Speaking of the Woodstock community, what is it like to live there with all the history and the musical community and things like that? How long have you lived up there, and how has that affected your career and your writing?
For five years. Well, I have a whole new group of friends now. I’m close with Amy Helm, and even John Medeski I see every once in a while. I’ve played with him at Levon’s Barn a couple times. There’s a bunch of studios up there. There’s Levon’s Barn, there’s Applehead Recording, there’s Dreamland, there’s Isokon, and even Old Soul up in Catskills. So there’s a ton of musicians up there who collect gear and do gigs and record a lot. I’ve recorded on so many peoples’ records since I’ve moved out there. I recorded on Carl Newman’s record, from The New Pornographers. That was one of the first projects I did when I moved out there. He came over and we did three days of keyboard overdubs in my room. My friend calls my room “Keyboard Kingdom.” It’s like a 20 foot long by 16 feet wide little house, just stacked with keyboards.
How many do you think you have?
Like 30 or more. So I did the whole record in my studio. That was the first time I’ve actually followed through with that. I basically wrote all the structure of the song—like recorded the drum machine part, the synth part, the vocal part—and then I’d do a mock bass part and a mock drum part, then have Dave [Dreiwitz] and Andy [Borger] come up and rerecord my parts, casually. They’d come up for dinner. We’d eat, we’d put the kids to bed and then we’d record from nine at night to like two in the morning and really hone in on the parts.
Speaking of that trio, the lineup changed a bit more in the earlier days, but it’s been pretty solidified the past few years. How do you think that changes the process? Is it more comfortable with those guys?
Yeah. Those guys—if Dave has a musical idea for the bass part, he’ll just intuitively do it. And I’ll think to myself. “Oh. Well he’s doing that, maybe we should do this. ” Or if Andy does a fill or certain drum thing, I’ll think, “Oh whoa, that was a good idea. Let’s do that.” I’m definitely into collaborating with them, but for the most part I have this whole vision of how it should go anyway. And they’re very good being like, “Dude, we wanna help you with your vision. What do you want?” It’s really great. And yeah, we’ve spent so much time together in the van touring and playing that it’s just a comfort zone for sure, and I know that they’re going to do a great job playing their instruments. I’m going to get out of them what I want. So yeah, it does help.
So obviously Dave is doing the Ween thing now, and you have Karina Rykman coming in on bass.
I’m excited about Karina. Dave felt bad because Ween came through on these dates and that he was missing the gigs that he told me he could do. Well of course I’m like, “Dude, Dave, what? You’re in Ween. I understand.” And he insisted that Karina be on the gig. She came highly recommended. Dave kept on asking, “Did you call Karina yet?”
I love Dave. I gotta say, he is one of the best guys to be on the road with. He’s an encyclopedia of musical knowledge. He’s also really easygoing, and he knows so many songs. So, in a night, if I just decide to start playing some Beatles song, he’ll know it. Without even flinching, he’ll know all the changes. He’s a pro. I love touring with that guy. Same with Andy. They’re not going to stop playing music ever. They’re going to play music forever. And they know sometimes venues don’t have green rooms and sometimes the hotel is kind of far away. They know the rigmarole of touring and how kind of horrible it can be, and they know how to just roll with it.
Let’s talk a bit about the David Bowie tribute you’re doing at Mountain Jam, with Superhuman Happiness. How did that come about? And I’ve heard that you met David Bowie one time?
Well, he gave me my diploma. We shook hands. Smiled. I got a picture of it in my parent’s living room with my regalia on. That was it. I could have had lunch with him because my FedEx guy Vinnie knows him—probably because he’s a FedEx guy. He’s probably delivered packages to him and gotten to know him. He’s into all sorts of music. He’s like, “Hey man, I’m going to Ozzfest this weekend.” I gave him my CD, and he really liked it. So we would always just chat over the years. I think David Bowie came up because I was doing the Hunky Dory thing—we played the whole record at the Knitting Factory last summer, and I probably mentioned that to him. So he was like, “Hey man you wanna go to lunch this weekend?” I’m like, “Aw man, I’m on tour. Thanks.” I thought that was kind of funny—I was like, “Oh now my FedEx guy is asking me to go to lunch?” And he’s like, “Yeah. I’m having lunch with David Bowie.” And I was like, “What? Wait a minute I think I’m free.” I had the opportunity to go to lunch with him, but I was on tour, which is kind of a bummer.
That’s pretty amazing that your opportunity to have lunch with David Bowie was with your FedEx guy.
Then the funny thing is, when I got home from tour, I was like, “Man how was that?” He’s like, “Oh, he’s not looking so good man. He doesn’t look so hot, but do you know who else I ran into? Bruce Springsteen!” I was like, “What? You were hanging out with Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie?” He’s like, “Yeah!” There’s like a big horse show up in Saugerties called HITS.
Bruce is into horses?
I guess. Maybe his daughter has one—it’s like that sort of thing. [Jessica Springsteen is a show jumping champion, in fact] Maybe Bowie’s daughter has a horse, too. Anyway, I just thought, “Wow. I missed that epic day of hanging out with some inspiring musicians.”
That would have been a crazy story. Anyway, so how did this tribute come together?
Well, living up in Woodstock, there’s of course a bunch of musicians I’ve met—and studios—but I’ve also met the guys who are on the radio station, the guys who run Mountain Jam, these people in the business. And Gary [Chetkof], this guy who runs Mountain Jam, he calls me up and he’s like, “I wanna get you involved in Mountain Jam, but maybe do something different than last year. Can we do some-thing a little special, a little different?” And I said to him, “Well I did Hunky Dory with Superhuman Happiness at the Knitting Factory. Maybe we do a Bowie thing at Mountain Jam.” And before I knew it, it was confirmed and we had a name for it and everything.
I mean, he’s such an inspiring songwriter and artist, Bowie, so I love doing it. Ideally, I’d like to be doing my own thing all the time. It’s kind of funny how so many people want the Grateful Dead thing or the Bowie thing or The Band, the Dr. John thing or the Booker thing. Honestly, as a musician, it’s great to learn all that stuff and to learn the secrets—like why that song was such a hit—learn the subtle arrangements to each songs. But in the end, it’s more work to do other people’s music, because you have to learn all their stuff, then you have to present it in the way that they would, and you don’t want it to be bad. So you really practice it, and that takes you away from what you’re doing on your own as an artist. There’s a bit of a push and pull—I like it, but I also wish people would stop calling me to do other people’s music. I’m like, “Dude, I wanna learn how to write my own music, too.” But it’s very fun for a festival or a certain thing. It’s cool to throw something different at the audience.
Do you feel the same way about Joe Russo’s Almost Dead?
Yeah. It’s super fun, and I’m playing with my dudes, but, in the end, the satisfaction level sort of caps at a certain point. I mean, it’s fun, and the jamming and improvisation is where you get to put your own spin on things, but for the most part, it’s like, [sings] “Come, hear Uncle John’s band.” And you’re like, “Right. We’re playing someone else’s music.” It’s fun, but, artistically, it’s not where it is.
Do you think playing other people’s music professionally—getting deeper into those songs—influences your own playing or your own writing?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, after learning a bunch of Dead tunes and Bowie tunes, I wouldn’t then go to my studio and write a song that sounds like the Dead or sounds like Bowie, but like I said earlier, you can kind of get into the formula. What is it about the song “Heroes”? What is that subtle change in that song that Bowie did to make that interesting? Or “Here Comes Sunshine” by the Grateful Dead. Why is that song so good? So when you learn it, you realize, arrangement-wise, it does a certain thing—the intro, the little subtle changes, when the bass drops out. You don’t realize that until you learn it yourself—like there’s a bridge to that song and it does this thing, and then the whole band drops out and it’s just guitar, then the second verse comes in and it’s in a different key. And you didn’t realize that when you first listen to it, but when you learn it you’re like, “Oh wow. There’s all these subtle changes in here that I missed.” And I think that’s the biggest thing you get back for your own music. You realize that there’s all these subtle things that you can do to make it interesting, without doing too much.
Is it similar to that when you sit in on other people? It’s still playing other people’s music, but it’s not a cover band or something like that. And you’ve always sat in with a lot of people—including with The Arcs in April.
But sitting in with The Arcs versus sitting in with moe. or something—not quite the same thing. moe. would maybe want me to be a freak and do the crazy piano thing and really jam in there with them, but with the Arcs, they want me to play a certain organ part at a certain time and do all the parts right. Maybe there’s a little room, like one song with an extended organ solo, so there might be a moment to do certain things like that. Generally, if I sit in or play with people, or even record with people, they’re like, “Dude, just do your thing. Do what you want to do. Do that thing you’re hearing. Play that sound that you want to use.” It’s really great to hear that from someone—“Just do the Marco thing.” So I like that I get hired as me, instead of as a keyboard player, which is nice.
Do you generally find that it’s easy for you to kind of wind your way into bands like moe. who bring you in and say, “Do whatever you want”?
Yeah, I find it very easy. Especially when they’re looking at me smiling. Like, “We want you to come up and play with us.” It almost seems like you can’t do anything wrong, just come up. But again, with The Arcs, I don’t really know those guys. I know Richard [Swift] because I did an album with him. I got a text from Richard that was like, “Dan [Auerbach] and I think you’re the only guy. Besides myself, you’re the other guy that I can trust covering these parts.” They know that I can handle the job and do it without it being stressful or whatever.
Have you played with them yet?
In a month or so we’re gonna do a rehearsal. I’m basically gonna be on a gig with Leon [Michels] and rehearse with Leon and the band, and then Leon’s gonna do the gig and I’m going to be there. Then Leon’s gonna fly home, and I’m gonna do New Orleans, Austin, and Memphis with them. So it’ll be good to do a rehearsal with their keyboard player and see what he does. They gave me a bunch of live shows I’ve been checking out. The thing about The Arcs, or a band like that, is that you have to do the right thing at the right time. There’s a specific place. Whereas, say, the music of the Grateful Dead, like JRAD, we had another bass player fill in for Dave, because Dave had to do the Ween gigs. So we had John Shaw, and I was like, “Man you’re doing a great job.” He’s like, “Well, you know, when you think about all this stuff, Phil [Lesh] never really plays on the one or the root so if I’m a little confused where the change is, I can just sort of lay out and then figure out where it is. It’s not that bad.”
With the Arcs, or a band like that, you have to play the note on the one. Otherwise, you don’t know the song, you didn’t learn your part. It’s more challenging to do something more arranged and more subtle, like the Arcs, than do a Grateful Dead thing. Even though there’s tons more chords and the songs are 20 minutes long versus three and a half minutes long, there’s almost something harder about doing this finesse game, to do the right thing at the right time. I listen to this stuff, and I’m like, “Yeah I know it.” And then I start playing along with it, and I’m like, “Oh whoops, I need to know when this organ part comes in.” It’s a good challenge.
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