From the archives: a conversation with Don and Karen Peris of The Innocence Mission

Like Indiana Jones descending into a temple full of treasures and terrors, I’ve been doing an archaeological investigation of the archives at LookingCloser.org, preparing for a re-invention of that website.

Much of what I find summons surges of embarrassment at the things I used to publish, and what I used to consider reader-ready writing.

But once in a while I open a dusty crate and discover something sacred. Sacred for me, at least.

For example, I discovered my interview with Don and Karen Peris of The Innocence Mission, which took place while I was writing an arts-and-faith zine called The Crossing and in the first years of publishing on the website Looking Closer with Jeffrey Overstreet. The band had recently released the album that I still consider their crowning achievement, Birds of My Neighborhood (1999). And already they had two new releases: an album of sacred music called Christ is My Hope, and Small Planes, a collection of unreleased material that stood up strong next to any of their studio records.

I was delighted that their work was growing deeper in wisdom and more powerful in beauty a whole decade into their career. I couldn’t have imagined that they’d still be releasing records regularly in the 2020s, their latest Midwinter Swimmers very near the top of my list of the year’s best, and, I’d argue, their strongest effort in 25 years.

I am ever so grateful for the Perises and their bassist Mike Bitts, as their music has been a golden thread of sustaining and inspiring beauty for more than 35 years now. So many of their songs I still know by heart, still sing like prayers.

So I’m happy to share what I found in that underground temple, a glimpse of the questions I, an amateur journalist, was learning to ask, and the wisdom that Don and Karen Peris were already sharing, way back in 2001.

Tolkien once said that the goal of fantasy should be “escape” first and foremost, and then “consolation” for the return to daily life.

This is also an accurate description of what the Perises’ music accomplishes. I have long been a fan of The Innocence Mission because I find that when I listen to the Innocence Mission, I return as though having visited a sacred and liberating world, and my burdens have become lighter.

Since 1989’s self-titled debut The Innocence Mission, Don and Karen Peris and their band have offered a variety of pop unmatched by anyone in the crowded scene of contemporary music. Where ego is often flaunted and celebrated, the Perises perform with hushed humility and grace. Where many artists bludgeon audiences with noise and sloganeering, The Innocence Mission offer a reverent, hushed collection of poetry. Don Peris favors guitar work that glistens and glows over the searing, self-important roar. And Karen convinces you that every line of the lyrics comes from deep inside her, a confession, a question, or a story not to be taken lightly.

Their latest works, a collection of sacred music offered as a charity fund-raiser called Christ is my Hope, and a mainstream collection of previously-unreleased tracks and B-sides called Small Planes, are still available, either in stores or at their website.

I had the privilege recently, as summer turned to autumn, of corresponding with Don and Karen about the methods and the motives that set their work apart.

ON WRITING AND THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Looking Closer: You've been putting out albums for more than a decade. Are you surprised to find yourself working on a new album in 2001?

Karen Peris:
I think that we would always write and record because we love making music, but we are surprised to still have an outlet and an audience for what we do.

LC: What is the biggest challenge for you in the process of making an album. Lyrics? Music? Recording?

Karen:
Lyrics are always the biggest challenge for me, to find words that will define the feeling given by the music, and that will feel right with the music.

LC: Your lyrics seem to stand alone as excellent poetry. Do you read a lot of poetry?

Karen:
I do love reading poetry. Gerard Manley Hopkins, Anna Akhmatova, Elizabeth Bishop are a few favorites. And reading through big poetry anthologies is wonderful, like glimpsing, or being carried into, so many small worlds.

LC: What are you reading these days?