Eastmountainsouth

THE HISTORY
Their name is cryptic, suggesting a landscape that puzzled the mapmakers. In music’s intangible geography, however, eastmountainsouth represents the confluence of high-lonesome heartbreak, modernist ingenuity and raw-veined Americana.
At its core, the group is Kat Maslich and Peter Adams. Both are vocalists, instrumentalists and writers imprinted with the undeniable regional character one might expect from children of the South. Their music, as exemplified by eastmountainsouth (due June 17, 2003, on DreamWorks Records), is an alloy of hill-country melodies, contemporary studio techniques and literary-minded lyrics that frequently trace the experience of loss.
Mitchell Froom, producer of acclaimed albums by Los Lobos, Elvis Costello, Crowded House and many others, co-produced eastmountainsouth with Adams. He calls the group “Appalachian from both sides of the fence,” elaborating: “Peter is a trained composer who, at times, brings an Aaron Copland-type harmonic influence into the mix. And Kat has deep personal and musical roots in rural Virginia, which flavors everything she writes and sings.”
As one might suspect, both come from families for whom music was part of the furniture. A native of Roanoke, Va., Kat Maslich also grew up on Clinch Mountain (home to bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley), where her grandparents lived.
Kat’s mother is a retired music teacher who performed regularly in church. Her father played piano, and her stepfather collected musical instruments and supported Kat’s artistic ambitions. Despite having been in hardcore bands during those inevitably rebellious teen years, Kat says: “I always had this love for bluegrass because of the association with my grandparents. I played different styles of music when I was younger, but I finally came out of the closet as a bluegrass buff.”
After her 21st birthday, Kat moved to Los Angeles. “I had lived in Atlanta for two years, working as a hairstylist,” she informs. “One of my sisters lived in Los Angeles. I wanted to pursue my music, and my sister encouraged me to come out and try it. My father later bought me a guitar and I taught myself to play. I’d written songs in bands in Roanoke and Atlanta, so I began hitting the open mic nights.”
But Kat’s was a restless tenure in L.A. “I picked up and left five times,” she confirms. “I’d stay for a while and take odd jobs. I worked in a condom store, managed a porno store – I did anything I could to survive while trying to make something happen with my music. I left, went to Portland and Seattle, then came back down. Then I moved on to San Francisco and New York, only to return to Los Angeles. I finally stayed here long enough to build up a circle of musical acquaintances, and I resolved to put every ounce of energy I had into my music. If it didn’t happen, I decided, I was moving back to Virginia.”
The man who would one day help her make it happen, Peter Adams, was raised in Birmingham, Ala., in a family of “harmony junkies” – his mother sang multi-part grace at dinner with her five siblings and their spouses. Peter’s maternal grandfather, once a professional clarinet player, was his first musical idol. “When he came to visit, he’d play the piano,” Peter attests. “I have early memories of crawling under the piano as he played and putting my head up in the frame. I was amazed by the sound.”
Peter began piano lessons at age six. His facility at the keyboard led first to competitions, then advanced studies. He remembers: “I had a teacher from the Alabama School Of Fine Arts who wanted me to study there, but at that point I went off to boarding school, where I started playing other kinds of music and writing songs.”
Ultimately, it was a semester abroad (a break from the University Of The South, in Sewanee, Tenn.) that confirmed Peter’s dedication to music. In Freiburg, Germany, he studied piano, organ and composition with composer Mikhail Kapsner. He says of Kapsner, “He’s the one who really kicked my ass and got me motivated.”
Peter returned to Sewanee for his senior year and wrote a large choral piece for the university choir as his thesis, graduating with a B.A. in music. He went on to earn a master’s degree from the University Of Alabama School of Music (in Tuscaloosa).
But at some point, he’d begun to harbor doubts about his future in academic music. He recalls: “I remember one time sitting with a visiting lecturer from Yale, trying to analyze Stravinsky’s ‘Petrushka,’ when the guy looked at me and said, ‘You’re not very good at this, are you?’ I admitted I wasn’t. He said he loved what I was writing, but he had no idea what to do with it in an academic setting.”
This troubling feedback, plus some weekend gigs with an R&B band – “I kept that a secret from everyone at school,” Peter allows – raised further questions.
Then Peter found himself in Los Angeles, studying film scoring at USC. “It was really great,” he says of this departure. “Students got to write for a live ensemble and conduct an orchestra in the studio. I started writing music for film and TV, but I was always writing songs as well, kind of singing quietly in my closet, wishing I could be an artist. I briefly got involved in writing for other singers but wound up working in a music production house.”
It was there, while auditioning singers for a TV spot in the spring of 1999, that Peter first met Kat. “She was among 50 or so vocalists who showed up to try out for the spot,” he says. “She didn’t get the job, but I remember liking her voice. At the time, though, we didn’t know we shared musical interests.”
“By then I’d decided I had to do my own music,” Peter continues. “Not long after that, one of my former partners at the music house went to one of Kat’s shows. He knew my music and was shocked at the similarity of our songwriting styles. He told me I had to check her out. I was doing a demo of a song I was going to pitch in Nashville, so I just called Kat to sing on it. She came over and we sat and played our songs for each other. It was weird – I felt I could have written her songs, and she thought she could have written mine.
“We had no intention of becoming a duo at that moment, but I was determined to perform in public. I began singing harmony when Kat played live. Then we started writing together. People immediately commented on our vocal blend.”
“At that point,” Peter notes, “it became clear that if we were going to pursue a career as a duo, we would need to sacrifice some of our respective material.” This was a key juncture in Kat and Peter’s transition from solo artists to creative unit.
Things happened quickly thereafter. “We hit the ground running,” Peter says. “I produced some demos, and as more people heard them, interest began to build. Then, in the fall of 2001, we got a call from Robbie Robertson.”
Robertson, who signed the band to DreamWorks Records, has likened eastmountainsouth’s work to “haunted mountain music with modern beats.” He was particularly impressed by Kat and Peter’s vocal collaboration: “I have great admiration for voices that weave together as beautifully as Kat and Peter’s. Usually when that happens, you’ll find the singers are family members, like the Everlys or the Stanley Brothers. When Kat and Peter’s voices hit that zone together, there’s a certain vibration that emanates from them – their two voices truly become one.”
Peter, though, feels he’s really still learning: “Robbie encouraged me to sing lead on some of our songs, which is kind of funny because I’ve always thought of Kat as my vocal training wheels. Singing without her is kind of like taking the training wheels off; it can be a bit shaky. I’m working on it. It just doesn’t come as easily to me as it does to Kat.”
Kat’s response to this comment? “Sometimes I want to kick his ass – I mean, the first time I heard Peter sing, it made my heart hurt. I could only think, ‘My God, your voice is gorgeous.’ And I’m certainly learning, too. For instance, I’m hoping I’ll be playing more instruments, beyond guitar, on the next record.”
Though some of the original demos, recorded at Peter’s apartment, appear in their pristine state on eastmountainsouth, the lion’s share of the disc was recorded at co-producer Mitchell Froom’s project studio.
“Mitchell brought a real sense of definition to what we do, which has changed the way we play,” Peter says. “Our arrangements are a lot more grounded now, and the music has more vitality.” Kat adds: “We were so blessed to have Mitchell produce us. Songs we thought wouldn’t go anywhere have taken on new life with his help.”
Peter describes the project’s sonic evolution: “We started with acoustic and other organic sounds and then degraded them to come up with a whole new flavor. Mitchell helped us do that with his arsenal of vintage keyboards.” Drummer/percussionist Quinn, with his loop-oriented style of playing, also became integral to the eastmountainsouth sound.
Says Froom: “What I found most exciting about working with eastmountainsouth was the opportunity to be involved in something so original. Their music was a hybrid I hadn’t encountered before, one that required a very specific setting. Fortunately, we were given a lot of license to experiment in order to find it.”
Indeed, he and eastmountainsouth seem to have found what they were looking for. “This music could have been made 50 years ago and, just as easily, it could be what music will sound like 50 years from now,” Robertson ventures. “It truly transcends time and place – it just goes straight to the heart.”