Q&A: Mates of State

Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel are Mates of State (Credit: Nick Gordon)

In many respects, Jason Hammel and Kori Gardner, the husband-wife duo that makes up Mates of State, should be lethal hipster kryptonite instead of beloved by the indie community. They met in Kansas and currently reside with their two children in the suburbs of Connecticut. Hammel talks a lot about productivity and efficiency. And Gardner is—no, really—a mom blogger.

Moreover, their new CD, “Mountaintops,” is a bright, buzzy, ‘80s-referencing burst of arty, irony-free pop. It’s the kind of album whose first single is called “Maracas” and has lots of maracas in it.

Yet here we are: “Mountaintops,” Mates of State’s seventh record and first of new material since 2008, arrives Sept. 13, carrying equal appeal to both comfortably domesticated playgroup types and hairy twentysomethings in smallish trousers. It was mixed by Chris Coady (Beach House, TV on the Radio, Yeah Yeah Yeahs), is preceded by a video that appears to have been shot by the enormous camcorder your dad purchased from Sears in 1982, and features some of their strongest, most accessible songs to date.

Metromix spoke with Hammel by phone from the Connecticut ‘burbs about the three-year recording gap, Buddhism and why Mates of State may be the most rock ‘n’ roll band on the planet.

What effect did the three-year layoff have on “Mountaintops?”
Well, we wanted to really learn to record ourselves. To achieve the sound in your head in the real world is sometimes really difficult: You’ve gotta have the right microphones, right room, right vibe—and then you’ve gotta sing it right. There are a lot of variables. I think that’s why we ended up doing the covers record [2010’s “Crushes”]—we recorded it entirely ourselves. We said, “Let’s do something that’s not as big of an artistic risk, and if it sounds like crap maybe the real artists will forgive us.”

It’s been two years that we’ve been writing “Mountaintops.” We ended up writing a bunch of stuff, but we kind of kept saying, “These are OK, these aren’t great.” So we kept plugging away, compiling a big list of songs. And eventually we started deeming some of them record-worthy, and we started noticing a theme.

Is it tough to edit yourselves when you have that much material? Can you go, “No, no, no, yes,” or does it take a while?
Aw, man, editing’s the worst! We have to agree—that’s been our rule of thumb since day one. We don’t put anything on a record unless we both really love it.

Is the writing process different now than it was on, say, your second or third album?
On our first couple records, whenever we felt the mood we’d rehearse. It was just the two of us, all the time—we didn’t have anybody else to think about. Now there’s a lot more people involved, so it’s about discipline; physically sitting down and working instead of waiting for inspiration to hit. Saying, “OK, from Thursday to Wednesday from noon to midnight I’m working on some kind of art.” Obviously you take mental breaks, or you try to get inspired by reading a book about meditation, or Quincy Jones and how he helped compose “Thriller” or whatever. But once we became disciplined, we became much more efficient and productive. And quality-wise, I think we’re getting better at writing songs. Maybe we’re half as good as we wanna be, but improving along the way here, you know?

Just from a practical standpoint, when do you do this? When do you make time, with two kids pulling on your sleeves and asking for juice?
It’s very delicate at times. But there’s only two of us in the band, and we live together. [Laughs] So at a moment’s notice we can call an audible and be like, “No, we’re practicing!” or, “No, we can’t, because of this disaster!” The rest of it comes down to our insistence on making it happen. We don’t want to do anything else. This is who we are. At all costs, we’re gonna find a balance and make it work. I understand it’s a unique situation, but I really don’t see it being different than anyone else’s life, and how they balance the many different roles they have to play. It’s just us trying to strike that balance, just like anyone would, even when they’re working a straight job.

Well, in that context, it seems completely logical!
The paradox in that is what has become cliché in rock ‘n’ roll: that you can’t have the two. You’re either a loose cannon on drugs and chasing tail, or you’re doing this other thing. We’ve always done our own thing, and we feel like that’s what rock ‘n’ roll is. People will disagree, because the rock ‘n’ roll cliché is so entrenched, but I really feel like we’re as rock ‘n’ roll as it gets. We don’t take no for an answer, we don’t take s--- from anybody and we call our own shots, 100 percent of the time.

The record leaked a bit ago on the Internet; have you heard response yet?
I try not to get it to let me down, but I definitely poke around to see how people are responding. And I think, knock on wood, everything is pretty positive. I think we surprised some people, including sometimes our managers and labels. “You’ve made five records, what are you gonna do different and how can we sell it?” And then we hand in this and we’re like, “There you go. Sell that s---, bitch.” [Laughs] And then we go back to the basement.

My thing over the last year has been to meditate and read about Buddhism. And really you’re just feeding your ego when you’re going online looking for people to tell you how great your art is. And at the end of the day, whether they tell you you’re great, or they tell you’re s---ty, it’s all the same. It shouldn’t affect you any differently; they’re both neuroses. The middle is where you want to be.