Spotlight: Red House Painters

After a three-year wait, the Red House Painters' Old Ramon is finally seeing the light of day, and no one's happier about it than the group's frontman/guitarist/principle songwriter Mark Kozelek. Although the edge of sleep still bleeds through the phone line from his Maryland hotel room, Kozelek is more than happy to discuss the Painters' melodiously mellow follow-up to 1996's semi-solo Songs for a Blue Guitar.

Partly recorded in Austin, Old Ramon ("The title comes from a Spanish children's book," he says) was recorded at the beginning of '98, then fell prey to the industry shakeup that left the Painters' 4AD connections nonexistent. Long story short, what eventually worked out was a signing to indie stalwart Sub Pop, who made a successful bid for Old Ramon last year.

In the meantime, Kozelek got to work on a slate of projects that struck longtime fans of the Painters' folksy gloom-pop as nothing less than downright bizarre: the John Denver tribute CD Take Me Home and an album consisting entirely of AC/DC covers titled What's Next to the Moon. Yeah, that's right -- AC/DC.

"I'm 34 years old, and I listened to all kinds of stuff growing up in the Seventies," says Kozelek, "from Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd to songwriters like Denver, Cat Stevens, and Neil Young. But AC/DC came about from a couple of songs I did on tour, and people responding to them strongly. I don't think anyone ever really believed they were AC/DC songs, and when I went to do this EP of AC/DC covers, I discovered that they were extremely easy for me to do. The structure and the lyrics of the songs break down into folk songs really well."

And did I mention that Kozelek had a supporting role as the Stillwater bassist in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous?

"It was easy work," he drawls. "I just kind of hung out, there were beautiful girls around every day, and I got paid great. I still have dental and medical insurance from that one experience, and I got my SAG card."

Rock & roll Kozelek. Who'da thunk it?