The Texas trio known as the Flatlanders have been referred to as more a legend than a band. Maybe that's because they haven't made a record together in 30 years, until now. With the release of their brand new CD "Now Again", Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock are making music more than worthy of their mythical status.

Welcome to Sundogs Barkin', The Flatlanders "Now Again" Conversation, joining me in a quaint East Austin studio are the members of the Flatlanders. Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock and Joe Ely.

Joe, as this is the second time for the Flatlanders, tell us a little bit about the first time around, when it was, how the three of you became friends and formed this band in Lubbock, Texas.

JOE ELY: Oh, boy. That's a good one. Around the late '60s me and Jimmie ran into each other. And we were playing around Lubbock and we would go to each other's gigs. And I was -- kind of came up in a rock-and-roll band. And when I met Jimmie, he just introduced me to a whole world that I didn't know existed. He knew millions of these old Jimmie Rodgers songs. Plus, he was writing these great songs. And then as we got to be friends, Jimmie introduced me to Butch. And they had gone to school together.

And Butch was this whole other world, you know. So here the three of us had all kind of vast, different interests, but, we came together on this kind of common thing that we loved music. And we were just starting to explore, you know, writing songs. So it was like this new thing. We just instantly hit it off.

Q: And this is Lubbock, Texas. Butch, there's been so many great artists who've come from Lubbock. And I always hear different theories about why the flat plains would be a place that gave birth to visionaries like Buddy Holly and Terry Allen. Do you have a few theories on why that would be?

BUTCH HANCOCK: We've run through a bunch of them and all of them seem to actually be holding true after all these years. You know, the first one that's most obvious is that there's nothing else to do out there. And then, of course, the wind comes along and hits Yellow House Canyon, right north of Lubbock and kind of dumps everything right on top of you. And then there's always the theory of there's something in the water. But all of those would kind of hit everybody that lives out there.

So we've kind of narrowed it down to some that are a little more selective like the UFOs that appeared back in the '50s. You know, they could zap individuals. And I have always felt zapped all my life. And then there was the one thing that every musician from Lubbock that I've talked to remembers quite well, was hopping on their bicycles three days after any rain in Lubbock, because we'd hear the little chug, chug, chug, chug of the air compressors of the DDT trucks going down the alleys, spraying for mosquitoes. And we'd go chase those trucks down the alleys and see who could stay in the fog the longest. I'm sure that had a lot to do with our poetic leaps into songwriting.

Q: I think it's fair to say that Butch has stayed in the fog the longest over the years.

Jimmie, the first and only Flatlanders' before the new album were made 30 years ago. Since then, all three of you have had musical careers that have occasionally intersected. But did the Flatlanders' first album actually get released when it was first made?

JIMMIE DALE GILMORE: Well, not really. There was a -- I think a kind of a perfunctory -- they made a little show of it. They manufactured a few eight-tracks of it. A few vinyl sides. I think maybe 50, something like that. Last year, Joe gave me a copy of the eight-track for Christmas and it's still unopened. At one point, Joe played one of them and it was -- you know, the package said "The Flatlanders." It's on the Sun label. And it looks just great, because it's on the Sun label. But on the actual recording was a record by Jeannie C. Riley. I don't believe that being released would be the right word for it.

Q: Maybe it escaped for a little while. That album is called "One Road More," though.

JIMMIE: Right. From a song that Butch wrote that's on that record.

Q: Let's flash forward about 26 years. The Flatlanders were asked to record a song for the soundtrack to "The Horse Whisperer." Can one of you tell me about that song and did it ultimately lead to this album "Now Again"?

JOE: I think it might have. The song was called South Wind of Summer. And it was -- kind of marked a point where the three of us actually sat down in a room and decided to write a song together. We'd always written separately and recorded each other's songs. But that period of time, there was two days there that we actually sat down and wrote together. And we wrote three songs, all of which are on the new album. And so it really led us into seeing that we could do that. And it also led us into the fact that anything was possible. Every time we'd start a new song it would be completely different. And so it made it kind of like, "well, what's next?".

Q: South Wind helped bring the band back together. And like most of the songs on "Now Again", it's credited as being composed by all three members.
Jimmie, was this a situation where one Flatlander would bring in a song and then the other guys would help finish it or did you actually write these songs in a room all together?

JIMMIE: Oh, we wrote them all together. There were a few of them where one or the other of us already had an idea and presented it to the other ones. South Wind of Summer was one. Joe had actually written part of a song called South Wind of Summer. But he just gave us, really, the title. And we just started into it -- only with that, South Wind of Summer. It sounded so beautiful. And for some reason, it evoked a feeling. And that was kind of typical of the way they all went.

There was some of them where Butch and I had already had something that we were kind of working on. We had, once or twice in the past, kind of dabbled at trying to collaborate. We just never were disciplined enough to follow through with it. Then through the process of the song, all of us just went, "okay, let's just see where this goes from here." And there are portions -- througg the record, where I wouldn't even have a memory of which one of us -- I think in some cases we actually, in a sentence, you know, one of us would start the sentence and another one would finish it.

Q: So this time around, you guys were disciplined enough to sit in a room. I mean, 12 out of the 14 songs are credited to all three of you. But there has to be someone watching over. And Joe, you produced "Now Again". How did you get the job with these two other strong personalities to deal with, two guys who also happen to be in the band with you?

JOE: Well, I mean, we did everything and my studio became our, kind of our clubhouse. So we'd meet over there. And in the process of it, as soon as we'd finish a song, we'd put it down immediately. You know, just that was the first thing we'd do is record it, because other things we'd worked on in the past we never recorded and they kind of blew out the window. So that was one thing.
And then the other thing - keeping working with how the song should be. And that took a whole lot of things, like, just trying different things. Trying harmonies and stuff, which we'd never done before. And it also, when we would go out on the road and play these new songs, we'd realize kind of how to play them in front of an audience. Because a lot of them worked kind of in the studio, but they didn't work so well in front of an audience. So we changed everything. And as we changed it, we came in and re-recorded it.

Q: That's almost the opposite of the way a lot of people work. They do the album, then they take it on the road.

JIMMIE: By the way, I'd like to say, I don't want to let Joe sell himself short on what he can do, technically. This is (a) very unusual combination that somebody is a great musician and performer and then also really knows the board and the sounds. He's a phenomenon in that way. And you know, I didn't want to let it pass, because he -- you know, he never really takes credit for that. But it's an amazement. It's an ongoing amazement for me. And I think for Butch, too.

BUTCH: Well, actually, I think the real reason he became the producer of the album is because he owned the tape recorder. It's kind of like, you know, you let the bass player in the band because he owns the van.

Q: Well, I mean, I've heard about the clubhouse. I think it's called "Spur Studios." Where's it at and what's the atmosphere like?

JOE: It's everywhere (laughter). It's all in your mind.

BUTCH: You know, Joe's produced a couple of my albums that -- the first one started out way back up in Lubbock where it was "Duct Tape Studio" and it's kind of progressed to "Spur Studio".

Q: I'm just getting the feeling that we're not talking about an elaborate place here, but more like a small, closed-in sort of rustic room. Am I right?

A: No, actually, it has a big room for drums. And you know, it's got a nice tall ceiling. It's got places, you know, where you can separate things. Four or five different rooms, so...

Q: So much of "Now Again" has a supernatural bent. Butch, the next song we're going to hear, Yesterday was Judgment Day, fits right in. Can you tell me a little bit about what inspired it?

BUTCH: Well, years ago, Jimmie and I actually sat down and did one of our attempts at writing a song. And we started with that idea. And it was sort of a little Bluegrass ditty at the time. And we got like half a verse or two into it and it just kind of sat there and became -- it was kind of a funny little joke for us for a while. And then when we started writing these songs together, that one came right back up, because, you know, we were recalling anything that might be useable. We reconfigured it and kind of brought it up to date. You have to bring Judgment Day up to date (laughter).

Q: Yesterday was Judgment Day, like much of the album "Now Again", it's cosmic in a Texas way. Since all three of you are now fathers, I'd imagine your growth as people contributed to this existential vibe. I'll ask Jimmie, since he is the grandfather Flatlander: Has all these years that have passed since the beginning, brought you to this place where you can make this record "Now Again" that really is a -- for lack of a better phrase, cosmic, existential record?

JIMMIE: We've had an awful lot of experience in between our early days together. But a lot of it has been -- we've been traveling along together, even though we haven't all the time been necessarily publicly associated with each other. For myself...just for myself, I know in certain ways, just in my own perception of myself, I've changed a lot in that time. For one thing, I've said this a lot of times. I used to think that I was the best singer in the band. And I realized that I wasn't. In lots of ways, my whole life has kind of been that way. I used to think that I was a lot more cosmic and ethereal and perfect than it turned out I really was.

I haven't even gotten very good at humility. I just discovered that I needed to.

BUTCH: And see, Jody, with me, it was just the opposite. I started out really humble and now I realize, finally, that I know everything that there is needed to know. I just don't tell very much of it.

Q: You dole it out in small portions?

A: You've got it, you've got it.

Q: Well, I want to bring it back down to earth, now, if I have to, if I may. When the Flatlanders first recorded, you know, there was a heated political climate. We're talking early '70s. Vietnam escalating. And also, your music seemed like a reaction to the -- you know, there's all this musical excess at the end of the '60s, psychedelic stuff and everything. The atmosphere for the new Flatlanders' record is almost the same as the first. There's a heated political climate, a bunch of superficial music being made for the masses. So where do the Flatlanders fit in in 2002?

JOE: Well, you know, I do see a lot of similarities between the late '60s and the present day. And I think that could have been maybe why -- just the way, you know, everything just kind of lined up to where we actually decided to make another record. They say that eras kind of come in cycles and so do -- in our case, so do albums.

Q: Well, the song and the feel of the album "Now Again", it brings to mind a world before cellphones, before pages, before computers. Did it take a lot of effort to make the record sound so effortless?

JOE: Well, I think that as more and more people kind of get connected and networked, I think more and more people want to get disconnected and unnetworked. And so we tried to make like a record where you didn't have to be plugged in to enjoy it.

JIMMIE: I have this feeling about the -- you know, the early Flatlanders' thing was, it was totally an acoustic record. But that never had anything to do with our having any prejudice toward that. That was what we were doing at the time. But we always were into electric music and technology. So in one sense, you know, I think the spirit of the new one still stays the same, even though we're -- you know, we're playing with a really intensive electronic -- well, a band. It's band music, but it's not that different from the character we had back then with all just mandolins and acoustic guitars and dobros.