Danielson – A wing and a prayer
This is an ideal year to discover (or get reacquainted with) Danielson. Not only have they released their strongest album to date, but they are also the subjects of the film Danielson: A FAMILY Movie, Or Make A Joyful Noise HERE. Conceived, produced and directed by JL “Sonny” Aronson, this 108-minute documentary follows the band through a transitional period — its first European tour, the departure of core members to start families of their own, the emergence of their young cohort Sufjan Stevens — while also reaching back to their genesis. For a band that Smith concedes has never been “user friendly,” the feature-length flick is a godsend.
“The Danielson vision is so much more than just putting out an album once every three years and then doing a tour to support it,” Smith says. “It has all these components. We have our own visual language and symbolism, and there are visual arts mixed into that, and different people who come and go, and come back. It’s this living organism that I can barely control. It’s very messy. So the movie was helpful, even for me, to take a step back and go, ‘Here’s the red thread throughout the eleven-year history of Danielson.'”
Aronson, who grew up around devotional music (his mother sang in a synagogue choir) and studied music and performance in college, was riveted by the Danielson phenomenon upon discovering them in 1998. “I immediately appreciated Danielson Famile’s ability to make this devotional music without coming across as preachy,” he says. “They were enigmatic, but there was something really comfortable about them at the same time. Like you could be in on the joke, too, just so long as you realized it wasn’t a joke, deep down.
“Having looked into performance art and worship music from theoretical standpoints, I think I must have felt qualified to regard the whole situation — secular hipster audiences digging Christian happy family — from a distance, and work my way toward being curious about the audience’s intentions more than the band’s. I wanted to know whose idea of a good time was spending their money to stand in front of farmland kids from South Jersey, dressed in nurses uniforms, singing about their love for the Lord.” (Hmmm…probably kids of the same mindset as those who would line up many years later to buy Polyphonic Spree tickets.)
Initially, however, Aronson wasn’t welcomed into the flock. “When he first contacted me, five or six years ago, I kept trying to make him go away,” Smith admits. “I’m pretty protective of our private space and my family, and I certainly didn’t want cameras coming in here unless I knew what his intentions were.”
Finally, mutual friends convinced Smith to give the filmmaker a chance. After several exchanges, and an offering of a sample case of Belgian ales, Aronson got the green light. Or at least a blinking amber one.
But as Aronson made his movie, its focus shifted away from the audience and into greater detail on the band, which was reaching a creative apex even as its members left the nest. “The Smiths are an amazingly functional and close-knit bunch without being caricatures of some unreal TV family,” Aronson says. And even though Daniel was the chief instigator, Aronson quickly grew to appreciate the roles others played.
“Significantly, once I realized that they all had their own individual thoughts and feelings on the subject of a stranger with a camera coming into their lives and homes, I also saw how their individual selves were defining the direction of the band,” he says. “They were coming into their own as adults, and this kind of provided an axis point and direction for the story: What do you do when your career has been based on the participation of your family, and that participation is no longer tenable?”
Without giving away the whole film, suffice to say that its latter chapters find Smith fine-tuning his Br. Danielson act, playing gigs dressed as a giant tree.
“Here’s me, stuck with this vision that I had from the beginning, and trying to figure out how to keep it going — and that process was caught on video,” Smith says, acknowledging his gratefulness to Aronson’s work. “So it turned into an interesting story.” Indeed, one that has continued, and will keep doing so, Smith assures us, long after Ships has sailed over the horizon.
Seattle-based ND contributing editor Kurt B. Reighley sang in many, many choirs and choruses from the age of 8 until completing his undergraduate degree in music. He performed wearing everything from ill-fitting matching sweaters to full medieval regalia (back when he had the legs for tights), but never anything as snazzy as a nurse’s uniform or a giant, collapsible tree.