Who are working with right now?

EK: The London Souls are the next thing that I’m doing.

Their second album?

EK: Yes, yes. And obviously Nigel’s record is finally getting close to done. And I’ve also been working with Alecia Chakour, her new album is coming out. A few things are still in the works.

Your third big live project is your KRAZ DJ sets. You have been performing under that alias more and more these days. How did you go from being a guitarist to a DJ?

EK: It started with the Fyre Department production thing, which is me and Adam. We had so many beats, and he started going in the Break Science direction. I was like, “what about all the hip-hop, funk and break-beat stuff?” because Break Science is more electronic. I always have my laptop—I’m always making beats and doing remixes of stuff, and my brother was like, “You got to start playing this live.” There’s no reason for me to promote them, they’re just for fun, but I used to sell a lot of beats. I’m still into that, I do beats for rappers, but now it’s turning into more mash-ups of classics and also these DJ sets gave me a chance to play a lot of my favorite music. I’m not really like a Pretty Lights or whatever where I play my own beats all night. I’ll just play a bunch of my favorite records and remix them, and then do a bunch of my exclusive beats. I kind of go in and out of stuff you might recognize and stuff you might not, and then some of our own remixes. I like to throw in a .45 that no one has heard, a total rare thing. The main thing is that it’s funky. If I play a hip-hop record, I’ll hint at the originals so you can hear where it comes from.

You’re definitely probably the only person who played the first Bonnaroo as a guitarist and the tenth one as a DJ.

EK: That’s funny, that’s funny. And I’m a huge fan of Ableton and all that. I’m really into the electronic thing, it’s just that like, I guess that my thing is I like the music to be organic, kind of use some of the technology to enhance certain things. The cool thing I can do with Ableton is that I can literally take a James Brown beat and put Marvin Gaye over it, or I can take one of our beats and mix it with a Jay-Z a cappella. The new technology is amazing with all that stuff. I’m not really a turntablist, I’m more like a mixologist.

From your perspective, is there a point where you think the jamband scene has accepted all that music?

EK: I’ve always been a huge fan of hip-hop, I think that people in our scene want to be able to believe in the message. And that’s how I am too—I love hip-hop but I’m also really into lyrics. I love so many MCs out there but I think commercial hip-hop went in the direction where I can’t really vouch for what they’re saying. [Laughter.]

I’m not saying I don’t respect them, it’s just not my thing. I think what’s happening now is that people are taking the musical elements of it—Skrillex or any of those guys will play in front of thousands of people, and it’s not people who care about his lyrics at all, it’s really just about the music. And it’s beyond hip-hop now because I think hip-hop now is more about the culture. People are taking the break-beats that were in it and are making this whole other thing. It’s a mixture of hip-hop, it’s electronic, it’s dubstep. To be honest, it’s so hard for me to keep up with the current name of what something is. To me, it’s either created on a laptop or by a band. Either way if it’s soulful and interesting, I’m going to enjoy it. I’m pretty open minded to everything.

But it’s been really interesting doing that because I get to meet a lot of other people and see how they DJ. I didn’t study someone else doing it, I just kind of went into it ‘cause I’m always making beats and doing all that other stuff. I was like “oh, I could do these mashups and start playing it out.” And then since I started doing it I started looking into how other guys do their sets. It’s interesting, people spend a lot of time putting it together, it’s really in-depth stuff. It’s not easy. There’s a very big difference between the guys that are amazing and the guys that just do it. But I definitely put time into it. I’m also into the selection and what goes into what and reading the crowd, seeing what they like to hear.

Speaking of mixing crowds, your Bowlive shows are coming up at Brooklyn Bowl in March. At this point, how involved are the three of you in choosing the bands who actually play the run of shows?

EK: Oh very, very. It’s pretty much us doing it. I’m normally the one reaching out to the people. We talk about who we want to get and I reach out initially before management discusses how it’s going to happen and the logistics and all that. Again, it’s another thing where, eventually, I want to be able to not only have artists with us that will draw in people, but also bring in artists that people haven’t heard of. Last year we brought in Van Hunt, a lot of people haven’t heard him and got turned onto him. He’s an amazing songwriter, singer and musician. This year we’re going to have this guy named Alan Stone. He’s brand new, he’s amazing. He’s a young singer/songwriter, and I want to do some different kind of weird, out of the box stuff, so I’m reaching out to all these people.

That’s the whole thing about it: on any given night it could be like Pharoahe Monch, and Derek Trucks and Talib [Kweli] There were nights where it would be Rahzel watching Warren Haynes and being like “Yeah!” and I’d be like “Whoah, this is cool.” And I remember watching them totally get down to Derek Trucks. I forgot which night it was, but the same crowd knew every word when Kweli came out for “Get By.” I think the scene here is really open minded. When we did Terminal 5, a lot of people didn’t know who Pharoahe Monch was, and he came out and did this amazing set with singers and a band, and we were realizing that certain artists aren’t the mainstream hip-hop that we hear all the time. There’s a lot of bands out there that don’t really get radio play. So I think these scenes coming together is cool.

I think having ?uestlove at the Bowl helps with that too, he brings his whole posse and they return.

EK: Yeah, that place has become a pretty awesome kind of meeting ground for a lot of music.

Final question, a few years ago you started to play with your solo group, Chapter 2. What is the status of that project and its new studio album?

EK: I plan to record one this year—once Lettuce is done and once I finish producing the other projects. I don’t know when I’m going to do it but definitely this year. Now that we have our new studio set up I’ve been writing a lot. I think it’s going to be more of a vocal record because I’ve been writing a lot of songs, and I’ve already actually recorded some stuff with different people collaborating. So I might do a record where I have a lot of guests helping me out and I’ll be penning the songs but with different singers or guest artists. I’m not sure if that’s going to be the concept yet, but I think that’s where I want to go with it. We make a lot of instrumental albums and I’ve written a lot of songs for other people, but I haven’t been able to put out my own record of my songwriting, so eventually I want to get that out there.

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