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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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The Olympic Hopefuls: Going for the Gold
Thursday 08 April @ 13:44:15 |
 By Rob van Alstyne
Perhaps only Minnesotans can properly appreciate the beauty of summer - for only those of us who have braved countless snowdrifts and endured endless cold fronts can truly perceive the beauty of the summer’s first rays. It’s something most Twin Cities folk spend a good six months out of the year waiting for, and it was in the heart of yet another brutal Minnesota winter that the audio lover letter to summertime known as The Fuses Refuse to Burn, (the debut release from new local outfit the Olympic Hopefuls) was crafted.
“I think the most summery records probably get recorded during the winter,” claims Erik Appelwick, one half of the group’s songwriting team. “Yeah, as self preservation,” jokes OH’s other main man, Darren Jackson. I’m seated next to the pair at a Dinkytown Café and their explaining the metamorphosis of the Olympic Hopefuls from a two-man basement recording project back in 2002 into a full fledged pop powerhouse about to unleash arguably the debut album of the year.
“I think originally when we started recording it we thought it would see the light of day a lot faster than it actually did,” admits Appelwick. “We worked on it for like three months two winters ago and then I think just holing up in the basement that much drove us away from working on it anymore for awhile.” Both, as is so often the case with Twin Cities musicians, were busy with other bands (with Darren Jackson fronting spooky-rock trio Kid Dakota and Appelwick practicing his own brand of lo-fi faux soul under the moniker of Vicious Vicious) and for awhile it looked as though the eight-track recorded pop magic they were crafting together was destined to collect dust in the basement.
There were occasional live shows performed under the name “Camaro” (held almost exclusively at Carleton College’s music enclave, The Cave) but little was known of the project beyond myth and rampant rumor. It took Jackson’s purchase of a Pro Tools home recording program last summer to get the project up and running again. Eventually The Fuses Refuse to Burn reached completion, the band ditched the “Camaro” name (turns out some undoubtedly lamer group already had dibs) and the Olympic Hopefuls were ready to unleash the pop album of the year on an unsuspecting Twin Cities music scene (with a recently assembled live version of the group that includes Alva Star’s John Hermanson on keyboards and backing vocals, Matt O’Laughlin of Friends Like These behind the drums and Heath Henjum of the Beatifics on bass).
Ten tracks of pulsating new wave pop and occasional mock classic rock throwbacks split right down the middle between Jackson and Appelwick on songwriting/vocal duties, The Fuses Refuse to Burn is bursting at the seams with melody. The pair handled all the instrumentation and recording excepting drums (which were performed courtesy of Iffy skinsman Peter Anderson and engineered by longtime Kid Dakota cohort Alex Oana) and a few cameo appearances by their respective girlfriends and nearly the entirety of Fuses was sculpted in the basement of Jackson’s house, dubbed “Short Man Studios” for its conspicuously low ceilings. Nearly every song combines buoyant hand claps, absurd xylophone fills, backing oohh and aahhs galore, trashy synthesizer lines and razor sharp guitar leads in a shameless effort to keep heads bopping and asses shaking throughout the entirety of the albums 37-minute sonic joyride.
With so many musical tricks employed the question begs to be asked, was there ever the danger of throwing too many sounds at the songs? “When we originally started we had pretty tight parameters to work in because we just had the eight-track to work with,” explains Appelwick. “Bouncing it all over to Pro Tools wasn’t even part of the game really at that point. So a few songs we almost pretty much fleshed out entirely on the eight-track self-contained, so when we bounced those ones over to Pro Tools later some of the songs were more realized and we kind of didn’t tinker really much with those, but some of the songs were just a bass, drums and two guitars … so those ended up having pretty major reconstructive surgery.”
The reconstructive surgery included many bells and whistles – but not the xylophone. “All the xylophone was done before we went to Pro Tools, so it was all done with the thought that ‘we only have eight tracks… and one of them is going to be xylophone,’” remembers Jackson, beaming.
“I think at one point we had xylophone on all the tracks,” counters Appelwick, “then we took some of it away later.”
“Erik took the xylophone away from me after awhile,” recalls Jackson, “he was like, ‘I’m sorry Darren – you’ve abused your privileges.’”
Clearly good times were had in the basement studio and Jackson sums up the mission statement of the Olympic Hopefuls succinctly, “It’s fun music for happy times.” And although that’s a bit of an oversimplification (two of Jackson’s patented drug tormented numbers due turn up on the record) the bulk of the Olympic Hopefuls output is lighthearted feel-good rock with wide-eyed declarations of love (“Drain the Sea”) fist pumping bacchanalian anthems (“Let’s Go!”) and speeding motorcyle devotionals (“Motobike”) setting the tone of the record.
“Well, the songs of mine on this record are all between three and five years old,” explains Appelwick when asked if there was a specific game plan for the songs chosen to record in the Olympic Hopefuls project. “Some of them were written before I even moved to Minneapolis, when I was still living in Montana back in like 1998. There wasn’t much of a pre-conceived notion of what was going to happen with the songs or what the project was going to be.”
“These are songs that definitely don’t fit with Kid Dakota and it’s nice to filter them somewhere else,” admits Jackson. “But you know I don’t want to just write a certain genre of song – so I just write whatever – and if it makes sense in one place more so than another that’s where it ends up.”
“If you have enough bands then every song will work somewhere,” chimes in Appelwick.
“Yeah,” counters Jackson. “We’re working on a polka band now so I can finally get all of my polkas out into the world.”
The Olympic Hopefuls play the CD release show for The Fuses Refuse to Burn on Sat., April 10, at the 7th Street Entry. With Friends Like These, Pilot to Gunner and the Natural History. 8pm $6 21+. 701 First Ave. N., Mpls, 612-338-8388.
Download an mp3 of The Olympic Hopeful's song "Drain the Sea."
You can find out more about The Olympic Hopefuls on their official website.
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