JULY/AUGUST 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM Q&A

Dewey Bunnell, Gerry Beckley Dmitri Kasterine AMERICA A classic pop group’s 40th anniversary is marked by triumph and tragedy

GERRY BECKLEY AND DEWEY deep knowledge of music, had his own list. It was just way too early for anybody. Bunnell of America are celebrating their The three of us threw in well over 50 tunes, He was only 60. fourth decade together with an album of and then everybody narrowed it down. It cover versions, Back Pages, which harks was a cool process. You were on some of Dan’s solo stuff. back to the group’s formation as high school Yeah, in fact a YouTube clip came to me friends living abroad in England. America How do you and Dewey relate now? just the other day with the making of one immediately scored with megahits like “A It’s gone through many changes over the of his contemporary Christian albums, and Horse With No Name,” “Ventura Highway” years. We fi rst met in high school, before the producer had a camera in the control and “Sister Golden Hair” before fellow we were even in a band together, so room. I come in saying hello to everybody, founding member Dan Peek departed to there’s a foundation that goes way beyond and there’s Dan. It was a bizarre sense of make contemporary Christian music in 1977. the 40 years. Once Dan left in ’77, that déjà vu. Fortunately that was a really great Beckley and Bunnell went on to continued was one of the bigger adjustments, to go session and everything worked out really success as a duo, and in 2007 enjoyed from a three-piece to a two-piece, but if well, and it’s all there. You can just sit and their highest-charting album in 25 years anything it strengthened our relationship. watch the recording process and how with Here & Now. We spoke with Beckley We call it a democracy, but what we really we fi gured our harmonies out. I can thank from his home in California about his group’s mean is that whoever is more passionate Google Alert for that one. durability and Peek’s tragic death from about a particular issue, the other will heart disease in July. usually defer to him. What’s next for America? The Back Pages album is a very good How did you decide which songs you When did you last talk to Dan? example of something we’d never done. wanted to do on Back Pages? We spoke earlier this year about a couple of It just goes to show you that when you We had done so many albums where it was tunes he had and the idea of getting together think you’ve covered every space and our own material, and there was a selection to work on them. We hadn’t spoken for quite you’ve played everywhere, there’s always process for all of that—you lay all your a while, but I did on occasion get an email something else going on. Recording other cards on the table and let everybody else from him, so it wasn’t like we never heard people’s material was so rewarding. I can comment. This was a different set of criteria. from him. It was a pretty open story. People imagine there’s at least another album there I picked songs that I thought were strong would ask us, “What about Dan?” and we’d if we fi nd the time to do it, because there and that I would like to sing, and Dewey say, “Well, he’s got his own website and was such a long list of great songs. So, did the same thing. Then Fred Mollin, who he continues to record his own music.” onward and upward. produced the project and has an incredibly But it’s been a very emotional few weeks. –Jesse Thompson

‘Whoever is more passionate about an issue, the other will usually defer to him.’

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