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Last spring, when Over the Rhine invited fans to financially partner with them for a new album, Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler were overwhelmed by the response. In less than three weeks, all anticipated costs were covered, and then some. Maybe it's because OTR fans have been partnering with the band for years in other ways—sharing music, writing letters to Bergquist and Detweiler, attending concerts in dark, smoky pubs, in green city parks, and in crumbling churches. Or maybe it's because OTR fans "have a way of inviting that music to be part of the big moments of their life," as Detweiler says.

Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist

The married couple have been making music together since 1989, and in 2007, they started an independent recording label, Great Speckled Dog. OTR has consistently crafted thoughtful, sacramental songs, songs about love in both its beautiful and painful manifestations, songs about politics and places, songs about the playful and unpredictable moments of everyday life.

The Long Surrender, which releases today, was recorded with famed producer Joe Henry, who wanted to, in Henry's words, "blow the seams out of the songs." And they did. In an e-mail to fans, Detweiler wrote, "It felt like Joe put everything on a train—all the surprising things we saw out the windows as we rolled through the night, the rumble and the rhythm." But it isn't just Henry's influence; it's the more than 2,000 fans who hopped on that train before it even left Nowhere Farm, the home Bergquist and Detweiler share just outside Cincinnati.

Your fans funded The Long Surrender. How'd that come about?

I think it's part of the larger conversation of the music industry being in a mess. It feels like the veil between songwriter and listener has been rent from top to bottom, and that corporate structure that used to be in between the singer and the listener has been greatly diminished. Making a connection directly with an audience has never been easier, so we decided to go directly to our audience, tell them about this new project, and invite them to come in at whatever level they were comfortable with and fund this project. The response has been incredibly inspiring and humbling.

Why do you think that happened?

People seem to invite our music into the big moments of their life—falling in love, walking down the aisle, dancing their first dance at the wedding, conceiving [laughs], all with our music in the background. They were taking those records to the hospital, to the delivery room, burying loved ones with certain songs nearby. People are connecting with it on that level, and they're happy to be a part of something they believe in.

You've said that one reason you keep making music is "presence." Explain.

It's an insistence on telling the truth and not faking something for the sake of finishing a song. You have to be willing to sit with a song until something is revealed that feels real and honest, and that doesn't necessarily happen overnight. It's been three years since our last studio record (2007's The Trumpet Child), and there are songs on the new record that I wrestled with for every bit of that three-year time period, really waiting for that right thing to be revealed, when the song felt substantial and well-made.

Is good songwriting more a matter of discipline or inspiration?

Inspiration is great, but fairly early as a writer, I wrote down "Inspiration comes afterwards." That is not an original thought, but writers put pen to paper and they start wrestling with words, and that needs to happen regardless of whether or not you're feeling inspired. That being said, I'll take any scrap of inspiration I come across [laughs].

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