Particle continued its tenth anniversary tour last night with the run hitting Colorado for a series of shows, and stops in Arizona and Las Vegas at the Hard Rock Café in November. The Colorado dates include a Pink Floyd tribute gig with special guests at the Fox Theatre in Boulder in celebration of Halloween on October 30. Earlier this month, Jambands.com sat down with Charlie Hitchcock, Particle’s original guitarist who left the band in late 2005, and returned to the quartet for this anniversary run of shows. Next, we catch up with keyboardist Steve Molitz who expands upon what it means to be in a touring band for ten years, and how his experiences have shaped his rather exploratory ideas of what it is like to be a musician on and off the stage in the early 21st century. Molitz has played with a wide variety of players in various contexts, including Mickey Hart in Hydra, and the most recent Phil Lesh & Friends lineup, and his engaging insights about his art are often a source of inspiration, and an original point of view for a man who has been to the mountain top and, then, had to take that interesting walk back down.
RR: Let’s begin with your thoughts on the gig at the Roxy on October 7, which was the 10th anniversary of Particle’s first show.
SM: I always feel like musician’s years, or really probably anybody in the arts, is kind of a different scale like dog years or something—maybe, a year on the road is three years in reality. (laughter) I’m not really sure about the ratio and how it would work out, but ten years seems like it was yesterday and a lifetime ago all at the same time. The passage of time both in terms of musical and personal growth is hard to limit, it’s hard to quantify. Looking back on ten years, it’s almost an irrelevant number because you could be a band for ten years and hardly tour, or you can be a band for two years and tour non-stop with the amount of shows and experiences you would have. Time in show business is all subjective. Some of my favorite musicians and some of the most lasting bands of all time were only bands for five or ten years. So time can be a tricky thing when looking back on a band. It’s just hard to gauge. Really, for me, it’s not as much about how much time has passed as it is just about the ride, the feeling of the voyage, the relationships along the way, all the good times and experiences.
It’s definitely one of those things where, looking back on ten years with Particle the other day, somebody asked me what I thought and the first words that popped up in my mind were “what a long strange trip it’s been.” (laughter) You know what? I’ve got to defer to that quote; it really says it better than I could…because, you know, it’s a milestone, it’s a decade, so I definitely feel that.
RR: It’s interesting you would say that. I never really thought about that idea in terms of time span in a career for an artist, musician, or filmmaker. For instance, at that Roxy gig, on October 7, Robby Krieger sat in with Particle, as he has done in the past, and you have to look back and think of how much of a temporal impact those original Doors had in just a four-year career.
SM: Honestly, it’s almost unbelievable. I mean I believe it because I know it’s true, but it’s almost unbelievable. Think of some bands that have just been pushing their careers up hill for 20 years and haven’t even seen 1% of the success that the Doors did. There are posters of the Doors hanging on 17 year old kids’ walls in Asia and Europe right now. They are kids coming of age, 17 year old kids in Paris, growing up, not even just casually walking, but running to the store to buy Doors records 40 years later. It’s really an incredible thing. For somebody like Robby—of course, he’s defined partially by who he was in the Doors, but, within the passage of time, that’s just one piece of his journey. So looking back on 40 years in the Doors for him is a much different experience than looking back, for instance, for a member of the Grateful Dead who have been active this whole time with that band.
When I look back on ten years of Particle, obviously, there have been a lot of changes over the years, so for me, it’s a ten-year experience, but it’s really a bigger picture that’s made up of a lot of smaller puzzle pieces. I’m thankful that I can zoom out on a macro level and enjoy the Particle experience as a whole. But I think it is just as important to zoom in on a micro level and look at all the individual experiences and phases that made up that ride. A lot of different lineup changes and different guests, traveling to eight different countries, putting out records—those are all points in time that I cherish.
You mentioned the filmmaker. People make movies anywhere from three months to three years, so, for them, the process of just doing a gig…I can show up and play a gig in one night. I could record an album in one night if I really wanted to like the jazz guys used to do—get in a room and play. So, the passage of time is all relative and all subjective. To me, it’s not as much about the time as much as it the experiences and what you’re doing with the time. Looking back, I’m really just so thankful for the experiences we’ve had.
I went to dinner with Charlie [Hitchcock, original Particle guitarist]…actually (laughs), I think we went to dinner just about every night before the shows. (laughter) We room together, too, so we had some good hang time. But, yeah, we were sitting there in L.A. at dinner before the show, across the street from the Roxy—we went to this little sushi place—and we were looking back on it, looking back on memories, and we had a nice moment where we shared our love and respect for each other. I remember one of the earliest songs I ever knew—I don’t even know who wrote this song; I should look this up—I remember my music teacher in about second grade sang this song, “Accentuate the Positive (Eliminate the Negative).” And then it says, “Don’t mess with Mister In-Between.” And, man, that’s bad ass. That’s a cool children’s song. Looking back, on any situation there’s going to be good times and bad times, but, overall, I’m happy to say that I think—and I think I speak for everybody—but we’re all at a place where we just cherishing the good times, and looking back with positive feelings on this adventure we’ve all shared together. It was a leap of faith that we took. We all took the same risk and rode the same wave.
You never really know how it’s going to turn out. Obviously, when the four of us were getting in a van to go play 150 shows a year, drive ten hours to the next gig, eat Taco Bell, and sleep on a motel floor ten years ago, I couldn’t have predicted where the ride was going to take us. I would have told you that you were crazy if Charlie wasn’t always going to be our guitar player. A lot of things change and go in cycles. We really had such a blast playing together on this California run, and can’t wait to get to Colorado. It was such a great time getting together, and it felt really good to play with Charlie again.
He and I have actually always kept in touch. Even during the years that he wasn’t playing with Particle, we were in touch, and went out to dinner a couple of times, and I invited him to a studio session I did a couple years ago, so even though we hadn’t publicly patched things up, the truth is that I never lost any love for him, and have always had nothing but the best things to say about him as a friend and musician.
Photo by Mike Sherry
RR: You brought up some interesting concepts about time and film—
SM: Speaking of time, how do you do these interviews? Do you go through and pick and choose things that you want to say? You couldn’t possibly transcribe this whole thing.
RR: Oh, yeah. I transcribe the whole thing. I’m improv to the core. I know my subject, form a list of questions, throw them out, and go from one idea to the next.
SM: Hard core. (laughs) Hard core.
RR: Yeah, it’s all one big conversation, isn’t it?
SM: (laughs) That’s funny. Now they have to read this part about the conversation—the conversation within the conversation. Maybe, that’s what it’s all about—shedding those layers and getting closer to the core. Maybe, that’s the whole point of this—to draw attention to the conversation within the conversation.
RR: Absolutely. Our number one story for a few days was a link in The Loop section to a Particle rehearsal session. And the look on everyone’s faces definitely appeared to generate a conversation right there. What I also noticed about Particle’s music—in general—is that your sound isn’t affixed to any point in time. In a way, I seem to go on these musical journeys which project little mind films. When you play music, are you able to take yourself out of time, and remove yourself from all of those concepts whereas, instead of linear time, time is an ocean?
SM: That’s why I play music. I basically think of myself more as a time traveler than I do a musician. (laughs) Not to get too out there, but the truth is—whether they acknowledge it consciously or not—I think that’s what we’re all looking for as patrons of the arts. I think that that’s what fans are looking for. Whether it’s a fan going to a live concert, or somebody going to the opera, or to see a film, or even to an art museum, I just think that we’re all trying to travel from the routine that we’re normally stuck in.
It’s an interesting concept because it’s a duality. On the one hand, you’re getting away from the things that are in your life. Live music, for instance, is an escape because you stop thinking about your taxes, or whether or not you put the clothes from the washing machine into the dryer before you left the house—you stop thinking about everything from the most mundane details up to the biggest stresses in your life. They all just melt away when you immerse yourself in the arts, whether it’s a live concert or a film. But, there is a duality there because, on the one hand, it’s an escape, but on the other hand, it centers you and puts you more in tune with the moment. On the one hand, you’re getting away; on the other hand, you’re getting even closer to who and where you are. It is an interesting thing in that way. When it works, when I am playing music, I feel like I’m everywhere and nowhere. I feel like I can completely lose track of time and my surroundings. On the other hand, you’re so much more in touch with the moment and with the process of the moment.
So much of life is a distraction, especially these days now that the remote control generation has grown up and taken jobs at Apple. (laughs) We’re so plugged in, and we’re so used to snapping our fingers and getting what we want, whether it’s on YouTube, or downloading music or film, or TiVo. We’re so used to instant gratification that it becomes a dangerous temptation to leap frog from one distraction to the next. Seeing live music is great because it slows everybody down. (laughs) It shuts everybody up for a couple hours. It makes you sit still and look around and center yourself and be at one with your surroundings. On the other hand, again, when you go see a live concert, lights are flashing, disorienting, it takes you away, you give yourself to the music, and you’re taken on these little voyages. The song starts, and you’re just with the band, riding into this vast infinity, wherever that music is going to take you, and however it is going to make you feel.
These little adventures are like time traveling. Like you said, when you listen to the music and it has a certain timelessness, and it takes you away, you’re definitely going somewhere. The body is a vessel, so wherever you go when you’re listening, and however you feel—that is really more of the reality than the room you’re standing in. It matters more what program you’re watching than what T.V. you’re looking at. A television is just a vessel, a thing sitting on the other side of the room. You would never stare at it if there wasn’t something on T.V. You would never just sit for four hours and stare at that empty box. But, when you put the right program on, then you’re not looking at the T.V. You’re looking through it. You’re being transported to the reality of whatever you are watching. Live music is the same way. When an audience stands there in front of a band, nobody really thinks about it. Nobody ever really mentions this. We all just take it for granted. (laughs) We’re time traveling. We’re convening with each other on a really really high psychic level. (laughs) And like I said, not to get too out there, but it really is an incredible thing.
Joe Rogan, the comic, has a great bit where he talks about how standup comedy is like a form of ESP. He says, “I’m making noises with my mouth, and you’re reading my fucking mind.” (laughter) That’s crazy. If you take it down to a base level of just how incredible language is—you and I are thousands of miles apart and we’re just making noises (laughs), but you understand me. All of these things that we take for granted—I think going to see live music puts you back in touch with them to appreciate the beauty of the design. So…yeah, the other night at the Roxy? It was great. (laughter)
RR: You’ve been the de facto leader of Particle for ten years. How difficult has it been to get off stage, switch gears, and be thrown back into the realities of life?
SM: (laughs) You’re generously assuming I do switch gears, or that I’m even capable of doing that. First, I want to thank you for assuming that I’m always capable of that. I think…I sort of equate it into going into nature. When I went to college at the University of Colorado in Boulder, I used to go hiking up at Chautauqua Park at the Flatiron at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. My roommate and I would hike up there, get up to the mountain top, look down on civilization, hang for a little while, and just be up there with no distractions—just sitting and watching deer go by and hanging. That gives you a certain feeling and it’s a great place to be. A lot of people try to reach the mountain top in their day-to-day lives, and when you get there, and you get that feeling, you harness it at that moment, but it’s really hard to bottle and take that feeling down off the mountain top and back into society.
What would always happen is that we would go up there and we’d reach a certain inner peace, and a certain state of awareness, and we’d start walking down the mountain, and at some point, inevitably, we’d see some other people coming up, and you’d say, “Hi, how you doin’?” And, now, that’s sort of the first chiseling of the wall being torn down. You were in this sacred place when all of a sudden, some guy asks you what time it is, and “Oh, shit—what is time? What time is it?” Now, you’re looking at your watch, and you’re having to give someone information; you have the responsibility of satisfying their curiosity and of being right. Now, you’re starting to get pressure, and you’ve got to perform and participate. By the time you get down the mountain, it’s like “O.K.—where are my car keys? Where did I park? How much gas do I have? Where am I going? What time is my meeting?” And, before you know it, you’ve lost that mountain top perspective. You’re now one of them, one of the ants on the grid you were looking down on, or now you’re the little rat in the maze.
So, the hard part is to try to bottle—even if not all, some of—that feeling you had up on the mountain top. For me, the mountain top is live music. I am more alive and in tune with myself when I’m playing music, so I try to keep that feeling when the show ends and take some of that back into my life.
One of my favorite quotes that I picked up on the Hydra tour with Mickey Hart was that at the end of the show, he would say to the audience—as most performers do—“How ya feelin’?” And, inevitably the crowd would cheer. He would then say, “O.K., well, then, take that feeling home with you, and do something good with it.” I always thought that was a really cool connection that he made—bridging the gap between how you feel in the moment at a live concert and not letting it evaporate, not leaving it on the mountain top. Take it with you. Take it down the mountain. Take it back and share it with other people. Show them the mountain top.
In a way, that’s kind of what the jamband community is. Enough people…it’s funny that we were talking about Mickey since it is probably the Grateful Dead who started this way of thinking…but, enough people came down off the mountain top and, the next day, went back to reality, and went back to their workplace or their friends or their families, and said, “Hey, you’ll never believe how good the view is from up there. Listen to this tape. Check this out. Listen to this band.” And an entire movement was created that way just by people sharing the experiences of their travels to live music and to bands. That creates a scene and a movement.
For myself, on my best days, there really is no transition from being in the band, or on stage, or immersed in that world, and going to the market and shopping for orange juice. (laughs) Hopefully, I can transfer the energy from the mountain top back into the maze, and keep that feeling. It’s hard, but I try to do that.
That was one way to answer your question with some outside thinking. The short answer to your question is that I actually enjoy the transition. I like all the different elements within the dynamic of a band. We always saw ourselves as a democracy in Particle. We each contributed in our own ways to the greater good, and we still do. That’s really still the way it is. We never really have had a chosen leader. We just each take on our unspoken roles. When we get together, different people carry the torch at different times.
