The couple's romance blossomed alongside the folky, acoustic-based music they began making together and as individuals on tour and on disc. Their solo debuts appeared on two different labels —Irion's Unity Lodge on Yep Roc in 2001; Guthrie's eponymous set on Rising Son in 2002—and an acclaimed children's album featuring unearthed Woody Guthrie lyrics, Go Waggaloo, came out on Smithsonian Folkways in 2009. Most of the husband and wife's output, though, has been on their own Rte. 8 imprint, home to 2011's country rock breakthrough, Bright Examples, which features Jayhawks Gary Louris and Mark Olson and Vetiver's Andy Cabic and Otto Hauser, and 2013's Wassaic Way, which was coproduced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and Pat Sansone, both of whom also perform on the album.
While new in Los Angeles, Irion also gave acting a shot, doing bit parts in the short-lived Dennis Leary cop series "The Job" and Terry Zwigoff's 2001 comedy Ghost World, starring in the latter as the bass player in—yes!—Blueshammer, the bar band in one particularly funny scene starring Steve Buscemi and Thora Birch. Irion seems happily taken aback when told of the mythic status Blueshammer has acquired among rock scribes; the fictitious foursome has become a shorthand stand-in for archetypally clueless, heavy-handed, blues rock bands around the world. "People ask me about that and I just kinda shrug and laugh," says the musician. "What I remember most [about shooting the film] was how fun it was in the green room, hanging out with Scarlett Johanssen and Steve Buscemi."
But despite the faux-rock detour with Blueshammer and the touches of heartfelt rock that color his last two albums with Guthrie, in recent years Irion had found himself longing to reconnect more strongly with his own rock side. "My friend Zeke Hutchins, who was the drummer in Queen Sarah Saturday and now works in artist management, pointed out that Sarah Lee and I will always be more strongly identified as a folk act because of her family name, so we should just embrace that, and that maybe I should put my rock stuff somewhere else," Irion explains. "That was hard to hear at first, because I thought Sarah Lee and I had really found our sweet spot with Wassaic Way. But the more I started to think about it, the more I saw that Zeke was right." Although U.S. Elevator is new to the world, the concept had actually been lodged in the front man's head for quite some time before it became manifest. "Oh, God, the U.S. Elevator band name was something Johnny had been talking about almost since I met him," says Guthrie. "For at least 15 years."
And by fall 2014 it was time for the project to enter the real world. "I had just done a paid writing session with a well-known artist in L.A., and the whole thing was done on computers," Irion remembers, grimacing. "It got me thinking about how Zuma [Neil Young and Crazy Horse's 1975 album on Reprise Records] is one of my favorite records. Listening to that album, which sounds like it was done mostly live in the studio, it's, like, 'Hey, they made a mistake and the drummer's a little off—but so what? They're having fun.' And that's the kind of record I wanted to make with this band." So after some casual rehearsals, the fun began the following February when Irion and a gang that included ex-Freight Train bassist Nate Modisette and guitarist and producer Tim Bluhm (the Mother Hips, Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers) borrowed a 24-track tape machine that had once belonged to Jackson Browne and set it up to record in Modisette's home. The sessions yielded the 11 tracks that make up U.S. Elevator (Rte. 8 Records), which will be officially released this November. On the album, the stoned ghost of Neil Young is definitely in the house via the lazy, Laurel Canyon shuffle of "Can I Make It Up to You?" and the wrenching, substance-and-the-damage-done heartbreak of "Cry for Help." And add to this a bit of humor: "Community Service" chronicles the predicament of a band member who can't go on tour until he's served out his civic sentence.
