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By Spencer Flanagan on December 21, 2010

It’s been nearly four years since Portland-based folk band Dolorean (not to be confused with the Spanish alternative dance band Delorean) released an album. The band is back, however, and will release its debut record on Partisan Records—entitled The Unfazed—on January 18.

Dolorean plays elegant folk tunes with haunting melodies, thoughtful lyrics and a '70s feel to them, which has garnered comparisons to Will Oldham, Elliott Smith and Nick Drake. The band is planning a U.S. and U.K. tour in early 2011.

We talked with Dolorean founding member Al James about the band’s four-year absence, common themes in his songwriting, how the new record differs from previous Dolorean releases and the impact an album’s cover art has on listeners.

What kind of things inspire you, in your life or in your music?

Good books, other peoples’ music—usually older music. I find a lot of inspiration from images. Different people online will build these mood boards where they sort of link these pictures of stuff and images and they sort of create this context with a bunch of different images. I really love that stuff. I’ve been really loving what people are able to build…from these various images and I think music can do the same thing. [I’m always] drawing from different sources, other friends’ bands in town that I’ve really been enjoying. I think those are kind of the main things and any people or friends who are doing really quality stuff—whether it’s writing or poster-making or coffee roasting—whatever it is, I feel like if I’m part of that community and the thing that I do is songwriting, then I want to write songs as well as they remodel someone’s house or whatever, wanting to keep the quality up with the crew that I run with.

I read somewhere that you work closely with artists to create the album art for each record you put out. What impact do you think the album art has on listeners and on the overall package?

I don’t think, obviously, that whatever I make is going to last forever, but [I] hope that it will last for a while, that [I’m] making a record that people keep going back to, but I think anytime you can partner with people whose talent is visual stuff I think it’s fun. I could probably bluff my way through some stuff visually, but I know what I respond to and I think it’s fun to work with other folks… [I] just hope that people hold onto those records for a while or pass them along to people. You want the image to resonate as much as the music.

When did you first begin writing music?

I guess I was about 18, so about my freshman year in college. I didn’t really know how to play guitar, but I was learning slowly and I knew that I wanted to write music to go along with it. I started learning a few of other peoples’ songs but I knew all along that I wanted to write my own, that I wanted that to be part of it, not just be a guitar player.

What kind of things did you listen to growing up?

You know we weren’t a super musical family, but we did have some records around that I liked. We had couple Willie Nelson records, like Stardust, which is still one of my absolute favorite records. There was also a little bit of Simon and Garfunkel around the house, which I like some of that stuff. There was some vocal jazz stuff from the '50s like The Mills Brothers… I think all that stuff is very melodic and has a focus on really pretty melodies so maybe that sort of formed my instincts early on, but my folks weren’t big record collectors or music people. They weren’t musical themselves, really, so we had a little bit but not a ton growing up.

So then where do you think your desire to create music came from?

I think just seeing other people do it. When I would see someone perform in whatever setting, whether they were doing the special music at church or they were downtown at some sort of whatever summer festival you have in your town that people were performing. I was always just interested in that and wondered what it would be like to be that person and so I think I always had an interest in that part of it, but it wasn’t until I was 18 or 19 that I started to try to do it.

How did Dolorean form?

It formed really organically over the years. It formed mostly through just social ties. I played a little bit with Jay Clarke who’s still in the band. He’s a piano player and arranger. We started working on some recordings together, just the two of us, and we had a lot of friends in other bands. A lot of the rest of the band is made up of friends that moved out to Portland from North Carolina and we had a good affinity with all those guys, and as various bands split up or sort of went by the wayside, people—like Ben Nugent on drums and James Adair on bass—they sort of jumped on board with us so it’s always been a real organic thing. There was never any time that we sat down and said, “Let’s form a band.” We always had a lot of good people who wanted to contribute.

What kind of effect do you hope your music has on listeners?

I hope that it makes them introspective, I guess. I hope that it makes them feel like they connect to other people. I hope that it makes them feel like if they’re feeling a certain emotion or in a certain head space that other people feel the same way. I feel that’s sort of what country music does lyrically. It sort of reminds people that a lot of us feel the same way and that’s OK and things will be alright. I think that’s kind of what I would hope to help people feel.

Are there certain themes that appear in your songwriting or are they just random thoughts and ideas?

I think there are definitely some themes that run through what I do. There’s a lot of reference to dark and light. There’s a lot of reference to leaving and coming home. I think there’s some consistent sort of extreme pleasure, extreme pain. There’s those [ideas] that happen throughout the music where I want something, but I know that it’s bad for me sort of thing so I think that those are some themes that keep popping up. I think those pop up in a lot of people’s music because they are big themes and parts of life that we all try and tackle and figure out. So they might appear, not necessarily consciously. I think at this point I’m trying to branch out from some of that stuff and look at some other things. There’s only so much soul-searching you can do and you just want to take a little bit of that burden away and tap your foot.

Dolorean will release The Unfazed on January 18. It will be your first release since 2007’s You Can’t Win. What kinds of things were you up to during those four years? Did the band take a break?

Everyone in the band but me is married and is starting families and stuff, so I think in between that record and this one there were like four of five kids born. We started the record and got halfway done with it and we weren’t happy with it so we scrapped it and started over in the studio. We did do a few tours. I toured Spain; I toured England a little bit. So there were some shows in there and we did a couple months of residencies here in Portland that were really fun so we stayed pretty active, but we just felt like we didn’t need to put a big time constraint on finishing the record and just sort of plugged away at it. The new label didn’t have a hardened fast date, they just said once you give it to us we’ll start coming up with a game plan. So we’ve kept really busy, I did three records in almost four years and a lot of touring, so I think it just felt like well, let’s not impose any sort of strict deadline and just go and make it and when it feels done it’s done.

How does this differ from previous Dolorean releases?

I think for me the big shift is dynamically. We finally ended up in a studio with a lot of nice isolation for drums and Ben, our drummer, plays sticks the entire time so I really think that pushes the tempos faster. I mean, they’re still not fast in comparison to other bands, but compared to our older stuff the tempos are a little bit quicker and the dynamics are bigger. I have an electric guitar that I play, we have a new lead guitar player, John, who plays on a lot of stuff and he plays a lot more electric. It’s not like a rock record or something really, but I think the shifts in dynamics and the tempos are a lot different from our old stuff. But it definitely still feels like a Dolorean record.

How does it feel doing something you love so much as a career? Did you ever think you’d be here doing what you love?

It’s one of those things where I’m a really driven person. I set a lot of goals for myself and usually by the time I get to where I was hoping I’d get, my goals are pushed a lot further ahead in the distance so I don’t always enjoy where I’m at. I need to learn to do that a little bit more because I’m constantly wanting to do better and do more and find other types of success, but I’m really proud of the band. I’m proud what we’ve made in about a decade—we’ve made four or five albums and a few singles and toured the world. I think that those records stand the test of time pretty well so far and I feel like the fans that we do have are really loyal. They’re not fickle fans. I feel like we’ve been lucky with pretty patient people. There’s not a ton of them that love our music, but they are patient and they are always good about sharing our music with other people. I feel great about it.

Is there any meaning behind the name Dolorean?

There’s not meaning behind it. Initially we just changed the spelling of the proper spelling. It just kind of seemed like a good word. There’s this electronic artist from France and she names her thing Colleen. Her name isn’t Colleen, but I read an interview with her and she said she liked the way the word looked and the way the word sounded and I think she summed it up the best why I picked the word Dolorean. I think it just kind of looks OK when it’s spelled and sounds okay when you say it.

What are some things are you listening to now?

All different types. I’ve always had a pretty broad interest. I love the Gonjasufi album, A Sufi and a Killer. It’s really cool. Kind of sounds like Captain Beefheart doing more of an electronic or hip hop album. It’s really cool. It’s really soulful in a funny way. I really like the new Moondoggies album Tidelands. They kind of have a Credence Clearwater Revival feel going on. It’s pretty awesome. I always buy a lot of reissue albums or albums I really love. One that just came out this fall by a guy named Ted Lucas and it’s called The Om Album. He kind of plays gentle, quiet folk stuff. But it’s really good and he’s got an amazing voice. I try to keep all different stuff, new stuff old stuff, hip-hop, electronic... Probably the stuff I listen the least to are things that sound anything like Dolorean.

Even though the things you listen to are very different from Dolorean, do you think they still have an impact on the music you make?

Definitely. Everything sort of filters in. To me, when I listen to something, like Gonjasufi or the band Pierced Arrows, which is sort of a garage-y band from around here, I have so much fun at the shows or I like the music so much it always makes me question if I should try and do some other stuff that’s a little bit out of the realm of what I’m doing. I think eventually, in time, that stuff will come and it’ll be just kind of fun to do and I definitely feel I have a lot to learn about playing all different types of music.

Does the band have any long-term goals?

I would love to do a live record. I think that’s something we’re going to try and work on in the next year or so, but have it be a really, really fantastic live album that covers a lot of our best songs from all four or five records. I would love for us to tour more and sort of get to the spot where we can headline more in different cities and different countries. We do OK, but honestly every time we show up to a venue it always feels like a question mark. It would be a real bizarre feeling to feel like, yeah, we’re going to have a great crowd tonight. That would be interesting feeling, it would be fun…but you know, we’ll get there and if we don’t it’s not the end of the world. We’ve had a lot of success and I think we’ll continue to grow in an organic way.

How would you define success?

I think for me it’s being creative all the time, in a way, and it doesn’t always have to be through music, whether it’s writing something or making something with your hands. Whatever it is, I think just to live a life where you’re constantly creating things where you can share with people, to me, is what I really enjoy doing and I get a lot of joy out of that. That seems like success and to me, if you can do that and not have creditors calling you all the time then I think you’re doing alright.

Your band’s name is very close to the Spanish dance band Delorean. Do your bands get mixed up a lot?

I think every once in a while we’ll get an email that comes in and says, “Oh I bought a ticket for your show in Pittsburgh,” and I’ll say well, “I think you just bought a ticket for this band so you should go and just wear a neon tank top or whatever and have fun.” But my feeling is like if you don’t know the difference between the two bands then you’re probably not really a fan of either of them [laughs]. The music is pretty wildly different so there’s always going to be little points of confusion, but over all it’s not really an issue.     F