Glenbard grad finds voice in Tu Fawning

Listen to “Hearts On Hold,” the debut full-length record from Portland-based rockers Tu Fawning, and you feel like you're being transported to ... where? An ancient European city? An alien world? The Pacific Northwest as seen by David Lynch?

All of those places, and more. Tu Fawning broadens the traditional indie-rock sonic palate by adding tribal drums, trumpet wails, funereal keyboards and electronic effects. The result is a record that's mysterious, unsettling, but always seductive.

And to think the group was co-founded by a former punk rocker from the suburbs.

“We wanted to do something that sounded new,” said Joe Haege, a Glen Ellyn native and graduate of Glenbard West High School. “I sometimes get disappointed when I listen to a lot of indie rock, or whatever you want to call it. The music sounds like it has lost its fangs, become too predictable.”

Tu Fawning is actually a collective of musicians from the thriving Portland music scene. Haege, a member of the band 31 Knots, and Portland solo artist Corrina Repp had played on each other's records, and they noticed that they had similar ideas about the kind of music they wanted to create. Both were fans of music from the '20s and '30s, and they longed to graft elements of big-band jazz and crooners onto a modern rock sound.

So Haege and Repp started writing together, and Tu Fawning was born. Later, they brought Toussaint Perrault and Liza Rietz into the fold, which added even more dimensions to the band's sound.

“Toussaint, for example, brought all these new tribal percussion instruments with him,” Haege said. “It seemed like every time we practiced, he brought something new. He and Liza added their own touches to what Corrina and I had been doing.”

The diverse musical interests and quirks of all four members ultimately coalesced into the surprisingly cohesive “Hearts On Hold” (Provenance Records), which came out earlier this month. Experimental touches abound, but the band contains them within structured songs.

The opener, “Multiply a House,” sets the tone with haunting chants from Repp and a mournful trumpet motif that serves as the backbone of the song. Rapid-fire percussion propels the song “Just Too Much,” which also features chiming guitars and lead vocals from Haege. The record closes with “Lonely Nights,” a cinematic blend of tribal horn sounds, jazzy trumpet, noirish guitar chords and call-and-response vocals.

“I'm happy with how the record turned out,” Haege said. “We all had these influences, these sounds from the past we wanted to get on there, but it doesn't sound retro. We wanted to produce a timeless kind of sound.”

Tu Fawning recently completed a short tour of the West Coast and Midwest. The band has a tour of Europe coming up in early 2011. Haege said he and the other members of the band were pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm audiences showed for Tu Fawning at its recent shows.

“The shows were great. You never know what's going to happen, because we were the first of three bands to play on a lot of those dates,” he said. “And it's hard to judge how far word has spread. But we received a positive reaction just about everywhere. That was very rewarding for us.”

Haege graduated from Glenbard West in 1993. He spent some time at Columbia College Chicago and Southern Illinois University, but then moved West to focus more seriously on his own music.

The decision to move came during the height of the post-Nirvana alternative rock explosion. To Haege, a big fan of '80s punk band Minor Threat and proto-alternative rockers Dinosaur Jr., it seemed like the good stuff had finally “won.”

“There was so much going on in the nineties, and it was inspiring to think I could write interesting rock music and still get played on mainstream radio,” he said.

After living in Eugene, Ore., for a short time, Haege settled in Portland in 1998. By that time, the alternative revolution had fizzled and teen pop was back on top. Still, he immersed himself in Portland's rock scene and began developing his own voice.

Haege said he'd love to reach a point where he can work on his music full-time; right now, he manages a bar to help pay the bills. But making the kind of music he wants has other rewards.

“I was starry-eyed in the beginning, but I quickly realized that the only way for me to do this is to focus on the music,” he said. “If it leads to some success down the road, great. But that's difficult, unless you're making the pop of the moment, so for me, the music is what comes first. That's what I focus on. And so far, I'm happy with how everything's worked out.”