Are you completly satisfied about your last work?
I don't think artists are ever completely satisfied with anything they do--if they were, they would stop creating. But I'm very happy with our debut album. I still love playing the songs, even after all this time, so I think they hold up well. And I love everyone's performance on the record. I'm lucky to work with such great musicians. Pat's bass playing is a symphony, and his harmonies are amazing. Jason is the best drummer I've ever played with, he really serves the song. And Lawrence's lap steel is the lynch pin of our sound. We can all hear things we might have liked to do differently, but overall, we like how it turned out.
Wich are the most important ispiration for doing this new album? 
There's a two-part answer to that. First, I think every album is a snapshot of a band as it exists at the time the album is recorded, does that make sense? Pat and Lawrence and I had been playing together for a while, but when we found Jason, everything just clicked, the sound came together and it sounded and felt really good. We started recording about a month after we met Jason. So that was the main musical inspiration -- we wanted to capture that moment in time. Second, the lyric inspiration--there's a lot of transition in the lyrics on Trouble Creek, a lot of searching and movement. I was going through a time of tremendous, tumultuous change when I wrote most of these songs. My father, who I loved dearly, had died, and I was questioning a lot of relationships and choices I had made in my life, and some of that worked its way into the songs. It's not just about that--most of my songs are about numerous events, some real and some fictional--but that soul-searching period was the main inspiration for this record.
Is There some others artists that you think important to reccomend us? 
Here are some artists I like that you may not know about: Dave DeCastro is a prolific songwriter from New Jersey who also plays bass with Steve Wynn and used to be in the Health and Happiness Show. I've been a fan of his for a long time--he's fantastic singer and a creative musician, and he writes so much that he practically makes an album every month. Mark McKay, based in Maryland, is another one--great voice, great songs. He works with Eric "Roscoe" Ambel. Another is a guitarist named Jim Campilongo. He's from San Francisco but now he lives in New York--amazing guitar player, like Jimmy Bryant, Joe Maphis and Don Rich all rolled into one--he's that good.
Are there some others projects for the your future? 
Yes, we're working on songs for a new album that we'll probably record at the end of next year. We're also hoping to get to South By Southwest in Austin, Texas in March 2004 and maybe tour Europe in the fall. We update our website regularly (www.damnlovelys.com), so come visit and see what we're up to.
Is there something in your album that you don't like enough?
The only thing I don't like about our album is that there are no cover songs on it. In our live set, we play tons of them, really great ones too, like ZZ Top's "Hot Blue and Righteous," Tom Petty's "Love is a Long, Long Road," Hank Snow's "90 Miles an Hour Down a Dead-end Street, the Allman Brothers' "Pony Boy," Michael Martin Murphy's "Texas Morning" and lots more. They're so fun to do, they add another dimension to the band. But I didn't feel like going through the hassle of getting permissions to put other people's songs on our record, so you'll have to come see us play to hear all this good stuff!

Meredith Ochs
(The Damn Lovelys)
www.damnlovelys.com