It sounds like you had two very different experiences in LA and New York.

My experience of New York has been a ton of incredible artists and creatives who also have another source of income. They’re here just to do their art and it’s expensive to live here, so a lot of people need another gig in New York.

In LA, for whatever reason, I know, exclusively, full-time musicians. I think there’s a little more opportunity to make a living playing an instrument in LA. There’s a culture of music production and industry that seems more intense there than in New York. However, that thing can come of the expense of artistic pursuit.

The cool thing about LA to me is that I’m seeing a lot of people who are professional musicians starting creative music projects and a lot of people from New York move to LA and bring that attitude along. It’s easy to get around the east side of LA where a lot of us musicians live. There’s a ton of collaborating, more space. I finally have a place where I can have my drums and guitars set up, and I can go up and write music in my attic and have a rehearsal up there. People are down to come over and the Cali vibe is very relaxed which is good for me, I’m a high energy guy.

At the end of the day, I love New York. I’m from here. There are things here that you just don’t get in LA, it’s a more sleepy sort of place in general. You can spend your day really kicking ass on your music thing.

It’s just all about wherever your community is. That’s why I stayed in Michigan as long as I did. I was there for seven years after graduating. I had studio access, the players I wanted to play with, I had a space to write. It was cheap. If that place is New York for you, then go to New York.

Were you a session writer in LA?

I was trying to be a session writer. I had been called in to collaborate with a friend of mine, Darren Criss, who was an actor on the show Glee. He’s super famous, we went to college together. I can trace my entire music career to two streets in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Darren at the time was on Glee and had a contract with Columbia to do an album, and he’s an incredible songwriter. But he wanted my writing and production input on his records so I started working with him on it. We spent almost two years on it, and ultimately the record never came out which was a product of a billion things having to do with music industry politics and him being super busy with the show. It didn’t end up being the right fit for either of us. We’re still really close friends but the record never came out and from that, I got some other writing opportunities.

But mostly, I never landed anything. I wrote good stuff so I thought I’d rather do my own thing as opposed to potentially having a great song not come out. I thought, “Let’s just make our own songs.” Around the same time I was getting disillusioned with the Hollywood writer ladder, Vulfpeck started to blow up so the thing that was the most accessible is the thing that is carefree with my homies. So, I thought to switch gears.

With this new record coming out, you mentioned it’s been six years, when did you get into the mindset that you wanted to put out your own record?

My first record came in 2011, and almost immediately got calls to write for other people. I was pretty young and inexperienced at the time, I was 26, I wasn’t that young, but I thought to follow that. I looked up to people like Frank Ocean who had been a writer in Hollywood and then had their own record come out. Huge success. The writer/artist model is not an uncommon model.

In 2011 my record came out, 2012 I spent working with Darren, 2013 I get the opportunity to open for him on a national tour of 17 sold out shows. I did all the shows, I started my new record in 2013, got a couple songs done, then my dad died, and I’m super thrown off. My relationship ended and things just fell apart. I took an eight-month break.

During that time I worked with other bands, took a break from music even though I did three tours of Ireland. I had to really get my life together. When I moved to LA in December of 2014, I started writing almost immediately. I was in a great zone. I spent 2015 writing and 2016 recording. And now it’s going to come out in 2017.

I don’t want to be a person that holds onto ideas preciously because that holds me back as an artist; I like to be as prolific as possible. I haven’t been as prolific as I want to be, but I think I will be from now on because I feel that there’s a momentum with the process of writing and releasing music. I am an independent artist so I have been afforded the freedom to do whatever I want.

In a way, the record has some sort of manic dips of style. I’m kind of all over the map and I’m proud of that because that’s really who I am at the end of the day. My writing is really strong and the tones are great and my friend Tyler mixed the shit out of it.

Who else is on the record?

It’s me on drums, guitars, and vocals. Joe Dart on bass, Woody Guss on piano, and Lee Pardini from Dawes plays all the other Wurlitzer. One of my favorite bands. He’s a good friend and an insanely amazing piano player and person and I love him super hard.

My roommate Brett Farkas, who’s a super badass guitar player plays on a track, then two of my favorite singers in the world: Laura Mace and Mike G, LA legends. Laura is actually the singer on “Conscious Club” on the new Vulfpeck record. Laura and Mike sing most of the background vocals on it and we did those tracks live in three parts, double tracking around an omni-mic and then panning it, which is one of my favorite recording techniques.

Then Drew Howard from Michigan, who is like a legend in Michigan, not like a famous guy, but absolutely as good as anyone on pedal steel, he plays it on the record. It’s like a dream come true to work with these people. It’s sweet.

Looking ahead to the summer, you’re opening for Trey Anastasio at Red Rocks.

I’m psyched to open for Trey. He’s definitely an influence on me in particular as a guitar player. I’m a Trey fan. Red Rocks is insane, the fact that we’re doing it again is insane.

Speaking of Trey, how have you liked being in the jamband thing? Lockn’, Bonnaroo, how do you feel like these audiences have embraced you?

You don’t have Jack here to make sure I don’t say something controversial, which he’s good at. I hope I don’t offend anybody but none of us ever thought about Vulfpeck as a jamband because the things that got us popular are short, kind of pop song forms. It’s still very pop focused in terms of classic funk-pop, like Jackson 5. We were all kind of surprised when the jamband scene embraced us.

I kind of thought that it wasn’t going to work. We weren’t going to do extended jams, it’s not really what we do. There’s nothing wrong with that, I love that kind of thing in the right context. There are plenty of incredible jambands, but I see the jamband scene starting to open up to any non-mainstream music that includes instrumental improvisation. I see more and more bands that are funk, not so much jamband. I think some are even like a Cuban thing, or a West-African influence.

I think in that way, the jamband scene is really positive. I don’t know how well-liked we are in the jam community. I know there are some people that don’t like that we have repeated songs, which is funny because I come from the pop world—‘Play the hits.’ I love improv and jazz and my father was a professional jazz trumpet player, and I grew up with that music. But I play the hits and improv in them in the sense that it’s a new moment.

We play a Vulf show, and I hope we play “Christmas in LA” and “Back Pocket” because they’re two of our biggest songs. And I sing them so I really want to sing them. Those are songs people love and want to hear so I know we’re interested in reaching as many people as possible, so I have always associated that kind of reach with a more mainstream genre thing, rather than jam.

I think jam is a little more niche. It’s a beautiful community for what it supports but Vulf isn’t trying to close any doors. We want everybody involved. I sort of see us going a little more of a non-jam route in terms of the kinds of stuff we do, but I also am just thrilled that anybody is listening. Fans of jam, c’mon.

I think people are drawn to Vulfpeck in the same vein they are Soulive or Lettuce.

I was hugely influenced by Soulive and Lettuce. I know that Live in Tokyo Lettuce thing was huge for Joe. We really look up to those guys. They’ve been embraced by the scene but at the same time, stylistically, they’re doing whatever they want.

I’m not afraid of being pinned as a jamband, I think music and our videos speak for themselves. Jack is a freak of the internet. We talk about having a TV show one day. I don’t know, we got dreams and if somebody wants to label it one way or the other I don’t think it matters.

What matters is that people are at the show singing along. When you hear 1,500 people sing the bass line at you, this happened in Dublin. It’s like, “Whoa, people are into this.” People as young as 15 or 18. That’s getting into people’s lives which is what I’m into. I don’t care about being hip, I would rather communicate. If you’re hip, sweet. It’s hip to be hip.

You had a great tweet. You said A Tribe Called Quest album is exactly what we needed.

Dude I’ve been listening to it non-stop.

Great album.

Such a great album. My friend Louis Cado who plays in Stay Human texted me about linking up in New York and he said to check the new Tribe album, he did a bunch of work on it. I knew he played with Q-Tip but I was not aware that he was working on this record.

The reason I said it was timely is because there’s no doubt that America has been shaken by the recent election. Regardless of who you voted for, I think we’re all reeling in the realization that we’re really divided right now. That’s something to grieve. A lot of people are grieving over that reality in America and there’s been a lot of hate.

For such an influential hip-hop group, to return after a 20-year hiatus with a statement that feels like they wrote it the day of the election. The record came out on the 11th and I kind of wonder if Q-Tip finished the verses on the 10th because it was just so relevant.

I think that hip-hop can speak to people in a way that a lot of other music can’t at this point in history. I hope everybody listens to the new Tribe album, it’s amazing. The whole thing is incredible.

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