“Hey Doug,” Jason Molina says as he walks by a band mate. The man looks up and a flicker of recognition passes across his face. “Hey Doug,” he says to Molina and they go their respective ways. “We've got two Jasons in the band and two Mikes. Now everyone's ‘Doug.' Maybe we should have chosen a more interesting name like ‘Ramon,'” Molina explains to me. The band of Dougs is Magnolia Electric Co. , Molina's most recent musical incarnation (since the early 90s he's been recording as Songs: Ohia ). Critics invariably compare Molina's music to Neil Young's, and the most recent album is not going to be an exception. “What Comes After the Blues” is full of twangy, country-style guitars, and a simple, yet haunting lyrical and harmonic structure that is a style all its own, yet invites the comparison. It's also as polished an album as Molina has put out to date, in part due to recording with Chicago 's legendary Steve Albini. 

How did you get involved in playing music?
No one in my family played music. I grew up in a trailer park, and no one played there either. My parents had this beat-up old guitar laying around the house—they didn't play it, but they had gotten it back in the 60s or the 70s. So I sort of taught myself in a very primitive way to play along with songs on the radio and my parents had a really good record collection. I bought a bass when I could finally afford an electric guitar. I then started a band by being in a guitar store. I was in there trying out the bass, and it was turned up as loud as it could go, because I had never played through an amp before. I was playing this Black Sabbath song just super loud, shaking the walls in the place. I was about 12. There was a guy having drum lessons and they had to stop his lesson because I was so loud in the other room. It turned out that we knew each other. And we just started a band on the spot.

When did you start playing music that's more similar to what you're doing now?
I basically always wrote songs that would be recognizable like the songs I'm doing now, but I played in bands that played a lot heavier and a lot faster. And the songs I wrote were more in that style for the band, but on the side I was always writing songs that didn't seem to fit with those particular bands. I never got tired of loud and fast music, but I was never fully satisfied with writing that kind of music. I felt that it was too hard to understand the lyrics and I worked really hard on the lyrics. When you do it lightning fast or scream it, it gets lost really easily. It seems like that effort is sort of lost.

Almost every article about you describes your music as being “dark” and “depressing,” yet you don't seem like that kind of guy. Where does that come from?
I get that all the time. The music's really dark and brooding. But it's different because I'm on the road right now. So I have to function more around people, and it's not like how I live when I'm at home. I pretty much lock myself up at home and I go months and months without seeing a single living soul. But I'm working the entire time. I don't want to go out. I'm not afraid to go out, it's just that I'm pretty content to sit around at home and write music. People always say that the music's really sad and depressing. I don't try to make it that way, but I'm just trying to be honest. And if you're being honest, you can't change it and say, “Man, this song's a real drag. It's going to make people really sad. I want to make them chipper.”

Do you think listening to sad or depressing music makes one sad and depressed?
Not really. If I'm not feeling great, I normally put on sad music. I don't try to pull myself out of a gloomy mood by putting on something that's totally opposite. That's just irritating to me. I don't think that it could cause you to be more sad. If anything I think that the music we make is contemplative. It's asking questions, but with music.

What sort of questions are you trying to get at musically?
I don't know. You see fucked up shit happening on a lot of levels, maybe just people in your life, or neighborhood or city. And then you see that projected bigger into the world. And it's trying to figure out your relationship to it. Just how do you fit into this stuff that everyone thinks about, and I've found music to deal with it.

What was the most recent thing that got you really worked up?
The election. I thought that was going to be a turning point in the world, at least in the world that I live in and in the world at large. That was really hard to deal with. But I woke up the next day and went back to work. I didn't let it shut me down. And most of the people I know operate that way too.

Do you feel like there are two sides to your personality? Like there's the touring side and the hanging out at home, writing side?
No, I don't think it's that different. Music for me is not really a reaction to everyday events. It's something that I pursue. I sit down and try to write a little bit everyday. It's a natural thing for me. It's the way I would imagine an athlete. They don't really have to think about practicing, it's just built into the game. And so they're out there basically getting ready for a game all the time. And I'm doing that 24 hours a day. But it's just like anything where you get really burnt out on it. And the writing is shit, and it's a struggle to write. A cool idea can get dragged around for weeks and nothing happens. But I don't let that stop me from saying, “Ok, I'll just try something else.” I also paint and draw, and I read a lot. I love to travel when I'm not touring. I like to go back to cities when I don't have a guitar in my hand.

Does it ever bother you that you're traveling all over the world on tour, yet can't experience where you are?
Yeah. It's so strange. I think I've been in Paris at least 5 times and I've never done one tourist thing. I've never seen the Eiffel Tower , the Sienne, I just saw the inside of a rock club. We just did 17 countries in a big European tour. A lot of people who have never left the U.S. think that's amazing, but we really don't end up with a whole lot of stories. We're like, “Well, we were in the van all day. We stopped at some gas stations. We ate. We went to a rock show (which was ours). We put our crap back in the van and went somewhere and slept. And then we started the whole thing over the next day.” When you do things independently you can't build in a week off or a couple days off. You really can't afford to not be playing a show, just to break even. With the gas being expensive as it is, you can't even really afford to sleep. Maybe we should just go to the next show and start playing right away.

What do you think you would have done if music hadn't come into your life?
Man, I've been doing it for so long that I don't know. I never wanted to do anything else. I never thought that I would do music full time, but I never had a great desire to do anything besides music. My brother is just a little younger than me and he's a skater. And that was the first group of people that we would play music for. You know, we were the backing track for the local punks. And I could see myself somehow being in that scene, doing art or something. Who knows? Maybe I'll quit music tomorrow and have to figure it out.

What was the happiest time in your life?
Well, there seems to be such a little island surrounded by a lot of shit, so I can't really think of a sustained happy time. Getting married was great. I've played with nearly 100 musicians and really get along with a lot of people and can work with a lot of different kinds of musicians. Those are things that sustain my happiness. A lot of people can't really work with the same 3 guys on the same project, let alone touring all over the world in a van, sleeping on the same floor night after night. It's hard work. But I certainly can't say that being a kid was fun, and being a teenager sure the fuck wasn't fun. If I get really depressed I just try to work harder, because if I stop working then I'm useless, I can't do anything. I like touring around and playing music, as hard as it is. It's like anything you really love, the payoff is worth it. And I don't really know what that is, because it's not money. I've been on an independent label all these years, it's not about the money at all. I love playing places where bands just don't go anymore or never have, playing to 10 kids that really want to see your band play. That's really inspiring to me.