Photo by Vernon Webb
After giving Mickey Hart’s new album, Mysterium Tremendum a good listen over the past few months and seeing he and his talented ensemble band in at a show in Missoula, I had the opportunity to ask some questions surrounding what one would could say is Mickey’s busiest year since the days of the Grateful Dead. Talking with Mickey is more than an honor, it’s a leap of quantum proportions, and the insight I gathered from this grounded yet very cosmic musician was truly out of this world.
Mickey’s latest album Mysterium Tremendum came out on April 10th 2012. Hart and his band will resume the Above The Clouds Tour on June 30th at San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium. The tour includes 20 + stops on the way to Camp Mysterium which will take place in upstate New York at the Full Moon Resort in Big Indian, NY -between Sept 3-6.
So far in 2012 you’ve released an album, performed at the opening of The Grateful Dead’s “Long, Strange Trip” Exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, you mic’d up and then played the Golden Gate Bridge for its 75th anniversary celebration, toured extensively, and now announced a festival, Camp Mysterium. It’s been quite a half-year.
Yes it has been a very busy year, and it’s been a work in progress over many years. I have been putting the album together for a while now and so far, I couldn’t be happier. It’s been a fantastic tour and voyage, and it’s really come together the way we wanted it to.
Can you talk about the process of interpreting the album in the live setting?.
Well the album is incredibly free-form and we are a jamband, so what occurs on any given night isn’t the album. Yes the material comes from the album but we play off of each other and a jam can form at any point and it really takes a different shape every show. So yes we are playing songs from the album but they come across very different each night as we improvise as a band to produce this music from the cosmos.
You have some amazing talent in your band. Dave Schools on bass, Crystal Monee Hall on vocals and guitar and Gawain Mathews on guitar, to mention a few. How did you pick your players?
Very carefully (laughs). It took a lot of time and basically when I found a musician I wanted to work with I had to make sure they weren’t afraid to come with me to Saturn and dance on the Sun.
So you not only picked them for their talent but they had to be like minded, they had to have the same vision as you.
I picked musicians who could see my vision and help it come together the way I intended and hoped and we’ve turned out to make an amazing group.
I spoke with Ben (Yonas) before the show in Missoula and he said that he helped produce the album, and that he was also performing with you, but when it came show time he was hardly on stage. What exactly does Ben do?
Ben did produce the album with me and he is incredibly talented. During the shows he works as the man behind all of the instruments that you see me playing. So he’s working a synthesizer and channeling different sounds from different planets and stars that I’ve put together and he sets the music to be played through any instrument that I might be playing. So he’s actually orchestrating the sounds that you are hearing. He is kind of at side stage, right next to me so he reads everything that I do and then complements it, adds the sounds to the instrument.
*I saw you playing the theremin during one of your jams, I believe it was on your latest rendition of “Djinn Djinn.” it was ethereal and mesmerizing. *
What you are hearing when I play the Theremin is actually the sound of our Sun. That’s the sound that is being channeled through it. And I pull the different sounds out and build and create a rhythm with it (the Theremin), or a background with and the band plays off of it. But as for my favorite instrument, right now it has to be the Monochord, also known as the beam. It’s incredibly challenging to play, and has a long history as it goes back to 300 or 400 B.C. It right now is my favorite instrument to play.
On the topic of unusual instruments you recently played the Golden Gate Bridge. Where did you get an idea like this?
This goes back. Well you know history says that Pythagoras could actually hear the planets, and the music of the universe. Similarly in the early 70’s I thought I could hear the bridge.
By hear it, do you mean the wind passing through it like a harp or the metal in the bridge?
Both. I could hear it as the wind passed through it and I could hear it twisting and bending and making what I heard as music, I could hear its rhythm. So imagine me as a hippie, in the middle of the night, with my microphone and large recorder trying to get this sound down on tape. Of course at that time I was escorted off the premises. I tried on a few occasions. So fast forward 40 years and now I’m not a “long haired hippie” and I have these amazing scientists from Berkeley and Penn State working with me. So what we did was over a period of time we put microphones all over the bridge and recorded the sounds that it was making. Mark Ballora from Penn State helped me gather these subtle and obscure sounds. Then we had a 24 foot version of the bridge built and during the 75 year anniversary I actually got to play this scaled down size of the bridge. It was quite an experience.
So what’s next, will you mic up the oceans, or the earth, a volcano?
Nothing is out the question. I have some ideas: insects, DNA, the actual building blocks of life and the human being, stem cells.
Seriously?
Yes, anything is possible and there is rhythm in it all. It just needs to be recorded and then, what I get is a real rough draft, whether it’s from the Sun or the Golden Gate Bridge, it’s not real pleasing to the ear, that is what I hear initially. Then I work with the different sounds and find the rhythm in it all and put it together these samples, the samples that you then hear me play in concert. Right now we’re working on a Space Opera.
So with the second leg of your tour starting off, what is it like going back to Fillmore, and what can we expect from it?
Every time I go to the Fillmore, it has this energy, I smell it and all of sudden I can see Bill Graham running around with a watch on both hands and yeah, it’s a special place, we played some great shows there. It, well, the Fillmore, even though our show is different, it’s where my roots are so it has a special place in my heart for sure. A lot of memories there. The first leg was like a trial though. We had to test it out. You don’t just create a monster like this and then let it out of the cage. You have to contain it and test it and see what it can do. If not you will be consumed by it, consumed by the music itself. So we had an amazing first leg and now we’re ready to let it loose. It’s going to be great. The song “Heartbeat Of The Sun,” it has these lyrics. I worked with Robert Hunter and he wrote lyrics for this Space Opera and we’re going to start performing the second act to album. It’s almost a whole another album. It’s going to be incredible, I’m real excited for it.
So, Camp Mysterium, tell me how you came up with an idea like that and what people can expetct.
Well, someone actually came to me with the idea, and I was thought, that sounds great. It’s going to be very centered, intimate and we couldn’t have got a better spot for it. Everyone will be staying in these very cool cabins.
So it’s my understanding it’s going to be real small. Will there be interaction with the band and you and the fans?
Oh, yeah, absolutely. That was the point, we are going to have drum workshops and total interaction. It’s a retreat in a way. It’s set in the incredibly scenic and peaceful place in Big Indian, NY. We’re going to bring the cosmos there and explain to everyone, why we were, where we come from, why we’re here. From the first sound 13 billion years ago. I want to let people into all these worlds and show them new and different ways of trying to explain music. The Camp is going to be a giant musical play-room.
I understand there will only be about 180 people there, so your intention is to make it a one of kind experience?
Exactly.
Will there be any other acts joining you on the bill like at other festivals? Any guests?
No other bands, but we plan on having different musicians come and join in the Camp, some are confirmed already but I can’t say who because of scheduling. We will have some really cool guests though.
Do you have any plans on playing at Phil Lesh’s Terrapin Crossroads, or doing a webcast from Bob Weir’s TRI anytime in the future?
No, we don’t have plans. We have done some webcasts, two of them. But none from there. We might do some more in the future, but no plans.
I have two more questions for you, and one came from a fan, and it might sound a little out there but anyway I felt it was intriguing. So what do you eat, or rather, how do you stay healthy?
What do I eat? Well let’s say a steady diet of drumming. I mean I eat a little bit of everything in moderation and try to eat healthy, stay away from hard alcohol and I work out, do Pilates. But how do I stay healthy? A good full daily diet of rhythm. Drumming is what keeps me healthy.
You seem to have this connection to outer space and the cosmos. Do you think in this age of Space Tourism you’d ever consider going up there?
To space? No, I’ve never really thought about it. I’m interested in the sounds and the rhythm and the music. I’ve never thought of actually going up there. That’s not to say I wouldn’t. As of now, no. But in the future, I’d have to say anything is possible.
