There really isn’t another festival quite like Electric Forest. With a picturesque setting, eclectic lineups and a jaw-dropping psychedelic wonderland at the heart of the festival grounds, it’s no wonder the event has been a hit since its inception. There really isn’t a band like The String Cheese Incident either. With shows that seamlessly move from bluegrass to EDM and everything in between, you’d have a hard time finding a more versatile act on the scene today. Yet despite that versatility, it was still something of a shock when Electric Forest announced that SCI would be teaming up with Ms. Lauryn Hill for an unprecedented collaborative set at this year’s festival.
No one really knew what to expect from the Ms. Lauryn Hill Incident, and with good reason. Cheese have mastered a lot of styles but hip-hop isn’t really one of them—you can debate whether or not Jason Hann’s “Sirens” rap counts in the comments section—so there were a lot of doubts about how their sounds would mesh. On top of that, Hill has a mixed reputation when it comes to punctuality, which led many to wonder if enough preparation would go into the one-of-a-kind performance.
All of these doubts melted away the moment Hill and her bandmates took the stage in front of an utterly mesmerized crowd that was still reeling from a spectacular onslaught of confetti, fireworks and other shenanigans. From the first note of Stevie Wonder’s “For Once In My Life” to the cover of Bob Marley’s “Could You Be Loved” that closed out the night, the stars seemed to align in just the right way. It was a truly unforgettable show that definitively silenced the haters and took the magic of Electric Forest to another level.
I caught up with all of the String Cheese guys the following day to get some insights on the Ms. Lauryn Hill Incident and talk about the reaction to their latest album, the prospect of a new record, the future of Hulaween and more.
The Lauryn Hill Incident. I’ll admit I was a little skeptical, but any reservations I had going in were completely gone after the first song. What kind of preparations went into this?
Michael Kang: In short, we had an idea—her band was on tour, so they were kind of busy—and we had an idea of a few songs. Then some other song ideas trickled in on the last day or the day before, and then we all kind of got together in one long marathon rehearsal and hashed it all out. There were a fair amount of hours that went into the whole thing.
Bill Nershi: Yeah, we had a couple of days of rehearsal of the tunes that we got initially. So we had a couple of days back home in Colorado of just playing those tunes, and then when she came in, she was like, “Do you guys know this one and that one?” We tried to pick up as many tunes as we could. Some that she wanted to do, we just went out there and jammed with those guys—on some of the Fugee tunes, stuff like that. So we learned as much as we could, we spent a lot of time, and then some of it was just like on the spot jamming.
It was reggae, it was soul, it was R&B. What put the emphasis on these sorts of things? What made you guys opt for three Bob Marley tunes?
Kang: I think there was a lot of common ground material wise. And I think yeah, we honestly didn’t really know what we were getting into, and we definitely had trepidations as well, but then in the end it ended up being a super positive, awesome, rich experience. I think she had a great time and all of her band had a great time, and overall it was a total success.
Jason Hann: I think she was also married to a Marley [Rohan]. If you listen to her set, she always has like Bob Marley in her solo sets, so. I think that’s a vibe that she really likes.
Yeah the whole thing worked really well. Going straight from the carnival thing with “Valley of the Jig” into the Lauryn Hill Incident. It was great.
Kyle Hollingsworth: Like Billy was saying earlier we spent a lot of our time outside her being with us. We spent a lot of String Cheese specific time working on it. So I think it all paid off in the end, but we’re all kind of feeling it today. It’s been a long weekend, a little bit.
Hann: When she came in here, she was so super-pro. She knows her music inside and out, she’s so on top of her game, musically.
Kang: She’s really, professionally, like, very—an amazing artist. It was different for us to witness that. It was mind blowing in a lot of ways.
Michael Travis: It was a whole different level.
Nershi: She came in to rehearse and she sang for three straight hours, going over and over stuff, making sure all the parts were right, and going through it again. She was singing her ass off for three hours in practice, then she went out on stage and sang for another two hours.
Hollingsworth: She hears every nuance of what’s going on onstage. She knows exactly what everyone is doing.
Hann: She knows exactly what she wants and knows how to translate that.
Hollingworth: Yeah, whether it’s by touching us on the shoulder, like by telling us the beat on our shoulder.
Hann: Yeah, she’s a killer rapper so she’s super sensitive to like timing and where her thing needs to be to feel right, and she’s super sensitive to melody and harmony.
Kang: She just has like an amazing ability to be a band leader. Even though their set is somewhat scripted, she apparently just changes stuff on the fly. That’s pretty amazing that they can pull that off. They’re an amazing band.
The new album, Song in My Head, is fantastic. How’s the response been?
Nershi: It’s been a pretty positive response. I’ve heard a lot of people say it’s their favorite String Cheese album yet, you know. So that’s cool to hear after making seven albums or something like that.
What was it like working with Jerry Harrison (of the Talking Heads)? Does he have his fingerprints all over the album? What does he bring to the table?
Kang: Well it’s a little different because Jerry stepped in once we’d already picked a lot of stuff, and he wasn’t there right from the beginning. Although him being there definitely—he put his fingerprints on it— but I think in some ways what made it successful was there was already a strong imprint of what we wanted to sound like beforehand. He didn’t really fuck with that too much, which is probably why we’re so happy with it. It was kind of organic. Sometimes a producer will get an idea of how they want the band to sound and the band’s just sitting there like, “We’re supposed to sound like what?” But it was cool, and he definitely had creative input.
Hann: The way him and his engineer, ET, work together, they just trust each other’s instincts. ET, I thought he had great ears on him. Like, “Yes, let’s keep that. No, we gotta do that over again.” But it really felt like he was honest about it, and when Jerry saw that he had an opinion about something, he would be like, “Yeah, go ET.”
You guys have been debuting a number of songs this summer and Kyle was also telling me the other day that you’ve got some new material. Is there another album in the works?
Kang: You know, we’ve never really been the kind of band that goes into the studio and writes a bunch of tunes. We tend to, for better or for worse, work it out on the road. So even the songs on the last album, most of them had been played out quite a bit first to work out the kinks. So, we’d like to record them, and maybe one of these days we’ll actually record songs before we play them live. But that doesn’t seem to be how we do it, we tend to work things out on the road and see how it works.
Nershi: We’re just so excited about when we have new material, that we wanna play it live pretty much as soon as we feel it’s up and running.. And the funny thing about making that album was, about a month after we had finished that album, or after the album came out, we had five new songs beyond what was on the album. Everybody was like “Oh, now I have all these other new ideas,” and really—making the album, getting that stuff down—I think it helped clear the table for more new material to come out.
Sam: Speaking of new material, I’ve noticed that Jason and Travis have been switching up on the drums for some of the new songs What’s up with that?
Nershi: Travis gets tired.
Kang: Now that he’s 68.
[Laughter]
Hann: His hair’s so grey it’s turning black again.
Travis: I think, to address the original question, that Jason and I have both different styles on two different stations, and sometimes it just feels more appropriate to switch up to get a new flavor because we’re both versed at either. So it’s just fun to just give it a little kick in the pants.
So Suwannee Hulaween is returning this year. Is this shaping up to be something of a tradition from now on?
Moseley: Hope so, yeah. Worked so great last year. That’s the plan.
Nershi: Annual event!
Hann: The way that that place is set up, it like it could grow the same way Electric Forest has grown. It seems like it could really be that in Suwannee, with the way they treat the swamps down there and the amazing moss covered trees. The setting down there’s quite a bit different, but its just as lush, and has the same kind of potential as the forest.
I’ve also noticed there’s no Horning’s this year either. Is there a reason for that?
Moseley: Let’s just say we’re taking a break from it for now. Maybe we’ll go back. Who knows?
