Two Harbors bandleaders help other Twin Cities musicians who ‘can’t shake this dream’

Long one of Minnesota’s most unabashedly Britrock-y bands, Two Harbors’ two leaders have a lot of valid excuses for what took so long to finally put out another album.

The global pandemic, of course. Writer’s block. Raising kids, especially for guitarist Kris Johnson, whose daughter had infancy health issues. And then there was the death of producer and friend Ed Ackerson to cancer in 2019.

“That was a huge blow,” Johnson said. “It changed things a lot for us.”

In the 11 years it took them to get around to Saturday’s 7th St. Entry celebration for their new album, “Can’t Shake This Dream” — another collection of gorgeous guitar noise and melodic hooks — Johnson and singer/guitarist Chris Pavlich also have been busy helping a lot of other musicians try to fulfill their own rock star dreams.

Both of the Two Harbors members play vital roles behind the scenes in the Twin Cities music scene, in ways not recognized by many fans who only know them from playing rock stars onstage.

Johnson became the house manager at Ackerson’s old recording facility in Minneapolis, Flowers Studio, plus he builds amplifiers and is the service manager at Twin Town Guitars. As Pavlich put it, “He’s the guy that gets called if someone needs a guitar fixed quick and fixed right for that night’s First Ave show.”

As for Pavlich, besides running the Minneapolis fan club for England’s Manchester City soccer team — a nod to where his musical tastes lie — the Duluth native owns and operates City Sound, a franchise of rehearsal-space facilities with three locations in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

“If Scream is rolling through town and needs a day to rehearse, I’m the guy that gets the call,” Pavlich said, noting one recent last-minute client (Dave Grohl’s old band).

Jayhawks manager PD Larson, who has long touted his love for Two Harbors, said Johnson and Pavlich “are also integral assets to our scene for their nonmusical skills.”

“KJ is what we like to call in the biz an ‘angel,’ one who quietly does things behind the scenes that makes so many people in this town sound better,” Larson said, adding of Pavlich’s contributions: “There are very few active musicians in this town over the last 20 years that have not set foot in a City Sound space.”

Another recent City Sound visitor, Jeff Tweedy, left behind a signed copy of his book, “How to Write One Song,” after the Two Harbors singer told the Wilco frontman it’s what finally broke his long bout with writer’s block.

“I wrote most of these songs within about a week of finishing the book,” Pavlich said.

Once the songs started flowing, Pavlich, Johnson and their bandmates going on 19 years, Jeremy Bergo (bass) and Shawn Grider (drums), spent a lot more time than their usual Wednesday night rehearsal working on the new album at Two Harbors’ own rehearsal space inside City Sound in St. Paul.

It’s one of the more luxe rooms, of course. One wall is lined with about 200 guitar effect pedals on display like Matchbox cars. Different amplifiers line the whole perimeter, including some of the KJ Audio brand amps built by Johnson. A separate room allows them to operate the space as a full-blown recording studio.

“We’ve made a habit of basically recording each recording twice, demoing it all here to near-completion and then starting over at Flowers,” Pavlich said.

When it was suggested that’s probably another reason the album was so long in the making, Pavlich conceded, “It might be a bad habit we should maybe break.”

Two Harbors also spent several previous years demoing many of the album’s instrumental parts and melodies. In fact, some of the songs’ core parts had been around long enough for Ackerson to hear them before his death and offer feedback.

Even though he didn’t get to formally work on the record, Johnson said, “Ed’s influence is still very much there. It’s there in everything we do — especially everything we do at Flowers.”

Once the band finished recording at Ackerson’s space, they once again turned to the most famous recording facility in the world for mastering of the new album: Abbey Road Studios in London.

As with 2014’s LP, “The Natural Order of Things,” the Minnesota boys hired the Smiths and New Order collaborator Frank Arkwright to do the final sonic tweaks of the record where England’s Fab Four did their recording. Pavlich and Johnson even flew over there to work on it with him, since, as Pavlich said, “Who wouldn’t want to work there if they could?”

“When you walk out the front door of Abbey Road carrying the acetates of your album, you can’t help but think, ‘OK, I think our record is done now,’” the singer recounted.

In the end, the songs wound up being quite personal affairs for Pavlich on the lyrical front.

The high-revved album opener, “That’s Not Me,” is about anger management and “trying not to be another hotheaded Croatian,” he said. “Can’t Shake This Dream” — which features stormy, “Gimme Shelter”-style guest vocals by St. Paul neo-soul great PaviElle French — is based on a recurring nightmare he has about his wife of 30 years, Liz Schindler, suddenly leaving him.

The album’s whirring, Verve-like closing track and emotional centerpiece, “Time Waits for No Man,” was inspired by Ackerson’s death. It features another of the producer’s pals on guitars and harmony vocals, Dan Murphy (Scarlet Goodbye, ex-Soul Asylum).

Murphy is yet another musician who has enlisted Johnson and Pavlich’s services over the years. He exemplifies what Johnson called “a completely symbiotic relationship between our work and this band.”

“We both have met so many people in our work,” the guitarist explained. “Their music kind of winds up feeding into our music in one way or another.”

In his 18th year of running City Sound, Pavlich said, “It’s amazing how much different music you can hear just walking down the hall here. Not all of it’s great, sure, but I’ll come rolling through at 2 a.m. and hear something just amazing come out of one of the rooms.”

Citing all the younger musicians they encounter, the singer added, “I really believe we’re all still as excited to play in this band now as we were playing music in our 20s. Just smarter and better.”

With: Another Heaven, Mood Swings.

When: 8 p.m. Sat.

Where: 7th St. Entry, 701 1st Av. N., Mpls.

Tickets: $15, axs.com.