| Over the Rhine | Everybody Has A Story... | Press Archive index
. . . Interview with Linford Detweiler of Over the Rhine for Malone College Alumni Magazine/Website . . . 1. Full names, years of graduation from Malone, majors while here: Karin Michele Bergquist, graduated 1988, Bachelor of Arts Degree in Vocal Performance. 2. What are your fondest memories of your days at Malone College? My oldest brother Conrad decided to go back to college as well that year, so we were both freshman. We both eventually married wonderful girls we met at Malone. There were a handful of exceptional students in my freshman class that I'm still in touch with. I was in over my head in many ways, but I began the hard work of piecing together a world view, musically and otherwise. I have many fond memories: hanging out in "the barn" with friends, practicing the piano until 10pm in the practice wing more-or-less every evening. Because my parents lived so far away, I would sometimes secretly stay in my dorm room during holiday weekends. The dorms would be locked for Thanksgiving break, and all the students would go home, stillness covering the campus like a new blanket. I would stay behind and discreetly climb in and out through my first floor window, a loaf of cafeteria bread in the closet. It was during one of those extended, self-imposed periods of isolation on campus that I picked up a bass guitar for the first time and taught myself to play the bass line to Silly Love Songs by Paul McCartney. The bass became my second instrument. 3. Did you participate in any music activities while here? If so, which one(s)? I accompanied ballet classes for the Canton Ballet and tried not to get too distracted by the dozens of glistening girls lacing up their slippers. I taught piano lessons at Malone in the preparatory department and had as many as 30 students toward the end of my tenure on campus. I participated in the occasional piano competition. Perhaps most importantly, in terms of my current career as a songwriter, I immediately began dabbling in bands at Malone with fellow students. We performed fairly regularly on campus in different configurations over the years, and mostly wrote and arranged our own songs. I also played with a local band for about a year called Magic that was run by a talented married couple. I was the only white musician in the group initially, and we played Motown covers and old R&B tunes at wedding receptions and so forth. Several of us students also played in one of the Kent State jazz ensembles and actually got a paying gig playing in the orchestra pit for a musical. I was like a sponge, musically-speaking I suppose: I wanted to absorb whatever I could. Karin was also very active musically on campus. She sang in the chorale, and performed occasionally at chapel services and in campus theater productions. She also toured extensively and performed with the Malone Group, Potter's Clay. 4. What inspired you to perform together? Later, after we both graduated and went our separate ways, I had an opportunity to travel to New Zealand and Australia as a hired bass player in a music group led by good friends, Owen and Sandie Brock, and when I saw 400 kids standing in the rain in the mountains of New Zealand at a small music festival waiting to hear us play, it was an epiphany: I wanted to go home and start a band. I thought of Karin and actually happened to see her not long after I got back and before I could get the words all the way out of my mouth, she was packing her suitcase. It's pretty amazing, in retrospect, that she dropped everything and moved to Cincinnati to start pursuing a career in music, but she had the spark and we've been able to support ourselves for over ten years now with our music. We were married in 1996, five or six years after we started the band. When I had the chance to learn more of Karin's story, I realized that partly what moved people about her singing was the fact that her voice was directly connected to the part of her where her pain lived. Sometimes what comes out of Karin's mouth is as much crying as singing. It doesn't get any more universal than that. One thing about being human: we all know what it feels like to hurt. Art in general, especially good art, whether it's music, painting, dancing, writing, acting, has everything to do with man's search for healing, for meaning. 5. Where do you get your ideas for your music? 6. What would you like to achieve through your music? But actually, what I want to do more than anything these days is just to give the world a little something beautiful. To participate in some tiny way in the work of redemption. People have written to us to let us know that they've fallen in love to the music of Over the Rhine and even walked down the aisle or danced their first wedding dance to the music of Over the Rhine. Others seem to want to make sure we know that they conceived to our music. Some have told us they took our music into the delivery room when they gave birth. An older Irishman once told Karin that he listened over and over to a song she had written (Poughkeepsie) when he was recovering from a cancer operation. And our music sometimes comes to mean a great deal to people who have survived the loss of loved ones. This all seems somehow miraculous to me, not something I can take a lot of credit for. But it's wonderful to have your life's work tangled up in the everyday lives of diverse people here and there. 7. Did Malone College prepare you in any way for what you are now doing? Academically or spiritually? In what ways? Sandra Carnes was a music professor that was constantly working to make our worlds a little wider. She organized many trips here and there to try to give her students glimpses of a larger musical world. She combatted the insular nature of small towns with a vengeance. She taught me to keep my eyes open and whenever possible, to surround myself with minds brighter than my own. She also took me aside to tell me that I could write, and that little piece of encouragement has also meant the world to me. Dr. Collins was a professor that came to mean alot to Karin. His warmth and ability to communicate his world view with a twinkle in his eye gave his students a great deal of hope I think. 8. Any influences on your music? Who? 9. What should I have asked but didn't? |