Everest in Young’s shadow

Russell Pollard may have reached the summit of his musical endeavours.

It’s one reason why the former member of Sebadoh and Folk Implosion named his latest project Everest, a L.A.-based folk-rock hybrid he put together with bassist Rob Douglas, guitarist Joel Graves and drummer Davey Latter — all close friends with musical resumés as long as your arm (Earlimart, Alaska! and The Watson Twins among them).

It’s a friendship that produced Ghost Notes, Everest’s debut that delves into bright pop in its first half and melancholy prog-rock in the second. Produced by Mike Terry (Foo Fighters), Ghost Notes has an early 1970s feel, recorded on analog tape in the late Elliot Smith’s New Monkey studio — a work that Pollard says was a refreshing reboot for all concerned.

“We’re all close friends and we got really frustrated with what we were doing,” said the drummer turned singer-songwriter. “We didn’t want something similar to what we had done in the past. We wanted something with no rules and no pretension, and it just evolved from there.”

The band made a long climb in a short time: In November of 2007 Elliot Roberts, Neil Young’s manager, warmed to Everest demos and invited the band to record under Young’s Vapor Records label. Early this year, Everest played at the Sundance Film Festival, where Young was promoting Déjà Vu, a documentary about Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Impressed with what he heard at the fest, Young invited Everest on several European dates and the North American leg of his current tour with Wilco and Death Cab For Cutie.  

“He’s our shaman,” Pollard says of Young. “He does what he wants to do; he doesn’t compromise and he doesn’t let what he does get messed with for the sake of money. We view that as the dream. It’s a very organic thing.”

Pollard plans on climbing more musical mountains in the future — already testing the crowds with new songs to appear on a potential second album that the band will record at the end of its tour. He says continuing while the group has this kind of creative independence isn’t so much of a want as it is a need.

“I didn’t think it would be possible to have as much fun as we are now,” he said. “We can’t stop. We’ll just get depressed, and I plan on taking this thing as far as I want to go.”