While it's not always the best way to get noticed in these hype-heavy times, The Innocence Mission
has a built a career in a manner that suits its music: being peacefully, emotionally present, and crafting songs that celebrate love, friendship, with a sense of loss, longing and wonder. Fans of
the band take pleasure in their spare, tuneful songs that lend themselves to personal interpretations. Birds of My Neighborhood, the band's latest record furthers the aesthetic
of musical purity with a sound that hearkens back to early, acoustic Neil Young or Leonard Cohen. Because the band is without a regular drummer at this point, the new songs are lean on rhythm,
with percussion kicking in only at several key moments in the song "Birdless." A sign of the group's accessibility is the nearly simultaneous release of a songbook to accompany the new
album, urging fans to try these songs out for themselves.
Another instance of the group taking the road less traveled has been its choice of historic, rural Lancaster, Pennsylvania as home.
Karen and Don Peris, the husband and wife team at the center of the group, have begun raising a family in this town. The combination of maturity, parenthood, and immersion in nature is reflected
in their music, and seems to have provided a sharper focus, etched with a deeper sense of life's intensity.
Mjuice talked with Don Peris over the phone from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Q. What's it like working in the music business while living in rural Pennsylvania?
In a way it's a great way to work because you're removed from the busy-ness that comes with living in a
big city and especially a big entertainment city like New York or Hollywood. So it's nice to be removed from it, and it's nice to be able to work on music as it fits in to our lives. It just
seems to be a natural occurrence, nothing too set up. So we feel fortunate we're able to live a quiet life here, and work on music.
I also like being in Hollywood or bigger cities. We made our
first two records in Los Angeles, and there's something to be said for living in a stimulating place. I feel fortunate in that I've been able to live and work in a number of different settings.
Q. The band's been together for thirteen years, right? That's a pretty substantial amount of time.
Yeah, maybe not officially, but we've been friends for that long, playing around for
the first few years just for fun.
Q. To what do you attribute the staying power?
We have so many common experiences. First of all, the fact that Karen is my wife. That's been a
really unifying thing for the two of us, but also with our friendships. Mike, our bass player, and Steve, our drummer (though he's kind of on break right now), we all went to school together, we
live in the same small community and we have so many common experiences. It just seems very easy to keep making music together.
I know other people who get together with new musicians for
every project, and that's good for them, too.
Q. It must make sitting down and playing together easy.
It's easy to have a conversation with someone you know well. I don't think any
of us feel pressured around one another, and we can just play in a pure way.
We had a little baby between the last record and this. That was a joyous thing. I know that my wife wrote a lot of
the lyrics out of her struggle of wanting to have a child.
Q. The songs seem to describe a pretty deep engagement with the natural landscape.
Yeah, I think for both of us, our
surroundings and the natural world is such a present thing here. I feel really fortunate to be living in a part of the world where you experience seasons. I do think that these things are an
inspiration and they show up in the lyrics.
Q. Is your drive to create music pushed by your proximity to nature?
It's one of the things that drives us to want to express ourselves, I
think. Certainly the beauty of the world, but also everyday moments, and the small moments of life are equally inspiring. I think friendships are inspiring, and different people that we know, not
necessarily that you'd guess as being the most amazing people, but who have qualities that are inspiring.
Obviously there are large personalities in life, and they'd seem to be the most
obvious things to write about, but I know that for myself and Karen, we're often drawn to quieter people and I find those kinds of people more interesting.
Q. How about musically? Are you drawn towards quieter performances?
Yeah, I think that by nature, I am. But I think that the things I like musically, though they might be quiet, I don't
feel that they're weak or without emotion. I'm thinking of the music of Nick Drake, or Neil Young, Simon and Garfunkel. Things that are beautiful, but are also strange in some ways.
