In terms of Improvisation, how has your approach changed through the various musical genres you’ve explored with each of the different bands?

Andrew: That’s a good question because I feel like there’s become this new phase of recording improvisation that we’ve all entered in having home studios. And a lot the things that really surprise you and shock you about yourself come from ways of combining different sounds and distortions and a lot of improvising of sounds. Sometimes I’ll play some of the simplest drumming I’ve ever done and then throw it through some super-duper distortion machine and all of a sudden there’s a whole new sound out there to kind of play with and then maybe I’ll rerecord the song with that in mind. The difference, to me, is in terms of recording and I think a lot of what that has to do with is sounds that we’re working with.

But in terms of actually just improvising, The Slip used to improvise sometimes for 45 minutes during a show and we would really span for the outer limits, and then, it depends, but you might forget what song you’re playing. As The Slip, that was 16 years of three of us playing together, we focused more a lot more on finding nice arrangements and song forms that we ourselves are writing and finding little places to open them up. These days, it’s funny, it’s like I can play an entire song and feel like I’m improvising even if it’s a part I’ve played a dozen times. It’s more the simple little nuances that seem like improvisation and less of creating a composition and hoping that it feels good and sounds good. These days the improvisation comes in the simplicity and the inertia of how you play songs you’ve written.

Brad: Yeah as Andrew talked about there, I was thinking how for me, a lot of it’s come down to being concise. Maybe some of the solos that I take these days are not as epic and as long as some of the solos I used to take with The Slip, and those long improvs, either group improvisations or individual style improvisations…it’s a beautiful thing that we have these epic journeys. And sometimes they turn out great and sometimes you land on your face and wouldn’t always get going. You know, the nice thing about improvising like that it feels like it calls upon every part of you—mentally and physically—to move like that. That’s why jazz is such an inspiring thing is because someone like John Coltrane has to constantly be in a way of practice—physically keeping his chops up and mentally where he can do a lot to open himself up to a lot of that stuff. And that inspired us a lot back then.

Lately I’ve been into the more concise kind of improvisation where you can arrive at a melody quickly, do something that charms you and makes you feel good in a shorter span of time. That will probably be one of the biggest changes in improvisation for us. But, that said, I’m really excited.

I think that everything informs itself. I think those really long form improvisations really helped us as songwriters and being able to get to the point quicker. And I think that the same thing happens when you spend a while working in a concise art form, it really informs your sensibilities when it comes to longer form improvisations. At least that’s my theory.

In the sense of the way you’ve evolved as musicians, I see a parallel to an artist like Miles Davis—who never stopped evolving—in the way that you’ve gone from one style to another without looking back. Can you talk about what inspires you to constantly evolve in this way?

Andrew: I think it’s just the thing that makes the most sense when you’re coming from the heart—to do what you want to do. And we’ve been really lucky that we’ve had an audience that’s been there and interested in what we want to think. I think what any of us has learned, whether it’s from Paul Simon or Miles Davis—these people that have constantly surprised themselves and surprised their audience. So it’s been a path laid down before by artists who have shown us to follow the gap and there will be a body of work in the end that makes sense and people, hopefully, will go along with it.

Brad: I don’t know if it’s the same as it was for Miles Davis and Paul Simon but I feel like I’m always writing better songs than I did in 2001. I feel like that part of me—the songwriting and the singing—is one thing that’s really improved, as far as I feel. That’s a matter of opinion. I just enjoy singing the more recent things that I write. Hopefully someday there will be, like Andrew said, a body of work that can be drawn from. But, you know, singing “Honey Melon” [on] From the Gecko doesn’t interest me at this point because, I just didn’t know as much then as I do know as far as using my voice and writing lyrics. I feel like I’ve improved since then. But you never know, sometimes you get drunk enough and it just might pop out. If somebody buys enough shots for the band it could happen.

So would you say it’s a matter of musical maturity in a sense?

Andrew: Yeah. Definitely. It ages and it blossoms— I’m not going to say it’s any better or any worse—and I’ve noticed that my eyebrows are less clinched when I’m playing drums, which makes me really happy in 2010.

Do you still rely heavily on your jazz background or was that more a part of your early songwriting?

Brad: We were using the jazz concepts to learn and understand our instruments. There’s that stage in life between 17 and 25 when you’re learning and absorbing and you’re imitating and assimilating at the same time. And then we’ve gotten older and we’ve sort of learned to find where our contribution is. And I still would like to think that that spirit, you know, when you were very cut loose on a theorem and suddenly there’s no ceiling there and you see the roof and you see the skies and you see the cosmos and you see how far you can go, that that spirit is there. That’s the freedom that we all got into this to feel. That’s what we want. As much as things have changed for us in the evolution and the song styles have changed and the writing styles, in my mind, there’s a time and a place for everything. There’s a time and a place for a really sweet song to be delivered without any solo and there’s nothing but that song and the feeling and the tenderness, and then times for the roof to get blown off and you send yourself and your listeners on a huge journey that can engulfs everything that you’ve come to learn. It’s just knowing what to do and what context to do that in.

Brad, on your website you mention that you met Trey in ’92 at guitar camp and he instructed you to “turn left.” Can you talk about that experience and the effect, if any, that it had on you?

Brad: I remember the moment. I remember it was me and Eric Krasno sitting backstage and we were asking [Trey] all these questions and I remember him saying that but I can’t remember what it was in reference to. I remember asking him about the whole concept of being in a band and what you’re supposed to do. You know, you want your band to get big but you want to retain your sense of individuality and integrity. I think his answer was something like “Always pretend you’re just playing in your garage. Always keep that in mind. Don’t start writing like your some big rock band.” It’s pretty obvious now, but that was what I remember the most. And I guess it turned up to.

Yeah, I guess you could say that lesson stuck with you.

Brad: Yeah, Andrew and I are still playing music the same way we played in our basement. I guess Phish, back then, if they did anything for me it was that group dynamic. I know that kind of came and went for them, and some stuff was more spread out than other stuff, but overall they really have a good dynamic and that’s the thing, to always play with people who you like. Find out who you like, and see if you can play with them. And that should be one of the bigger lessons you learn when you’re playing with people because when you get older that’s what you do. That’s how you make a living—playing with people.

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