Let’s move on to Antibalas for a few minutes. Though Antibalas has done a little touring recently, the band’s focus seems to on other projects, including Fela!

Well, Antibalas has a lot of tracks that we’ve been working on for a long time. We kind of always have them in the works and different situations grow and evolve. If you imagine a garden, it can become overgrown with ideas or it can just kind of become overgrown from neglect but then you can go in and weed it out and see what’s still alive in there. We had that relationship with a handful of situations. We’ve recently finished a 12-inch version of Bob Marley’s “Rat Race” that we’ve been playing for years. We’ve finally committed it to wax and [Antibalas keyboardist] Victor Axelrod produced it. He also did some dub work on it that is fantastic. Also on this 12-inch is a song called “Say Cheeselo” by Marcos Garcia. It’s a fantastic fusion of afro beat and Latin music. Victor is an amazing producer and an amazing musician. He’s definitely one of the most fantastic artists that I’ve ever worked with.

How do you feel the afro beat music in Fela! relates to the afro beat music Antibalas has explored for the past decade or so?

I would say that the musical come from the same foundation as Antibalas but it is a different approach. It is a theatrical approach, which is totally different from Antibalas where were are a bunch of psych dudes on stage rocking out to their favorite rhythms. The musical is not that. It draws on that and it uses some of that energy, but I’d say it’s a different thing. In practice it’s a completely different experience and Antibalas concerts are, by and large, really exhilarating and refreshing and full of possibilities—where as in a theatrical situation the musicians play a much smaller and more defined role. I’m fortunate enough that I get to improvise all my solos all night in the musical while the actor mimes his solos. I’m lucky in that way in that I get to try to make something new and exciting every night.

There’s only 3 guys from Antibalas that are in the show right now, but as it evolved from the first model of the play, Antibalas was a critical component of the construction of the musical. It was never a situation where someone said, “We need musicians. Let’s hire a guy to hire musicians.” At least musically, Fela! started as the framework of Antibalas. I think that gave it so much of its power and its energy.

Besides the musical and Antibalas, your other primary focus is Superhuman Happiness. Do you plan to work on another recording with that project?

I play with Human Happiness regularly. We play a couple times a week—we rehearse and perform. Right now we’re doing a series of clapping exercises. They’re kind of studies on real, basic rhythms and then we’re composing collectively around them.
We clap, we sing our part, we try all these different improv games that I learned from studying theater a few years ago. It’s fantastic. We try all kinds of new things. We say, “Okay, we’re gonna do this song in a totally different way now” and we surprise ourselves. We always scratch our heads and say, “Man, that would be good on a record.”

We don’t know what to do with all our excitement in a way. Our plan is to record a full-length in January. I’m talking to a couple of different producers who have done some very significant work, and I’m gonna see if they want to do me a favor and work with us. Otherwise, we’ll produce it ourselves. I’ve been busy producing a bunch of other things with a few different artists. Me and a member of Antibalas named Luke O’Malley started a production company and we’re starting to work with different artists.

Your credits are all over the map.

So the question at the end of all that is: What does it create as a result? Super Human Happiness is supposed to be the funnel of all the beautiful things that I’ve encountered from working with everyone from TV on the Radio to Celebration to Antibalas, as well my young love for Fugazi, punk bands and Chicago house music. I want to include anything that strikes my fancy—not in a literal way, so it’s not going to be a musical radio station, but in a way that you feel. There’s a lot of exciting music out there right now that seems like it has successfully fused a lot of different forms.

Speaking of connections, can you talk a little about your connection to TV on the Radio?

Yeah. [Antibalas] co-founder Martin Perna, Gabe Roth of Daptone records and TV on the Radio singer Tunde Adebimpe all lived at the same apartment years ago in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Then everyone grew in these different directions, but we all share a lot of roots. I played on TV on the Radio’s albums and toured with them when they needed a horn section. We also share a lot of roots with Budos Band and, of course, the Dap Kings.
Every time we do a recording session the roots go deeper.

I recently did some work with Iron & Wine and it turns out he liked my song [from 2004’s Who Is This America? ] “Indictment” and loved the first TV on the Radio record and Martin’s parts on that record. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I’m like, “Ooh, you’re getting a little old.” [laughter] But things are just starting to combine and that’s an amazingly beautiful thing.

Another amazingly beautiful thing that has to do with age and trends in music is that popular music is starting to draw a lot on the music of my youth in the early ‘80s. Musicians are re-inventing those rhythms and those sounds. You hear LCD Soundsystem and you’re like, “Oh man! That reminds me of The Jesus Lizard or The Cars or Kraftwerk.” All of a sudden I’m 9 years old, dancing around my living room. They reinvent, they recombine. They find that fusion where you don’t know where one begins and the other ends. So this is an exciting time for music for a lot of people in there 30s.

It reminds me of Canada. In 2003 or 2004, we used to go to Canada on these amazing tours. I used to say, “Man, I love Canadians” because they’ll get down with some hip-hop and they’ll get down with some jam stuff and they’ll get down with the Pixies. I wished more Americans were like that, and I wished that they didn’t see music as a badge to put on to distinguish themselves from other people. That seemed ridiculous. It is important not to ascribe it to the whole movement of a social scene. That always ends up bad, every time.

By looking at the festival circuit, it seems people are finally starting to connect the dots.

I wonder how much people actually do connect the dots. I think Phish fans probably do because they’re interested in that but a lot of people are just like, “Okay, next party, next band.” I think that there’s some real potential to meet new audiences just like there’s potential for me to see new music. I mean, I got really open at that Phish show. They’re bonafide rock stars but you wouldn’t know it, you know? They are so nice.

I’ve had guys that I worked with saying Phish introduced me to The Who, they introduced me to Zappa. That’s awesome. I think that Medeski Martin and Wood did the same thing. They introduced people to Duke Ellington, and they’ve introduced people to all kinds of music. Because they consider it part of them, and they’re transparent and they’re not trying to sell you something for the first time. They’re really just trying to embody it and live in it, which I think is a beautiful thing.

Pages:« Previous Page