Tonight in Avon, Colorado, Kyle Hollingsworth opens his BrewSki Tour. Each of these shows will offer “a one-time-only craft beer collaboration from Kyle & Breckenridge Brewery on tap at each show,” with “one keg of the collaboration brew available for FREE for the first hour, while supplies lasts.” Both beer and music are the topics of conversation in this interview, which was seeded by a series of questions submitted by Jambands.com readers.
Let’s start off by talking about beer. A few folks wondered if you can suggest a book or website for someone searching for tips and recipes?
There’s a great book I got into. What I love about it is that it is full of recipes and full of encouragement and full of history. It is called Designing Great Beers. I did a bunch of brew experiences across the U.S. at festivals and I had this book as my bible. You open it up and it will tell you about the history of porters and some cool recipes and ways to make beer making easier.
When you work with breweries to create a signature beer, do you have a style in mind going into it? Do you talk with the brewmaster and then sort it all out?
I usually have some sense of what I would like to do and they’re always open. I’m more of a celebrity brewer. Every year a lot of the breweries have a great home brewer come in and win a chance to make something at the brewery. So in a lot of ways I treat it like that. I’ll bring a recipe in and sometimes they’ll say “Well, we can do it this way, this way, or this way.” Sometimes I’m like, “what haven’t you made in a while? Let’s try and make something unique.” We talked about vanilla porters the other day. They’ve never made one up at Odell’s so I found an old recipe of mine. So it’s a mixture of me bringing recipes and also working together. It’s a collaboration.
Do you have a go-to recipe at home that you do exceptionally well?
Yeah, my friend and I made together called Solstice Spice. We recently took the recipe down to a company called Dry Dock, they’re out of Southern Denver and we took it to the big system, which is a whole lot of fun. It’s the same recipe that I’ve been making at my house for many years. Things like Hoopla I’ve never made at my house. But this one I went down and I had them make it, in some ways a lot better than I could ever make it. They have extracts, partial grain masses and all the great yeast strains, they’re using everything for real. It was a whole other level.
What most surprised you about brewing on that level?
What surprised me the most…It’s almost exactly like home-brewing—a lot bigger with greater quantities but it’s the same thing. You’re just boiling 500 gallons. That surprised me the most, probably. You just go in there and chop the grains, put the hops in. It’s exactly like home-brewing.
Do you have anything in the works for 2012?
Not yet. We are still talking about Hoopla, hopefully that will come through. There will always be collaborations as far as small pilot batches but nothing on a national scale. I’m always working with local breweries, niche brews.
What do you think about brewing on a national scale? Does something potentially get lost in the process?
I think it all comes down to the quality. All the brewers in every place I brew, they all have their own flagship brew. The chemistry behind brewing has made it so it can be the same every single time. That’s another surprising thing, actually. The chemistry involved was a really big thing for me. They really test it every single time.
Let’s switch over to the musical side of things. A number people submitted variations on this question: What music has inspired you over the years? What has changed and evolved and what has remained consistent?
I try to continually evolve musically by listening to different music, so I think that’s something that’s always changed. I do feel like that I try to fall back on the great songwriters. I think for me if I take the time to be a good songwriter it doesn’t matter how many silly little loops I drop in or little frills I put in, it really comes down to the song and the hook.
If you’re about to go off on a 70-mile drive do you have any albums that you’ll return to time and again?
Odelay is always in there. Funnily enough Seal’s first album will be in there. The Beatles, probably the Cars…At the same time I’d throw in Tinariwen, or there’s that killer Ethiopian singer Gigi, she made an album with Herbie [Hancock]. Lately, it would probably be some more international stuff that I’ve been checking out.
Any old school or new school jazz?
I don’t listen to as much jazz as I should. I’ve been trying to listen to more songwriters. I’ve been moving out of jazz.
Another question a lot of people had is whether there is going to be a new Kyle album?
I was just thinking about that today. I have a few songs lined up. The albums come when I have enough songs. Right now I have a few new ones and I probably need another four to make an album.
I have these songs and during the String Cheese break there’s no one to bounce songs off of but now with a little more String Cheese I can bring some new stuff to them, although that means some of my new material gets swallowed up by String Cheese.
But I am really thinking about making another album. Good question, let’s shoot for this year.
In terms of a new String Cheese album, can you talk about that? A lot of people are curious.
I think two things will happen. Probably there will be a straight up live String Cheese Incident album. The Best of Tour, something like we did with Carnival 99. That sort of thing is what we’re gonna go for first.
Then the idea is to release an album that’s going be partially live and partially studio. So taking a lot of tracks, a lot of the jams from the last String Cheese tour and utilizing that as a springboard for new material and a new album. Maybe we will cut up some little pieces and write some lyrics to them and we’ll add some other things on top. Or we’ll send some to a DJ to remix …The idea is to take our live material and use it as the backing track for our new disc.
That’s going to require some measure of work as opposed to everyone bringing in songs.
For me that’s really fun. That’s where it might take away from my solo project as far as a new album. I already have a hard drive at our home where I’ve been taking the tracks to my house and started cutting them up.
Describe String Cheese Incident rehearsals, what’s the ratio of chatting to music? Who’s the one that cracks the whip and gets the music started?
I tend to be the more get down to business guy because that’s the way I treat music. String Cheese rehearsals start about an hour late and then we play for awhile, for awhile being 20 minutes, and then we take a 45-minute break, and then we come back and play ten minutes, and then a 20-minute break. It’s very relaxed. When we actually get closer to the event we get into “Oh shit mode.” Then we put some song combinations together but it’s generally very relaxed.
Do you find that reconnecting a personal level after being separated is nearly as important if not more important than just sitting down and playing?
That’s what everybody tells me. Part of it is just reconnecting as a family and a unit. And that’s part of it too, I understand. I have to remind myself of that.
The dance routine at Bonnaroo, how did that come about and how hard was it to convince Billy to do it?
That’s been the cool thing about the last year, bringing in new creative ideas. For example, Travis will bring in some crazy cover. In this case Kang said “Why don’t we do a dance routine?” and we were like “Oh, no.” But he totally gave a speech that made us all motivated. Then we went online and looked up some YouTube videos of what the modern dance moves were in the style that we were performing and we actually got some dance lessons. It was really hard to do. Billy would do it just as a gag, as long as he treated it not too seriously. And you can kind of see that in the video. It wasn’t hard to get him involved. It was a fun little project.
In the live setting Billy really sold it though, I have to say.
Absolutely. He was the one that took it the most serious. The funny thing is on the way to Bonnaroo we didn’t have anything to wear. So we were driving into Bonnaroo and were like “We can’t mess around, we can’t just wear normal clothes.” So we were looking for some sweat suits. We went to four different stores and they were out of season in Tennessee to get long sweat suits. So we ended up going to a Sports Authority or something and we had to get matching tops and bottoms, which I still have and I still bring to shows. That was part of the whole thing. And Kang pulled it off the best.
Who decided on the color orange?
We originally didn’t think of orange at all. We were thinking black track suits. That’s what we were looking for. We kept going to all these different sporting goods places and we couldn’t find anything. And then finally we went there and Nadia [Prescher, SCI manager] was there with us and she was like, “This will be fine.” I thought it was really cool to be orange.
How would you compare touring with String Cheese in 2011 to 2001?
A lot more grey hair. I think we’ve grown up on tour. Some of the things that bothered us between each other seem less of a big deal now than in 2001, which is a good thing.
Have you noticed a change in band members towards String Cheese Incident music now that all of you have other outlets?
As much as I say rehearsals are pretty lax, I do think we all come there with String Cheese in mind. Travis has a lot going on, but in a lot of ways he’s also the most focused with String Cheese. He gets in there and he’s ready to work. I think we all are super psyched to be doing this. So it’s actually more focused.
When you read various newspaper articles though, Travis often seems the most inclined to distance himself from the band in terms of his current interests.
It’s funny you mention that. I was going into the most recent rehearsals with that on my mind and I didn’t find that at all. Especially with Red Rocks weekend he was like, “We gotta bring this in here, and try to bring this in here.” I think when he’s there he’s super psyched. I think all of us are.
What’s the first thing that went through your mind when the power went out in St. Louis?
First thing, it reminded me of another show where the power went out. I was not at all worried one bit. I was like, “This is what makes Sting Cheese unique. This is why I love String Cheese so much.” We still put on a good show. We just grabbed a djembe and it was exciting. At first maybe It was a little distressing but once we got out there and started rocking it, it was awesome.
How long did it take from the time that the power went out until you decided to play percussion at the front of the stage?
Seconds. I just grabbed a shaker and we went off from there. That used to be a part of our gig. There used to be a moment where we’d all come up front and play drums. It was like “Okay, now it’s time for the drum jam.” And we’d come up and all play together.
But back then you’d be prepared for that.
Right. I think they brought out these giant African drums for us. Yeah, this time around we all started stealing stuff from Jason.
I’m not sure what this means. Someone asked “What happened during “Valley of the Jig” on Thursday night in Chicago”?
It means absolutely nothing to me. Probably something that somebody picked up and we didn’t even realize that happened. There was nothing specific.
There must be moments when you talk to someone after a show and they’re like “Wow, what about when you did this?” and to you it didn’t necessarily resonate. What’s that experience like for you?
It’s always amazing to me. Every time we walk off stage people ask us for our interpretations and we might say “I sounded too loud” or “I messed up that one song” and then you go back and you meet some fans and they have a completely different concept of what happened. So sometimes if they ask “What happened here?” my response has to be, “I have no recollection. I have no memory of that.” Or, “Thank you so much.”
Do the band members talk about the show after the gig and has that changed over the years?
We all have opinions at every show. Rarely are we completely uniform on the show sucking or the show being incredibly great. It’s a mixture of opinions all around. Plus, it’s someone’s personal experience. You live in this head space between your ears. You might think you had an off night and then Kang’s on the same exact stage saying it was awesome. Hopefully somewhere in between we can all make a great show.
When you’re on tour these days do you still rehearse on your own and try to find rehearsal spaces at nearby colleges like you used to do?
I still rehearse before the show. We’ve been able to set it up where we have rehearsal gear on the truck. So there’s less of me running off to the universities and random places on the day of the gig. And rehearsing, definitely not as much as I used to. I felt like I rehearsed my ass off every day for hours and hours and then I’d get on stage and I felt a little burnt out. So I’m kind of figuring out the right amount of rehearsal versus keeping energy up for the show. So it’s kind of a mixture there.
A number of people wanted to know what was it like playing with Trey Anastasio at the Fourmile Fire Benefit back in 2010 and whether you’d crossed paths with him over the years before that?
No, that was the first time we had played with him. Playing with him was cool. He’s got a lot of things going on and you see how he’s a creative being. His mind is racing all the time. Backstage he as like, “What do you wanna play? This? Good, great.” talking more quickly than I can. I can see where some of that creativity comes from in that band and all of the crazy ideas. He’s a really nice guy. We only hung out for a little bit, though. It wasn’t very long.
Had you seen Phish a bit over the years?
I saw them a few times. I also think I must’ve played with Fishman sometime, at a Theory of Everything gig…
I think you and Mike Gordon would have an interesting conversation and musical exchange.
Nice, Nice. I’m down. I’m down.
Quite a few people asked you to name your favorite or most memorable String Cheese show of this tour or all time?
This past tour my favorite was probably the Ryman with all our guests.
Was there a lot of rehearsing before that gig?
No. That’s what actually made it so fun. There was no rehearsal at all. I think we probably played 40 minutes at soundcheck.
There was another day too, a Sunday gig. I think it was Upper Darby in Pennsylvania. Thinking about the new disc and looking at things to steal or glean from the jams, I think that was one of the more intuitive jam nights for me and I want to utilize some of that in the new live disc.
And how about a favorite show historically?
Historically? I don’t really know. A lot of the shows are really great to listen back to but I have no memory of them. One of the ones that came out recently was the vault show from Atlanta. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Yes, that’s actually one of the discs I listen to regularly [ _Rhythm of the Road: Volume One, Incident in Atlanta-11.17.00 ].
I didn’t know it was my favorite though until I listened to it. Ironically that came from the same tour as Carnival 99 probably. That was the same year wasn’t it? What year was that?
2000.
So it was in that same era as Carnival 99 and there was some really good listening and good playing during that era. That could easily be part of Carnival 99. You can tell it’s very similar and the playing is just great.
I didn’t realize that Travis lived with Tony Furtado for a while [They discuss this on stage during the show as he guests with SCI].
Yeah, there were a lot of people living at this place called Double Dig. Kang lived there, Travis lived there and Dave Watts was kind of the main guy who owned the place. It was a commune in North Boulder. And people would sleep there on the floors and have jam sessions, Boulder 90’s style.
Last question, what else is on the horizon musically for you In 2012?
I have the mountain gigs with my band and I’m sure I’ll figure out some great beer to make with somebody. Like I said, hopefully Hoopla will come out again. We’ll get it out to the festivals. And then I’ll start digging in with the String Cheese albums. I want to make sure those get out shortly. And then I need to make another solo disc…
