Othe creative side of things, how does Tractorbeam fit into this puzzle?

Yeah, the thing about Tractorbeam is we’ve had ideas in the past where we’d work on things for two months and then do it and it wouldn’t quite work the way that we’d have envisioned that it was gonna be. After the first night of tractor beam, there was a question I think, in between the first show and second show of, “Are we gonna stick to it here or are we gonna succumb a little bit to the pressure of what we think people are gonna say?” It was definitely something we’ve never done before, which is to play essentially the same show, two nights in a row. I don’t know if anybody has done what we’re doing in Tractorbeam. I don’t know how deeply [Barber] has gone into explaining what it is that we’re trying to do with Tractorbeam.

The short story is that we’re recreating DJ mixes in a live setting. We’re all curating this by choosing great segments of great DJ performances of the last 10, 20 years and then learning them and trying to come as close as possible to recreating the performance. And to us, we’re looking it like “Drums/Space” for the Grateful Dead. It was just something that happened in the middle of the second set every single night- not everybody loved it but it was there. It didn’t affect how big the Grateful Dead was or maybe it did because it broke the set up in such a way that when they came back out of “Drums/Space,” there was a certain energy that you wouldn’t have had if the show had just continued on.

And then for us, we’ve got this incredible cool part of this show every night where we’re just taking 10, 12, 13 minutes recreating somebody’s famous house mix. And some of the fans have like figured it out, what’s going on and some of the fans don’t even know. I say for the majority of the people are not really sure what we’re doing- it might just sound like cool jams. If you come to a lot of shows, and you hear the same one a couple different times then maybe you’d have a better concept of what it is. But I have friends who I’m hanging out with here in Denver, and I’m having to explain to them what it is. And they’re like, “Ohhhh!”

So these compositions are note-for-note? Not just a rough sketch?

We’re trying to play exact; now, there is some improvisation inside of it, but not a heck of a lot. In the hourlong ones we take sections and we’ll be like, “Okay in this particular section we’re gonna open up a little bit.” There’s just sections that lend themselves to improv, because it’ll be like two or three minutes of just open trance, but a lot of the sections we’re playing it right as it is. Like there’s this Todd Terje song, or a mix of Todd Terje’s three songs.

What are some other DJs you guys are pulling from?

We pulled from Carl Cox, we pulled from Solomon, We pulled from the Magician. What’s cool is in the Magician’s mix, there’s a Justice song in there so it’s like we’re playing lots of different songs, but we’re playing it the way that the DJs are doing it.

I want to circle back to Star Kitchen for a minute because it’s interesting that while you can play all these big rooms with the Biscuits, Star Kitchen has you going back a few notches and playing the smaller and more intimate rooms. Is it nice for you to have that variety in venues now?

Yeah for sure, even with Star Kitchen we’re lucky enough that we also got to play The Cap with Star Kitchen, and we got to play Mission Ballroom with Star Kitchen here in Denver. We played The Anthem and The Fillmore with Umphrey’s. Star Kitchen over these past couple months has had a run playing classic, awesome venues. On Star Kitchen tour on a normal week we might go from the Mission on a Friday, to Ullrs Tavern in Winter Park on a Saturday, and it’s just like a little tavern. It was amazing: After playing the mission which is like an arena, the next night we got onto this small little stage and we knew we were gonna kill it. We were like, “Oh we’re going to kill it in here, this is our bread and butter.”

Do you feel a certain thrill in watching your new band grow?

I mean that’s the whole game. But you know, for Star Kitchen, we’re recording, very slowly and writing slowly and trying not to put that kind of pressure on the band. But having those moments where there are 700 hundred people at our show is amazing because we go out to other places, like out around the country and we’ll play in front of 100 or 200 and that’s a huge success to start. Like, going out around the country and having anybody show up is a thrill, such a thrill. We look forward to taking the next couple of years, or five or 10 years and jus keeping with our plan:  Build it slowly and be at the right spots. Star Kitchen is just trying to be in the right place at the right time.

And you have the experience. You’ve been on this road before.

Yeah, having the wisdom to know what works and what doesn’t work and how to keep a good balance so you can keep growing a band. That’s the key here. We have to find the right balance so that we can keep this thing working. I mean last year we did like maybe 25 shows or some with Star Kitchen. I would hope to be able to do the same 25 or 30 shows every year and I look at how Mike Gordon manages like his side projects. This guy has kept this band together over seven or eight years and now he has a really solid lineup and they’re committed to each other and they do a certain amount of shows, whatever it is, a year and it’s growing. So I look at that, and take it as inspiration for letting two worlds coexist peacefully. And finding a way to keep so that everybody’s committed to his side project. If you can do that, like anything is possible.

Any thoughts on the state of the jam scene? It seems like everybody’s firing on all cylinders.

Yeah, the jamband scene is in great shape right now. It’s funny because when you’ve been around it for 25 years, you’ve seen the ups and the downs on the scene-wide level. What I say is that a rising tide lifts all boats, and that’s just the truth. You’re rooting for all of the bands to do well because when all of the bands do well, they really all do well together, you know? The scene is in a really healthy place right now. A lot of that has to do with the bands playing great music. Dead & Company, you know, they’re locked in and Biscuits are locked in and, obviously, you know you can’t have a conversation without mentioning Goose blowing up. Every year, there’s another band that comes along and has an experience like that. Right now that band is Goose and my close friends who are into the Disco Biscuits, but who got into the Disco Biscuits in that one year that we exploded, in that same way, which I guess is 1999. They’re all super excited about Goose right now. That’s fun to see. A couple years ago it was Pigeons, you know what I mean? These small bands come up and kind of explode out of nowhere. It’s just a testament to how strong the scene is still, and how strong the word of mouth in the scene is. You can’t manufacture hype. You can’t make it up.

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