Adam Herman on Slamming Doors, Limbo and a Blue Dog on Mostly MN Music

Just when I think I’m busy, I meet Adam Herman and wonder why I’m dragging my heels. Adam plays music (The Slamming Doors), writes books (Limbo) and has two podcasts (The PodCostner and Blue Dog).

We started talking to Adam, located in Duluth, just as city curfews fell for me and Heather Baker in the Twin Cities in the shadow of the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha and riots in Minneapolis last night. So it was a weird time but talking to Adam was the perfect antidote. We talked about the music of The Slamming Doors. There’s a soulful, country blend in the sound and they just released four songs or the first third of their upcoming album, Brown Bears. The following two thirds will be released in installments over the next few months, which gives us all something to look forward to!

Something else to look forward to is Adam’s books. They sound like Minnesota fantasy (think talking catfish – OK that might be more from his hometown Quincy, IL) meets journey meets philosophy meets comedy. Tall order but Adam makes those connections seem easy – like talking about this history of his hometown, which is across the river from Hannibal, MO (hometown to Mark Twain), the tension between communities moving into the area (abolitionists, Mormons, Germans) and meeting the Native community and how the Twin Cities of Quincy and Hannibal strove to be an oasis of peaceful community amid the strife. Painting a picture of how we got to similar problems today.

Finally the podcasts. Blue Dog started as Adam reading his book Limbo aloud and morphed into an opportunity to lift up other writers and musicians. It seems like Adam is making the most of this quarantine in the best of ways. Clearly he misses playing, we talked about that, but he’s finding so many new venture – including a video that is coming out in two weeks. Hopefully we can help share that when it comes out!