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GroundSounds had the pleasure of chatting with Dan Layus of Augustana before Monday’s show at The Troubadour. He provided track-by-track insight on the new album Life Imitating Life. Check it out below and be sure to pick up the album if you haven’t already!
“Ash and Ember”
I was listening to a lot of Peter Gabriel at the time, and I’ve been a big fan of Aimee Mann for a number of years, so I think somehow that crept into my consciousness a little bit from a lyrical standpoint, and melodically. Listening to that So record from Peter Gabriel, songs like “In Your Eyes” and “Red Rain.” I think all those melodies made a big impact on me. I wanted to do something in that world without trying too hard. It still needed to be me, still needed to be Augustana—just natural and authentic, but I wanted to push the lyrical content a bit for myself. Not that it has to push a lot of boundaries for all songwriters, but for myself it was very therapeutic process and challenging to sort of “free-conscious” write on a pen and paper. Get off the phone, get off the laptop, and actually write again like I used to ten years ago.
It’s pretty incredible how once you let go of the digital device and you put a pen in your hand again, you just start writing and scratching things out, writing and scratching things out, it ends up being a really good process. That song is a combination of all those things and from a topical standpoint, it touches on a couple issues I dealt with on the last record, but it’s a little more convincing and complete now. The last album I was going through the process of breaking down and resurfacing and still figuring out who I was. At this point at the age of 29, I’ve had a good couple years now of figuring out who I am, what I stand for, what I love, and how to love that.
“Need A Little Sunshine”
There are a couple songs on this album that I actually wrote quite a while back, about three years ago or so, just around the release of our last album. I was already moving on to the next one. In fact I’m already behind schedule on the next one; this record just came out on Tuesday, so it’s time to get going (Laughs).
I was really ready to write some more positive content. With that song I just had a realistic approach, like “things are good with my wife, she’s stuck with me through some hard times,” but even when things are great and you feel emotionally fulfilled, sometimes there’s still outside elements you can’t control that are still difficult to deal with. You want certain goals to be attained and sometimes it’s out of your hands. “Need A Little Sunshine” is just saying “I could use a little roll of good luck with the dice here,” like a cloud break, maybe catch the right wind on the sail with a couple things I can’t control.
“Love In The Air”
With that one, I just walked outside of my apartment in Studio City. At this particular moment I was just doing some laundry downstairs. I sat outside for a second, took a little sunshine in, I remember the laundry just smelled amazing. Then this melody and this line just popped in my head and I ran upstairs and was like “Babe, I think I got a song!” I wrote it really quick, like within an hour or so. I don’t know if that’s great, but I wrote a song I felt really happy about.
“Youth Is Wasted On The Young”
That song was written around the same period, 2-3 years ago. It was a pretty smooth writing process. I didn’t need to try too hard to get to where I wanted to melodically and lyrically, it was very natural. It was sort of in a phase where I was reflecting on past decisions I made. I felt angry at myself a lot of the time that I couldn’t have foreseen what the decisions I made would have done to those around me. But it’s a catch-22 because if you were wise enough to know and change, you wouldn’t have that problem. But generally in your early to mid twenty’s, you don’t know, and that’s kind of the catch.
“Youth is wasted on the young” is a famous quote from George Bernard Shaw. It can drive you crazy because you wouldn’t be able to appreciate where you are now without the mistakes and bad decisions, but you wish you could have gotten there without going through that. It’s that painful spin-cycle. There’s a little bit of angst and depression and sadness, but a little bit of acknowledging like “what are you going to do?” I’m still alive, you live through it, and you can’t go back.
“Say You Want Me”
“Say You Want Me” I’d say is the most consistent sonically and songwriting-wise, as far as the traditional approaches I’ve taken on previous Augustana records. It feels the most cohesive with the back catalog. It’s in the world of “Sweet and Low,” it’s in the world of “Boston,” it kind of wears that same outfit. I’d say it’s kind of the only time I dip into a desperate moment of depression and sadness, reaching out for some obvious moment of forgiveness. I think that’s what separates that song on this record. A lot of the rest of this record is more heady, maybe at times existential. It’s kind of one big thought process, questions within myself. That song stays in another world, so I think that’s important.
“Fit Together”
That one came from something my wife said, literally like the way her head fits into my neck, these physical things and how we just fit together. One night she said that and I thought of this melody, had the song carved out in my head, and that’s it! That’s what I wanted to say: we just fit together. It’s just obvious and it just works. It’s meant to be…written in the stars…whatever classic verbiage you want to use.
“According To Plan”
I was up in the studio doing the record in New York. Every single record we go in the studio with a certain amount of material. In the back of my head I always know I’m going to write one in the studio, the last piece. Having a deadline of sorts is something I work well with. I still didn’t feel like there was an obvious cornerstone, an obvious title for the record. One night I just stayed up all night and wrote it, we cut it the next day.
And where did the phrase “Life Imitating Life” come from?
That phrase came into my head on its own. I googled it and was like “there’s no way there’s not already something called this,” and there wasn’t, so I lucked out. I really liked the title. That phrase just popped out of my mouth. From a topical standpoint it’s a bit existential…questioning my role in the world. I know my wife and I perfectly fit together, but why? Why is that? I’m always questioning whether things are pre-planned or if it’s all just chaos. It’s kind of a heady, deep thing to talk about but I wrote it in a way that makes sense to me. It’s essentially saying “have I come full circle, or am I just going in circles?”
That’s kind of what the whole album is saying. You never really say “I’m there, I’m good,” it’s all one big dance, one big evolution.
So is that something that you can apply to not only yourself, but your marriage, Augustana’s journey, and everything you’ve written?
Yeah exactly. I remember watching the Academy Awards this year, and Jared Leto’s acceptance speech was amazing. He hit Ukraine, his mom, band, cast mates, he hit everything. Then Matthew McConaughey came on and I thought what he said was fantastic. It was exactly how I felt. When someone asked him who his hero was and he said “me in ten years.” And I thought that was great, I felt that way. It’s kind of what this album essentially wraps up to be. I lived a pretty wild 20’s and I learned a lot and now I’m curious to see what I bring into the next decade. Hopefully I can be a better version of that ‘best part’ of me, every day, just with the way you treat people.
“I Really Think So”
I wrote that with one of my all-time music heroes, Gary Louris from The Jayhawks. Really amazing songwriter. He came over to my house in Tennessee and we wrote a couple songs, that’s one of them. It’s another one like “Say You Want Me” where there needed to be a consistent thread, something that was just a pure American rock song with some jangle to it. I wanted to put a little bit of the production moves on it, little bit of a Beck vibe. I wanted to blend a little something that was left-of-rock but also have the jangly Americana ‘accessible pop song’ feel to it.
“Alive”
That was a real turning point for me. That was the first song I wrote after the new album had dropped three years ago. That was in the same 2-3 week span as “Need A Little Sunshine” and “Love In The Air.” I felt like I had written something that I really connected with from an emotional standpoint, like “this is exactly what I wanted to say and it’s very simple.” I’ve been sober for about 3 years coming up this Summer, so it was at the point where I had lived a couple months without it and I was finally feeling things again. Feeling better, feeling normal, like “I can do this and I’m better without this.” It was finally me actually wanting to get sober, not just because other people wanted me to get sober.
It’s kind of like that Russell Brand movie Get Him To The Greek where he’s like “I’m nervous…It feels good to be nervous!” I finally had butterflies before a show, I was nervous about things in the morning, or excited about things in the morning. I was getting coffee early in the morning and doing all these little things that I really didn’t do before.
It’s also sort of in the verses that this isn’t a lesson or a message for everyone. This is strictly my experience and it’s not gonna work for everyone. This is just my experience, so it’s good for me that I feel this way. If someone else identifies with it, that’s great. Everybody figures out their own thing at their own time.
“Remember Me”
“Remember Me” is a tough one. It’s one I’ve been wanting to write for years and years. I wanted to write something that I could leave behind that wasn’t just about heartbreak or sobriety or whatever. I wanted it to be an obvious thing that left behind trails and thoughts about the heartbreaking nature about what it would be like to lose me or my wife or someone close to me. Dealing with the inevitable heartbreak that is going to happen no matter if you are able to stay with someone for 65 years…someone still leaves, someone goes first. No matter what, you get hurt. That’s kind of where that’s at. I hope I can leave a really good mark behind, that time I spent here meant something to you and this was worth the investment you made.
*Be sure to check out Augustana on their current tour with Twin Forks. Check out all the dates HERE and read my review of the show HERE
