Thayer Sarrano
Whenever news about Thayer Sarrano comes our way, turns out the keyboardist, singer and composer is doing the coolest shit. Whether backing up hip artists like Hayes Carll and Jessie Baylin or releasing rad solo records of her own, Sarrano is pretty much always occupied with projects that bring complex layers and distinct and unique vibes. Wednesday, she’ll transform The 5 Spot into David Lynch’s world between worlds for her annual gathering White Lodge: An Evening With the Music of Twin Peaks.
The first White Lodge happened in 2021, and it’s become a surreal spooky-season tradition for Sarrano and her collaborators. The show serves as a tribute to those who were involved with the deeply strange soap noir TV show and its singular soundtrack who have died, including singer Julee Cruise, composer Angelo Badalamenti and auteur David Lynch. Fetch a baguette and some brie to make a sandwich, dust off your Giant duds and gather up your Bookhouse Boys — costumes are encouraged at the show, and pie is promised. We caught up with Sarrano amid preparations for more dates on the road. Our interview was edited for length and clarity.
How has the tour with Hayes Carll been?
It's great. I love him as a person and his music, and same with the whole band, so it's just been kind of a dream. And we're on a little couple-week break, very convenient for my favorite October time and a couple shows with Jessie Baylin. [With Baylin, I’ve had a substantial run of gigs opening] for Stevie Nicks, these crazy arena shows. And we just did one in Vegas, and I'm going to the airport in a little bit to go to Oklahoma City.
Experiencing all America has to offer today.
I surely am. I was home for 24 hours. I was like, ‘OK, this is fine.’
Tell me everything about this White Lodge party.
We've done this before. I never thought it would be a regular thing. I did it in 2021 at Halloween-ish time … and it was really fun and everyone came and loved it, and wanted us to do it again. And I was like, “No, I’ll probably do something else next year.” Back in Athens, Ga., it's kind of always a tradition on Halloween, all the bands would cover a band or whatever, but that never happened the rest of the year.
So in Nashville, I was like, “Oh, there's tributes all the time.” But this Halloween thing kind of started because I wanted to play the vibraphone. I used to play vibes in school, and coming up I had lost touch with that. And it's just kind of fun music to get your friends together and play vibes with. So I play vibes and the Rhodes and piano stuff. And then Micah Hulscher was really into the idea, and he's just had all the synths and all of that kind of stuff.
And then Matty Alger’s the drummer, and Travis Vance, the original bass player — he's back this year, which is really exciting. And Wade Cofer has always played guitar. So basically, if that group of people was in again, we would do it. And then it just kept working out. So we did it at The Blue Room for a couple years, and then last year we did it at 5 Spot, and this year we're going to do it at 5 Spot again. Micah moved to Seattle, so now we have Andrew Golden playing synth and some trumpet. Oh, and Paul Thacker plays saxophone as well.
And then we have guest singers, who are always kind of a surprise. It's part of the whole dance thing, and they're usually mostly female. There's a few male songs, because we do music from Twin Peaks and [the film] Fire Walk With Me — that whole world. And the singers are friends of mine who love the series, and a lot of times people that I've been touring with that year. It’s all just very organic. It just kind of seems to come together, and we put a lot of production work into it to make it seem like more of an experience than just hearing us play the songs.
That's very Lynchian to cover all of the senses.
Yeah, totally. And the music itself, it's a soundtrack, so it's repetitive … slow, that kind of thing. So I feel like as far as a show goes, we make it a whole thing. We have an intermission, and we serve pie, and there's some little stage surprises that happen throughout and as well as some manipulated video and audio stuff. We don't play the show in the background or anything like that, but I kind of made a lot of more psychedelic, kind of chill content to also have the imagery as part of it — but in more of a vibe way. And just having just a bunch of people, more of an abstract thing.
You could get away with just standing in front of a red curtain. Technically, that would be thematic.
Well, luckily The 5 Spot has that! And of course we build the floor and all that stuff — that's honestly another reason why it's great to be able to do it again is because you spend all this time building stuff, you can use it again. … I didn't think about that part of it. That's nice.
What's it like putting together the music side? What's the challenge in taking these songs apart and putting 'em back together?
t's more of just creating the world and it feeling interesting to the people coming. The music itself is pretty simple. It's beautiful. … I mean, I arranged it all, but it just kind of flowed. As far as the arranging goes, it's really just the people. That's why it's not something, like, I'm doing. It's not my thing — I just send the text messages, and if the right people play the beautiful music that Angelo Badlamenti and David Lynch created, it's more just honoring that. And we are very true to the sounds, and things like that — with some moments of liberties, of course, because it’s live, which I assume they would do if they were playing it live.
I think it's really interesting that you focus kind of on the collaborative aspect of Twin Peaks. Because even though we credit the show to David Lynch, it is very much an ensemble work. It's nice to hear that being reflected in the music. I mean, are you guys dipping into any of the Season Three cameo appearance music?
I thought about that, but … that could almost be another set entirely of just tributes to those bands, whereas we were kind of doing more of the soundtrack.
OK, so focusing on the core.
The original stuff and just kind of the world and tribute to that kind of thing — that very kind of dreamy and jazz and all that stuff.
When did you discover Twin Peaks?
I was actually kind of late to it. I was on tour with a band in the mid-2000s. … I would just be messing around at soundcheck and they would say, “Oh, that sounds like Twin Peaks,” or, “Have you seen Twin Peaks?” And I just kept being like, “No, I don't know that, I missed it.” And so one day — this was when you had DVDs on the bus and stuff — the drummer got the DVDs and put ’em on. So I watched it on the whole tour on the West Coast, actually. And it got really intense in the Northwest. I was waking up [on the bus], we would watch it early in the morning while we were still driving, because the drives are so long. And so I basically just watched the whole thing in the morning having coffee on tour. And of course, I thought the music was really beautiful. Later, in the spirit of Halloween, I thought, “Oh, maybe we could do this music and then I could play vibes.” That was kind of as simple as the idea was, and I just kind of directed this thing and realized that there's a lot of people who were as excited about it as we were, who wanted to come out and wanted us to keep doing it. So that's why we do it. I look forward to it, and I never know if we're doing it again. And then when it comes together and everyone says they can do it, then I'm just really excited.
And The 5 Spot is really amazing because Todd and the soundmen there are also really into it. And let us just really transform the room and be there, and put a lot of care into the instrumentation and music to make it sound good. So I feel really lucky to be there this year. And I mean, the other venues were also amazing too, so yeah, it's Twin Peaks in Nashville once again. “It's happening again.”
That sounds awesome, love a good Twin Peaks gathering. Somebody always brings good coffee. There's always pie. Everybody's well dressed.
My friend Mickey had the perfect costume. She handmade her costume — and then the power went out last year. [And she asked] how can I help? And I was like, “Actually, can you get the pie started? I'm going to run, go get this and dah, dah, dah.” And then I look out there and I forgot her costume was one of the diner waitresses, and it was perfect. And she's just serving pie. And I was like, “Oh my God, this is the best thing I've ever seen. This is so great.” It's very collaborative, and someone has to book the show and all that kind of stuff. So my name is attached to it, but it really is, it's all of us. It is not my show, It's all of us.
