Ted Hajnasiewicz and Doyle Turner are old friends of Mostly MN Music. We’re looking forward to the big album release under the moniker of the International Treasures on September 17 at the Parkway Theater. And we love their responses to our five questions!
Please tell us about the official start of the International Treasures.
Ted: Nothing is official with us. BUT we did meet on the internet. I swiped left, when I heard Doyle’s amazing voice and songwriting. I asked him to write a song with me, a few summers ago. And he was willing. And it led to in person co-writes, gigging together, making music together, our friends seeing us as a “couple”. That’s kinda cool.
We are still waiting for the official start – but this is how it unofficially started 🙂
Doyle: I don’t know nothing about no swiping, but I did meet Ted through the THE Singer / Songwriter Songwriting Challenge (thank you Laurel Hay Tomadl!) At our first gig Ted sang the ENTIRE first verse AND chorus of “Suspicious Minds” by Elvis while looking straight into my eyes. There was no looking back from that moment.
2. Ted, you are a master-collaborator, for folks starting out how do you make the connections happen?
Ted: Ooh boy. I think for me it sort of all fell in, naturally, over time. I started as a fan of so many, so I’d just post about others I loved, or go see them play when I could. As a songwriter, being part of the Singer Songwriter Songwriting Challenge group (THEE best thing on the internet!) was a much larger blessing than I anticipated – I joined thinking it would help me get into a writing rhythm. It did – but I did not know I’d make such amazing friends/family through this group (Including meeting Doyle in/through this group!).
It all has progressed naturally. There wasn’t much” trying to make it happen”. Connections happen naturally, even for an awkward wallflower like me (Yes I am – not sure folks know this. I’m a terribly shy wallflower). The connections that were meant to stick, stuck. And others didn’t, or didn’t at first. Look for the sweet – I guess that’s what I’d recommend. Look for the sweet.
3. Doyle, you are not based in the Twin Cities, what are the benefits and challenges of being up North? And how do you work with them?
(Clearly, you are each invited chime in on both questions – as you might have a friend’s insight to share!)
Doyle: The benefits to living up north are that most of the Twin Cities is headed north on any given Friday afternoon white-knuckling it to get to where I live! Also, Bemidji really is an arts oasis. We have a rich history of musicians, songwriters, painters, poets, dancers, and theater. It’s a great community in which to be an artist. The challenge is that I sometimes find myself driving crazy hours to get to watch my talented Twin Cities friends play or to play a show with my dear friend Ted.
4. What is your process working together? Each song feels so personal. Whose mom’s house is featured in Wild? (I assume Doyle since he’s singing first.) And who is going anywhere with you? (Ted, cause he’s singing first?) And who owns the egg sucking dog? How autobiographical are the songs? And how much are they born of shared fiction?
Doyle: My friend Mark Fogelson says there are two kinds of truth: songwriting truth, and true truth. Both are equally true. I am a bit of trickster in that I will use ANY language available to try and get you to feel what I feel. Doesn’t that make it true? Your feelings are true. I’ll get inside the head of my dad and his brother when I see pictures of them walking around the old foundations of their grandparents’ farmstead near Lengby, MN, and I’ll wonder what they must have been thinking. Then I’ll write it like it’s mine, which is what started the song “Wild.” Instead of “my mother’s” it really was their grandparents’ farm house.
Ted: Anywhere With You. This is about US. It’s about the four of us really – Doyle, Molly, Phyliss and me. We are the four of us besties. And Doyle and I wrote it in the dining car of a “train box car hotel” in Northern Minnesota (They took boxcars and fashioned them into hotel rooms – so the “dining car” is actually the lobby). This song sort of fell out of us one morning, and we wrote it right there in the lobby, with the owner witnessing every part. Just a sweet, sweet thing, I love that so much.
There is a bit of truth, and a bit if “invented truth” in each song. But each is personal to us, for various reasons. ESPECIALLY after crafting them in the studio with the band. Oh boy, this entire process was like the biggest, warmest hug. It’s our hope THAT is what comes across on record. That everyone hears and feels a little bit of that warm hug.
5. Finally please tell us about the upcoming release show.
Doyle: The Big Fat Album Release Show is going to be Sunday, September 17th with doors @ 6 PM and show starting at 7 PM! Insider tip: plan to get there 15 minutes early for some suh-weet video viewing! It’s going to be a night of fun and amazements! We’re going to premiere our video for “Nice To Know Ya,” so those that attend the show will be the very first to see it. There will be interviews. There will be celebrities of the Minnesota music scene in the audience! (Aaaaah! Oh my nerves!) And there will be a bunch of our songwriting family who are going to sing for us and with us (and who are luminaries of the MN music scene)! Ted and I feel like the luckiest people to have all of these people as our people!
Ted: I’m SOO looking forward to this show! Oh man! We’re having our dearest friends open the show, Ryan and Matt (the Rabbit Hole) are emcee’ing, and they are sure to make us laugh till our bellies hurt. It’ll be a whirlwind moment, something folks will talk about for a while. I hope so anyway. I hope it feels as sweet to our lovely attendee friends, as it is sure to feel for us.
Mostly Minnesota 