Have any of the songs you’ve written for films found their way into any of your live shows?

Greyboy Allstars occasionally performs some stuff that we played for the Zero Effect soundtrack that we did. It was the first movie we did, years ago. But most of the music we did is not exactly applicable. It was either too short of pieces or without the film they work in a different way. But the whole idea of really thinking about the sonics of a piece and stuff like that has found its way into my style of composing for sure.

So let’s talk about the Greyboy Allstars for a second. The band played a couple of shows last year—Gathering of the Vibes and Jazz Fest for instance. Is there any chance we’ll get a full tour sometime in the future?

Yeah, it’s supposed to be in the spring. We have an album coming out April 2. We’ve been working on it for a couple years now—that’s a longer process. Although we still kind of cut the tracks the same way as I like to do. Everything’s done the same day you start it pretty much. (Laughs) But we recorded a whole lot of songs. We did, I don’t know how many, but way too many for an album. Then it was just the process of listening to the music over a period of time. We’d go in and do like three days at a time. So we would do a few tunes and then wait a couple months until everyone was available and then we’d do a few tunes more until we had this whole giant mess of songs. Then we tried to fit them together in some way that made sense, and we were experimenting a lot, so the music is pretty varied. We whittled it down to an album, but there’s all these outtakes that we’re hoping to release maybe even before the album. Like one at a time and just put them out on the internet, so all the outtakes are available to people too because they’re all interesting even though they all didn’t work together as an album.

Between Greyboy, 20th Congress, the film work, Stanton Moore Trio—you’ve got a lot of things going on. Is it hard to juggle so many projects at once?

I like it. It keeps me excited about music. I remember there was a period in Greyboy Allstars, and also 20th Congress, when we were just touring so much. It’s not that you’re not enjoying the shows, but you definitely lose a little of the romance about the music because it’s really a job and you’re doing the same thing everyday with the same people. I think it’s healthier, at least for a person that can be this interested in a lot of different kinds of music. I love playing with a lot of different players—it’s nice to be able to switch up projects so that whenever you’re playing in each one you’re really excited to be there. You’re glad to see the people again, and you’re inspired. They have new stories to tell you, musically and otherwise. When you hear someone play and they’re surprising you, that’s the thing I’m looking for.

You moved down to New Orleans in 2004. I’m a native of the city myself. What was it about New Orleans that drew you there?

I was always a fan of the music, and sort of one of my most profound moments—I played piano and I was really into Professor Longhair, James Booker and Dr. John—and my grandparents bought me a trip to New Orleans for my high school graduation present. So I went to the Maple Leaf, and they have that little piano sitting on the side, and during the set break someone encouraged me to go up and play. I got all this applause and I was playing piano at the Maple Leaf in New Orleans and it kind of solidified my choice to become a musician. So that was always a real formative experience for me. For years after I loved going there and I made friends with a lot of musicians from there and it was always my dream to actually go there and do a little sort of study. I always called that my grad school, my time in New Orleans. I learned a lot about playing music from being with those musicians and being in that environment where you play with different people every night. There’s all kinds of different music, and it was just a real intensive period of learning for me.

That’s interesting because I know you did that album with Johnny Vidacovich and James Singleton [Super Heavy Organ], and I’ve seen them play at the Maple Leaf god knows how many times.

The reason I wanted to play with them is that they had been James Booker’s rhythm section at the end right before he died. They were always a legendary rhythm section for that reason—for me—and Johnny had played with Professor Longhair too. I couldn’t believe I got to play with those guys. And after being in New Orleans for a month I was on a gig with them. It’s so easy to meet good musicians down there.

You moved to New Orleans in 2004, which was right before Katrina. I guess you must have really loved it if you stuck around through all of that.

It’s interesting. I’m really glad I got to live there for a little while before the storm, but I also feel sort of thankful that I got to see that time in history. To see how the city changed and what are sort of the essential things in that culture; the things that sort of survived throughout that difficult time. It’s really an amazing thing to me. The first thing to come back was music and everything was still closed and they were having gigs. There were street fights at night and everything, and the Maple Leaf had live music like right after the storm. I wasn’t there; I was out of the city for a month before I came back. Especially that year right after, there was something, I don’t know, there was something profound about the way people responded to the music. It meant a lot to them that that was not lost. For the people that did stick around and did come back to the city, there was definitely a shared kinship around that.

Joe Russo, who now is playing drums for Furthur, among other things, used to play with the 20th Congress back in the day. Have you ever seen him play with Furthur?

I have not. I heard them on the radio and I thought it was a 70’s show or something. You know I’ve never been the world’s biggest Deadhead, but I grew up with that band because my parents were super into the Grateful Dead. I remember hearing those records and shows when I was really small, so I’m familiar with all the music. I was like “Wow! They sound really good this night.” And then the announcer came on and was like “This is Furthur with Joe Russo” and I was amazed. It sounded great but I still haven’t seen a show yet. I was out of town the last time they came to Los Angeles, so I couldn’t go. I recently had Joe come out and play. I did this series of residencies here in L.A. with different musicians each week and Joe did one with me as a duo, which was great.

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