If you were around Portland in the ’90s, you probably heard the infectious, upbeat pop tunes of the band Sunset Valley. They toured up and down the West Coast, played in front of big audiences and eventually signed with a big record label. But breakout fame wasn’t in the cards for this group, and the members have since moved on to other things.
Now the band is reissuing their record “Boyscout Superhero,” and playing a concert to celebrate their 30-year anniversary. We talk to band members Herman Jolly, Jonathan Drews and Tony Lash and hear some music.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. The band Sunset Valley formed 30 years ago this year. They began as a trio and eventually expanded into a five-piece that played catchy, jangly, upbeat power pop. They toured up and down the West Coast, playing in front of big audiences and eventually signed with a major label. But breakout fame was not in the cards and eventually the members moved on to other things, whether that meant different music gigs or whole new careers. Now, the band is reissuing their sophomore album “Boyscout Superhero” and playing a concert to celebrate their 30-year anniversary. It’s this Saturday night at Portland’s Mississippi Studios.
Guitarists Herman Jolly and Jonathan Drews and drummer Tony Lash join me now. It’s great to have all three of you on the show.
Herman Jolly: Thank you.
Tony Lash: It’s nice to be here.
Jonathan Drews: Thank you.
Miller: Herman, first – how did Sunset Valley start?
Jolly: Well, I had been kicked out of a band, and even during this band, I had found this shirt at a thrift store that said “Sunset Valley” on it. I thought if I’m ever in another band, it’s gonna be called Sunset Valley.
Miller: What do you like about the name?
Jolly: It just felt good. I don’t know. It’s generic, but it felt like it could mean just anything. I don’t know. It just appealed to me and I got kicked out of a band. I was living in my girlfriend’s backyard, now my wife, Megan. I quit music completely and I wanted to. And she said, you should go over to this guy Eric’s house, and he’s got a home studio (which was kind of rare to have in 1996), and you should record your songs there. And so I did that. And when I was wrapping up that recording, Eric and his roommate Jonathan, who’s sitting to my right, said, “hey, if you wanna do a band, we wanna be the band.” So that was instantly a new band.
Miller: Why were you ready to quit music?
Jolly: I had been sort of bullied in this previous band. It was initially a set of songs I wrote and a few of them ended up being in the first Sunset Valley record. But they kept removing my songs from the set and replacing them with kind of jamming, which I don’t do. I’m not a good enough musician to jam ...
Miller: But it seems like you’re also more drawn to tight songs.
Jolly: I like oldies. I had bartended a lot in the daytime in bars listening to oldies all day on the muzak machine. And I just like really cut and dry, simple, short songs. And I wanted to make those. I write them compulsively. I’m always writing them, even still.
Miller: So was it painful to think, “I’m done with music?”
Jolly: Yeah, I was pretty disgusted with my experience before and then getting booted out of this band that was like my identity at the time. When you’re young and you’re in a band, that’s like your whole … that’s all you are. And yeah, I was looking at photography or something else, go back to school. I didn’t know.
Miller: So Jonathan, what was it about what you were hearing Herman doing that made you say, “if you want to be in a band, I want to be in it.”
Drews: The songs just had a uniqueness about them. No one was really doing anything like it. And I remember we saw Herman perform and there was something really captivating about him as a front person singing and playing. And the way that I listen to music, and the way that I play music, and the way I like to think about composition and things, I had a really easy time imagining what could go along with what Herman was writing.
Miller: When you started playing together, how long did it take before you realized that your instinct had been right? I mean, how long did it take to gel as that trio to start with?
Drews: It’s kind of almost instantaneous, really. You know right away, and that’s how I felt about it. It just felt really comfortable, and I felt at home with his songs and with his personality, we’re best friends, and it’s just been like a fun ride ever since that first day.
Miller: Tony, what about you? I mentioned that it started as a trio and then you eventually joined after an illustrious career before that as a musician, as a producer, working with Elliott Smith, working with plenty of other people. Do you remember when you heard the band for the first time?
Lash: The timeline’s a little fuzzy, but I have my own kind of challenging band experience and left the band, left Heatmiser, and was kind of done with playing in a band for the time being, and I was focusing on my studio work. And then I think the timeline is Jeff Saltzman, who had recorded their first album, hired me to master it. So mastering the record, I was really impressed with the songs.
And then I remember seeing the three of you play a basement party. And you played “Doll Hill,” and I just was so struck by the feeling in the song, this kind of particular kind of longing, melancholy, and I just was like, “oh, I really would love to record that song with those guys.” And so then before I was in the band, we recorded that song. And then I think maybe I offered or I suggested, like if you were looking for a drummer … because I started feeling like if I would want to be in a band, these songs are good. They’re good musicians. They’re nice guys, if you were looking for a drummer …
Jolly: He was the drummer originally. Jonathan was the drummer. But on our recording on our first record, Jonathan also played all the guitar solos, but live, we couldn’t pull that off. So it was very hard. Tony could take over drums, and then he could jump over and we could be a two guitar band, and do all these wild things we dreamed up but you could only hear on the record.
Miller: Let’s listen to “Doll Hill,” to the recorded version of “Doll Hill” from your second album, “Boyscout Superhero.” As I mentioned in the beginning, this album came out in 1998, right? And it’s being re-released now. So let’s have a listen to part of “Doll Hill.”
[Recording of “Doll Hill” by Sunset Valley playing]
Miller: So Tony, you were saying that you heard this live and that’s part of what made you want to be in this band.
Lash: I think, well, first it made me want to record the song with him, and I think when you played it, you did it without drums. And the part we didn’t hear there is there’s kind of this long coda that keeps repeating “I’ll wait,” and I just heard something in there that I just felt like, oh man, I have a good feeling about recording this together. So it was really a one-off at that point, we hadn’t talked about me joining the band.
Jeff was still living in California. He came up and we recorded that at Eric’s home studio. I’m still really happy with how it came out and it just kind of reinforced that feeling of it would be a good band to play in if they’ll have me.
Miller: Herman, what did it mean to have Tony join the band?
Jolly: I was terrified of Tony for years.
Miller: What do you mean?
Jolly: He, well …
Miller: He looks like a gentle person. I’m 6-feet away. [Laughter]
Jolly: So, back before you could look anyone up and be like, “oh, his Facebook profile, he’s like this funny, cool guy …” All you hear is like the legends of, “oh, Tony Lash, the producer.” He’s in all these articles that produced the first Dandy Warhols’ record. His name got mentioned more than any of those guys’ names. And all the articles about that first record, I was like, “this guy is really something.”
I knew more as that producer than as a drummer. Because I came to Portland kind of at the tail end, I missed a bunch of the early ‘90s stuff. I was like off the back of the turnip truck, just from Montana. I’m in the big city for the first time. I wasn’t aware that he was such a killer drummer. I didn’t know that, until the “Doll Hill” experience. And then our first rehearsals with him, I was like, “oh my goodness, this is crazy, this guy.”
Miller: But before that, it was sort of scary to have what, for you, was a legendary producer to be a part of the band and maybe you thought he was gonna be judging you.
Jolly: Yeah. Turns out he’s never ever judged me, not even once. [Laughter]
Lash: Not that you know of. No, I think it would be fair to add that I’m half German and that I have kind of a German sort of hard-to-read personality. And when I’m working on music, I can just be very focused and that can maybe come across as judging. The funny thing is, I didn’t realize this until way later, but Herman and I hadn’t met because the band he was in that he left came to record a song at the Heatmiser home studio. And at that time, Herman was super quiet and had much longer hair, and I just didn’t even recognize you until you brought it up way later. So, that might have informed his impression of me as me being in just producer mode, rather than drummer-friend mode.
Miller: The recordings – and we’ll hear another one in a little bit – there’re drums, there are buzzy electric guitars and tight production, but you did bring just two guitars with you, nothing else. So we could hear some sort of stripped down versions of some of your songs. What are you gonna play for us first?
Jolly: It’s a song called “Happily Frozen,” which is off the “Boyscout Superhero” album.
Miller: I should say it’s such a fun name for an album, “Boyscout Superhero.”
Jolly: Thanks. It’s a lyric from one of the songs and we were all standing in his kitchen trying to figure out what the title should be. Eric said it should be “Happily Frozen.”
[“Happily Frozen” by Sunset Valley playing, live in studio]
Miller: That was “Happily Frozen” from the Sunset Valley album, “Boyscout Superhero.”
What were your shows like in the late ‘90s, early 2000s?
Drews: Late ‘90s were kind of crazy. They were fun. We had … Was it like the summer of ‘96? Were those all the house shows and the EJ’s Tuesday nights and things like that?
Jolly: Yeah, the first show was October, was Halloween ’96 and then through that winter, a bunch of basement, something like half a dozen basement parties. Those were my favorite because it was just kind of mayhem … not mayhem, but it was really exciting. Like, we would get a basement full of people pretty jumping up and down.
Drews: Kind of got bigger every time.
Miller: Right. But then you put out a series of albums. It got more and more acclaim. But when you think back, it’s the basement shows before you got bigger that you enjoy the most. That’s what stands out to you in your memory?
Jolly: EJ’s was a small club on 21st and Sandy that is a pawn shop now, and Satyricon, which is gone. La Luna – the balcony at La Luna was kind of a smaller venue inside the place. Those were all my favorite shows really.
Lash: The first time I played with you was at 1201.
Jolly: Yeah, Portland changed quite a bit. It lost a lot of clubs, which is the normal cycle of a city, I guess,
Miller: But still makes you a little bit wistful.
Jolly: Yeah, that’s what I think back fondly on, a bunch of places that don’t exist anymore.
Miller: Let’s listen to another track from this album that’s being reissued from “Boyscout Superhero.” This is “Mega Pills.”
[Recording of “Mega Pills” by Sunset Valley playing]
Miller: This is “Mega Pills” from “Boyscout Superhero,” which came out in 1998.
Herman, the sense I get is that there was a lot of press around that time that you guys were gonna be the next big thing, that you were sort of on this rocket going to stardom. I mean, is that a too strong way to put it or is that what it seemed like?
Jolly: It was like all these articles and all the local little music papers kept saying that.
Miller: Did you believe it then?
Jolly: Well, yeah! I wanted it to be true so bad, but not everyone cracks through, I guess. We didn’t really tour a lot so it didn’t … Apparently, that’s something you got to do to make that happen.
Miller: Back then, you were signed to a major label, a subsidiary of RCA. What happened?
Jolly: Well, we signed the contract and then we sent them a bunch of demos, like over 20. And then we heard nothing. Then weeks went by and we heard nothing. And we would contact our manager in LA and say, “what’s going on?” “We don’t know.” And then we’d ask our lawyer and he’s like, “I don’t know, no one will answer my calls.” It turned out that the subsidiary of RCA just disappeared or dissolved, or everyone got fired. I still don’t really know.
Miller: You still don’t know.
Jolly: Not really, but we did sign a piece of paper. But that was the extent of it. I mean, they were like, you’re gonna get a $100,000 recording budget and a tour bus and all this stuff. And we’re like, yeah, and … But none of that happened.
Miller: You seem relatively chill about this right now. But how did it feel at the time, in the moment?
Jolly: It did sort of destroy me for a few years, a lot of years. I just felt kind of like I had done something wrong personally or made some wrong decisions. And I’d be like, OK, which decision was it that changed everything? And I don’t know. Once you are a working stiff for enough decades, and have a kid, and sort of learn about all the other great parts of life, you can sort of change back to your fun self, which is what I think has happened. And I feel like sometimes if I had only been this guy who made recordings, drove around in a bus and that was my whole life, I would feel like I might just be like this weird empty shell who doesn’t have any ... I feel like I’ve had a really great life. I’m having a great life and I’m thankful for all of it.
Miller: But it took a while to get there.
Jolly: Well, yeah, it honestly was hard, because there were so many things saying they’re going to be the next big thing, or like why weren’t they the next big thing? And it’s like they’re different versions of, different definitions of “big,” I guess. You always think, oh, we’re gonna get signed, gonna make it, gonna be a rock star. And I don’t know. I’ve just had a mostly normal life and I like it.
Miller: Jonathan, how do you think about, on the one hand, the work that you all made, and on the other, success? Whatever success means, or acclaim, or fame – there’s a connection between them, but they’re different.
Drews: Yeah, I always focus more on the work than on the idea of fame, if you want to put it that way. I think I kind of always managed to keep my own expectations in check. I was happy when I first started getting into making music and being in a band. I was like, “I would love to see my name on a CD,” and then that happened. And then, “it’d be great to tour the West Coast,” and then that happened. And then, “I wanted to tour the U.S.,” and that happened. I eventually made it to Europe and things like that.
So, I thought about those things as little benchmarks for myself. The idea of being famous in a band is always a little icky to me, but it’s something I’ve thought about since I was a child. And as I grew up and started doing this, and meeting people and getting involved with this sort of thing, I think just the fact that I was doing it was kind of enough for me. I would have loved if it was my full career and my day job, that probably would have been great, but that never quite materialized. But the real reward is just what you create out of it and what becomes this permanent record of what you did as a collection of friends and musicians.
Miller: Herman, has your relationship to the songs themselves changed over the years?
Jolly: Of these old Sunset Valley songs? Well, yeah, I went many years without even listening to them.
Miller: Why not?
Jolly: Because I’m trying to focus on writing new songs and I try to not wallow around in the old ones when I’m trying to write new ones. But whenever we’re getting ready for a reunion show – we haven’t done one in seven years – I would listen to them, be like, “oh, this stuff’s pretty fun.”
Miller: It’s great that you heard it and enjoyed the previous work or the previous self that had made them.
Jolly: Yes, and I don’t know how I wrote some of that stuff. I would just not say no to myself and just let things roll out. So I can learn from my old self sometimes by listening to these and be like, OK, new me might not let myself do that. But, old me did let myself do that and everyone agreed to keep playing on it and record it that way. And I’m so happy because it is kind of committed to tape. I mean, it was just so fun coming up with that stuff and making these recordings.
Miller: Tony, earlier this week, we talked to the folks from the Portland band Typhoon, some of the folks from that sprawling band. And they’ve been together on and off for 20 years, so a big chunk of time, if not 30 years. They’re also doing a show this weekend, a series of shows, and the songwriter Kyle Morton, he had a memorable line that revisiting songs, it’s like a time capsule for him. Does that ring true to you?
Lash: My perspective is different. I’ve never been a songwriter, right? My role has been more in kind of developing songs or finding the emotional thread in a song and trying to enhance that. I think since I retired from studio work a few years ago, it has been easier to revisit my work and be outside of it. And rather than listening to it through the lens of maybe what I did wrong or how I fell short, it’s more like appreciating what I helped make. I think when you’re working as a producer, there’s like a million small decisions that you’re making in the process of recording any song. Now, it’s easier to listen and be like, oh, OK, I made a lot of good calls there, versus if you would have talked to me 10 or 20 years ago, I would have been focused on, oh, that decision, maybe it wasn’t quite the right one.
So as far as Sunset Valley goes, I still really appreciate … My first feeling was like, wow, Herman’s a really great songwriter, and I still feel that to be true. I worked on another project more recently with him … well, I guess it’s five or six years ago now. And I listened to that a few months ago and it’s just like, wow, these songs are really good. I think Herman is an important songwriting force in Northwest music.
Miller: Well, let’s listen to one more live version of that then. If you don’t mind, Herman and Jonathan, what do you have for us?
Drews: “I Got Fair” is the name of the song. I had to think about it for a moment. We’re gonna do our best. Here we go.
Jolly: It’s a funny circle. I would write these songs, put them on, demo them on a four-track, bring them to the practice house. He would hear them, the other producer, Jeff, who’s the keyboardist in the band, and then we record it and perform it a bunch, and now we’re here doing it stripped down again. It’s just interesting. Sorry, aside. All right, that’s not the song. That was me talking.
[“I Got Fair” by Sunset Valley playing, live in studio]
Miller: That was “I Got Fair” from two members of the band Sunset Valley. We heard Herman Jolly and Jonathan Drews singing and playing guitar. They’re going to be performing with the rest of the band this Saturday to celebrate the 30th anniversary of forming and the reissue of their album “Boyscout Superhero.”
Jonathan Drews, Tony Lash and Herman Jolly, congratulations and thank you so much for coming in. It was a real pleasure talking with all three of you.
Lash: Thank you so much for having us.
Jolly: Thank you. We appreciate it a lot.
Drews: Thanks.
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