From the 7/10 Music News of the World (http://:www.addict.com/ATN)

Connells' Risky Behavior Spurs Creativity

Harrowing European train experience inspires track on pop-rock sextet's new
album.

Contributing Editor Colin Devenish reports:

Getting acclimated to customs and common practices in foreign countries can be
disorienting. In the case of Mike Connell of the Connells, his unfamiliarity
with auto trains in Europe nearly cost him his life on a concert tour a few
years ago.

In 1995, Connell, guitarist and founder of the six-piece pop-rock group, was
traveling with the rest of the Connells over the Alps in an auto train -- the
overland equivalent of a ferry that allows you to transport your vehicle from
one point to another without driving it.

"You sit in your damn car, and you're not supposed to get out," Connell, 34,
said. "The instructions are in German, and we didn't know what the hell was
going on. We thought we'd take in the night air."

The musicians left their auto as the train approached a tunnel. Connell said
it would have been a tight squeeze to say the least. "Our tour manager Curly
is from Scotland and a little more abreast of the [auto train] situation," he
explained. "He freaked out and started yelling at us." They returned to their
car with little time to spare.

Despite such harrowing circumstances, the escapade spawned the deceptively
sweet-sounding "Curly's Train" (RealAudio excerpt), a song that chronicles
Connell's close call. It's one of the tracks on the band's seventh album, the
recently-released Still Life, produced by Jim Scott (Rolling Stones, Tom
Petty, Wilco).

When not jeopardizing life and limb, the Raleigh, N.C.-based Connells have
spent the past 14 years crafting squeaky-clean rock tunes in a pop vein, most
successfully with tracks such as the sing-song "'74-'75," off of 1993's Ring
album. The sextet is a longtime favorite on college radio since the release of
its early albums, including Fun & Games and One Simple Word. They have been
touring this year for the first time since a case of diverticulitis forced
singer Doug MacMillan off the road during the tour for 1996's Weird Food &
Devastation.

In a first for the band, each of the Connells penned at least one song onStill
Life, which includes compositions by singer MacMillan, drummer Peele
Wimberley, keyboardist Steve Potak and bassist David Connell, Mike's brother.

Guitarist George Huntley has been a regular contributor to the Connells'
repertoire. He shaped a pair of songs for the new LP, including "Queen of
Charades" (RealAudio excerpt), which he said he constructed in layers, with
each new addition tacking on a different meaning to the track.

"It ended up being like a sculpture," Huntley, 33, said. "I chiseled on it for
a long time. It started out being about the band, and then it became about me
and my wife, and then it evolved to have a sort of a Princess Diana meaning
for me.

"I was working on the song when I got a phone call that she had died. She just
literally walked into the song."

As usual, Connell wrote the lion's share of tracks for the LP, including the
harmony-laden song "The Leper," which deals with the feeling of being just a
little bit behind or outside the pack.

"I thought about the idea that leper colonies used to exist, and how lepers
were ostracized. I had the outcast idea and I used that ... to indicate the
narrator was sort of out of step with people around him," Connell said,
indicating that the narrator's position is sometimes not so far from his own.
"Generally when we get back from a trip it takes a while to get back in sync,"
he said. "I'm not quite as socially adept as some people I know."