Solyoni: Fellow Golden Girls Fans Celebrate CD Release
NadaMucho.com Interview – Solyoni
Q & A with Dan Lurie
By Matt Ashworth
NadaMucho.com: Hi Dan, how’s it goin’?
Dan Lurie: Good. I’m going to shine a hot lamp on my face while I answer these questions.
NM: Excellent idea. Please start by giving the nice people a brief history/bio of Solyoni.
DL: There are many tall tales circulating about the origins of Solyoni. I tend to go with the one that says the original core members – myself, Dominic Aulisio and Bethany Gordon met violently in a sledding accident in our college town of Athens, OH. While recovering from our injuries, Dominic and I began crafting songs. Soon after that, we decided we should learn how to play instruments, so we shared an
acoustic guitar and spent the next two years crafting tunes in the basement of a house rented out to us by a known arms dealer. Since then, we’ve met a number of talented musicians who, for whatever reason, have felt inclined to help us expand our sound to previously unreachable heights and/or lows.
NadaMucho.com Interview – Solyoni
Q & A with Dan Lurie
By Matt Ashworth
NadaMucho.com: Hi Dan, how’s it goin’?
Dan Lurie: Good. I’m going to shine a hot lamp on my face while I answer these questions.
NM: Excellent idea. Please start by giving the nice people a brief history/bio of Solyoni.
DL: There are many tall tales circulating about the origins of Solyoni. I tend to go with the one that says the original core members – myself, Dominic Aulisio and Bethany Gordon met violently in a sledding accident in our college town of Athens, Ohio. While recovering from our injuries, Dominic and I began crafting songs. Soon after that, we decided we should learn how to play instruments, so we shared an acoustic guitar and spent the next two years crafting tunes in the basement of a house rented to us by a known arms dealer. Since then, we’ve met a number of talented musicians who, for whatever reason, have felt inclined to help us expand our sound to previously unreachable heights and/or lows.
NM: You’ve got an album coming out that ranges in style from dusty country road songs to quirky pop ditties. It’s a scope that reminds me of the Magnetic Fields. Are you guys fans? What other artists would you cite as influences?
DL: I certainly enjoy the Magnetic Fields, and I have a great respect for Stephen’s lyrics and ability to jump around genres. I think we tend to draw inspiration from similar artists who appear to put tender love and care into every lyric they write, whether it be deeply personal or utterly absurd. I’d throw Beck, Wilco, early Weezer, and Hall & Oates onto that list. I’m also inspired by Bell Biv Devoe and pretty much everyone who came out of New Edition.
NM: To what would you attribute the stylistic range of the band?
DL: I think the fact that we jumped right into songwriting before we even knew how to play our instruments might have something to do with it. When you only know how to play a couple chords, sometimes you’ll find yourself plucking those same notes a different way and suddenly you’ve switched from a pop song to a bluegrass ditty. Primarily, I guess we just like to change things up to keep it interesting. We usually stick to genres that we actually enjoy, but there is a stomp holler in the middle of our new CD, and I can’t say that there are any stomp holler albums in my music collection.
NM: The new album’s coming out on Global Seepej Records, home to At the Spine and The Plains. Aaron and Jon from the Plains are part of the Solyoni musical collective. How’d you get hooked up with that set?
DL: Well we’re actually releasing it on our own label, Velvet Fallopian Tube Records, in association with both Global Seepej and Black Rider, which is my brother Rob’s label. We’ve always wanted to turn our fake company into a real one, so we figured now is the time, but I wanted to keep everyone else, like Mike Toschi and Global Seepej involved as well, because he and that entire family of bands have been tremendous in helping us turn Solyoni into a legitimate musical endeavor. I met Mike through Aaron and Jon from The Plains. I actually went to college with those guys at Ohio University. We became closer friends out here, and then I forced them to start recording songs with me before they had ever heard any of the material. Thankfully, at that point, they politely agreed to join Solyoni. Now we’re gearing up for our Prairie Monsters album release, and we’re excited about finally playing these songs around town.
NM: Prairie Monsters drops in August with a CD release show scheduled at the intimate confines of the Rendezvous Jewelbox Theatre. It’s rumored to be a reunion of sorts. Explain.
DL: The strange thing about Solyoni is we have members spread out across the country. Most of the action, and all of our current live shows, takes place in Seattle, but Dominic Aulisio, who wrote half of the songs on Prairie Monsters, lives in Ohio. A couple years ago Dominic and I decided to transport my girlfriend’s car from Akron, Ohio to Seattle, while turning our experiences in to a concept album. We made it only as far as Buffalo, Wyoming before the car died in tragic fashion. It took us two years to piece the harrowing journey back together in the form of an album. At the end of August, Dominic will be flying out here, and we’ll be on stage together for the first time in four years to celebrate the end of one long and unusual musical journey, and the beginning of many more to come.
NM: On your website you list Betty White as a "person you like." We once celebrated Bea Aurthur in our "Celebrity of the Month" feature. Wanna get together some night for a Golden Girls marathon?
DL: Is it on DVD yet? If so, that NetFlix thing is starting to sound pretty good right now.
NM: When’s the last time you had sex? Which band member gets laid the most? Or wait, did you start the band for a reason other than "pullin’ more chicks?"
DL: Since this is a family publication, I’m going to avoid giving you a detailed answer to that question. What I can tell you is that most members of the Solyoni collective are embroiled in somewhat long-term relationships, which I’m guessing will not only hurt our sales, but also our chances of appearing on TRL.
NM: What’s the Solyoni message?
DL: COBRA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!