story by Idris Raja

When people announce that they are married to someone they work with, the usual response is a mix of pity and bewilderment. Of course, if you're in a rock band where you don't consider yourself co-workers, it can go a long way towards keeping any would-be copy room sabotages at bay.

"It would be pretty sterile for us to think of ourselves as co-workers," said Kori Garder Hammel, wife of Jason and one half of the married duo Mates of State, in a recent conversation with Chicago Innerview. Thankfully, the Mates' music is the very antithesis of sterility.

Their latest album, Our Constant Concern, has earned them a cult following amongst the indie rock faithful. Their style has been described as everything from indie-pop to noise-folk. The unusual instrumentation (Kori on organs, Jason on drums) combined with their lush vocal harmonies produce a hypnotic carnival sound that gives the listener the strange sensation of floating in plasma.

HAMMEL'S INNER VIEW "It's more about the initial feeling you get with the music that maybe makes you want to try and figure out what we are talking about. We like to challenge ourselves as listeners and we assume other people think like that too. Aren't we all sick of music that takes zero brain power to listen to?"

Add to their musical skill intense love and commitment and you get songs that explore (obliquely usually) the intricacies and intimacies of love, told from two perspectives within one wall of sound. But just because the Mates write songs together and write songs mostly about their coupledom, don't go looking too deeply in their lyrics for complex interpretations on the nature of love.

"Even though we're a couple band, we write about the same subject from two perspectives in one song," Hammel said. "I suppose you could make a lot of metaphors about our love life and how that ties into the music, but we don't really analyze it like that. It's way too confusing."

The Mates' first met while playing guitars in the band Vosotros at the University of Kansas. "He told me he was in love with my voice," said Kori about Jason. "That was the first thing he said to me. He's really forward."

From that first statement of love and music, Kori and Jason decided to take their new sound to the bohemian uber-hip enclave of San Francisco. "We just really wanted a change," Hammel said. "Once you live in Kansas for six years, you have basically seen everything there is to see there. And I guess SF is just a positive place in general. The air feels better, the food tastes better, the people smile more, there is more diversity in music and art overall."

While they were forming their sound and exploring the music scene in SF, both Kori and Jason were working full time jobs - with Kori as an elementary school teacher and Jason as a cancer researcher. Eventually they decided to quit and make their music their full time job. Along the way, the Mates of State were officially recognized as mates by the state - but not in the traditional way you may think.

"We felt it was important to celebrate what we have with those whom we care about," Hammel said. "Music was a big part of the ceremony but so was seeing people from our past, present, and future all together for once in our lives. It's like getting a big pat on the back from all them saying 'We think you are great together.' And I think I convinced my family that a personalized commitment ceremony is more sincere and intimate than church weddings can be. We wrote our whole ceremony and a woman justice of peace married us in my parent's backyard."

After a tropical honeymoon in Tahiti, the Mates were back on the road, even taking their act outside of the States. Mates' lyrics can be hard to discern on headphones with careful listening, but you have to wonder if it would make any difference if they sang their own lyrics or the words to "Ice Ice Baby" in countries that don't speak English.

"I don't think people who speak English as a first language always understand what we are saying either," Hammel said. "It's more about the initial feeling you get with the music that maybe makes you want to try and figure out what we are talking about. We like to challenge ourselves as listeners and we assume other people think like that too. Aren't we all sick of music that takes zero brain power to listen to?"

That kind of attitude to music for the Mates keeps them attentive to the music scene, even the international, hard to pronounce ones. "The Swedes are the best," Hammel said. "We like those guys from Sweden who dance around in their briefs. I forget their name, Shagmaltatenthiggen...something like that."

In whatever language or country, music has always been inspired by love and longing - usually in the form of primal desire or agonizing heartbreak. If instead, your songs are about that elusive love everyone seems to be looking for and that you've found, some are bound to try and break it up from envy.

"Some women are respectful of [our marriage]," said Hammel, "and others try to jump him right in front of me." But it turns out you can have your wife and your groupie too. "Kori role plays a good groupie," said Hammel's hubby Jason.

With the pervasive presence of the Mates' music and love, one is bound to ponder what would happen if the Mates of State mated. Would they consider a rock'n'roll love child playing onstage with mommy and daddy? "Of course, if that's what they wanted to do," Hammel said.

Maybe the Partridge family concept can be reborn in an indie-noise-folk-pop-whatever 21st century reincarnation, this time with two parents and no meddling manager? The Mates seem receptive to the idea, but "only if we get the bus as part of the deal."