Live electronica, in general, is a newer scene in music. What are your thoughts about the live electronica scene as it fits into the bigger picture of music today?
The scene’s great. In general, it seems like the younger audience is finding their own voice and style of music that they can rage too, and feel like it’s from their generation. You can tell by the way people are going to check out Phish, and the number of people turned on to String Cheese, that people still want that, they still crave that. But if someone comes through town, and it’s a night of electronic music, or the DJ’s not in town, but this is going on, then they’re going to get down to this just as hard, and they’re going to check it out. Some of the older fans of the jam scene might not like the fact that there’s a computer anywhere near the stage (laughs), but it seems the younger generation has fully embraced the DJ culture in the jam scene, and will still, as long as it’s live music. But even if it’s just a straight up DJ, they’re into both; they’re flexible enough in their taste to want both. That’s definitely made it healthy.
Now it gets to another point when you’re talking about a lot of the bands in the electronic scene. Either they have a ton load of songs, or they’re doing similar sets night after night, and I think that’s the part where we branch of from that, in that we’re trying to have the same impact of some song that you’ve known for a long time, but with the sensibility that we’re jumping off a cliff every night. There’s still that sort of adventure that we keep in our music, that we think sort of separates us from everything else that’s going on.
What do you feel are your personal favorite, or least favorite aspects of this type of music?
Well I think in most music in general, and I would say particularly in electronic music, as far as songs go, they don’t stay fresh for too long. Take for instance, if you’re playing a Bob Marley song, those songs are pretty timeless: It’s just “wow,” anyone can still have a good time, it appeals to all generations. In electronic music, the window of appeal for its freshness hangs out for maybe a year or two (laughs), before a song starts sounding pretty dated, unless you’ve updated it somehow. There bands that definitely defy that: Sound Tribe must defy that, Lotus defies that – as far as being able to play a song you wrote five years ago. But, in general, if you went to see a DJ play, and you heard the same music that you heard them do five years ago, you’re like “Oh wow, this is getting really tired, I’ve got to move on from this particular thing.” But electronic music in general is a little bit more disposable in that way, it relies on it being fresh and updated every couple of years to keep people interested.
How do you feel your role in String Cheese helped shape what you’re doing right now in EOTO?
I think more the String Cheese influence comes into play, first of all, in the vibe: That vibe that anyone can come to the show and have a really good time. If you’re open to it – if you like to dance, and have fun – we’re not really getting too much deeper then having a good time for a bunch of hours in a nighttime. Those overall positive vibes, and including everyone into it – you don’t just have to be into crunk, you don’t just have to be a Burning Man person, or a hippie to enjoy what’s going on. Anyone can come out and have a really good time. That might be the greatest String Cheese influence: Just creating a great, fun place for everyone to go to.
As far as jamming goes, I think just that in String Cheese we’d play for a bunch of hours every time we did play; that makes us want to create that sort of thing in EOTO as well. When you come to see us, you’re not just going to see us do one set, your going to see us do two full sets of a lot of music. Sort of your money’s worth; (laughs) we’re up for playing all night long! That’s part of it, and it definitely influences what we’re trying to do on a nightly basis. Outside of that, not a whole lot; what we do in EOTO is very different from what String Cheese does.
How does being 100% improvised affect your approach to making an album, like Fire The Lazers!!?
It’s still a similar approach, as far as making things up on the spot. We don’t have the pressure of the audience, of looking to see whether people are dancing or not, whether they’re digging it or not, or that we need to change up what we’re doing in a hurry. That’s a good thing live, we like that live, to feel that (pressure). The way we try to put that on ourselves in the studio, is we listen to a bunch of tracks, and we find a track that we really like and want to use as a take off point for launching an idea of what sort of style we’re going to go for. Then we try pretty hard to match that vibe, and listen back to it, and “are we catching it or not?” Then we’ll jam on it, we’ll do our improvisational way for about 10 minutes. We’ll cut out maybe the best 5 minutes of that, and that’ll become the song.
So we do things a little bit different in the studio: We do a little more listening on the spot, and we’re not trying to do all the songs at one time. It’s kind of like we listen a lot, and try to get a bunch of sounds that match the style that we like. Then we play over it for 10-15 minutes, and try to get the best out of those minutes that comes out, and that becomes the song.
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