Slow dance: Gayngs gets ready for its big night out

Here's how Ryan Olson describes talking to his 22 bandmates in Gayngs over the past few months:

"Remember that night you came up to my bedroom, and we got stoned and did some recording?"

They certainly will remember it now. From that hazy inception to what could be an even stranger pair of prom-themed CD-release shows Friday night at First Avenue, Gayngs has become the Midwest indie-rock equivalent of a Robert Altman movie. It has an interwoven all-star cast, improvised and experimental performances and a stylized concept that you either get, or you don't. Oh, and some of the participants were under the influence of something.

As the producer/ringleader, Olson crafted much of the album in his third-story bedroom in a house conspicuously within stumbling distance of Grumpy's Bar in northeast Minneapolis. The Eau Claire, Wis., native, 33, recruited old hometown pals along with Twin Cities cohorts. The music they created is unlike anything any of them had ever done before -- ethereal, silk-pillow-soft, '70s-'80s-style soft rock and smooth R&B, all set to the same rhythmic time of 69 beats per minute -- slow-jam tempo, baby.

The truly seductive and surprisingly rich results can be heard on Gayngs' 11-song album, "Relayted." Released nationally on Tuesday, the disc is the focus of Friday's two parties, "The Last Prom on Earth," whose name and formalwear theme comes from the record's starry-night closing track.

Here's the semi-fantastical story of how this otherwise informal music affair came to be.

THE CAST Ryan Olson of Digitata, Mel Gibson & the Pants, Building Better Bombs.

Adam Hurlburt, Zach Coulter and Shon Troth of Solid Gold.

Justin Vernon and Mike Noyce of Bon Iver.

Brad Cook, Phil Cook and Joe Westerlund of Megafaun.

Michael Lewis of Andrew Bird, Happy Apple and Dosh.

James Buckley of the James Buckley Trio, Mystery Palace.

Stefon Alexander, aka P.O.S.

Maggie Wander, aka Dessa.

Maggie Morrison and Grant Cutler of Lookbook.

Ivan Howard of Rosebuds.

Jake Luck and Nick Ryan of Leisure Birds.

Channy Moon Casselle of Roma di Luna.

Joe Mabbott, producer.

Katy Morley, Olson's friend.

Danny Kryzkowski, a guy Olson works with "who was always narc-ing on me to get me fired."

Xander (?).

THE IMPETUS The primary inspiration was the sparkly, grandiose 1975 soft-rock hit "I'm Not in Love" by 10cc, which Olson heard on his alarm clock via cheeseball radio station Love 105.

Ryan Olson: I had a definite, violent sense of, "I love this song!" I was just entranced. That made me start paying attention more to that station and that kind of zone. And then I started jamming with Adam and Zach. We started last February, using the 69-beats-per-minute thing as a foundation. It seemed kind of funny -- 69, you know -- but it also felt right.

Zach Coulter: We were just sort of joking around at first. Then one night I went over to Ryan's -- I didn't live with him then, but I do now -- and we started writing, and it quickly became kind of serious. Slowly, we wrote a batch of songs, and after that people started slowly hopping onto them.

Olson: A lot of the basic tracks were done over a three-month period. Maggie [Morrison] was living here then, so she threw down some vocals in that time. And as soon as I had like six songs, I had Mike Lewis come over to do his sax thing because I knew that was crucial, like a beacon.

Maggie Morrison: All the recording sessions were so casual, I never fully believed they would be part of the final product. I recorded my part for "Faded High" through a microphone fashioned out of an old rotary telephone.

Michael Lewis: Ryan approached me somewhat -- and probably tactfully -- ambiguous about what he was doing. He played me the tracks, which at that point were pretty bare-bones. We listened and were like, "Should we go get a drink?" We walked up the street to a liquor store and downed some gin and tonics. I don't even normally drink gin and tonic, but it seemed perfect in this case.

THE WISCONSIN BLITZ In May, Olson arranged to meet up with hometown cohorts Megafaun (now out of Raleigh, N.C.) at April Base, a house outside Eau Claire that Bon Iver mastermind Justin Vernon and his brother Nate converted into a recording facility. This got Justin involved, while Nate later became Gayngs' manager. Megafaun brought along tourmate Ivan Howard of the Rosebuds.

Nate Vernon: Megafaun was coming through Minneapolis and had like 28 hours before they had to drive to their next show. Ryan came with the songs all laid out already, which allowed these guys to have a musical track-and-field day.

Olson: It's like a split-level house, but it has this indoor pool that's a great room for recording. So they had that [28-hour] window, and we pretty much used it all up. We were doing the vocals to "Cry" as they were leaving.

Ivan Howard: Somehow, I ended up in front of the mike on the last day. Next thing I know, I'm talking into the mike for the spoken-word section of "Last Prom on Earth." The whole time Ryan was there saying "yes" to everything. It was the perfect recording situation: friends, Wisconsin and deer meat.

THE ICING Olson spent the next six months adding layers, often pushing friends to work outside their usual boxes. One idea was enlisting P.O.S. (credited as "LeRon," after his middle name) as a Teddy Pendergrass-style R&B crooner on the track "No Sweat."

Olson: Justin said he wanted to mix the album -- a good idea, because he's really good at that. But he was insanely busy, too. So that gave me time to go back and add some things, and bring in even more people.

Morrison: For Ryan's entire life, he has been a conductor of sorts. His mom told me when he was as young as 3 or 4, he would put on plays with his cousins and neighbors, often bossing around kids much older than him.

P.O.S.: Most of the people Ryan hangs out with knew he was making this insane record. He doesn't really ask me to be on projects so much as he just tells me, "Hey, come over. You're gonna do this right now."

Dessa: Ryan explained that I would not be allowed to listen to the song before I sang to it. I would not be allowed to read the lyrics. I would simply arrive at his bedroom studio, put on headphones, and sing. He picked me up at my apartment, took me to the liquor store, and 45 minutes later we were done.

Olson: One of the worst Gayngs sessions we had was when [James] Buckley came over, and Adam had gotten a free bottle of absinthe from the bar he works at. We started recording "False Bottom" with Buckley playing keyboards, and I think before we ever pressed "stop" on the recorder, we just all blacked out. It only took like 15 minutes for us all to pass out.

THE FINAL PRODUCT About three-quarters of the way through recording, Gayngs drew interest from the Jagjaguwar label, home to Bon Iver, Dinosaur Jr. and Besnard Lakes. The company provided legitimacy and is now trumpeting the album's all-star lineup.

Coulter: It's a lot of people, but they're all sort of connected: people who grew up in Eau Claire, people Ryan hangs out with now. So it was more a thing like friends getting together than a deliberate "all-star" project. It was so low-pressure and fun. Then all of a sudden we're signed. It's just like, "What?!"

Olson: I think the attitude going into it was key. It was incredibly fun. The rest of 2009 was complete [crap]: Mel Gibson & the Pants just stopped. Digitata was quickly hitting the brakes. Building Better Bombs has like 60 songs we've recorded but hasn't come out. So last year was filled with disappointment. Making this thing was pure joy.

Lewis: Everybody involved knows how to make this kind of music and has respect for it -- they just never find themselves in a context where they get to do it. Ryan's such a good producer and his idea was so earnest, the record came out pretty brilliant. In a way, though, most of us are still trying to wrap our heads around doing this.

Nate Vernon: It's been said, "Gayngs is so wrong, it's right," which I think aptly describes the obstacles we have to overcome. The challenges are what make it fun and rewarding.

THE LAST PROM Among the biggest challenges is bringing Gayngs to the stage. They're going to try, though, first by bringing all 23 members to First Ave. There could be more gigs, too.

Olson: The core crew is getting together a few days before the show, and then the day before it everyone is going to meet at Justin's place.

Coulter: It's not like we've all been in a room together, so it's a good question how it'll come off onstage. There will probably be four bass players on stage at one time, and things like that. We'll probably have to have a "bass lounge" with a couch and a lamp.

Lewis: Dosh plays our last show in Omaha on May 13. I'm trying to take a flight from Omaha so I can get [to First Ave] for load-in and sound check, God willing.

Olson: We're going to give [touring] a shot. It'll be like a 10-piece thing in the fall. The First Ave shows will be completely different from that. They'll be a one-night-only kind of thing. If they're anything like what happened on record, I think it's going to be pretty incredible.

chrisr@startribune.com • 612-673-4658