Kyle Hollingsworth has a lot on his plate these days. Aside from his role as one sixth of the String Cheese Incident, the keyboardist has also been touring with his own Kyle Hollingsworth Band and working with a variety of other groups, such as Euforquestra. His latest side project— Incidental Animals —will be making its live debut tonight at The Note in West Chester, PA before heading to a few more cities in the Northeast. The Heavy Pets will be opening for the band, which features Hollingsworth, Dan Lebowitz, Steve Adams and Dave Brogan of ALO and Jennifer Hartswick of Trey Anastasio Band. We spoke with Kyle yesterday about the upcoming Incidental Animals shows, the String Cheese Incident’s 2014 plans, his next brew and more.
How did this Incidental Animals project come about?
It was a meeting of the minds. We did some jamming together last Jam Cruise and I’m good friends with Zach Gill and I know they wanted to do some shows coming up this fall and Zach was out with Jack Johnson. [When they were putting together a special band for a private event], they thought of me. Zach and I were speaking and it made total sense. I think it’s a really good combination, I really enjoyed playing with them all Jam Cruise. It felt really good.
What can we expect from these shows? Are you going to delve into your respective bands’ material? Are you going to do covers?
Who knows? We’re going to find out tomorrow, right? It’s going to be a combination of our own material that we’ve been rehearsing on. I’m excited to see where this will go. I don’t think we’ve really improvised that much as a group together. This will be first time where we step into that space. It will be music from both of us, some covers, we have Jen playing with us from Trey’s band. She’s bringing in a lot to the table, and some free jam time.
How’d you first meet the ALO guys?
We jammed together at Jam Cruise last year, but the first time I think I met them was when String Cheese was doing shows with them in the 2000s, probably 2008-2009. I was intrigued by their sound and then I did a whole tour with just Zach Gill and I, it was a duo tour with one band. It was called the Four Hands tour or the Twenty Fingers Tour.
We played together for a whole run so I got to know his style of writing. It’s been a relationship for the past six years or so.
Have you ever played with Jennifer Hartswick? How long have you know her?
I haven’t known Jennifer for that long, certainly not as long as ALO. I was jamming with her for the Everyone Orchestra gigs with Matt [Butler]. She was on a couple of those. She was down for String Cheese Hulaween we did in Florida. She came up on the end. I’ve been recently getting to know her more and more.
Moving onto SCI, are there any details you can give on the new album or the Spring tour?
We are shooting to release the album closer to March and April now and that will be followed by a tour. We are excited to get into a bus and maybe do a little less one-off festival stuff. I think a couple of gigs that are set up now for the spring are festival-oriented, but we are going to push for a bus tour so we can dig in. It may not be till the fall though.
String Cheese just hosted their first Suwannee Hulaween down in Live Oak, FL. How did that go?
Man, it was soo great. It would be awesome if we could continue to build that location as a place for Halloween. I think it’s a little early to tell if we’ll be back, but the experience overall was amazing. We took some of the elements of Electric Forest, Hornings Hideout and put them into the forest there. The whole family vibe was amazing and I’m hoping we can do it again. It was incredible.
String Cheese announced today that Bootsy Collins, The Flaming Lips and the Tiny Universe Horns will be joining you for your New Year’s shows over in Colorado, but you’ve also mentioned that some special guests from Cheese’s past will be sitting in as well. Can you give us any hints about who that might be?
No, I can’t really say. The idea is that in the next couple weeks we’re coming up on our official 20 year anniversary. They did their first gig in early December—without me—in Crested Butte 1993. The idea is to bring some of the moments back to the 20th anniversary shows. Karl Denson obviously played on our early albums and we’ve toured with him forever. Let’s leave it up in the air right now, maybe make it a guessing game. There are a lot of great guests we could bring back from the 20 years. It would be cool which bands you’d be interested in seeing. I don’t really know. We have a big list going. We’ll see who actually shows.
You’ve been on the road with The Kyle Hollingsworth Band lately, how’s that? Is there a studio release coming up?
There is a new Kyle Hollingsworth CD in the works. I’ve been working on it for the past six months or so. The release of that has been put on hold, I try to put all my eggs in the String Cheese basket when I can. I ideally would release it in March and April, but there’s another band I play with who will be releasing something then. I’m looking at a fall release. I’ve been doing a lot of writing with String Cheese for the new Cheese CD. My CD will have material that’s not on the new CD along with material written on my own, some dance stuff and Afrobeat stuff.
I’ve been producing a band called Euforoquestra, kind of a world beat band. I just finished their new CD and it was really great to get into the producer’s chair for a bit, it really changes your perspective.
How’s the brewing been going late?
Stone Brewery, out of San Diego, is going to make a national release with me. It’s going to be a bottled beer available in all the states they serve. It’s going to come out in March or April. Originally it was going to come out with the CD, but we’re now rescheduling that. It’s part of the Trinity series they put it out. It’s me, the guitar player from Alice Cooper [Keri Kelli] and the head man at Stone [Greg Koch]. We’re all musicians so we’re going to release a beer coming out in March together and play some music, maybe release my CD at the same time. We’re trying to hook it all together. I’m currently working on with Stone. They are a super good company.
Anything else you’d like to add about the Incidental Animals shows?
I’m super psyched. I’m excited for the shows because we’re new at playing together and I feel like when the energy is new and fresh, exciting things can come about.
Are you planning on taking this any further than just these few shows?
Let’s find out. I’m excited. I’m meeting the boys tonight and we’re going to jam and rehearse. We’re playing it by ear. I’d love to take it to Colorado too. Zach Gill is an amazing keyboardist and musician. I want this to be something completely different from ALO.
String Cheese mentioned a couple months back that their might be two separate releases; one a traditional album and then some other songs you’d release in a different format. Is that still the plan?
That’s still part of the plan. We haven’t crossed that bridge yet. We’re going to release this album, we plan a couple of surprise guests on the new album, that’s been the history of our performances. We’ll treat that as one unit. The idea was to perhaps to release the more electronic thing as a separate release. It’s hasn’t come to fruition yet. We’re still thinking about it. I would like to follow up with that.
Any hints you can drop about spring tour locations.
I can’t say a lot. There will be some shows on the eastern side of the United States.
