Rehearsing for the String Cheese & The Gang, Lockn’ 2014

I think one of the most interesting things about SCI’s evolution has been how you allow each of the band members musical styles to shine, while still sounding musically cohesive and united. “Beautiful” has electronic, EOTO-like elements while “Colorado Bluebird Sky” harkens back to you and Billy’s more acoustic, bluegrass roots. How do you guys manage that kind of musical diplomacy? Allowing all 6 members to be heard, and then channeling them all into one larger voice?

Well, it’s not the easiest thing. In fact, there’s quite a lot of friction that arises from that. I think the one thing we’ve learned is that we’ve realized that friction is what makes the stew feel interesting. We’ve always said sometimes we lament like, “Ah man, I wish we all saw things the same way,” then we’d be able to move through stuff easier. But at the same time, that potential clash has made some very interesting combinations come about. I think we’ve all become more resigned— not resigned— but we understand that that’s part of the equation. And nobody said democracy was easy, you know? We’ve learned that on many levels, from being in a country to being in a band.

We always said, man, we wish it wasn’t like that but we’re learning how to achieve resonance with each other. It’s taken a lot of personal work too. It’s one of those things where we always say that if we weren’t in a band together I don’t know if all of us would be hanging out together, best friends or anything like that. But we realize that the collective effort and everything we put into it is a journey for us individually and collectively. With any venture really it’s about putting as much positive energy as you can into it. And so it is difficult for us for us sometimes, but we also know that if you mine for that stuff you can really find some nuggets. It’s a process, it’s not easy at all. A lot of people have needs, wishes, ways that they assert themselves and we’re trying to keep it all together as best we can. Being in a band is not easy. [Laughs]

We give ourselves a lot of credit for having stuck it out this long. And we actually just had this mediated session with this guy who is an amazing coach, to kind of help us figure out what it means for us to want to get to the next level of whatever we’re doing. And it made us realize we have a lot to be grateful for and there’s a lot of ways we can improve as an organization as well. It’s a work in progress. Just like life, it’s many faceted and not always easy.

On March 3rd, At Fox Theater, you guys spent your 2nd Set playing A String Cheese Incident in its entirety. What was the process like relearning that? Are there other songs or albums that fell out of rotation that you’re thinking about reviving?

It’s a balance with that. Because the old school peeps always want to hear the old stuff, yet that might have been stuff that we played a lot at some point and just got sick of playing. And then the band is always focused on making the new material sound as good as possible and that requires a fair amount of repetition to be able to feel it out live, to make it sound good. It’s a balance. There are some things that could easily make their way into the rotation more. We recognize how our old fans really want to hear some of the old stuff. It’s one of the things we have to add to the equation when we go into setlist mode. But this last tour was great because we got to go to a lot of older, smaller venues we played back in the ‘90s and stuff and our sound also was more tailored to being more acoustic and not as electronically bombastic so to speak. So a lot of that stuff comes across that way because of the instrumentation and where we’re at as a band right now, but it was really good to tap back into that. That tour was really educational for us in a lot of ways. Yeah, I think it’s a little bit of both, remembering your roots as well as being able to dive forward into the unknown.

Now that the band has really geared up this summer, playing bustouts and covers, are there songs from any of your solo projects that you’ve considered playing in your sets?

Some people are more prolific than others. EOTO doesn’t really have songs, but their vibe makes it in on the jams that we do. Kyle has probably the biggest backlog of material, and he has his whole other band that he plays with. We’ve been trying to do this thing in the last couple years where we do SCI specific songwriting retreats where we go hole up in a house and it’s just the six of us and we write songs together. We actually have a backlog of a few songs that came from the last couple of sessions, that just need to get into the studio to flush out. So there’s something always in the works. We just need more time to make it happen.

You guys have played a few Allman Brothers Tributes in recent history, “Hot ‘Lanta” at Mountain Jam and “Ain’t Wastin Time No More” in Atlanta. Why did you choose those two songs specifically?

When we were getting ready for this Gregg Allman Incident last year we learned a bunch of songs to do this whole set, and then when Gregg passed away we were like “Oh my god, what a gift.” We actually knew some of the stuff and had it under our fingers. Those were just the ones that seemed like they stuck out. Billy is a huge Allman Brothers fan, they were a formative band in his growing up. So those were the ones that rose to the top for us, but there’s some other ones that we might bust out. And it obviously seemed like the right time, especially at Mountain Jam. It used to be Warren [Haynes’] thing. We were hoping he was going to be there, but unfortunately he wasn’t. So we were kind of hoping if we had a couple of things under our belt he would be able to seamlessly come up there and do his Warren thing.

SCI had played with the Allmans in the past, do you have a favorite memory hanging out or playing with Gregg or any of the other members?

We never really had that much access to Gregg. They played Red Rocks with us a bunch of years ago and it’s kind of crazy when you play shows like that. Everyone has to get into their show mode, and when they’re playing we’re getting ready to go on and then by the time we’re done some of them may be around some of them may not be. A lot of the hanging we get to do comes at totally different moments. I’ve hung out with Oteil [Burbridge] a bunch. When we did this boat thing last year with Kyle’s band, we would just hang out and shoot the shit and talk about our kids and just life in general. Unfortunately when we’re in show mode it’s hard to carve out the time. It’s like a work day. There’s an amazing amount of preparation for us: setlist, warming up, just getting everything ready.

I haven’t seen Derek in a long time. We had some moments with Butch last year when we played that festival with them. It was really, really cool to hang with those guys in the times that we do and definitely as time passes we’ll look back and cherish those moments.

Finally, Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads produces your last two albums, is he your go-to producer now?

Well it seemed like that, but we’re actually thinking we might self-produce the next few releases just because it might be easier for us to do that. Jerry was great on so many levels. He’s just got so much experience, and different styles. We can sit around and talk about all kind of different stuff, which makes it interesting to have somebody to bounce around war stories. There’s a lot of downtime in the studio where you’re just waiting for stuff to happen so with producers you’re just hanging out with them, and building a relationship and having meals and all that stuff. Their signature on a project oftentimes doesn’t just have to do with how they hear things, or whatnot, but the vibe as it comes up in the record. And I feel like the last few recordings we did were really cool in that regard. It sounds different than what we would have done by ourselves, and it definitely sounds different from any other producer that we’ve had too. Hopefully, we’ll work together in the future. Jerry’s a busy guy, he keeps himself constantly busy, but it was great working with him.

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