Thursday marks the opening night of Bowlive V. The Soulive trio of Eric Krasno, Alan Evans and Neal Evans will be joined by the Shady Horns and a variety of guests throughout the run, with many of the players announced and others likely to be game-time decisions. Speaking of game-time, the following conversation with Krasno began with a discussion of basketball and the “musicians games” that he’s played in over the years.
The guitarist explains, “I actually have a very serious basketball injury. When I was in high school I used to play and I got flipped over on my back and crushed my elbow. I have a metal reconstructed elbow; I have a huge scar on my elbow. I was actually pretty serious about it back then. Oddly enough that’s when I decided to pursue guitar. In the few months that I couldn’t play, I realized how much that affected me. When I started to play [guitar] it was actually really good physical therapy for me in my arm and in my hand. They were like, ‘You won’t be able to play for a while,’ but I forced myself to play. It turns out my physical therapist was amazed because I have full motion. I still have nerve issues and I have to work around that but I have full motion which they didn’t think I was gonna have. That’s pretty crazy. We used to play a lot on the Dave Matthews tours. They would set up a basketball net every day. So we were like, “Bring it on,” Soulive against them, because they would have like a hundred people on their crew, so we could keep it going for months.”
From here the conversation turned to Krasno’s experiences at all three of the Brooklyn Bowls, as he performed at Brooklyn Bowl London in January with Lettuce and Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas last week with Soulive. Then it was on to five years of Bowlive, Krasno’s stint with Tedeschi Trucks Band and what looks back be the final Allman Brothers Band Beacon Theatre run.
Bowlive continues through March 22 and includes a Bowlive for Kids show this coming Saturday afternoon.
So, you’ve been from Brooklyn Bowl to Brooklyn Bowl to Brooklyn Bowl.
Yes, I’ve done the holy trinity [laughs].
Indeed! What was your experience like going to London?
It was great, man. Lettuce booked Ronnie Scott’s [Jazz Club] for three or four nights right on top of the opening of the London Bowl. So it ended up being Antibalas guys and then Lettuce just showed up and we did a secret set, which was actually perfect because we got to hang out, have a few drinks and we got to see everybody. It was really strange because you walk in and it really does have the feeling of the Brooklyn Bowl. We were in London playing this show and then we hopped in this car and then all of a sudden we’re at the Brooklyn Bowl, where I had been a few days prior. It was strange, man, but it was very cool and you see a lot of familiar faces there – at least at that point because they were still setting up – but it’s great. It’s right at the O2 Arena so the kind of idea is to get a lot of after-parties going there.
Did you interact with locals over there? Do you have any takeaway as to what they think of it?
I don’t think it’s set in yet. In Vegas it was people in the jamband community coming out. It was more like, “Oh my God we finally have something now!” In London they don’t really know yet, at least not when I was there. It was the first night, so it was more invited guests and celebrities and people like that that I didn’t honestly recognize. So I didn’t really get a feel for what people thought, besides musicians who were psyched. I had some musician friends with me who were from London and they were like, “We’re super psyched to start playing here; all these events are going to be happening here.” From that perspective there seemed to be some excitement.
It’s a little far from town, so it’s definitely going to be a destination thing where people are going there to go to O2 and then hang out there, or specifically to go there for an event. It’s nice though; the floor is a little bit bigger and the backstage is way bigger in both places. I think that in both Vegas and in London they’ve taken the concept and blown in out which is what tends to happen when you have a good thing going. You go, “How can I take this to the next level?” In Vegas they took it way next level; it’s so much larger; it’s insane.
What was that experience like?
In Vegas, what blew me away was that they kept the vibe but, like I said, it’s massive. But the thing about it is that playing on that stage still feels intimate, because what they did is, there’s two tiers. There are all these other areas and two levels of bowling. On the top level of bowling when you get the lane you actually get your own VIP area where you can watch from the second tier. So It kind of caters to anybody. It’s kind of like the way Brooklyn Bowl is where anybody can go there and have a great time, but then the VIP people can get really pimped out [Laughs].
Staying on the subject of Brooklyn Bowl, it’s just amazing to me that you guys have been doing it for five years now.
Yeah, I couldn’t believe that it’s five years already. It’s funny because right now I’m actually looking at this Bowlive book from 2010. It’s crazy and I look at some of the pictures in this and it’s just funny watching the progression of some of the other bands— the London Souls look like kids in this thing [Laughs]. So it’s just cool to see the place grow and the concept grow. And I think every year it gets better. Every year is different so it’s hard to say which one is better, but we are more prepared year after year for what’s going to happen. Each year we went a little more like, “Okay this year we’ll try this differently,” but each year it gets a little bit easier. It’s really a hard week for us because we have to learn so much music on the fly and we pretty much spend all day and all night at the place, so it’s pretty intense.
My recollection of the first year is that there were a lot of TBA guests but now that aspect of the run is much more built out in advance. What do you remember of the first year in terms of scrambling to make that happen?
The first year I remember Pete Shapiro coming to us and saying, “I want you guys to come out and play ten nights; I’m building a bowling alley.” I was like, “What?” [Laughs] And I really have to give credit to him and my brother [Soulive manager Jeff Krasno] for seeing the vision. I was like, “Really? Are people really going to come just hoping that people show up?” And he was like, “Once it happens once or twice.” Their whole thing was, “Just call your friends. You know all these musicians, just call them up.” Everyone who knew Pete was curious about the club so it wasn’t like the hardest sell to get people down. Then people saw what was going on, whether it was Bernie Worrell playing with Questlove and doing the P-Funk thing, every night was just so different. I remember the first year we had Warren Haynes one night, then Talib Kweli the next night and then Raul Midon doing Latin soul the next night. It was so diverse but at the same time, you didn’t look out there and feel like people were puzzled by that.
It was amazing because one night we had John Scofield doing classics and then Talib Kweli’s songs, and the same people that bought the ticket for John Scofield were yelling Talib Kweli lyrics and he wasn’t even announced on the show. I was like, “Wow, that’s my era of people; they can recite Talihb Kweli and would go see John Scofield. There are people like me out there!” Sometimes we think you can’t combine those things but I think you can. I think that’s what Bowlive is trying to prove, that good music is good music, and it can be kind of soulful. Soul doesn’t mean “soul music,” it means there’s soul in it.
One thing you mentioned is that initially you just called your friends, and a lot of those friends still come out. That’s one of the things I enjoy about Bowlive, the loose vibe where it is a collection of musicians who feel comfortable together and are just going after it.
Definitely. And to me, it’s changed my general view on putting shows together. I love being tight and I love rehearsal, but when I originally went into Bowlive, we tried to rehearse really hard on all this stuff, but then someone else would show up and we’d learn something completely different. It’s not really learning specific arrangements of songs, it’s about just being prepared for whatever’s gonna happen. It’s really just about letting that happen. Where a lot of people might go, “Oh he’s here, but we don’t really know those songs” we’ll say, “We don’t really know that song but we’ve heard it, so let’s try it.” And there are train wrecks and there are certain times where it’s amazing because maybe Alan didn’t know the tunes and he put a whole different beat to it, but it was amazing. We did “West LA Fadeaway” with David Hidalgo and Alan and Neal had never heard it. I was so happy because I had wanted to do Grateful Dead songs for so long, so I had to sneak them in without anyone knowing. They were like, “Oh man, that’s a bad ass tune!” And I was like, “If only I could tell them that it was the Grateful Dead.” It turns out Peter Costello let it out later that it was the Dead.
What was their take after the fact?
Neal was like “I can’t believe you got me to play a Dead song!” Because I was always like, “One of these days you’re gonna play Dead songs” and he’d be like, “Nah.” I think he’s coming around slowly but surely.
Since this is year five, I know that a number of people would like to hear your highlights from previous Bowlives.
You know – just the guitar dork inside me – when John Scofield plays with us I just freak out. Even though he’s my friend and even sort of a mentor, I’m still his biggest fan ever. When I get to hear him improvise over our songs, that’s a big one for me. And moments that I never thought would happen…We did “Flash Light” with Bernie Worrell and he did the intro and we rented a String Ensemble [a synthesizer produced in the 1970s], which is the exact thing he played. Just for this one ten second moment I had him playing my old Moog keyboard and a Rhodes and an organ. We set him up like he had been in the studio, and when he went into that intro for “Flash Light,” we literally couldn’t play because we were freaking out so hard. And he was so amped, too, to be playing it on the original keyboard and all that. That was a moment I’ll never forget, for sure.
On Saturday you’ll be performing an afternoon show billed as Bowlive For Kids. Can you talk a little bit about that?
There has always been a ton of people who want to bring their kids to it. That’s our age now, most of our friends have kids. Then other times there are underage high school kids and all-ages kids that wanna come. We get messages on Facebook and whatever, so we just tried it one year and it was really fun, everyone really loved it. I don’t even know who came up with that idea – probably Shapiro – but we just tried it one weekend randomly and we only announced it a few days before. And it did really well, because all the people that had been hanging out from the scene every night, we got to meet their kids. Also, I have three nieces and they never really get to see what I do or what we do. So they always come and get on stage and dance around and have a great time.
And musically, that’s just a straight-on Soulive show?
We just play our stuff. Sometimes we’ll bring kids on stage. We had George [Porter Jr.] do it with us last year and we played some stuff we hadn’t done before. We did like, “How Sweet It Is” and other kind of tunes that they could sing along with. We don’t edit too much, though, we just do our thing.
The show that night [March 15] includes a special set of London Soulive [a collaboration with the London Souls]. You’ve know them for a while but in terms of the material you’ll draw from, what can people expect?
It’s funny because when you called I was literally just sending them a list of tunes in an email. We’ve done a couple tunes here and there where they will sit in. Actually New Year’s Eve they opened for us and we did three or four songs at the end with all of us together. And I thought that was great so we were like, “Let’s do that at Bowlive.” We have a few songs already that everybody knows but I just sent a few more that popped up in my mind the other week. We’ll probably run through them a few more times at soundcheck, but again it’s just stuff that we all know, plus we’re gonna do one of their original tunes that I did on the record with them. It’s stuff that we’ll just have fun ripping on.
In terms of other guests showing up, who might be unannounced, how many of those do you lock in advance versus just seeing what might come together on the night of a show?
It’s both. There’s a couple I know right now are pretty much confirmed, and then others just show up. Sometimes I’ll just be like, “Hey, wow, this guys in town tomorrow.” Then sometimes people email me or text me and say, “This band’s playing at this place tomorrow, you should invite them.” It happens all different ways, but the ones that I know really well and I know are gonna be around, generally I’ll try to have a night that works with them. Or if other people they know are playing I’ll be like, “Hey come down; we can do this kind of vibe or do this song.” That sometimes will firm up who’s gonna be there and when.
Soulive at Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas- photo by C. Taylor Crothers
The musical vibe tends to change from night to night. As you look at the upcoming shows and you know all the people who are scheduled to perform with you, does that put you in a particular mindset? Like, “Okay, this evening’s going to be a little bit like this thematically”?
We don’t want the guests to perform like you would see them in their specific environment. For instance, if Susan [Tedeschi] is playing with us, we’re not gonna do the Tedeschi Trucks set, so we try to pull them into doing ether our songs or some songs that we all would like to play together. Each night is different. With Bill Evans and John Medeski last year, it was awesome because they actually learned a bunch of Soulive material. And they wanted to. Usually I’ll throw out there, “Hey would you guys like to do these songs?” And a lot of times people are like, “I’d really like to do these songs.” But with them they both unanimously wanted to play Soulive tunes. It was awesome for us because we didn’t have to learn any other material, [Laughs] But also to hear their take…“Tuesday Night Squad” was like 25 minutes long because you had Medeski re-harmonizing the whole thing and then Bill Evans doing his thing. So we did all these tunes a different way. It was so cool to hear the songs go through their filter. I expect every night to be great but that night was way beyond my expectations. I like not really knowing where it’s gonna go and then it takes on a whole new life.
You mentioned Susan, looking back at all those dates with Tedeschi Trucks Band, to what extent did you find that your bass chops improved?
Oh my God, like night and day! That thing was a challenge. I started as a bass player and played bass on a lot of recordings and I definitely consider myself a bass player, but I never played in that capacity really ever. I used to do gigs in high school and college playing bass, and I play bass with Nigel [Hall] if he’s playing in town, but it pushed me super hard. It was great, we had such a great time. I learned maybe 70-80 songs with very intense songs. Their arrangements aren’t simple, there’s tons of twists and turns and long solos and improvised sections, so it was a great experience and definitely a challenge. I was happy to have a guitar back in my hands, though. (Laughter)
What else did you take away from that experience?
Oh, tons, tons. From a business perspective, from a touring perspective, from a song selection perspective and how to run a band, those guys are top notch. Derek treats everyone with the highest respect and he’s a great band leader and Susan is a great front-singer and they’re great people. I would pretty much do anything for them; whatever they ask me to do, I’m there.
So, the Allman Brothers Band, it appears this is gonna be the last Beacon run for all intents and purposes. I’m just curious – you’ve been all around the city and you’ve seen it from both sides of the stage and it occursat the same time as Bowlive, so what’s your overall take on the ABB at the Beacon?
You know what’s crazy is I’ve been deep in the zone because I’ve been reading the One Way Out book that Alan Paul wrote. Yesterday I listened to all the Allman Brothers albums in conjunction with where I was in the book. That’s how freaked out I got. So really right now I really dove into the history which I didn’t know that much about before. But [the Beacon Theatre run] is just a New York staple; I’ve heard about them since I was a kid. I’ve been to many of them and I’ve sat in on them, and it’s just a huge part of New York and it’s kind of an integral part of Bowlive because people come into town and do both or they do one night with us and then there and they pop back and forth, so there’s some kind of symbiosis there. I think they’re doing it right in terms of leaving on a high note. That’s the way to go. And to switch around a bunch of members at this point? It’s not something I can really judge, but I think they’re doing it right. It’s two of the greatest guitar players of our time. The fact that it was able to keep going and still is where it is now is a huge testament to Derek and Warren, too. There’s not many people that could fill those shoes. I can’t think of any. They also speak to Duane’s original vision. So I’m hoping I can catch a few of these because I’m really busy these next couple weeks. But I hope I can catch one or two [On Wednesday night Krasno watched the show from the side of the stage, other than two songs where he joined in on guitar: “Breaking Up Somebody’s Home” and “Southbound.”]
Last question: looking ahead into 2014, what will do the upcoming months look yourself and your many projects?
I’m finally gonna release this solo record I’ve been working on for a while. It’s more psychedelic and more vocal based. I’ve done a few shows as the Eric Krasno Band over the last couple years but I’m finally gonna release that. I’ve been working with Pretty Lights as well and he helped me mix my first single. I’m also gonna do some shows and some sessions with him; I’m not sure where or when that will culminate, but we’re planning on doing some stuff together. We’ve got a bunch of Lettuce dates happening; we’ve got Red Rocks coming up this summer and a new record that we’re gonna do. And I’m producing a lot of stuff, too, so I’m in the studio building a new space in Greenpoint where I’ll be working out of. So it’s a lot of things; a lot of irons and fires. And balancing between those things is the other part of it.
