“Stars and Boulevards”
from the album All the Stars and Boulevards
2005
iTunes
The up-and-coming band Augustana’s origin began with a single conversation between singer Dan Layus and guitarist Josiah Rosen on a snow-covered bench at school in Greenville College in Illinois. And the inevitable trip out of town and later cross-country jaunts led to the songs on its debut, All the Stars and Boulevards.
The album is rife with tunes inspired by these travels and tours, like the first single, “Stars and Boulevards,“ which Layus penned in Los Angeles following the end of a romantic relationship. Yet he found the song also spoke of his search for a place in the world.
“I want people to come away with whatever they need to come away, because that’s the beauty of music,” Layus says. “But for me personally, I’d rather have somebody take away a more universal theme about life than the girl-left-me-and-I-feel-alone kind of thing.”
Examiner: Back before you were in Illinois, did you have that same nomadic spirit?
Layus: I grew up in San Diego, California, and then I moved out to Illinois for school. I had never been to the Midwest or anything and automatically, right away that was something that started in my life. Everybody leaves and goes somewhere new, you know, so it’s not like a rare thing. But for me, it was a new experience and it started right there, that whole mindset of re-evaluating who you are from traveling.
Examiner: Have you visited any place since college that’s made you think about the world differently?
Layus: Actually, dropping out of school and then moving back home was a totally different experience. It was like I had never lived there before. I grew up my whole life two miles from the ocean, and it was like I had never seen it before. And it was amazing and it made me very focused on what I wanted to do.
Examiner: Did you find that the cold and the weather changes affected you emotionally since you were a Cali kid?
Layus: Oh yeah, absolutely. I had a lack of mood change in California because of the sun all the time — I was almost getting sunsick. So it was nice to actually see four seasons and whatever comes with that — it is what it is and you deal with it. It definitely opened up my mind. It’s baby steps, it was the first thing I experienced away from home that was totally new. So many people grew up with that but I hadn’t.
Examiner: Because you have this traveling sense about you, is your perfect vacation simply staying at home?
Layus: Exactly! It would definitely be sitting at home, having a burrito, sitting on the beach and just doing absolutely nothing. Even going to Hawaii would be too much to handle.