The Wake

“There’s no way we’re going to be able to do this, but we may as well try,” says Kori Gardner, speaking about herself and husband Jason Hammel’s decision to make a living as musicians. “Our initial plan was to try it for a year and be able to say that we did it … Now it’s like I can’t imagine going back.”

Jason and Kori are the husband and wife indie rock duo Mates of State. Known by casual listeners as ‘that cute couple that has their own band,’ their music is actually something much more substantial.

With Kori on keyboards and Jason on drums, the sound they create is rich, elaborate and innovative. Mates of State songs are characterized by impeccable vocal harmonies, cool organ tones and a lack of guitar. Far from sounding empty, the music often leaves listeners wondering how two people create such a thick blanket of noise.

“It just seems like there’s something going on that gets robbed if we add other instruments,” Kori explains. The formula has worked thus far; the group has released three full-length CDs and a string of EPs, which have garnered critical acclaim. With an endless number of bands striving for indie rock stardom these days, it helps to be as distinguishable as Kori and Jason are.

Originality is part of the Mates of State mindset. “I think we’ve rejected the idea of ever trying to sound like someone,” Kori told me. “In fact, whenever we’re doing something and we think it sounds like someone else, we immediately throw it away and start over.”

So where does the sound come from? “We started out as almost an instrumental band,” Gardner says. “We both grew up playing music and I was even a music major in college for a while … then we started singing together, and it just evolved into those harmonies.”

Easily one of the most impressive things about the duo is the fluidity with which their voices mesh. Often meeting one another at intricate intervals, the two vocal lines are complimentary and calming.

Sometimes the voices create a counterpoint, with one voice singing one set of lyrics and the other on top of it singing something completely different. The most impressive example of this is the song “Goods” from the recent All Day EP. The voices meander through the complex structure of the song and find each other at the end, singing the final lines in harmonies that will stop you in your tracks.

“It was something we had to learn how to do, and we definitely spent hours trying to figure it out,” says Kori of the group’s vocal prowess. “Once you kind of, like, get used to it, it just becomes what happens naturally.”

Mates of State have built their fan base through extensive touring. Recently, they moved from San Francisco to Connecticut to raise a family and reach a new audience. “We want to tour the East coast for a while … we pretty much saturated the West coast,” says Kori.

With mixed results, the band has toured in support of other artists, too. By opening for other groups, they’ve been given a chance to showcase themselves to a new batch of listeners and play larger venues.

According to the keyboardist, “We’re a better band when we’re in an intimate setting, but that kind of sucks in a way, because if we ever got to the point where we’d play those big places, we’d have to change something to make it work better.” For fans of intimate settings, Mates of State’s most recent Minnesota stop was a treat — the group played the Triple Rock Social Club.

Fans should expect some new material on the tour and plenty of old favorites as well. When asked if the new songs are of a similar nature to their previous releases, Kori replied, “People who like our music will still like us — the new stuff is a better us.”

One common way of describing the Mates of State sound is to call it happy. The music is definitely high energy and has a penchant for major keys, but is this enough to qualify it as happy, or do people insert that quality into the music? “We try to make our own little world positive. I think that must be what translates … I think people take what they want from them. People see that we’re in a great relationship, and they might be too or they know how that feels, so they think we’re the happy band.”

With their sights set ever higher, Mates of State embarked on a tour in September that they hope will help them reach new audiences. Their fourth full-length album is completed and waiting to be released. In short, Jason and Kori have a lot to be excited about, and these feelings are exuded in their music. If you missed Mates of State at the Triple Rock on Oct. 3, make sure to keep your eyes open for their next stop in the Twin Cities.