A conversation with Over the Rhine

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Linford Detweiler is the guitarist, pianist, and bassist for two-piece folk band Over the Rhine. Detweiler is married to Over the Rhine’s vocalist Karen Bergquist. Over the Rhine was founded in Cincinnati in 1989. Since then, they have released 13 studio albums and toured with musicians such as Bob Dylan and My Morning Jacket. Detweiler and Bergquist currently live on a pre-Civil War farm outside Cincinnati.—Interview conducted and biography compiled by Andrew Egger, Collegian Reporter.  

How would you describe the style of music that you play?

Every songwriter loves for people to actually hear the music and respond to it without a lot of preconceived notions but that being said, I have always thought of Karen as a soul singer. She sings from the place where her pain lives like all soul singers. I like voices that come from deep places. Loosely, we would be considered an Americana band. I think we often forget about the kind of music that can only happen in America. Johnny Cash could have never happened in Italy – it’s kind of the messiness of America and the contradictions of America that create these pregnant places where music can happen that couldn’t happen anywhere else. I think we’re products too of growing up in little churches around gospel music, so that was kind of in the water.

Americana is a genre which many associate with “authenticity.” What do you think it means to create authentic music?

Authenticity – not trying to be something that you’re not – that’s a little bit tricky when it comes to careers in the arts and so forth. I think when we first started off Karen and I were a little embarrassed by our small town roots—little no name times in Ohio—my father was a minister at a little protestant church by the railroad tracks. At some point a transition happens where you realize your particular story is really the only gift you’re given. You can’t borrow somebody else’s story, you have to work with your own, even if it’s a little unwieldy. So we eventually embraced that and realized there was this rich past to draw from, all of the stuff in these coal mining towns that we wouldn’t have seen if we’re growing up in New York City or something like that. You also discover that you’ve stepped into a story already in process, like what was going on in my mom and dad’s life when they were kids had a huge impact on where I ended up, and anyway you learn to own that stuff and it becomes incredibly fertile ground for a writer. So for me, authenticity starts by embracing your own story and past.

You and Karen got married seven years after Over the Rhine was founded. What kinds of challenges did that create for the band?

Well, we were a little bit terrified that we would lose our objectivity as artists and collaborators if we were romantically entangled and in a committed relationship, but I can assure you that that has not happened. We both have continued to trust each other as editors, and we both value the other’s opinion greatly; Karen has no problem whatsoever with telling me that something is not my best work. I think we realized that we were tending two gardens, our career and our marriage, and both required creativity and care. If we didn’t water one for too long, there’s no way it could survive, so we had to figure out how to take care of both. But it’s an interesting dilemma, and it’s not for the faint of heart. Make sure you get that in there, it’s important.

Can you talk a little about the stories you tell in your songs?

I think most of our songs, for good or for ill, do end up being a bit more personal in nature. There are characters in our songs, but what we hope is that when we capture a moment convincingly in our own lives that other people can lay the transparency of their own life on the song and find points of intersection, so it’s not about us necessarily, but it’s more about opening a real conversation with the listener and sort of inviting them into the conversation with the idea that “this is where I am, what do you think about this?” I think it’s more about the stories that we all share.

Do other forms of art influence your creative process?

Very, very much so. When I was a young songwriter people would ask for my musical influences, and without realizing it I would usually name authors or visual artists. There’s something about getting out of your discipline as somebody in the arts that can really make sparks fly in terms of finding nourishment or creativity. Ten years ago, Karen and I moved out of the city to a hideaway farm in southern Ohio that felt like it was lost in time. Some authors, like Wendell Barry, find a particular place that really influences their work and I think that’s happening with us. That’s an idea that I like, anyway.