Hometown to Hometown

Chris Coole and Ivan Rosenberg talk folk-geography, collaboration, and road snacks at Empty Sea Studios Interview by Elaina Ellis

Chris Coole and Ivan Rosenberg are unlikely bandmates, given that they live thousands of miles apart, on opposite sides of our northern national border.  Coole, from Toronto, and Rosenberg, from Portland, Oregon, sat down with me between sound check and a sold-out show, to talk about their distance-defying musical collaboration.

It’s great to have you here at Empty Sea Studios.  Can you tell me about the tour that you’re on?

Chris: We’re touring from Portland back to Toronto, in just under two weeks.  This is our second night of the tour, and we’re heading back across the Northern states.  We’ll go through Montana, and “Minnesotio,” which is what they call Minnesota in folk songs.

Wow, I didn’t know that.  Minnesotio?

Chris: Yeah, so if you’re ever in a folk song, and you’re trying to find Minnesota, they’ll just look at you like you’re from Mars.  You’ve gotta ask for “Minnesotio.”

From there we’re gonna go to Wisconsin, and then Illinois, and then Toronto, where we’re going to play a date.  Then Ivan and me and some friends are going to record an album there.

So you’re going hometown to hometown?

Chris: Yes.  We could actually call it “The Hometown to Hometown Tour.”

Ivan: That’s now what it’s called.  It’s not too late.

Chris: From now on, that’s what we’re calling it.

What was the tour called before?

Ivan: It’s been called the Farewell Trion CD Tour.

How long ago did that CD come out?

Ivan: It came out last year –

Chris: — but we really didn’t tell anyone about it.

Ivan: It’s hard for us to put these tours together since we do live a few thousand miles away.

How is it that you ended up being collaborators, living so far apart?

Ivan: We met at the British Columbia Bluegrass workshop… I was teaching there during Week One, and he was there for Week Two.  I was the only clawhammer banjo player there the first week, and he was the only clawhammer banjo player there the second week.  We traded CDs, and I don’t think either of us listened to the other for a year or two –

As happens —

Ivan: Right. Then we finally did, and we had a lot in common, it turns out.  I don’t really remember how we decided to start playing as a duet.

Chris: Money.

There’s a lot of money in clawhammer duets?

Chris: Sweet, sweet money.

Ivan: Oh yeah, it’s a big deal…  so, somehow it morphed into something that we took on the road a little bit.

What are you traveling by?

Chris: Subaru station wagon.

Ivan: It’s going to hit 220,000 miles on this this trip.  We’ll see how it’s doing by the end of the tour.

What’s your favorite road snack?

Chris: Well, my favorite readily available road snack, for snack food, is the bean burrito from Taco Bell.  I think it’s the healthiest widely available sh*tty food you can get.  I also like to stop at those gigantic all-you-can-eat places, and just hit the salad bar — that’s a tricky way not to kill yourself.  And the third is pork’s feet.

Ivan: He’s kidding.  [Although] that would be a really old-timey snack.

Personally, I’ve been reminiscing about one snack food I’ll never have again, which I discovered on our last trip through British Columbia.  I’m still recovering from that trip.  In Canada, you can get a thing — thing is the right word — called Hawkins Cheezies, and they’re the equivalent of Cheetos, but they’re good — really good — they’re made with what they call real Canadian cheddar cheese.  Forget about partially hydrogenated oils, this stuff is fully hydrogenated.

I know you’re saying this is disgusting, but I’m drooling a little bit.

Ivan: Exactly.  So I couldn’t stop eating them, once I discovered these things.  But there’s so many calories — they’re so dense — it’s like eating a piece of Jupiter.  Full of stuff that’s killing you slowly.  Your whole skin starts to take on this orangeish hue.

Chris: A lot of people don’t know that next to next to lumber and gasoline, Hawkins Cheezies are our third largest export.

Ivan: I’m still trying to lose weight from that tour.

What lands you here at Empty Sea Studios?

Ivan: I got a hold of Devon from Hearth Music, who is one of those people who…puts in the time because he believes in what he’s doing… it just so happened that he was starting a new concert series — the Next Gen Folk series — and he suggested this venue.  I’ve always preferred doing smaller shows to people who are actually listening, rather than big shows, rather than it’s just espresso machines, or beer-drinking and –

Chris: Yelling.

Ivan: A little yelling is okay… but I looked at the website for this venue, and it looked nice.  The curtains looked nice. I thought, “I’d like to perform in front of those curtains…”
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Keep track of Chris and Ivan here:  http://www.ivanrosenberg.com/
Read about Hearth Music Next Gen Folk Series here: http://www.hearthmusic.com/
Learn more about Ivan’s dreaded road snack here: http://www.cheezies.com/static.html