On ‘Late for the Future,’ the guitar is up front more and the band uses drum loops for the first time. How else does the album sound different from the first two to you?

It’s just a better-sounding record. We had more time. We were really able to do something vocally. I was able to get Theresa Andersson in there and Hollygrove came in and really stomped the background. It was just a better planned project. And we have me out there more because the people who come to the shows always complain, ‘Houseman, we don’t see enough of him.’ So we tried to do that. And then I knew I was going to do my record so we’re going to have enough of the Houseman for a while. We’re going to have too much of the Houseman in a minute.

How did it feel to be able to bring Hollygrove into ‘Late for the Future’?

It felt great after all the years we’ve been in it since ’69. They’ve been a big part of everything I’ve ever done. We grew up as children, as friends. Hollygrove will always be responsible and a part of what I do because they’re such great singers and we had such a blend together and we know each other so well. So they’re on my record. And we got nine songs by them that’s laying in the can that we never finished.

Hollygrove got quite an interesting story. The dude who started it with me, Sullivan Wallace, had two strokes in January. Now he’s coming back from that.

And Hollygrove is on the Rewards record too. Next it’ll be time to finish up those tracks in the can.

Well, we’re hoping to get some interest on it and everything. If not, we’ll just take our little money and do it a little bit at a time. But I think they going to be a little interested after we finish these nine songs. We hoping because it’s just too much good singing going to waste if we don’t. So I think we’ll finish these nine songs and people will love that too.

When did you start the Rewards?

About 1987. It was just me and Michael Ward at Benny’s on Wednesdays and Thursdays. The Neville Brothers took off so that left the Sunday night open for the Rewards. So it was every Sunday.

It’s cool that you also got Roger Lewis from Dirty Dozen Brass Band to play sax on ‘Baker’s Dozen’ and ‘Hit the Wall.’ Now who’s Theresa Anderssen?

She was married to Anders Osborne. (Call waiting interrupts). That was Glen Gaines, the manager of Wild Magnolias and Marva Wright. She’s our resident blues queen. Our Aretha Franklin. She really puts down some great blues with the BMWs. Marva wants me to do a duet with her on her new record. She’s covering ‘Written All Over Your Face’ by the Rude Boys, and me and her are going to do a duet on it. It feels good to be the Houseman right now, bro. Lord, I been here so long underground, helping everybody. And now everybody’s like, ‘Man, come on. We want you on this and we want you to do that.’

So Theresa Andersson was married to Anders Osborne. She’s classically trained in violin and voice. And she’s sexy as a son of a bitch.

Every year the Jazz Fest has a contest for the last few local bands they need. The people out there are judging it and they put the first two bands on Jazz Fest. That’s what we used to do. Rewards was an outlaw band because Mike was very in-your-face. So we used to get a lot of backlash. Hence, we were in this contest. So we met Anders and Theresa. They wound up winning and going on to Jazz Fest. And I fell in love with Anders’ music. They always compare him to Little Feat because he has that funky, swampy sound. And he writes these conscience lyrics.

They were on Sony 550. They split about a year or two ago, but I kept in touch with Theresa. So when we were writing ‘Vilified,’ I was thinking of a way we could work together. She’s going to be on my record on a song called ‘If That’s What It Takes.’ I’m going to do it acoustically with her on violin and harmony vocal. Theresa’s somebody to watch in the future because she has many great original songs and she’s a great singer and a very proficient on violin and fiddle. She knows a lot about American music. And she’s just very tasty and very sexy. Be on the lookout for her.

Have you ever played Jazz Fest?

Oh yeah, a bunch of times. Now Galactic is annual. They’re starting to put Galactic in the advertisement.

Being a New Orleans native, does all this success ever feel weird being in a band made up mainly of guys who aren’t originally from New Orleans?

Yeah it does.

Is there any resentment from New Orleans musicians?

Well, we’re getting a little backlash because of all the popularity and everybody talking about what a great band Galactic is, and here, they’re just neophytes. It’s kind of funny to look at it because everybody sees me as the old, grizzled veteran who’s never going to be nothing but New Orleans. It’s kind of interesting. People aren’t resentful, but Galactic is still neophytes. Everybody here takes so long and then finally, they’ll bloom. And it looked like Galactic came from college, frat boys, and just blew up overnight. But that’s the greatness of what was happening. That’s how I think we kind of changed what was happening in New Orleans ‘cause we did a different kind of business. By Robert and Jeff being from D.C., they did a different kind of business. And that’s all New Orleans was lacking was marketing and being incorporated in a commercial way where the people could stomach it. I think that’s where we’ve been most successful in bringing New Orleans music to the world.

So on that level, New Orleans musicians are appreciative that they opened the door?

Right.

But do they feel that they should have opened the door first?

Right. They feel appreciative and resentful, I think, because they’ve been around a long time and here’s these young, upstart cats that’s comin’ along. Who are they? But they’re very appreciative of the exposure and the eyes that Galactic has put on New Orleans. They’re very appreciative of that.

Galactic shares a lot of influences with New Orleans funk, like James Brown, Booker T & the MGs, a range of jazz and the Mardi Gras Indians. But where the paths diverged was when Galactic hooked up with the jam scene after Medeski, Martin and Wood, Widespread Panic, The String Cheese Incident, Gov’t Mule and Phish got turned onto them. You mentioned you went to Japan and everybody was like, ‘What’s a jam band?’ What’s your take on Galactic’s role in the jam scene?

They define us as one. Being a veteran in the business, I say thank god they’re calling us something. But we’re more than just a jam band, and we know it. It’s just funny for me coming from a controlled group like Hollygrove with choreography to being in Galactic and seeing how every night we get over with these instrumentals and a few vocal songs, and the people just can’t get enough of them. It’s almost spiritual (laughs).

We just basically got together to make some good music and have a fun time. That’s the basis of everything in New Orleans, the fun time. So as long as we can keep it basic and where the people can get to it and have fun, shit, we gonna be rolling, man. We gonna roll because it does a lot for us as humans to get out there and just have a lot of fun together.

We like to have fun together. They was hangin’ with me on my gigs before Galactic even started. We’d a have a bunch of fun. Nobody cardin’ ‘em, nobody foolin’ with ‘em. They’d come hang out when the musicians were on a break, and we’d just laugh. Robert and Jeff, I met them the first night they came to college. They was at my gigs every year. They didn’t start the band till the last year when they was seniors. They had three years of me every Sunday. ‘Houseman!’ I’d be like, ‘Man, these little Tulane guys again.’ But I always did talk to them when they come on the gig. They’d want to know about this and that.

There were so many people coming uptown after The Neville Brothers broke out. It’s kind of funny when The Neville Brothers broke out. We used to call them The Never Brothers. ‘They’ll never make it,’ you know. But it was kind of funny to everybody because all this interest started and everybody wanted to know where Aaron lived. It was kinda nice. It still is nice.

I love the attention New Orleans musicians are getting now because we have so many great cats, man, that been here just as long or longer than The Neville Brothers that are still vibrant and have a fresh voice and something to say. So it’s a good thing, man.

Do you think the jam scene has made the difference for Galactic and, therefore, the rest of New Orleans?

I think it has made the difference in terms of the hippies and the people who follow us. It exposed us to a whole new audience. Then all of a sudden when we opened for Medeski and then Medeski told Phish and Widespread Panic and all them. John Medeski, Chris Wood and Billy Martin, they were instrumental in exposing us to the jam-band crowd. Now Phish plays our record. Widespread Panic took us on tour and jammed with us. John Bell had me up there every night. He loves to sing with me. It’s been a love affair, man. Gov’t Mule and Warren Haynes. String Cheese, we can’t say enough about them. When we went on our first tour, they were like, ‘We love this shit.’ They wrote the song ‘Galactic.’

We just got a love affair going with those guys, but we don’t look at it as jam bands. Musicians just look at the shit as other musicians. The people put the label on it. But we love the so-called jam bands, and the people love us. We love the people.

The main thing about us is we’re out to reach as many people as possible so we’ll take the jam crowd, the hippies. Now we’re going for a more urban-type thing. We want the brothers to come on in. They hear it and see it and like it. We’re just trying to get more exposure across the board. We’ll see who’s who and what’s what.

It kind of rankles the younger cats when you say jam bands, especially Ben Ellman. He hates the title. He doesn’t like labels. They would rather be known as a solid, good band than a jam band. But they’ll take that because we love that genre. If jam means improv, well then, yeah, OK. They love the freedom of playing for the hippies and that crowd that follows jam bands. I guess you could say we stuck with the jam band title ‘cause we got the jam-band people (laughs). We got to do things to keep our fanbase, but we’re just a good, solid band, man. We try to be.

When got together the first meeting, Jeff said, ‘Houseman, we gonna bring you to the world. You should have been exposed to the world. If the world knew about you, you’d be so big, you couldn’t stand it.’ They keepin’ true to their promise. We really have knocked down some barriers, but we’ve got a lot more to do. I think our best shit is going to be our next record. We have begun to write a bunch of great songs already that are really slammin’. I think the best is yet to come from Galactic.

They’re neophytes and when I’m with them, I treat myself as a neophyte too. For the young babes, I just say, ‘Yeah, I’m a neophyte too.’ It’s easier to take that way. It don’t run you as crazy that way, a spoonful at a time.

Pages:« Previous Page