The Lark and the Loon are a songwriting duo consisting of husband/wife team Jeff Rolfzen and Rocky Steen-Rolfzen. Named after the state bird from which they were born, the two bring their distinct writing styles together in what they call an exploration in the etymology of American music.
They take inspiration from prewar blues and jazz, Irish dance music, Sea shanties, and dust bowl folk songs. Their debut album “Songbirds and Fog” was recorded in their cabin home in the Ozarks after a period of heavy isolation and was met with fast critical acclaim. Their follow up album “Homestead Hands” contains songs focused on the American West and themes of rural life.
The duo is back with their latest album 2. They also have a fun animated video for their song Change Our Tune. You can watch it below.
In this interview spotlight, we chat about the new album, challenges, technology (or the lack of) and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
Rocky was born in Montana which has the Western Meadowlark for a state bird while Jeff was born in Minnesota which holds the Common Loon for its bird. The two of us now live in the Ozark Mountains outside of a small town. The music we make is influenced by our different upbringings in rural and urban America. The term we kick around for our music is it’s an exploration in the etymology of American music.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?
The two of us met in Minneapolis MN in the music scene there. We had a lot of musical interests in common and started collaborating a little bit before getting married. Once we moved to the Ozarks we got the isolation that helps a lot with our writing. Being in nature allows us to slow down and write about the things that we enjoy together.
How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?
There are two albums we worked on at the same time. “Homestead Hands” was recorded in Santa Fe and focuses on rural motifs. We chose Santa Fe because we wanted to give the songs a dry atmosphere to evoke a dustbowl like feeling into the recordings. The other album is titled “2” and is a series of duets with motifs in urban America. We recorded that one in New Orleans just 5 or 6 weeks after Homestead Hands. The albums reflect on different parts of ourselves and reflect different moods. Depending on which one you listen to you’ll get a different style of songwriting and music. Our first album was 19 songs and a little over 70 minutes in length which at the time seemed pretty normal but as time has gone on we’ve liked the idea of giving people something a little easier to digest in one sitting.
Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?
We don’t have an internet connection at our house so we’re a little bit unplugged. Our primary source of music is through our turntable so vinyl records are extremely important to us. The digital age has been wonderful though for traveling since it allows us to connect with people all over the world from anywhere.
What was the last song you listened to?
Not sure, likely something on the turntable.We’ve been listening to Louis Armstrong’s WC Handy album a lot lately.
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
Vinyl (no surprise)
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
We still like physical media ourselves but that’s probably got a lot to do with how difficult it can be to consume things online for us at times. Platforms like Spotify and Apple music are great since they kind of take the shape of a radio station that you can customize. When we lived in the city we used a lot of platforms like that. We really like making videos despite the fact that we don’t have a lot released. We like to make animations for our songs and we have some other music video styles we’re playing around with right now.
Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?
Anything else before we sign off?
Thanks for taking the time to ask us some questions!
