Taking refuge in a succession of artistic comfort zones, and finally escaping each one with his palette enhanced, Lars has devoted himself relentlessly to the ideal of the committed dilettante. Sometimes, he daydreams about a shooting arcade where the targets are listeners who insist that artists belong in pigeonholes, but in brighter moments, he’ll expound for hours on the virtues of one form or another of traditional music, still dismissing all notions of stylistic purity in an age of instant access to all recordings. Given a reliable supply of dark-roasted coffee and sweetened carbohydrates, he can rise at any hour.

“Why so fussy?” ask his fellow songwriters.
“Ear candy,” grumble the composers at that other café.

Richard Thompson, Joni Mitchell and Elvis Costello provided inspiration for many a chameleonic recording artist’s battle plans – including Lars’ – but among songwriters, extended detours into such artistic black holes as Music Theory/Composition major and Balinese Gamelan musician(1) are still rare, thankfully. He found those experiences rewarding, even exhilarating, yet, all the while suspecting he’d eventually decide to abandon much of the neural rewiring they’d required. As Picard was once a Borg.

“Here he comes with the shoehorns again,” lament the other gamelan devotees. ;^)

When not admonishing his young guitar students(2) that 3 follows immediately after 2, and frequently precedes 4, Lars can be found indulging his habit of collecting and performing on vintage acoustic stringed instruments – usually mandolins – a refreshing contrast countering the persistent pull of his primary programming – the electric rock guitar thing. He often passes time reading books about fairy tales, and other anomalous history.

Long aware that his erratic tastes make him a dubious musical collaborator, Lars abandoned the collective band method(3), and began creating as a multi-instrumental solo artist. He’s got a bouzouki – and knows how to use it! – also a library of instrument samples. He does enlist help from other musicians, however, when the songs call for it, and is quite comfortable performing most of these songs solo, too; just one voice/one instrument.

Bespeaking of those helpful musicians, White House Lawn features three talented friends who also contributed to Lars' debut CD, Fate of the Titans - plus several more new ones (credits below), most mentionably veteran drummer Prairie Prince (The Tubes, The Starship, Todd Rundgren, XTC).

His separation trauma after leaving San Francisco almost completely healed, Lars has resided in the megalopolis known as Shanghai for five years now. He finds it quite entertaining, actually, especialty whilst trying to keep track of the number of countries from which there are musicians with whom he’s performed Stand By Me. Time to notify the Guinness people, pretty soon now.

(1) Proud to have been a long-time member of Gamelan Sekar Jaya
(2) At several international schools in Shanghai
(3) After several ambitious, but marginally successful attempts, notably Done With Mirrors