For the latest edition of Minnesota Sessions, we went to The Terrarium studios in Minneapolis with The Cactus Blossoms. Fresh off the release of their third studio record, we spoke with the sibling duo about the murky waters of songwriting inspiration, their work with David Lynch on ‘Twin Peaks,’ and inviting Jenny Lewis as a guest vocalist on the album.

Interview Transcript

Edited for clarity and length.

DIANE: We are sitting here with The Cactus Blossoms from Minneapolis, a honky tonk, Americana, folk, blues, roots, country, rockabilly, vintage rock and roll band from here.

JACK TORREY: Pseudo psychedelic, pseudo.

Yeah, all the things. Thank you so much for being here.

PAGE BURKUM: Thanks for having us.

Loving the new record "One Day". I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this progression of sound. I've been a fan of all your records from "You're Dreaming" to "Easy Way," I think of the song "Stoplight Kisses" and compared to "Is It Over" and I'm interested to hear where you feel like you started to where you feel like you're at now.

PAGE BURKUM: Where are we?

JACK TORREY: And where are we going? We have no idea. Will I ever used that synthesizer?

PAGE BURKUM: Right. You have it.

JACK TORREY: I have it. I might use it on the next record, I think. Yeah, I don't know. We just kind of kept doing what we do, which is write songs, record them with the best musicians we can find and see where that process takes us, and what kind of sounds we want to end up with is kind of decided along the way.

PAGE BURKUM: Yeah, it's a little different every time. It's interesting to see what we've made when it's done. Well, it's interesting for a while we're usually kind of sick of it right when it right when we've finished, but yeah.

Well, you are fabulous at finding great talent to surround yourself with, which is a testament of course, to our music scene, but also I love what you do and how you find the right people to make the most tasteful sounds. Tell me what it's like working as brothers together and having this sort of--your harmonies are very much a focal point of it. When did you realize that you sang so well together?

PAGE BURKUM: Yeah, well, when we first started playing together, we were just learning old country songs and there's so many great harmonies in country music, and I've just always loved singing harmony, but I never had anyone to do it with so I had to start a brother band.

JACK TORREY: Right, I had to get old enough to sing songs myself.

PAGE BURKUM: I don't wait for Jack to learn how to write a song and then say, "I'm gonna sing on that."

JACK TORREY: Yeah, long game.

It's beautiful. You both are from Minnesota, and Minnesota has an uncannily but wonderful roots music scene. I mean, you can think of Bob Dylan, of course, at the top of my head who's from Hibbing, Minnesota. A big influence on me and a lot of people in the roots music scene. I know you two are fans. One thing I wonder, is there something attributable to Minnesota to having such a great roots music scene?

JACK TORREY: Lots of time in the winter to play guitars? I don't know. I think there's just always been so much music in Minneapolis, especially over the years that it's kind of snowballed, if you will.

PAGE BURKUM: Yeah. Now it's kind of a self sustaining thing, once you get that scene going in a city. I mean, obviously, with places like Austin or Nashville or something, it's there to stay. And I think in our own different way, we have that here and there were plenty of people when we started playing to look up to, and to go see, and good musicians to get in our bands.

JACK TORREY: Yeah, I mean, back in the day, like, I don't know, 60s or maybe even 50s I think they call it "Nashville of the North," sometimes--Minneapolis because there's this place called The Flame. They brought up like all these country musicians. So everyone like--

PAGE BURKUM: It was a little country club or a country-like Roadhouse.

JACK TORREY: Yeah, everybody came up here for that. So I don't know maybe that kinda leaked into the musical culture up here.

Sure, and lucky for us, we have the Turf Club. You make that place quite a home.

PAGE BURKUM: The Grand Ole Opry of St. Paul.

I think so, basically.

JACK TORREY: It used to be the like punk rock dive bar. So I hope we didn't ruin it for folks by playing there.

Absolutely not. I mean, it still can be whatever you want it to be, I suppose.

PAGE BURKUM: It's still a punk bar too.

Yeah. I love that you you do January residencies. It's the best.

JACK TORREY: Yeah, we probably played the worst--for anyone who doesn't know, a long time ago we played Mondays at the Turf Club every week because that was an available day on their calendar. We thought it was just great. And everyone else thought "Mondays? hmm, didn't know people did that." So we've kind of carried on the tradition of taking Mondays and the coldest month of the year to play every week in January.

PAGE BURKUM: And we've been questioning that.

JACK TORREY: Yeah. I mean, it would be a good time to maybe head to a warmer place.

PAGE BURKUM: No, we really love it. Last January we couldn't do it so it was really fun being back there lately.

Yeah. Well, I've caught a couple of the shows and I love seeing you live. It's an experience. There's just a certain vibe that you have that is so--I don't know, welcoming and comforting.

PAGE BURKUM: Interesting.

Yeah, from the audience perspective I love seeing you live. Yeah, let's go get back to your record "One Day" and let's talk about lyricism. You specifically write beautiful love songs. I love your love songs. And I also hear songs that kind of explore the human condition a bit. With all that's happening within the pandemic last this year, it's affected everybody. And worldwide political turmoil, like where do you see some of your lyricism fit into that?

JACK TORREY: I don't know how it fits in. If I'm being topical, I'm usually being pretty vague about it or or sneaky about it. Not super upfront lyrics about a certain situation that's happening or some political thing that's happening. But you know, I hope people can hear some of those little kind of nuanced things in the music for sure.

PAGE BURKUM: I agree.

One particular voice that stands out in the record is Jenny Lewis. And Jenny Lewis, obviously has been quite a fixture in the music scene for many years. I've been a fan of her since I was in high school, and then I saw that she's featured on your record. How did that pairing come about?

JACK TORREY: Well, we've known her for a few years, and we've gotten to play some shows with her. Actually, last time we played with her was opening for her at the Ryman in Nashville, which was super fun. But I had this song idea that wasn't planned to be a duet or a back and forth thing, and it just hit me. While we were making the record, I thought, this is like made for two people, man and woman to sing back and forth. And it will like become a new song in a way. So I got up the courage to ask her if she'd be interested and gave her plenty of off ramps if she wanted to get out of the project at any moment. But it all worked out, and we're super thrilled.

It's a great single "Everybody". Speaking of really cool people, you have gotten to team up with David Lynch, who is obviously a cult classic following on his own and you got to appear in the--only second season of Twin Peaks, which is a huge deal. Tell me about working with David Lynch.

PAGE BURKUM: Well, yeah, he's pretty cool. And he's he's also a good weather reporter. If you've ever checked out his YouTube videos, he gives updates on the current weather in LA.

JACK TORREY: Very consistent reporting.

PAGE BURKUM: Yeah, it's amazing if you can check it out. But yeah, that was incredible. It was a huge--well, we're just big fans of the show. So to be a part of it in any way was awesome. But yeah, we had just recorded our first record "You're Dreaming," then and we're touring a lot and it was just a huge encouragement and really fueled us to have him just let us be a part of the project.

JACK TORREY: We were actually talking about David Lynch yesterday because we were working on some some stuff for our single "Is It Over" and there's a curtain in the music video, and I was just commenting like, "Isn't it incredible that David Lynch, like took the red velvet curtain and turned it into his thing?" That's incredible. Just a random thought.

PAGE BURKUM: Yeah, such an icon of showmanship and showbiz, and he kind of made it into his own weird thing.

He's such a mystery. Yeah, to land on a show, like this guy with such prestige and is just a wonderful art director and has his own amazing personality and aesthetic is--the fact that a Minnesota band land on that was like, "Yeah!"

JACK TORREY: He was very very sweet and kind to us, too. So the whole experience was--it was awesome to make it and be there and amazing that they actually, like included, almost a whole song at the end of an episode totally blew our minds.

I'd love to hear more about your artistic process. We've talked about a bit of it. But you know, yes, it is simple as like, "I write songs, and here's how they become." But take me as deep as you can into how you hear music and how it comes to fruition. And even as growth as a band, because naturally all artists will start somewhere and then progress to another place. If we were to delve into really your mind as it writes songs, and as it hears it, what's that like?

JACK TORREY: It's murky, murky water. Sometimes a song just kind of appears, almost fully formed. Sometimes, for me, at least, I get little, little ideas or like, the start of a song. And I never even try to finish it. And that little seed just kind of like circles around for, I don't know, it could be months could be years even. But I've never worked on it, and then sometimes I just am able to finish it because something else comes up or some other inspiration comes up and kind of allows me to, like, know where that map is leading me. One of the songs on the new record is called, "I Could Almost Cry". And it's kind of disjointed. In a way, it's not literal, literally about anything. It's more emotional. There's plenty of ways you could interpret it. So I don't really even want to give mine but I think it got to a point where it was saying exactly what I wanted to say. And I don't know if it's even a good song. But I like that I accomplished that with it. So you know, I hope it's okay, but it is what it is now. And I don't know if that answers your question at all. But I guess sometimes it's just a meandering, weird thing like that. And other times it's kind of like, this is a--I'm writing a hit song.

PAGE BURKUM: But hopefully you're kind of mining your own self in some way. I think like, if you get a little bit of an idea even--if there's something about that, that feels good to you--that you're like, "Oh, this is--" It's almost like seeing that tip of an iceberg or something, if a little bit of a song idea comes where you're like, "I want to figure that out." Like what's under that? And maybe you feel it's done if you've maybe made something that you feel like is a part of you that you've let out? I don't know. It's hard to--I guess that's how you know if something's done or not if you just don't have any more ideas for it and you said what you want to say.

JACK TORREY: The whole thing is kind of mysterious to me still. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if I never wrote another song again because it's not really a practice of mine. It's something that just kind of requires like inspiration for me to even get into that zone.

I feel that very deeply. Songs are like an extension of who we are, and how they blossom is really kind of fun to hear the product on the other end. Yeah. Again, I couldn't rave more about the new record. I love it so much. It's called "One Day," and what else is in store for your 2022? A tour? Any surprises?

JACK TORREY: I wouldn't be surprised by surprise at this point. We're just about to go out on tour for a couple of weeks. I don't know when this airs, but it's a tour that got postponed back in spring of 2020. So it's a pretty wild feeling to be still wondering what's going to happen this year, as we try to make up shows that are two years old at this point. But we're gonna be touring a lot. I don't know, maybe we'll even start working on a new record in between everything.

PAGE BURKUM: Especially if any tours get cancelled. We're definitely going to, yeah.

Cool. Well, I'll be having my ears posted on all your new music and releases because I love what you do very much. Yeah, kudos to the new record and all the successes you've had along the way.

JACK TORREY: Thanks. Thanks for listening, appreciate it.

External Link

The Cactus Blossoms - official website

The Terrarium studios - official website