The Jason Falkner Interview

Story by Bill Kopp

For more than twenty years, fans of a particular few strains of rock have known about Jason Falkner. Tagged early and often as something of a pop wunderkind, Falkner is one of that fairly short list of artists who can (and does) do it all. He plays guitar, drums, keyboards and bass. He sings lead and harmony. He writes. He arranges. He produces and engineers. That alone puts him in a category with Todd Rundgren, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder.

Through his career, Falkner has -- his longtime fans (like this writer) would argue -- never gotten his commercial due. The critics and tastemakers who know about his music are near unanimous in their praise (the odd early review in Trouser Press that claimed Falkner's work with the Grays "sounds exactly like" Jellyfish notwithstanding). But the record industry being what it is, someone who resolutely follows his own musical path -- someone who refuses to "play the game," as it were -- is perhaps not destined for high-profile success.

Luckily for those in the know, Falkner is still at it. In addition to the creativity he brings as a sideman -- he's worked in recent years with Air, Paul McCartney, Dennis Diken and a select list of other high-quality artists -- Falkner maintains his solo career. His (sort of) latest album is the US release of I'm OK, You're OK. I recently sat down for a wide-ranging conversation with Falkner. Subjects ranged from musings on the relative commercial indifference to his work to the challenges and successes he's faced in his previous bands. His refreshing candor and willingness to field my sometimes pointedly direct questions made for a fascinating conversation.

Commercial-sounding yet Not Commercial
There's nothing weird, off-kilter, avant-garde or otherwise fitting the classic definition of uncommercial on I'm OK, You're OK. ("It's not the sound of an air-conditioner hum, nor is it black metal," Falkner helpfully points out.) Yet the album originally saw release only in Japan, and it took two years for Falkner to secure domestic release for the disc. Falkner agrees that tuneful, intelligent pop has a hard time getting a foothold in the musical marketplace. But why is that so? "That," he laughs, "is the question that keeps me up on a nightly basis! I have several theories about this. I really believe that the general population doesn't really want to be engaged. They don't want anything to shake them out of their thought process."

But Jason Falkner's music is accessible. It's not at all like, say, the Residents. "Or R. Stevie Moore," he adds. "It's certainly modern, but it also has a lot of classic elements to it. But I feel that it does kind of require your attention." Attempting to define his sound -- always a dangerous and difficult thing for any artist -- Falkner characterizes it as "not like the big immediate, giant, modern sound that a lot of people are accustomed to. Nor is it a tinkering, lo-fi indie/rock/pop thing either. It's right in the middle of those two things." He believes that his music is "engaging, yet in ways it's not as immediate as some people need things to be in this day and age." He sums up by observing that his songs are "designed for people who have committed to sitting down and listening to [them]."

Falkner offers further observations that illustrate (a) a refreshing self-awareness and (b) the fact that he's given this matter a lifetime's worth of consideration. "I feel like music can really stand out when it has quality and some honesty to it...some heart and soul." He notes that media and entertainment provide "so many things punching you in the face, trying to get your attention. And the only way to get anybody's attention anymore is by literally grabbing you by the throat," but that with this approach "a lot of heart is missing."

Thankfully, Falkner is certain he won't ever go in that direction. He tries to keep those forces from entering his creative space when he works. "I don't listen to anything else while I'm working. I certainly don't pay attention to what's on the television or the Internet when I'm writing songs or recording an album. I'm kind of in my own little fantasy of my perfect world."

The Solo Route
Speaking of that perfect world, it's not as if Falkner can't or won't play well with others. Besides his roles in three high-profile bands (more on that presently), he's toured with Air and other groups. Yet on his albums, he nearly always does everything himself. I wondered how much of that is because he can, and how much because he wants to.

"It's all because I want to," he asserts. "None of it is to be showy in a 'hey, make sure you read the credits' kind of way." The solo approach is an outgrowth of the manner in which Falkner gets inspiration. "I get so inspired. I'll plug in an electric guitar into a cool, weird tube amp, and then I can't imagine letting somebody else play it." He refers to his late '60's Premier drum set. "Why would I let anybody play that? I mean, I can play it. So I can, and therefore I do."

This approach has been a central theme of Falkner's musical methodology from the very beginning. "I grew up playing in bands and frustrating everybody in my band. Because while I wasn't your normal lead singer who wrote songs, I also could play the drums better than the drummer. I can play bass better than other bass players, and guitar, and so on and so on."

But that attitude (based clearly in fact, so there) could make for an uncomfortable situation. "I kind of took a back seat, and kind of diminished my talent in front of others just so I could fit in," Falkner recalls. "It's not like I think I'm the best musician on the planet, or anything like that. I'm not walking around like that. I think I have interesting things to say on all of the instruments, and that's why I play them."

It's not always a function of technical expertise, then. "One of the reasons why I really like my drumming," he muses, "is because I'm not really a drummer. I'm a pianist / guitar player who is playing the drums. Some of my favorite drummers -- Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney -- are like that."

Recording is Songwriting
Falkner's manner of songwriting fits his solo approach. "It's also often easier for me to play everything than to sit and work out parts with other people. There are many people I know who -- if I could afford them -- I would have them come over and we would work out songs together. And there's yet another reason: the people who are good enough to know what to do with my stuff on their instrument are very expensive people. Even friends. They're like, 'hey, I love playing with you. But you know, I get five grand a week doing this.'" He chuckles that his solo approach is "very sensible, actually. Now that I think about it. That's one aspect of my life I'm sensible about."

While Jason's music is modern -- timeless might be a better descriptor -- there all sorts of what we might call classic elements in the songs. Little things like the way the instruments, and/or subtle countermelody lines are added into a song as the song progresses. There's a clear emphasis on making sure that every song has a hook, a memorable melodic line. Or, sometimes several in a single song. It's clear that Falkner puts a great lot of effort into the craft of songwriting as much as the art of it.

"I think," Falkner reflects, "the way I write songs is kind of unorthodox. I don't really ever write a song and complete a song on any given instrument like a guitar, or a piano, or whatever. I just start recording. And so recording is actually part of my songwriting process."

He elaborates. "I don't know how a song is going to begin or end. I just start recording as soon as I have a little more than half of a song done. I usually start with drums. And then I will just allocate something off the top of my head, a pattern or something on the bridge; maybe I'll just screw around with something as an intro. And then maybe I'll just stick some music on top of it and kind of write the bridge…sometimes not even a chorus is done. I just kind of see what happens."

Not unlike Brian Eno's modus operandi employed on his mid 70s rock trilogy -- Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Another Green World, and Before and After Science -- the concept of chance plays into Falkner's creative progress. "There might be an accident. Maybe I put in a chord but I hit the wrong chord because I hit the Apple space bar on my computer and I spin around and play the chord. And I might hit the wrong chord but I might like that better but than what I had in mind. Or maybe I didn't have anything in mind. Then I'll listen back and go, 'how cool!' So recording is part of the songwriting."

Which supports his notion of doing it all himself. "I think part of this process accounts for the fact that [although] I was playing all of the instruments on my record, it doesn't necessarily sound like that. It doesn't sound like one brain." He pauses for a moment and adds, "I mean, I hope it doesn't."

"Dad-rock"
Not surprisingly, Jason Falkner concedes that "I'm just trying to entertain myself. I just want to hear a song that really gets me off, so there are some elements that I put in there that are nostalgic for me." He thinks back to influences he absorbed early in his childhood. "I've got some things that I remember on the radio, and whatever weird shit that my dad took me to go see, like a freaky painter guy. I saw some experimental people when I was younger. So there is some of that weird kind of 70's kind of stuff going on."

"I love classic rock 'n roll," Falkner admits. "It goes in and out of being a real dirty word. I was in a record shop the other day. Behind the counter was a girl with a tattooed chest, neck, and part of her face. She said to me, 'ahh, you might like this band or that band. It's "dad-rock."' I said, 'You mean rock n' roll? You mean like good music? I guess the Rolling Stones might be grandpa rock!' Man, it's really frightening."

So Falkner actually likes this "dad-rock" stuff, and always has. "If when I was in my early 20's I did something, and somebody said 'Yeah, that sounded like Jimmy Page,' that was the highest compliment I could be given. For me, if I do anything that reminds me of Jimmy Page, that's the coolest thing in the world, right?"

Falkner waxes philosophical, but with a practical goal: "At the end of the day, every chord has been used millions of times. Every chord progression has been used a million times, and every melody has been written in some fashion or another. So the only thing that is original in all this is your interpretation of all this. And mine, I think, is unique because I'm very insular, very in my own mind and almost in a bubble. And I have no problem with that. I preserve that. I think it's like an innocence in that it's important as it not only keeps me from being overtly trendy, because it would be very easy for me to make a record that follows some sort of trend. But that's just not where I'm at, not at all. That's kind of jaded. I'd rather just speak to people's emotions with something that is nostalgic and also forward-thinking. And," he adds with great emphasis, "that rocks. I want to rock!"

One word to describe Falkner's musical approach on I'm OK, You're OK is consistent. Put another way, if you like Jason Falkner's albums on Elektra -- Presents Author Unknown (1996) and Can You Still Feel? (1999) -- then you'll like this. Now, Falkner is no Oasis: he's not giving us the same material over and over again in ten different ways. But his records do all have their own aesthetic. Ultimately, that's true for good or bad: if those albums he did back in the '90's didn't do something for a particular listener, then there's not anything here that's going to win that person over, either. So while Jason Falkner's music is inviting and accessible, it's also uncompromising.

And Falkner agrees with that assessment. "You know, it's easy [for an artist] to say 'take me as I am, or don't,' and a lot of people say that. But as you look through their output you sometimes see that it's bullshit. If you look at my output, that's exactly the thread: I'm very uncompromising. I mean, I don't even have a manager. I don't trust anybody. I don't have anybody working for me because sometimes I can't tolerate a suggestion. Let's be honest here: I'm creating this music because I really don't have any other choice!"

Fear of the Business
He expands on how that attitude has affected his output. "What took I'm OK, You're OK so long to get out in America was basically my fear of the music business. Not a fear of music, but a fear of the music business. I've been told so many times that I'm the Second Coming of something. And yet it never happened. I never parted any sea! And so I'm a little bit gun-shy."

At this point," Falkner explains, "it's difficult. Because [people] call me and they want to work with me and help in the capacity of management, or agents and all that stuff. And I'm like 'yeah yeah yeah yeah...okay,' and then I just don't want to talk about it. I just had this weird kind of phobia develop over the years. So many great things have happened to me, yet I've had quite a bit of setbacks as far as gaining any commercial success. So at this point I am solely doing it for the love of it. And anything else that happens as a result is great."

That long-touted commercial breakthrough is, in Falkner's words, "something I'm not expecting. I think to be quite honest, I'd like to be in the large-theater kind of level, the 1000 to 3000-seaters every night. Unfortunately I'm still in the mid- to large-club level, and even small clubs in places. And even living rooms in places. You know, that's kind of disenchanting. I appreciate what I have and I appreciate the fans I have for sure." But he does wish for more success for having "integrity, and with an almost defiant connection and allegiance to my own way of doing things."

A hallmark of Falkner's early collaborations was a failure to tap into the guitarist's potential. The (sort-of) supergroup the Grays is a case in point. Musically it was brilliant, but the will to hold things together wasn't there. And going back a bit farther, in Jellyfish, Falkner's creative talents were all but ignored.

Jellyfish
"That's very accurate," says Falkner. "I was very underappreciated, very underutilized. Basically that's why I quit. And I almost quit during the making of Bellybutton (1990). I know for a fact that Andy Stuermer did really like what I did as far as a writer. When I was asked to join that band I was basically lied to. Andy and Roger Manning were kind of fans of mine; Roger had answered an ad I had in the paper before Jellyfish started. His was the only call I got. I put an ad in the paper saying 'I'm looking to meet like-minded people who are into Bowie,' and I think I even mentioned the Blue Nile. And nobody else ever answered that ad!"

"So," Falkner continues, "fast-forward to about a year later, and Roger and Andy come down to L.A. So basically they needed a band and I played them some of my songs. Roger was already a fan of my stuff because when we had gotten together a year earlier he freaked out over my songwriting. And so they said, 'yeah, yeah, we want this to be like a real trio – everyone's equal' and all this stuff. But that just never materialized. Not at all. I wrote some stuff on that record, but I wasn't credited and I wasn't paid."

Falkner left Jellyfish vowing never again to join a band. But then came the Grays, a project full of talent but doomed to fail from the beginning. Falkner reverals that "none of us really cared about the fate of that band. It wasn't really a band."

The Grays
"It was a collective," he says. "We all got together and created this bullshit philosophy. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It's the kind of philosophy where it's a band of four equals. The idea was, 'We all sing on the songs, and we all sing on the record, and when it's not your song you're the best sideman you can be, and when it's your song you have veto power over all decisions.' It was going to be 'four generals and no soldiers' and all this crap."

Falkner laughs and says, "It was a great idea to kind of idea to draw up at a bar where we'd just got signed, but it's completely flawed in concept. In every band there has to be a leader, maybe two. Two at most. Three is a nightmare. Certainly not four leaders in a band! But I became the leader of that band. And one of the things that happened is that [producer] Jack Puig declared very loudly that he liked my songs the most."

"So," he observes, "there goes the thing. And maybe the other guys resented the fact: 'Wait a second! We're total equals here!' You know, I was dying to record a solo album for myself. I'd just come out from under the thumb of Jellyfish. So I was raring to go. And this little philosophy we had was actually holding me back."

Nonetheless, some great music resulted from the project. Most notable is one of Falkner's contributions, the shimmering, anthemic "Very Best Years." He says that the album Ro Sham Bo (1994) is "the sound of me going crazy, in a good way. I play the majority of the music on that record. And Jon Brion -- if he's ever honest about that -- would have to agree." Falkner isn't totally pleased with what he views as a too-slick approach on the record, but allows that "there were some really good musicians in that band." He admits that "there were some hallucinogens involved, and it was just a very fun, a very free record, but it kind of sounds a little bit choked. We were just not harmonious when we were making it. I didn't care enough. I didn't even know any of those guys. I had only met them months before we were signed."

So how did a band full of virtual strangers ever come together at all? "We literally got together in a room to jam because Jon Brion called me one day: 'I got some friends down here. Why don't you come down and play some Kinks songs and goof around?' I thought, 'That sounds fun.' Then literally that first time I came down there, there was this guy who was hanging around in the studio – I didn't even notice him. He got on a pay phone and called the guy that was running Capitol at the time, and said, 'Hey, guess who's in the room right here? Jason Falkner, Jon Brion, Dan McCarroll, Buddy Judge. And they're all in a band!' Listen, hold the phone up, that kind of thing."

That straight-out-of-Hollywood scene (which, as it happens, took place in Hollywood) led to a record contract. Falkner recalls, "Literally that night I got a message on my machine -- as did Jon -- from this guy who ran Capitol saying, 'I'll sign this right now…I don't need to see it. I'm such a fan of both of you guys. If you're doing a band together I'll sign this right now.' And we were like, "What?!" The next day we're asking each other, 'Did you get a fucking message from Capitol?' 'Yeah! Me too!'"

So despite major reservations, Falkner found himself in a band. Again. "Yeah, it was such a unique situation. I'd just got out from under the merciless thumb of another band, and now we're being offered a quarter-million dollars to make a record. That was a shock. But everyone sort of washed their hands of it as soon as it was over." Falkner laughs, "It was like 'well, you know, that was interesting!' Nobody was committed enough to the band's survival to even kind of make it fun. We didn't have that much fun." Again Falkner pauses and adds, "The record, though, was fun to make."

Jason Falkner: The Early Years
And the fun of making records is a theme to which Jason Falkner often returns. Like many artists who have their own singular identifiable talent, he's a big music fan. Falkner is a major student of pop music. Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than on his collection of covers From the cover songs of the second disc of Everyone Says It's On (2001). His cover of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now," in particular, is brilliant. And its inclusion suggests that young Falkner's musical education was rather broad.

"I had a very eclectic, interesting upbringing," he admits. "First of all, when I was very, very young -- three, four, five years old -- I had a tiny turntable. And my dad, who's an artist, thankfully had some very interesting albums. He had Piper At the Gates Of Dawn and he had a couple of Love records. He had Crosby Stills Nash & Young's Déjà Vu, he had some mid-period Procol Harum, and he also had records by people like Taj Mahal and experimental people like Steve Reich and Terry Riley, so I grew up with that. Those were my first impressions. I was a little tiny kid listening to Syd Barrett!"

"And that," he says, "is quite a powerful thing to unleash on a completely malleable mind. A little bookmobile came to school when I was a little kid, and I went 'I want Beach Boys.' I had heard the Beach Boys on the radio, and it was such an immediate kinship with that music. So I got Endless Summer (1974), the double LP retrospective, at the bookmobile! And that was when I was six years old."

But listening was only part of the equation. Falkner's formal musical training began early as well. "I started classical piano lessons when I was five -- because I guess I showed a real proclivity to piano -- and so I was in some pretty intense classical piano training from about age seven until I quit when around 15 or 16. So that is an influence that can't be ignored, really."

Not," he laughs, "that I'm doing baroque pop music or anything like that. But it's an undertone that will always be there. And it also has to do with the way that I arrange, and the way I hear countermelody and all that stuff. I was just indebted to all of that classical music that I was just choking on. You know, I had to practice every single day for nine years."

So take equal parts early pop music fandom, classical piano studies, and...FM rock. Falkner mentions "Heart, of course Led Zeppelin, and even early Van Halen. I mean, the first Boston record, I love that one…I love that one…I had it on 8-track, and then my sister -- who's a couple of years older -- had a boyfriend who actually turned me on to a lot of stuff. He had a friggin' 8-track that you could record compilation 8-tracks."

But there was yet another piece of the puzzle, provided by that guy with the 8-track machine. "He had this mysterious device, and he compilation tapes for my sister. And he gave her one that was just basically a 'New Wave happening'. Elvis Costello, Squeeze, Joe Jackson, Blondie, the B-52s. And oh, I hated that when I first heard it. Because it just didn't have the big, fat sort of guitars that I had liked. I knew it was the antithesis of the whole kind of arena-rock kind of vibe, definitely. But one day my sister was just playing the tape, and Elvis Costello came on. I said, 'Holy shit! That's speaking to me way more than any of this hard rock.' I just totally totally got it one day. Then I got into my odyssey of very obscure English art new wave, or what I call 'expelled hard-rock.' Essential Logic, the Monochrome Set, the Fall."

Songs by some of those artists crop up on Falkner's Everyone Says It's On, a highlight of which is "Song From Under the Floorboards," originally by Magazine. Falkner says that "Magazine just ripped my head off. And Howard Devoto, what an anti-singer. Magazine is like a Martian soundtrack, and yet it rocks and is totally jagged and angular."

Falkner's musical likes seem driven not by when they came out, or how popular they were (or weren't), but rather simply by quality. "You know, it's weird," he observes. "I discovered punk and new wave, and then went back and really got into '60's garage and then '70's garage, and then got really into the obscure 70's rock bands like Sky, and things like that. I never really trusted what was put in front of me by 'the machine.' Because I know The Machine and I know the people who run the machine. Idiots!"

Falkner has developed his own theory about influential musical artists. "You've got to dig really deep to find the stuff that's influencing the stuff that's widespread. Behind most musical trends and scenes, there are the pioneers who are influencing the pioneers of that scene. Often for every band that became influential, there was another band they saw and they said, 'We wanna be like them!' They'd be a collective of people who would be bold enough to say 'I'm gonna rip them off!' And they'd also have the personality type that is going to ensure that they're successful. They're gonna do anything it takes by any means necessary to beat everyone. It's competitiveness that I think most people who are 'innovators' actually possess. Real innovators are too busy innovating. They're too busy with their head in the clouds creating the magic."

Working with Sir Paul
Speaking of magic, in 2005 producer Nigel Godrich called Falkner to ask him if he'd be interested in doing some session work. Falkner and Godrich had worked together before -- Godrich produced Can You Still Feel? -- so they were very familiar with each other's abilities and work habits. Falkner picks up the story. "Nigel called and said, 'I'm producing Paul McCartney, and I would love it if you could come down and be around the whole time and play guitar. I'm thinking about tracking with just a trio, you and Paul and Jim Gadson (Beck, Bill Withers).' He's a bad-ass. So that was the trio."

Falkner's most recent album at the time was his Bedtime With the Beatles (2001). He recalls, "A girl who worked at Sony was at a party in New York, and she overheard Stella McCartney talking about Bedtime With the Beatles. This girl told Stella that she worked at Sony. Stella said, 'yeah, I love that Bedtime With the Beatles.' She said, 'I'm going to send it to my Dad.' So a few years later when we were in the studio, I was thinking 'maybe there's a chance Paul knows that, and would recognize that that's me.' But he didn't know about it."

Falkner continues the story. "After the second day I had the CD in my pocket, and I was waiting for the moment when I would feel comfortable enough around him that I would say, 'hey, check out what I did!' And I also thought, 'I want to give this to him with enough time so that if he does listen to it I can get his reaction.' I didn't want to give it to him on the last day. What -- he's gonna call me? So I gave it to him and he said 'Ah, yes!' And I said, 'Yeah, man, I did it in the same studio where we are right now. I played every instrument, mixed it, produced it myself and all that stuff. What you think?' I told him that I know there's so many of those posthumous Beatle things, and that this is not one of those. This was done with a different attitude."

"And he freaked out!" Falkner gushes. "I didn't see him for about five days, and I came back into the studio and he was just 'Bedtime With the Beatles, then. Nice one!' And then he would not stop talking about it. He'd say to people, 'You oughtta hear this guy!' He told me to my face that he was flattered that I made this record and he said, 'You probably know our stuff better than we did.' It was amazing."

"Then I saw him a couple of months later, at a listening party for the record. Just me, Paul, James Gadson, and the president of Capitol Records. And we're listening to the record, and the president of Capitol Records starts brown-nosing -- you know, 'Best thing since Ram' and all this stuff. Then Paul said, 'I was in New York with Heather, in a friend's boutique. Bedtime With the Beatles came on the speakers and I ran up to my friend and I said "I know him!"' And the president of Capitol looks at me and says, 'Holy shit!' And I'm like, 'I know! He's excited to know that he knows me?' You know, and it's outrageous. It's unforgettable. It's life-changing. Paul sent me a really sweet note that I still have hung up on my wall. And it said 'I'm enjoying Bedtime With the Beatles between naps.' It's just amazing. So I had a real cool kind of connection with good 'ol McCartney."

Other Collaborations
Inveterate readers of liner notes will see Jason Falkner's name on a lot of other people's albums. Like Air, Beck, Dennis Diken and Pugwash, to name but four recent projects. "I don't really pursue any kind of session stuff," Falkner admits, saying his studio session work is almost always with or through friends. "The McCartney stuff, that was through a friend. And I had known Beck for a long time; we're friends, and I've worked on four of his records, pretty extensively. And I worked on Charlotte Gainsbourg's new record. Beck was producing that."

"I don't really put myself out there in that regard," he says. "It's not something that I love doing, though I like doing it, and I'm fortunate enough to be able to do it. I'm able to go in and just do what I do, and everybody's very happy. Nobody's saying, 'hey play more like...' whatever. So I've got a little kind of collective of people that I work with pretty regularly, and they call me all the time to come and do stuff."

Live Dates
Sometimes Falkner calls on other people himself, putting together a band for live dates, but there hasn't been a Tour of North America sort of thing in a long while. "It's not for a lack of want," he explains. "But I plan to do that this year. I'm gonna try and book some West Coast stuff. And I really want to get to the East Coast, because I haven't played there in ages. I don't know about a full-blown band tour all across the country, but certainly the two coasts. And maybe I'll go to England."

Like the old joke goes, Jason Falkner is big in Japan. "I've been going to Japan every year for three years, and that's been miraculous. I don't end up making a lot of money, but I don't spend any money. It's all paid for by the label, because that's how they do it there. Theoretically I should be coming back with $10,000, but I end up coming back with 500 bucks! They make a lot of money off of me when I go there, because they book two places that hold more than 400 or 500 people, in each city, 2 nights, and tickets are like 75 bucks there! So do the math. I think," he laughs, "that there's a lot of cash being made, and I really don't get any of it. But they pay for all of the flights, and they put us up in our own rooms and drive us around and all that stuff, so it's a great experience. And next time I go I'll get paid, goddammit!" He laughs heartily.

All Quiet on the Noise Floor
Falkner's album I'm OK, You're OK came out in Japan in 2007, and finally got domestic release two years later. That album's followup is All Quiet on the Noise Floor, released in 2009 in Japan, but still not out in the USA. "The whole early Japanese thing is going to end with this record," Falkner promises. "From now on it's gonna be a simultaneous release." So when can North American fans expect this fourth album of new material from Jason Falkner? "Sometime here in the late summer," he says.

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