Arlie John Carstens is trying to thaw outâliterally and figuratively. When he left his home in Los Angeles yesterday, it was 77 degrees. Temperatures in Seattle today, however, are hovering around freezing. As Carstens pulls off his coat and stretches, his limbs pop and creak like ice cubes expanding under hot liquid.
Wretched weather is part of why the Juno frontman split town in 2003. "Seattle is a lovely city," he insists. "I was born at Swedish, I lived my whole life here. But having issues with chronic pain and depression, it got to a point where, anticipating another fall and winter, I just said, 'I've got to get out of here.' And I did."
But this particular visit by the singer-guitarist requires reacclimation of a different stripe. For the first time in three years, Carstens and his bandmates in Junoâguitarists Gabe Carter and Jason Guyer, and drummer Greg Ferguson (with former Hint Hint drummer and Neumo's booker Jason Lajeunesse stepping in on bass)âare reuniting for two KEXP benefit shows.
"During the years that we were active, that station was very supportive of our music," says Carstens. "So how could we say no when they asked us [to play]? I've been listening since I was 12 or 13 years old. KCMUâwhich later became KEXPâthat was the radio station that informed my musical choices." Although he's wearing a Minor Threat T-shirt, Carstens peppers his conversation with references to acts like Pere Ubu, Felt, and Eyeless in Gazaâall bands he discovered via KCMUâas often as HĂŒsker DĂŒ or Fugazi.
Over the course of two albums, several singles, a split-EP with the Dismemberment Plan, and many explosive live shows, Juno forged a powerful, distinctive sound. This is the Way it Goes and Goes and Goes (1999) and A Future Lived in Past Tense (2001) showcased epics that married the ferocity of hardcore with broad swathes of atmospheric guitar effects. Now, after an extended hiatus, preceded by two years of activity in "fits and starts," the band is striving hard to quickly reconstitute its potent mix of immediacy, majesty, and emotional intensity.
"It's crazy," says Carstens of the band making music together again. "It's like we were cryogenically deep-frozen three years ago. Now we walk back into the room and begin thawing out, and we're exactly the same people that we were for all those years that we were playing together."
Which can be both a pleasant and painful thing. "When I first walk in, and we start rehearsing, I'm from Los Angeles. I'm just visiting," he says, apropos of practices thus far. "But about 10 minutes into being there, in order to remember those lyrics, you close your eyes and that triggers all the memories that went into creating them.
"That was one thing about this band and this music," he continues. "We never did anything disingenuously, or that wasn't from the heart. For me, these are hard songs to revisit, because they are born of entirely real, and often tragic, events. Moving to California has allowed me to get a bit of distance from those things."
The complexity of Juno's music compounds the challenges, too. Even though extended passages allowed for improvisation, with changes being based on a head nod, the overall structures were mapped out in excruciating detail. "A lot of that was because we had three guitar players," he explains. "On any given song, I would be playing in one tuning, Gabe would be in another, and Guyer a third. And in order to do that, we had to be very thoughtful."
While the Juno sound incorporated many disparate elements, brevity was rarely one of them. "The hardest part is, I swear to God, we never wrote a song that was under five minutes," he adds. Two of the band's best-loved songs, "Leave a Clean Camp and a Dead Fire" and "The French Letter," clocked in near the 10-minute mark on record. In the period it takes to run through a Juno original halfway, screw up, and start over, most other rock bands could bash out two or three numbers. "It's time consuming," admits Carstens. "But so far, practicing has been a lot of fun."
The singer says the band has not discussed what will become of Juno after this weekend. For his part, his focus these days is on Ghost Wars, a long-distance collaboration with producer/musician Eric Fisher (Damien Jurado), featuring contributions from almost 20 members of the extended Seattle music community, including Rosie Thomas, Nate Mendel of Foo Fighters, and members of Pretty Girls Make Graves, the Blood Brothers, and more. The duo has recorded basic tracks for 25 songs, and is slowly refining 11 of them, with an eye toward releasing an album sometime next year.
Juno might not have been in sync with the Seattle scene during its original run, but extensive touring on three continents won them dedicated fans in far-flung places, and Carstens expresses gratitude over e-mail messages sent from Barcelona, Sweden, and Western Australia celebrating their reunion.
"It's humbling," he concludes. "You can't have delusions of grandeur when you're writing songs that are 11 minutes long. At places, our guitar tones might have been elegant or beautiful, but overall, this music expresses very dark themes that wouldn't, and probably shouldn't, appeal to a lot of people. So whenever we get feedback from people that they like it, I'm always amazed. And very appreciative."
