Short version:
Rich Mattson is a musician/songwriter and producer/engineer living in Sparta, Minnesota. He began performing in 1980 at the age of 13, and took up songwriting shortly after that. Since then he has led and played with several bands, most notably the Glenrustles (1988-1999) and national touring act Ol’ Yeller (2000-2013). In 1991 he opened his own recording studio in Uptown Minneapolis, and over the years has worked with hundreds of artists. Currently he is leading a cosmic folk rock group called “Rich Mattson and the Northstars” and collaborating with his partner Germaine Gemberling. He also continues to record and produce music at his recording studio, Sparta Sound.
Epic long version:
From Easy Tilt to the Northstars, Flowerpot to Sparta Sound, beyond and back:
A
story of the best bands in my mom's world
by Rich Mattson
Embarrass Fair,
age 14
When I was 20 years old, I finally got the hell off the iron range (northern Minnesota), and moved to the hometown of my favorite band, the Replacements. This was in 1987. I had been dreaming of this for many years, thinking how great it was, having a music MECCA right here in my home state. For about six years prior to this big move, I was playing covers in high school bands. One of them was called the Imports. We did have about twenty original numbers with that band, all recorded on cassettes, and we all wanted to move down to "da cities" and become rock and roll stars. We had no idea what we were getting into. 
I moved
first, then the drummer, then the bass player (Russell Bergum),
and eventually, the KEYBOARD player (Jim Kennedy). Our first gig
was at FERNANDO'S on 15th and Lake Street. What a disaster. What
a let-down. Then we played NEW BAND NIGHT at the 7th
St. Entry, where future rock luminary Ed
Ackerson was our soundman. Ed LOVED us! We were IN!!! Then,
some things happened. It was like that old Bryan
Adams song--Jimmy quit, Timmy got married. I shoulda known we'd
never get far... Well, at the time I was glad that band ended. It
was weird new wave ART ROCK and I wanted to do something else. My
next move was to become a SOLO ACOUSTIC performer, and try the "coffee
house" circuit. My first gig doing that was at the Gioco cafe, in Dinkytown (later renamed Espresso Royale). The
"show" was pretty good, and some of my friends came to see me play.
Two of the friends were Russell Bergum (the ex-Imports bass player,
who was all into new wave and Paul
McCartney), and my brother, Glen. Glen had graduated fom high
school a few days before. I was at the graduation ceremony and party
and while at home, I saw Glen and our dad come close to kicking
the crap out of each other. I said, "Glen,when I go back to da cities,
why don't you come with me, eh?" He did. Anyway, back to the Gioco
cafe. After I played, Russell expressed interest in playing his
stand-up bass that he kept from high school with me on some songs.
I said "sure, why not. We're NOT gonna play no NEW
WAVE, though. We're gonna play what I want to play."
Then later that night, Glen expressed interest in playing some percussion
with Russell and I. He said, "We'll call ourselves the Glen-Russells,
with a 't'." The Glenrustles were born. We had no idea what we were
getting into. Well, Glen got himself a snare drum with his graduation money, and took two twigs and fastened a tambourine to it, then took a coat hanger and fastened a pot lid (no pun intended) to it and attached that to the snare drum. Then we found some maracas. Glen had his drum kit. At this point, he was playing with sticks cut from our back yard. We lived in Columbia Heights, north of Minneapolis. It was the summer of '88. We were out of the nest for good and writing tons of tunes. We practiced three or four times a week. It was a new sound. On September
25, 1988 we had our first gig as "Rich Mattson and the Glenrustles".
It was at the Gioco cafe. Then we played the New Band Night again,
the Uptown Bar,
the 400,
and worked on recording an ALBUM. In November, '88 (sometime around
there) Glen and I found a house to rent on 28th & Harriet, in the
UPTOWN neighborhood (where all the cool musicians lived). It was
awesome, and CHEAP. The basement was like a concert hall. We had
neighbors only on one side, and they were MUSICIANS, TOO! And there
was a RECORDING
STUDIO across the street! We got two roomates, one of them being
Jim Kennedy (the old Imports keyboard player), and the other a bass
player/record collector named Jimmy the Sloocher. Jim Kennedy learned
how to play guitar over the few months since the Imports broke up,
and genius that he is, decided to join our band, and play guitar,
banjo, piano, and fiddle. The only one he COULDN'T play was the
fiddle. He returned it to the music store the next day. We set up the "studio" (my 4-track) in the living room and recorded our debut ALBUM in one night. It turned out to be a nine song cassette. All we ever wanted was to be on TWIN/TONE. That never happened, but that's another story. We dubbed those cassettes in my room, one after the other until we had 200 of them. We even got our name in the City Pages (weekly entertainment rag) with a blurb written by the great Jim Walsh. We kept after gigs, playing goofy places like the Valli Pub (a pizza place), Fernando's, the Seward Cafe, eventually getting into the 400 Bar, and the Cabooze. Our main venue, though, was that basement. We had parties, parties, PARTIES!!! Every other weekend, at least. The strangest mix of people showed up; punkers, deadheads, skinheads, cokeheads, metalheads, you name it, they were represented. Nothing bad ever happened, (save for the time "Baggs" shit his pants on the stairs) and nothing ever got stolen or broken--nothing we cared about, anyway. Those were strange days, indeed. We built up our eclectic following. Many of those faces I still see at shows today. Early in 1990, Russell announced that he was moving to Chicago. I was a little upset, but not much because Russ was always studying and way more into school. He wasn't a dope-smoking moron like the rest of us. The big problem was finding a replacement. Also right about this time Jimmy K. decided to finish school in Bemidji, so he too was leaving. Now I was worried. Glen was working at the "Leaning Tower of Pizza" with Greg McAloon, who said he played bass and guitar. It took about a month to get him into the basement to jam with us, but when he finally did, we had a new sound. It was good. Glen had been practicing on a full kit that we bought for $50 from some hippy. I rediscovered my old Gretsch guitar and Peavey/Plush amp combo. We decided, somehow, to "plug in", as it were. All of a sudden we were an electric 3-piece rock group. We instantly recorded another ALBUM at Leo Whitebird's studio across the street, and went to work dubbing those tapes. The gigs were starting to roll in. We still played our parties, too, although our house was slowly turning into a total shit-hole. Sometime early in 1991 I managed to get a van that had no holes in the floor, a good heater, and only leaked oil a LITTLE bit. Now we were hell-bent on taking our show on the road. We had the van, we had the demo tapes, we even had a little press from our hometown--what were we waiting for? Our
first couple of "tours" were to Chicago and back, with our friends
DOG-994-some
of the biggest maniacs in Minneapolis rock history. It was the six
of us putting along down I-94 laughing our asses off. I can't say
(remember) much about the tours, except that we didn't make any
money--I mean we DIDN'T MAKE ANY- you know how some people say they
didn't make any money, yet they got paid $25? Well, we didn't make
ANY money. In seven shows, I'd have to say we performed to about
25 people, half of which were club employees. Sound bad? Hell no!!
It was a kick in the ASS!! We had a great time. We were young, stupid,
and drunk. We went back and did it again, countless times. Later
in the Glenrustles' career, we started calling going on tour an
"exercise in futility". We met some great people and bands on the road, and some awful people and bands, too. Most of all, we had fun. God, there's some pathetic road stories in the Glenrustles. Just amazing. No label support, no radio support, no guarantees, just the bond of friendship, and ROCK AND ROLL. Ah, memories--Glen laying face-down in some park in Chicago, going to the Western Union in some godawful neighborhood in New Orleans, sleeping in the van in January outside Madison, the sound of Jimmy puking...all the glory of rock superstardom. We eventually did start to get paid for our roadtrips, but it was never quite like being home in Minneapolis, where we were beginning to pack 'em in... Anyway, where was I? So we were a 3-piece power trio for most of '91 and some of '92, until Jimmy Kennedy came back from Bemidji with his business degree. He re-joined the band, now playing guitar full-time. We recorded and released a couple singles that year, and sent out a lot of demo tapes to big time record labels. Twin/Tone was floundering, and we didn't even want to be on that label anymore. We had 7" records out on UPRISING RECORDS! They were a little label run by some friends from Detroit we met on the road. Really good guys, even though we tortured them when we stayed at their houses. We were a belligerent, cantakerous bunch, and our Iron Range way of fun was a little more outrageous than your average joe's. Glen
had started his own band, called the Peasants sometime in '92, and
the house on Harriet was abandoned. We were practicing in my new
basement, a couple blocks from the old party house. The new basement
was smaller, and had two rooms in it, and I decided to make it into
a recording studio. I took out a $1900 loan from my Grandad and
bought a 12-track
recording/mixing machine, slapped up a window between the two
rooms, and went to work full-time recording friends' bands. Flowerpot
was born. I charged $10 an hour for studio time. At first it wasn't
sounding so good, but I learned fast and found out how to get the
most out of my cheap-ass gear. I experimented a lot on my own, recording
a lot of tunes that never got released in any form, save for the
errant demo type tape
floated out to those stupid record labels. In April of '94 the Glenrustles did another tour to Chicago and back when things got a little too crazy. Glen was trying to drive the whole band insane. Like he wanted us to kick his ass. On the way to Milwaukee we decided, after almost ditching him at the Wendy's Oasis, that he should leave the band. We went to Milwaukee and Glen chanted "DAHMER, DAHMER, DAHMER" the whole time. We stuck to our decision. Upon returning to Minneapolis, we started auditioning drummers, and settled on our good friend Rob Gilboe. Now there wasn't a Glen or a Russell in the Glenrustles. It never occured to us to change the name...we were too famous. With
Robbie in the band, we decided to save all our gig money (something
my brother never allowed us to do) and make the ultimate ALBUM,
and make c.d.'s! In late '94 we went into the Third Ear Recording
complex and began recording what would become BROOD,
our first "real" ALBUM, with Tom
Herbers producing. It took about a year to record the whole
thing, as we spread out the recording dates (so we could pay as
we went), and make it the perfect ALBUM. We still played our usual
two to three gigs a month local, with a road trip once a month,
to Duluth, LaCrosse, or Chicago. I owe a lot to Tom Herbers, the
sessions recording that ALBUM
taught me a LOT about how to get proper sounds. Once BROOD was completed, we sent out a lot of tapes, thinking "of course we'll get that record deal now!". We didn't, so we put it out on our own SMA (Start Making Albums..or Suck My Ass..depends who you're talking to) Records. I've got a kickass collection of rejection letters if anyone would like to see 'em. It's kinda funny. Well, BROOD went over like gangbusters around the twin cities, and we paid off the manufacturing costs in 2 months. Local papers gave it nice reviews, and it was good to get some recognition, for a change. The national reviews were kind of luke warm, though, so we went right to work on the next ALBUM. This time I took what I learned from Tom Herbers and recorded the whole thing at my own studio. We stretched the recordings out over a year, recording songs as they came, over the winter of '95 and spring of '96. Those were tough times for me, personally, and it shows in the writing. The band was kicking holy ass live, and packing rooms all over town. We even made some waves in Chicago, by now. Yet with all our ass-kicking and half-baked promotional efforts, nobody in the "business" seemed trustworthy. We couldn't find a booker, we couldn't find a label, we coudn't even find a manager, let alone someone to sell t-shirts that wasn't full of hot air and/or beer. I was becoming bitter. And maybe even (God forbid!) a little jaded. A lot of promises were made and broken. In Stone, the second ALBUM came out in the summer of '96. To this day it remains some of our biggest supporters' favorite. Jim Meyer wrote a really nice review of it in the Star-Tribune, and it was nominated for "best rock album" at the Minnesota Music Awards. Over the next year, big changes would take place in the Glenrustles' camp... Sometime in the summer of '94 I got disappointed in my dayjob. It seems my employers wouldn't live up to their handbook and didn't give me a raise which, according to the handbook, was guaranteed if you were a good employee. I was a driver for a courier company. I was great at it. Always on time, with speeding tickets to prove it. I didn't mind that job, but one day, after receiving my limp little paycheck I up and quit halfway through my shift and didn't look back. I took the chance that maybe I could get by on studio and band earnings. Turns out I was right. I wouldn't recommend quitting like that to anybody, but I guess I was pretty pissed off at the time. A short while after "IN STONE" came out, late 1996, Robbie decided, over much brainstorming and turmoil, that he didn't want to be in a band anymore. It was nothing personal, he just had to "get on with his life". So, weighing my options, which were A)start a whole new band, or B)just get another drummer and keep the GLENRUSTLES going. I decided to check out the latter first. Glen was first to volunteer his services. I was surprised and tentative about it at first, then said, "what the heck?" Since leaving the band, Glen and I had become better friends, better brothers, and we'd both GROWN UP a little. Glen was finally getting over the fact that Kurt Cobain was dead. Also, Jimmy Kennedy was seeming less and less interested in what rock and roll had to offer him. He had become more interested in playing jazz piano, something he had done since I "discovered" him playing Floyd Cramer in his parents' basement. This was Jim's true calling, I figured, and I didn't call him when Greg and I went on to practice with Glen on drums again. So now we were back to the old POWER TRIO, and it felt good, kinda. I didn't like having to cover all the guitar parts and singing too, while playing with what was becoming known as a bunch of party animals. I'm no Jimi Hendrix. I didn't know how I ever did it before. Things were different now. We kept
recording, all through the changes, and never stopped playing shows.
Something was always on the books. We did some shows as a three-piece,
after one of them Graham
Gregorich, an old aquaintence from the 'range, said how he'd
LOVE to play guitar with us. After one particularily disastrous
night, I gave him a call. I made him two cassettes of songs to learn,
and within a week he had them all LEARNED. We had a new sound. It
was good. To wipe the slate clean, a third ALBUM, Fire At Night,
was released in December '97. This album consisted of stuff we recorded
with Rob & Jim and some with Glen. Some of the songs Glen played
drums on were recorded the night he re-joined the band. A couple
other songs were recorded with our friend Leo Kuelbs on drums, and
a couple more didn't even have any other Glenrustles on them at
all. Only one song, "Whole Lotta Nothing", has the entire new lineup
on it: Me, Greg, Glen, and Graham. So, Fire At Night came out in the midst of the Christmas season, in 1997, and was virtually ignored by all the press. Big deal. It wasn't super-consistent. It was a weird record. Time will tell. Personally it's my favorite GLENRUSTLES ALBUM. Throughout '98 we re-formed the Glenrustles with our new guitar player, wrote a whole bunch of new songs, recorded 'em, logged in around 65 gigs, (mostly LOCAL) and looked at our happy, friendly place at the bottom of the rock HEAP. At some point during the year we mixed down a bunch of songs and, noticing that each album we release has an extra word in the title, agreed to call the collection "Honey Grease and Neptune" (4 words, fourth album-get it?). The more we played locally the less people showed up to see us. I was beginning to tire of the local scene and seriously thought about my future in music. Was I going to just keep on recording bands and play locally, or was I going to get the heck outta Minneapolis? The rest of the Glenrustles were always pretty indifferent as to where we took it. Greg and Graham were beginning to settle into normal home (40-hour work week) life, and Glen had "HIS BAND" to keep him busy. Right as we were finishing "Honey Grease and Neptune" I bought a house with my (then) wife in Northeast Minneapolis. It was a tiny little place, with a 2-stall garage. It was all we could afford, all we "qualified" to afford, anyway..I called up by good friend Greg McAloon the bass-playing taskmaster carpenter and asked him, "Hey Club, do you think it would be possible to build a recording studio in a 2-stall garage?" His reply, "Anything is possible." So Flowerpot III was born, in a garage in Northeast Minneapolis. Many of my favorite recordings would come out of that little room we built. In November of 1999 I took a road trip out east with my lil' yellow dog Pookie to visit my cousin Mark (the guy who got me started on this path to rock and roll obscurity) and to clear my head..step back a little. During my visit to Connecticut we spent some time in NYC, bopped around the coast a little, and did some jamming. I decided that when I got back I would try something new. I had
thought of the name Ol' Yeller back a long time ago when Robbie
Gilboe left the group and I was pondering starting a new band. I
liked the name because, as I was over 27, that is OLD, and seeing
that I screamed myself hoarse by the end of every gig, well, that's
the "yeller" in me. Also I just love my yellow dog. Hey, the old
Disney movie was pretty good too! When
I returned from the east coast, I found my friend Dale Kallman had
returned from Montana, where he had been living deep in the backwoods,
surviving off roots and berries and fresh fish. Dale, a multi-instrumentalist,
had always displayed a natural ear for music has a great voice,
and seeing he had adopted a big monstrous yellow lab bitch it was
automatic that he be the bassist in my new group. Keely Lane had long been my favorite local drummer, and I had the opportunity to record him with his country band Trailer Trash on several occasions. I talked to him about playing on some of my songs, just in the studio. Our sessions together worked out so well, and we got along so good that I HAD to have him in the new band. Keely readily accepted, and committed himself to our new sound. He had no idea what he was getting into... At first we toyed with having Greg McAloon and Graham Gregorich on guitars, therefore making it a THREE GUITAR ONSLAUGHT, and patterning ourselves after the Buffalo Springfield, but the old Glenrustles laziness permeated rehearsals and I quickly grew frustrated with organizing 5 guys. Also, I had bigger goals of touring RELENTLESSLY, and I knew Greg and Graham wouldn't be up for it in the long run. While
having troubles keeping Greg and Graham interested in the Ol' Yeller
project, I met a guitarist named Randy
Casey. Randy talked big and played guitar like nobody I have
ever jammed with. We got together a few times and he agreed to join
the group. His wife at the time was a big-time talent manager and
she had some big ideas for us too, which I thought was pretty cool.
Throughout 1999 and into 2000 I had about 20 basic tracks I was working with. I recorded the guitar and drums with Keely, sometimes overdubbing Dale's bass, sometimes playing everything myself. Once Randy joined the band, we recorded around 6 songs live in the studio for our debut album. We kept working on the stuff, eventually releasing the self-titled Ol' Yeller album in February 2001. Everything was going great. We were rehearsing a lot, like I wanted to, we had tours planned, then Randy bailed on a big New York residency at the MERCURY LOUNGE, due to lack of funds. But Dale and I liked the idea of being total bums in the big apple, and went out there anyway, for a month. Keely's gal had a baby boy, so Keely stayed home too. This was a great trip for Ol' Yeller. We decided to keep it an efficient touring machine, and go three piece with me covering all the guitar parts. I was writing within my vocal and guitar playing range, and people were digging the sound. So the
rest of 2001 was spent touring, rehearsing, and recording new songs
as they came. Another album, "Nuzzle",
was released in February 2002. We toured our butts off (by my standards)
behind that one! We had no idea what we were doing (er, getting
into) but we went out of our minds to book ourselves all the way
to any coast for as long as we could go, which fortunately was never
more than 3 weeks at a time. That one 3 weeker from Texas to Mississippi
to LA and back was murderous! No a.c. in the van! It was mid-June!
I was pleased as punch to play the TROUBADOUR
though! That and driving the coastal highway #1 was worth it all.
Dale and I did all the advancing for the shows, we became quite
the team but were having a hell of a time balancing all that work
with playing as well. After awhile it got pretty frustrating doing
both. We worked on hiring a booking agent, a label, a publicist,
we hit SXSW every year and met a
lot of people, promising all kinds of things. Mostly again, delivering
hot air. Dale is a few years older than me, and our style of touring
was wearing him down. It took a lot of stamina. We'll get to that
in a bit..but let me tell you, there were a LOT of good times on
the road, and we were actually breaking even financially. Anyway, the story.. "Penance" was a giant leap forward in getting our name around, and even scored us international licensing with the wonderful Blue Rose Records in Germany. Over 2003 we kept the touring machine rolling, wearing grooves in the trail we were traveling to NYC, to Austin, over there to Mississippi, back in KC again, try this place in Athens Ohio.. Over the winter Dale was getting a little crunchy, and we almost booted him out a couple of times. He would drop the ball if he figured noone was listening and noone cared. I'd get mad at him onstage, and I'd feel terrible later about it. The pace was too much. We were becoming one of those bands that argue. One night at an acoustic gig in Northeast it all came to a head and we wound up calling each other "asshole" between songs. Dale had quit having fun at it and his bullshit meter was a little too sensitive. When I think about it, I don't think anyone ever cared about Ol' Yeller as much as Dale Kallman. He just can't bear playing in Springfield Illinois to 3 people or St. Cloud MN with the football game on the bigscreen. We had quite the brotherhood going on, but we were beating our proverbial heads against the proverbial wall. The Nuzzle-Penance era was an amazing time in the life of my mom's favorite band. In hindsight, I don't know if he quit, or if I fired Dale. We needed a break from each other. Well, the day after he quit (or got fired) we had a show in Duluth so I hastily threw the Glenrustles in the van and made it a Glenrustles show instead. A tour was looming on the immediate horizon so while we were in Duluth, I asked Greg McAloon if he would go on tour with us, and maybe even be in the band. I didn't have to twist his arm, Greg was ready to play again. That tour, in February of 2004, was a much more laid back vibe, less worries, less hand-wringing/head holding and I knew we were going somewhere good. Greg doesn't do harmonies, so I practically broke my Gretsch in half making up for the lost vocal parts.. Keely and Greg get along like puppies at playtime. Before we left I called an old friend of Greg, Keely and mine. Just to put the bug in his ear.."So Andy, we were thinking about adding a guitar player.." Andy Schultz from Hibbing is the guy. I knew his band Betty Drake was going through some tough times, 2 of its 4 members moving out of state, and it would be hard to imagine a guy like Andy not actively playing the guitar in a band. The timing was just right. I had been a fan of Andy for many years, and his acceptance to join the ranks of the Yellers meant a lot. The full-on new lineup made its debut March 12 2004 at the 7th Street Entry. Everybody commented on what fun we appeared to be having. Together we completed the "SOUNDER" album, scraping together a few leftovers from the Dale Kallman days and recording a good chunk of it from March to August 2004 with the new lineup. SOUNDER was released on September 7. 2004 to rave reviews and many great accolades. We were honored with the MMA award for "Best Americana Group" shortly after, and the album made many "best of 2004" lists. However nicely we were treated in print and around the twin cities, the tours we embarked upon that year were pretty dismal, attendance-wise. The places where we still really seemed to click were New York City and anywhere in Texas. Somehow, everywhere in between seemed different. Something about college towns; they're supposed to be great "markets", but the kids move in and out of there within a year, and with those changes comes a new tide of musical taste. It seemed to me that the "americana" tag wasn't so cool anymore. 2004-05 were the years that the sampler pretty much took over rock and roll. Either the sampler, or very very very very very quiet and precious singer-songwriters with little tinker-toy instruments. We just thumbed our noses at the trends and kept on doing what we do best, which is rocking. And we got louder.
Somehow, in the midst of all this "Sounder" support, we got roped into playing at wedding receptions for friends and/or fans. Over the summer of 2005 we played 4 or 5 wedding receptions. Here I was now, the wedding singer! We still do play weddings. Thing is, Keely, Andy and I all cut our teeth playing in cover bands. Those songs don't leave you. Greg's motto is, "If you can hum it, you can play it" and he can hum pretty much anything on the radio. I didn't set out for Ol' Yeller to be a cover band, but it helps with the bills sometimes. Sometimes we'd wind up in the strangest places imaginable, and honestly, the stranger the better for me. The best is when the wedding party keeps asking for more ORIGINAL music. That is cool. Later in the summer or 2005 as my marriage fell apart, I got the wild idea of moving out of the city, and started looking into houses further north. The idea was that I could operate from anywhere. With today's technology, why be bound to city living if I want to live in the country? Well, I followed through, and in October of '05 I bought myself a church up by my old hometown of Eveleth! I went to work on renovating it straightaway, making it into a studio with living quarters. I spent that whole winter remodeling it myself with money I made selling the church's pews. I named the new studio SPARTA SOUND, as it wasn't no Flowerpot any more. In the meantime, Greg had started his own construction company, Andy became a dad, and Keely decided to pursue his dream of being a Nashville drummer! Suddenly I felt as if the band was going to be no more! I was distraught. Towards the end of the winter, sick with the flu, I wrote my bandmates a letter (not an email) asking them if they still wanted to do this Ol' Yeller thing. It was all too dramatic, but up in my little rock and roll paradise I was feeling abandoned by the guys I was building it for. Well, bygones being bygones, my good pals Greg and Andy understood my plight and stood by me in the search for our next drummer, as Keely was certainly out and moving to the country music capitol of the world. He got a great gig straight off the bus in Nashville. Yes, he is that good. The first band I had record in my new studio was the Gleam. These guys are great friends of mine, and their singer (Zack) and I spend hours talking music and ideas. We really got down to brass tacks one night and he recommended with an iron fist that we try out a guy that drummed for them for one show. I saw that gig and thought the drummer was over qualified for the Gleam..but probably could play the Ol' Yeller stuff damn good. "You gotta get Buck", Zack repeated, again and again. He was referring to Ryan Otte (the Gleam had nicknames for everybody..to them I am Dickie Skins..I even drummed for them for one show). Ryan Otte played in this great band called Little Dirt that I ran sound for once, and I remember seeing him at Ol' Yeller shows too. I gave him a cd with 21 songs on it, we got together 2 weeks later and played 18 of them without stopping. He beat us up. And he joined Ol' Yeller.
The rub of this new drummer story is that we had so much music recorded with Keely to get out.. With all our personal stuff making time fly by I hardly noticed it took 2 years to put together the last Ol' Yeller ALBUM, which I called "GOOD LUCK", as in "Good luck with that." I heard that phrase, on average, probably 10 times a day every day from July 2005 to May 2006 as I bid farewell to the big city. Keely did too. So did Andy, as did Greg with their respective businesses in the carpentry field. The album, "GOOD LUCK" was more or less Ol' Yeller's swan song. We received 3 MMA awards in 2006 with that album. And I was named "Producer of the Year!" After I moved back up north, the band was more difficult to keep together than I thought it would be. Everybody was "growing up" and getting on with life, and getting busy. I was still writing songs, and making demos of the songs onto Andy's 4-track Fostex, having a good time at it, drinking Tisdale wine, all by my lonesome. I'd send the songs down to the band, but when we got together we'd never have the time to run through them or work on parts. I cobbled together a solo album, "Inspiral Notebooks", that I released on my 40th birthday. I started thinking about getting some guys together from up in my neck of the woods for an original project. In the spring of 2007 I recorded some acquaintences from Duluth, a band called HOTEL CORAL ESSEX. The principal songwriter in the band was Tony Derrick, a brooding guitar torturer with a soulful singing voice. I flipped over his tunes, and the cd got stuck in my player for months on end, some of my favorite recordings in my new place. Their cd came out, sorta, and the band wasn't doing a lot of work. The next time Tony came to record, he came by himself and he and I worked up another 5 or 6 songs. He was bothered by the state of his band, wanted to play more shows and record and work on music more. The bass player, Jason "Kokes" Kokal, from Hotel Coral Essex showed up for one of Tony's sessions and we got along great. During a break in the session, I brought up the idea that maybe the three of us should join forces and start up something new. I played them my demos. They readily agreed, let's start a band! We tried out a few drummers from Duluth but we weren't clicking with any of them right off the bat. I had recorded a cover band from the Iron Range called the Six 9's, and the drummer was a younger guy who had all the chops and musical knowledge of someone more my age (by God, I was 40 years old). His name? Derek Rolando. A very talented fellow with plenty of time on his hands to rock, and a great outlook. The best part is that he lives 4 miles away from the studio! I gave him a cd of mine and Tony's demos and we got together for the first time early in 2008. It clicked right away. Smiles all around, we had ourselves a band. What to call this new group? While I was recording my demos on the 4 track I started calling the project "Rich Mattson and the Tisdales," after the cheap wine I was drinking. I threw that name out there, "How about we call it the TISDALES?" There were no arguments there, it had a nice ring to it. And I believe at the time we were on our 4th bottle of Tisdale.
The Tisdales began work on recording an album straightaway. I would spend the day getting the studio set up for their arrival and we would knock out the tunes to tape every week. We released a cd single, "Faces" b/w "Brass Knuckles" to coincide with our arrival. Our first show was on the 4th of July 2008 at Pizza Luce in Duluth. After that we went all-out, recording and booking shows. One of our first shows was at the North vs. South Music Festival in Kansas City MO. We were well-received everywhere we went. Our first album, "Bakers Dozen" was released on November 25th to encouraging reviews. In June of 2008 we took off on tour and went all the way from Duluth to the other end of I-35, San Antonio Texas, and a bunch of places in between. Another album, "Out With the New" was released March 9, 2010. More songs and recordings were always in the works. We kept getting together, usually on a Wednesday night, to write songs, jam, and record. I have had great times with the Tisdales. We played loud. I put my old worn out Gretsch away and picked up a cheap Telecaster with a Bigsby and set about destroying that for awhile. Apart from the Tisdales, shortly after my relocation to Sparta, I started playing folk music with my old friend from Minneapolis, Baby Grant Johnson. We started out doing acoustic shows together and going back and forth, him playing a song, then me playing one. After a few of these gigs we decided to learn songs together and dedicate ourselves to keeping the folk tradition alive, and take some road trips together. We called ourselves the BITTER SPILLS, a name I'd been kicking around for awhile that suited our style and sound. Grant is one of my best buddies, and we dig deep for old folk chestnuts to perform. Between 2006 and 2010 we released 4 volumes of folk songs, made available only at shows or directly from us. The best of these 4 volumes (traditionals and originals) became our only commercial release, "Folk Song Favorites". Grant and I still get together to this day and play those old folk songs that we love so much.
In 2011 and 2012 the Tisdales worked up another album, to be called "Supercaldera". It was released in June of 2012. A great album, probably our finest, it was more or less dead in the water as the band sort of fizzled out that summer. Hard to pin down exactly what happened but we still get together and make some noise now and then, and there weren’t any hard feelings.
Shortly after that album came out, Russell moved to Rochester to work for the Mayo Clinic and was replaced by Kyle Westrick, who Germaine and I knew from Ely. While changing bassists, I picked up a new/old Gretsch and was itching to play electric guitar again. Eli wasn’t keen on the excessive volume and was also beginning a teaching career at UMD, and decided to move on with his life. I called upon Ryan Young, who was on a break from Trampled By Turtles, to fill his shoes. Ryan accepted, and although he lives in Crystal MN, a long way from Sparta, he played tracks on our next album, “Starmaps,” which we released in October of 2016. Russell played bass on most of the album, emailing tracks from Rochester, and Kyle played on a couple songs too. It was a strange experience to put together “Starmaps" with tracks emailed from Rochester and Crystal, but it remains one of Germaine and my favorite recordings.
The next one we were determined to record together, as a band. And that is how “Aeroplane Mode” came to be. Released a year after “Starmaps,” in October 2017, the songs were all recorded at Sparta Sound with Curtis drumming and a very enthusiastic and electric Kyle on the bass. Ryan did most of his violin tracks in Sparta, and some at his Neon Brown recording studio, in Crystal. Germaine and I put many hours into getting it just right. We were becoming quite a solid unit. The band was playing 3-4 times a month, and traveling all over the state, from Grand Marais to Bemidji to the Twin Cities and beyond. In the fall of 2017 Curtis landed a teaching job in Stillwater MN. After much consideration, he announced to me that he was leaving the group to focus on teaching. He also promised to fill in if ever we need him. Of course I understood, as this was his calling, and my nephew gracefully bowed out of the Northstars shortly after the release of “Aeroplane Mode.” The silver lining in that dark and worrisome cloud was that my good friend and Ol’ Yeller cohort Keely Lane was ready and willing to fill the seat behind the drums on Curtis’ departure. So it goes, and Trampled By Turtles reunited and went into full-time touring mode so we more or less dropped the violin from the lineup over the course of 2018 and the Northstars sound grew more electrified and rocking.
In January of 2020 we set out to record a new batch of songs, and did another session in February. I am so glad we did it when we did, as by early March, all our great shows that we had booked for the spring and summer got cancelled due to COVID-19. We did manage to play a few outdoor shows, last minute bookings through the summer of 2020, but what a tough year for us all. I spent the time whittling away on our recordings and finishing what was to become our "SKYLIGHTS" album. I called an old friend, Joel Almberg, who had suggested working with him to put it to vinyl, and finally, after all these years, I got my own full-length vinyl record out in 2021 on Poor L'amour Records. I couldn't be prouder, and my first thought after dropping the needle on it was “Why in the hell did I wait so long?? This music was MADE for vinyl!” Over the course of 2020-2021 more songs came down the pike, as we sat in Covid 19 lockdown. The pandemic inspired me to do some stuff I never would have done had we been out gigging. One thing that happened was on my sister Annie’s birthday in March, she wanted me to do a “Facebook live” concert for her. My internet connection was not good (turns out I had a bad/outdated modem) so instead I recorded a solo version of “Rain On the Trailer” for her, and did a couple more videos for good measure, then uploaded them to YouTube. It was fun, and the next day I did 3 more songs. I had nothing better to do, so I continued doing this for 48 days, ending up with 144+ song videos. Original songs and covers. I collaborated with Germaine, Baby Grant, Kyle and others via internet on some. I also put together artsy music videos. Our “Skylights Virtual Record Release” video was a real hoot to assemble. All using the Apple iMovie application. It was really fun to try and get my best versions down for prosperity and they still live on today at my YouTube channel.
After all these years being in bands it's still a blast. I can't imagine living without this creative outlet and the bond of playing music with friends. The bands I've been in all through life have been my best friends, to coin a term from the '60's, my "soul brothers." Of all the groups I've played with I can't think of one enemy of all the players. That's what happens when you keep it real and the money doesn't ruin everything. In retrospect, if I think about "What if such and such a band would have gone big-time," I think it probably would have wrecked everything, and we would have spent all the money by now. Maybe that's a cop-out, but it's certainly not something I dwell on. I'd much rather have friends and the enrichment that playing music and working with music people offers. I’m an artist. I’m cool with that.
Danny
Commando y los Guapos
Kraig Johnson; bass and vocals Tim Saxhaug;
bass and vocals
2011-present:
Dave
Rave and the Governors
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O'Cayz Corral, 1991
The Bitter Spills (with Pookie)
Curtis
on the drums!
