Beyond the border

How does a drummer from Albuquerque (New Mexico) become a fervent ambassador for Eastern European music? Jeremy Barnes, A Hawk and A Hacksaw’s bandleader for nine years, tells us about his extraordinary journey.

Sitting in a Paris bistro near the New Morning club, Jeremy Barnes and violinist Heather Trost have the air of people who are used to getting little sleep. Yesterday Stuttgart, tomorrow Lille, the two musicians and their three band-mates from A Hawk and A Hacksaw are currently on an extended tour of Europe. With a line up featuring accordeon, violin, bouzouki, tuba and trumpet their show is a fired up whirlwind anchored in Balkan, Hungarian and Romanian sounds.

The road that led Jeremy Barnes to this project started in the mid 90s when he was drummer with the group Neutral Milk Hotel. “We played music which was very different to the indie rock of those days, with a trumpet and an accordeon. Jeff Magnum, the bandleader, was an incredible collector of all kinds of underground records, from German rock to Brazilian psychedelia, via Alice Coltrane, Moondog and Bulgarian music. I was 19 years old and hearing these amazing sounds on the tour bus just opened up my ears.”

Barnes’ great love affair with Eastern European music started a little later on, during a stay in Chicago. “My neighbourhood was known as ‘Little Ukraine’, where Serb, Ukrainian and Polish immigrants lived…I was the only person in my building who had been born in the US. One day, in a corner shop, I bought a record by a Romanian clarinet player because it had a great kitsch cover with a photo of him holding a baby goat. I only got round to listening to it a couple of months later and it was a total revelation: I just couldn’t believe how beautiful the music was.” The idea of playing that music began to take shape in his mind, and inspired the name of the group, A Hawk and A Hacksaw, taken from Don Quixote. “I listened to these Bulgarian virtuosos and started feeling like Don Quixote when he comes to understand that he will never be the knight that he hoped to be. But in trying, he becomes something else, something just as beautiful. That spoke to me, because tackling this music was a little bit crazy”.

A Hawk And A Hacksaw - I Am Not A Gambling Man

Barnes has since proved that his vision wasn’t a mirage. He has recorded five albums tracing a balance between indie aesthetics and Slavic lyricism. The latest release Délivrance was recorded in Hungary with local musicians around the core duo Barnes and Trost. “I told them, ‘we’re not trying to be a Hungarian music group, but we adore this music and we’re looking for people to play it who are ready to go beyond tradition’.” At first, some of them were pretty intimidating. Many aren’t interested in traditional music, the young people listen to techno. So they were surprised to see a couple of Americans turn up looking to play this music. Also, they’re used to seeing people from the West come there for questionable reasons, whether it’s McDonalds, German commerce or French supermarkets. We had to earn their trust. This project worked because it was a genuine encounter, and not just us saying, ‘ok play this and then we’ll put a drum machine under your solos…’”

As for the meaning of the album title, Barnes explains, “it really refers to the things about my country I reject. I want to be delivered from this out-of-control capitalist culture and I escape through music and by travelling in countries where I can’t understand the adverts.”

Bertrand Bouard

Délivrance is out now on The Leaf Label
A Hawk And A Hacksaw are on tour through June and July
Full tour dates : www.myspace.com/ahawkandahacksaw

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