Magnolia Electric Co.

"HEY DOUG," JASON MOLINA SAYS as he walks by a bandmate. The man looks up and a flicker of recognition passes across his face. "Hey Doug," he says to Molina, and they go their respective ways. "We've got two Jasons in the band and two Mikes. Now everyone's 'Doug.' Maybe we should have chosen a more interesting name like 'Ramon,'" Molina explains to me. This band of Dougs is Magnolia Electric Co, Molina's most recent musical incarnation (since the mid-'90s he's been recording as Songs: Ohia). Critics invariably compare Molina's music to Neil Young's, and the most recent album is not going to be an exception. What Comes After the Blues is full of twangy, country-style guitars, and a simple, yet haunting lyrical and harmonic structure that is a style all its own, yet invites the comparison. It's also as polished an album as Molina has put out to date, in part due to recording with Chicago's legendary Steve Albini.

How did you start playing music?

No one in my family played music. I grew up in a trailer park and no one played there either. My parents had this beat-up old guitar lying around the house; they didn't play it, but they had gotten it back in the '60s or the '70s. So I sort of taught myself in a very primitive way to play along with songs on the radio, and my parents had a really good record collection. I bought a bass when I could finally afford an electric guitar. I then started a band by being in a guitar store. I was in there trying out the bass, and it was turned up as loud as it could go, because I had never played through an amp before. I was playing this Black Sabbath song just super loud, shaking the walls in the place. I was about 12. There was a guy having drum lessons and they had to stop his lesson because I was so loud in the other room. It turned out that we knew each other, and we just started a band on the spot.

Almost every article about you describes your music as being, dark and depressing, but you don't seem like that kind of guy. Where does that come from?

I get that all the time. The music's dark and brooding. But it's different because I'm on the road right now so I have to function more around people, and it's not like how I live when I'm at home. I lock myself up at home and go months without seeing a soul. But I'm working the entire time. I don't want to go out. I'm not afraid to go out, it's just that I'm pretty content to sit around at home and write music. People always say that the music's really sad and depressing. I don't try to make it that way, but I'm just trying to be honest. And if you're being honest you can't change it, and say, "Man, this song's a real drag. It's going to make people really sad. I want to make them chipper."

Do you feel there are two sides to your personality? Like there's the touring side and the hanging out at home, writing side?

No, I don't think it's that different. Music for me is not really a reaction to everyday events. It's something that I pursue. I sit down and try to write a little bit everyday. It's a natural thing for me. It's the way I would imagine an athlete. They don't really have to think about practicing, it's just built into the game. And so they're out there basically getting ready for a game all the time. And I'm doing that 24 hours a day, but it's like anything where you get really burnt out on it. And the writing is shit, and it's a struggle to write. A cool idea can get dragged around for weeks and nothing happens, but I don't let that stop me from saying, "Okay, I'll just try something else." I also paint and draw, and I read a lot. I love to travel when I'm not touring. I like to go back to cities when I don't have a guitar in my hand.

Does it ever bother you that you're traveling all over the world on tour but can't experience where you're at?

Yeah. It's so strange. I think I've been in Paris at least never done one tourist thing. I've never seen the Eiffel Tower, the Seine; I just saw the inside of a rock club. We just did 17 countries in a big European tour. A lot of people who have never left the US think that's amazing, but we really don't end up with a whole lot of stories. We're like "Well, we were in the van all day. We stopped at some gas stations. We ate. We went to a rock show--which was ours. We put our crap back in the van and went somewhere and slept. And then we started the whole thing over the next day." When you do things independently you can't build in a week days off. You really can't afford to not be playing a show, just to break even. With the gas being expensive as it is, you can't even really afford to sleep. Maybe we should just go to the next show and start playing right away.

What do you think you would have done if music hadn't come into your life?

Man, I've been doing it for so long that I don't know. I never wanted to do anything else. I never thought that I would do music full time, but I never had a great desire to do anything besides music. My brother is just a little younger than me and he's a skater. That was the first group of people that we would play music for. We were the backing track for the local punks. And I could see myself being in that scene, doing art or something. Who knows? Maybe I will quit music tomorrow and have to figure it out.