Low's 'Hey What' Finds The Duo Strong And Forever Searching

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk of the band Low have been making music together for nearly 30 years, and they've been married to each other for even longer.

MIMI PARKER: Honestly, if it hadn't been for the marriage, for the family, well, I don't think we ever would've...

ALAN SPARHAWK: Yeah.

PARKER: We never would've survived this long as a band.

SPARHAWK: Yeah.

KELLY: Low recently released their 13th album. It is called "HEY WHAT."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ALL NIGHT")

LOW: (Singing) All night you fought the adversary.

SPARHAWK: And it's not just to say that necessarily, like, oh, the band is just horrible, but we're keeping it together because we're married. But I think we were able to weather difficulties. We were able to have a certain kind of unified vision and despite being kind of very two different artists.

KELLY: Parker and Sparhawk say their career and their relationship have been balancing acts and that after all these years, they are still, in a way, trying to find their sound. A heads up to our engineers - the distortion coming up is intentional.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HEY")

LOW: (Singing) Told me that I never could contain. Went back and wept in the car beneath the shade.

PARKER: I have been pushing towards the beauty, and I know Alan sometimes focuses on...

SPARHAWK: Chaos.

PARKER: ...The chaos.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HEY")

LOW: (Singing) Maybe that's the last thing you should say.

PARKER: It's been a challenge to blend that together. And I guess, that's maybe what we've been trying to do this whole time.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MORE")

LOW: (Singing) I gave more than what I should have lost. I paid more than what it would have cost.

SPARHAWK: Mim's (ph) voice really is such a powerful tool to cut through noise.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOW")

LOW: (Singing) I want all of what I didn't have.

SPARHAWK: A humanness against the violence.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DAYS LIKE THESE")

LOW: (Singing) When you think you've seen everything.

SPARHAWK: I mean, I think early on, we knew that that's what we were bringing to it, and that - you know, and I was immediately - probably the overriding thought for me in the band, especially when it first started, was like, I want to figure out a way to accommodate what you want. I think that we can figure out a way that we both do what we are wanting to happen in music.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DAYS LIKE THESE")

LOW: (Singing) Everybody just chased by dreams. That's why we're living in days like these again.

PARKER: I mean, it sounds like compromise is what you're describing, but I've never felt like the music...

SPARHAWK: Oh, no.

PARKER: ...That we've created has been a compromise.

SPARHAWK: Yeah. I think it's always beautiful, and it's always as crazy as I've ever...

PARKER: Yeah.

SPARHAWK: ...Beyond my imagination.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DAYS LIKE THESE")

LOW: (Singing) It isn't something you can choose between. It isn't coming in twos and threes.

KELLY: It's a sound that tows the line between harmony and dissonance, and that makes their newest album, "HEY WHAT," a particularly fitting soundtrack for these times we're living in.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DAYS LIKE THESE")

LOW: (Singing) That's why we're living in days like these again.

KELLY: That was Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of the band Low.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DAYS LIKE THESE")

LOW: (Singing) Again. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.