as far back as when Hammond was writing the likes of "Sound of Running," "Old Familiar Steam" and "Valentine." The album's three main themes: trains, spirituality and regret are all presented in the rustic fashion of his heroes such as the Carter Family and Hank Williams.

But inspiration came in unlikely places.

"I actually went online and read a lot of epitaphs," he said. "I mean, there are funny ones, but there are also ones that are high poetry. Things said in an effective and highly emotional way."

Listening to cuts like "Wreck of the 97" (a Hammond original, mind you, not a cover of the Johnny Cash song on which his band's name was derived), it's no surprise.

"That's the biggest regret song on there," he said. "It was written about somebody that I once considered a friend, but wasn't very good to and I ended up losing that friendship."

While such subject matter is fertile ground for songwriting, Hammond hesitates to call it therapeutic.

"I don't know that writing those songs shakes those feelings out entirely," he said. "When it comes to grief, there can be comfort, but when it's just boy-girl things, I don't know that it does one damn thing besides give me a chance to squawk. And that's it. Then I still have to deal with the mess I've created."

But Hammond says his songwriting hangs chiefly on two guides: the Beatles and Johnny Cash, and he said he's more comfortable writing the down-to-earth, regret style music in the Cash style.

"'Can't Get a Line' (on the Old 97's Satellite Rides album) was me having fun trying to write on the Beatle end of things," he said. "And there's a song on the new record, 'This Beautiful Thing,' which I just wrote for my wife that's a Beatle-y thing. I just wanted to write a song I could sing to her in my living room. But I think I'm better when I do the Johnny Cash-type stuff."

Fans can engage in that debate on their own time, but Murry said he's also happy not to have the chief songwriting responsibilities within the Old 97's.

"Rhett is a supremely talented songwriter and would be the primary songwriter in this or any band he's a part of," he said. "I don't really like the notion of stardom and celebrity in music. That's very creepy to me, so I've shied away from the spotlight. I've always felt like more of a team person, but doing that doesn't give you the focus to do a solo record."

It explains the long gestation period for I Don't Know Where I'm Going…, but even though he's got the solo record now, Hammond still isn't buying into the spotlight. He personally bankrolled the recording and packaging of the album, ships mail order copies out from his California home and even personally fills the orders for the album from amazon.com.

"It's very DIY," he said. "The boxes are out in the garage where the dogs sleep … I realized, you don't need a label. I have these stubborn punk rock ideals I grew up with, and I guess I've never gotten rid of that."

One wouldn't expect to find such ideals within church walls or presiding over an album as rich in locomotive musings as it is in religion (with a bit of beautiful yodeling thrown in for good measure), but Hammond said what drives him musically today isn't that far detached from what did in, well, other younger days.

"Any kid that's ridden around on a skateboard for four years of their life during their teenage years knows it," he said. "I just had the country version of that. You live in your mind during that time, and that's where music really gets to you. It's my life."

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GIMME FIVE (MORE):
Five Burning Questions For Murry Hammond

Favorite Beatles Song?
"Tomorrow Never Knows"
"I first heard it when I was six, and it was just so imaginative and other-worldly. The sounds and everything just amazed me. I got Revolver as a Christmas gift that year – my parents had asked my brother which albums to get me, so I got that and Paul McCartney's Ram, but it was 'Tomorrow Never Knows' that really blew me away. Even though I didn't know or understand what they were talking about, it just sounded incredible. I played that to death. And 'Yellow Submarine,' of course, because it's a kid's song."

Three songwriters, living or dead, you wish you could sit down and write a song with?
Sarah Carter, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash
"Sarah didn't write much, but what she did was kind of those church recipe book lyrics, which I thought were great ... Hank is so far up on the pedestal. Johnny's a little more down to earth, but he was so clever. But I think of the three, Sarah would be the closest to what I do. "

If you had to pick one song you've written that you think really sums you up as a songwriter, what would it be?
"Most of the stuff is in the past, but I suppose 'Color of a Lonely Heart is Blue' on the new record really is the closest to being a full representation. If you can imagine – and I told the guys as we were going to record it – Patsy Cline standing up and singing in front of Oasis. It's got the sad kind of country thing, but I also wanted it to sound like Noel Gallagher was back there. It's very rootsy, but it also has its head in the clouds, which is very me."

You're going to be doing a lot of driving this month, what's your road music going to be?
"I'm actually going through a period where I can't listen to anything with words in it. So I've been listening to a lot of Stars of the Lid, some choral music and this kind of Buddhist, new age kind of throat singing. Not that real throat singing, but stuff like David Hykes and Jim Cole. It's the spaciest music you'll ever hear. I'm also taking books on tape, so I'll have the new David Sedaris with me, and probably Jim Wallis' God's Politics. Because I need to hear some hope about the new evangelicals, and get away from this Neo-Con stuff."

What's the one song you wish you could have written?
"In answering that, I suppose you have to look at it like you wish you could've written it, but given the chance, you also could have. I suppose it would be 'I Saw the Light' by Hank Williams."

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Upcoming Solo Dates

Sept. 19, St. Louis, MO - Off Broadway

Sept. 20, Chicago, IL - Schuba's

Sept. 22, Arlington, VA - Iota Club and Cafe

Sept. 23, Raleigh, NC - Berkeley Cafe

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Hank Williams - I Saw the Light
While this Gospel-tinged 1948 single by one of country music's first icons wasn't an immediate success and seeemed to run contrary to what was happening in Williams' personal life, it's become one of his most enduring tunes and proof that despite his vices, he remained a spiritual person. And given the chance, Murry indeed might have been able to pull this one off. It wouldn't sound too out of place on I Don't Know Where I'm Going... Can be found on any number of Hank Williams retrospective collections, including the authoratative The Complete Hank Williams.

Old 97's - Old Familiar Steam
One of Murry's first train-themed contributions for the Old 97's, and one of the rare instances where the song's cheif writer turned over vocal duties to the band's other main voice (the other being when Murry sang the predominantly Rhett-written "Crash on the Barrelhead" from 1999's Fight Songs). While the band's 1995 album Wreck Your Life for Chicago's Bloodshot Records was one of the alt-country movement's defining LPs and a cornerstone for many 97's fans, this is without question the record's most dreamy and ethereal moment, helped in no small part by Don Walser's ghostly yodeling on the song's outro.