Photo by Jeff Kravitz (insidecelebpics.com)
An electrifying cheer drowns out the triumphant coda of “Fluffhead” as fractured flashes of white light divide the ominous night sky. What is most striking is that when asked moments later about the spectacular finger lightning that accompanied his work, Phish lighting designer Chris Kuroda says, “I didn’t notice.” This is perhaps the essence of any great artist: being so focused on his craft that the outside world ceases to exist.
Kuroda has, of course, been an integral part of the Phish concert experience since 1989, long before the quartet’s ascent to superstardom. His surreal use of vivid color, symmetry and dramatic movement creates a psychedelic architecture (Superman’s Fortress of Solitude comes to mind), which not only enhances the live performance, but is as crucial to the process as melody, harmony or rhythm.
When the band broke up in 2004, Kuroda was forced to find other work and subsequently toured with The Black Crowes, Aerosmith and R. Kelly. “The whole time I was on these different tours I’d see other people do new things and in the back of my mind I’d say, ‘OK, I’m going to do that with Phish, if the day ever comes.’”
When Phish returned to the stage this past March, he had a new approach, due in large part to his experience working on R. Kelly’s tour. Kelly’s show was exactly the same each night and required months of elaborate planning—in many ways the complete opposite of the Phish philosophy.
For the first time ever, heavily composed songs such as “Fluffhead,” “Divided Sky” and “You Enjoy Myself” (as well as the new “Time Turns Elastic”) now feature pre-programmed sequences, which allows Kuroda to execute complex lighting cues at the push of a button. This is important, as new technology has eliminated the need for additional board operators. “This year has been more difficult than the 20 years previous because of the new technology. I don’t have to talk to anybody, which is different because with two hands I’m doing what six hands used to do. I really love not wearing that headset. I make a lot more mistakes because I can’t call cues to other people. But I can live with the mistakes for the overall picture. It’s bringing the fun back for me.”
The following interview took place on the afternoon of June 19, 2009 at Verizon Wireless Music Center in Noblesville, IN. It was particularly hot and humid on this day; a detail that would later factor in to the set break “storm delay” which required all fans on the lawn to return to their cars and wait out the storm, while the band’s crew lowered the P.A. due to high winds and heavy, angular rain. But the main concern, as is usually the case, was the lightning. There is a tinge of irony, I suppose, in the fact that while on assignment writing about concert lighting, our night was significantly delayed while the grandest of all light shows took center stage.
JW: After Phish broke up, you worked with a range of other artists over the four and a half years.
CK: I did. It was nerve-wracking at first, not really knowing what was going to come next. I had been in the same camp for so long and it actually took a while for me to start getting job offers because my name has been so entrenched in this world that it’s just assumed I’m never available. Even in my time out here [on the road with Phish] previously, I stayed buried in the lights and didn’t network too much with a lot of people. But, eventually the phone calls started coming and I have The Black Crowes to thank for keeping me afloat when I needed it the most. They came through in the clutch and it’s been a great relationship.
JW: So you worked with The Black Crowes, R. Kelly, and a little bit of Aerosmith.
CK: Yeah, I did The Black Crowes and one day I heard my name was in the hat for Aerosmith and then I got the call. It was a big celebration for us. I mean, it’s Aerosmith, you know? My wife has always said, ‘You know, you should go light Aerosmith. They are the perfect band for you.’ So, it’s always sort of been a joke around the house. Then Aerosmith called and I got the gig. It was really an amazing experience working with those guys and that led to R. Kelly, which was a five-month long, gigantic 14-truck, insane extravaganza.
JW: The role you play with Phish and your involvement in the improvisational process is a pretty unique one. When you were suddenly trying to light someone like R. Kelly or Aerosmith, what were some of the challenges and differences?
CK: Two different experiences actually. With Aerosmith, I came in the day before the first show of the tour. It was not my lighting design and I handled the other guy’s design and they said ‘Make it work.’ So, with one night of programming for a show, the only philosophy I could think of putting into play was what I do for Phish. So I just started building [cues] and playing the music in my headphones while working all night. I know all of Aerosmith’s songs, just like everybody does. So, that tour was very similar to Phish in the sense that I built it as I went and I just kind of ran the whole thing on the fly and relied on my timing. It went really, really well. R. Kelly, on the other hand, was months of pre-programming and months of rehearsals. It was a show from start to finish. Everything was cued. It was more similar to theater than rock and roll. There was a [time code] track that everybody went by. The whole show was very regimented. We had to write lighting cues for every single part of the show. It was exactly the same every night. The cue stack was 770 cues to do the whole show. It was a “Go Button” show. One button triggered lighting, video, music, all networked through the Grand MA console and networked all around.
JW: You were running all of those different elements?
CK: I was, yes.
JW: Did that experience teach you new things that you’ve now brought back to Phish?
CK: Absolutely. Well, the production designer on that tour was a guy named Patrick Dierson, who is also a lighting designer. I learned a lot from him. He’s a great designer. He does a lot of different things. He’s a really good cue-to-cue programmer. Basically, he taught me how to utilize my entire rig. You don’t have to have every light on all the time. You can have some lights on and have them do a thing for a moment in the music. I had always been an “all rig on, all lights moving all the time” type of guy. So, he taught me how to break it up, how to be organized, how to do new things with it and how it can be powerful with only some of it on. He helped me grow as a lighting designer.
JW: When Phish decided to come back, did you have to relearn the music in addition to how you run the light show?
CK: I did. You know, I hardly listened to any of it during that off time. This year has been more difficult than the twenty years previous because of the new technology. I’m running the whole show myself now. I’m not calling any cues to anybody. When everything is running well, I can take my headset off. I don’t have to talk to anybody, which is different because with two hands I’m doing what six hands used to do. There’s a learning curve, a lot to get used to. These LEDs, I need to think of them as moving lights, not as par cans. If I think of them as pars, they’ll be out of their pan and tilt when I need them, because they’re moving lights. When you clear your desk [lighting console], they go to their 50/50 position. They’re not going to be on the band when you hit the button. So, there’s a lot more thinking involved.
JW: When you said this is harder than the previous twenty years, I assume that’s because you’re trying to tackle a large portion of the Phish catalogue all at once instead of learning one new song at a time, as the band introduces new material. What approach did you take to relearning the song list?
CK: I listened a little bit, I wrote a few cue stacks, to “Fluffhead” among others. I went to rehearsal for one day and they rehearsed on stage in Hampton before we did the shows. The whole time during that experience I felt unprepared, didn’t know the music and was nervous about the whole thing. When the lights went down and they came on stage, I did what Trey calls ‘no mind.’ You don’t want ‘too many mind.’ Like in The Last Samurai, the guy is trying to fight and the guy goes ‘too many mind.’ Don’t think, basically. Autopilot it. Those lights went out in Hampton and I closed my eyes and autopilot-ed and I went ‘Oh yeah, I remember all of these songs.’ If you take your brain out of the equation, you’re fine. That’s literally what I did.
JW: The problem with that is that the first song they played was “Fluffhead” and it was the first time you ever used a pre-programmed cue stack for a Phish song. So, you’re trying not to think, but suddenly you’re running lights for Phish again, but in a completely different way. It must have been hard to rely on muscle memory in that context.
CK: It was. I was really nervous about doing that. But, it went really well. I had the luxury of, while writing that very elaborate “Fluffhead” cue stack, listening to “Fluffhead” a thousand times. So, that song, I knew. By the way, I’m still screwing things up. There are still parts of songs where I’m going to [a different section] and then I go ‘Oh shit, I forgot about that part!’ The catalogue is enormous.
JW: Let’s talk about your current rig. Was it an environmental decision to replace almost all of the par cans with LED fixtures or was it an attempt to be more technologically savvy?
CK: I think it was more trying to be tech savvy. I was really growing away from par cans anyway. All the old Phish rigs were par cans with moving lights layered over them. I really wanted to get away from that. I had the opportunity to use some [Elation] Impressions about a year ago and I realized that it was what I wanted to do. I think it was a great decision. I’m really happy without par cans. The only pars in the whole rig are Lekos and ACLs. That’s it.
JW: One of the things that I always associated with your light show was the massive numbers of ACLs that you used to accent various rhythmic “hits”. Now, you’re using Atomic 3K Strobes to accent those same sections. It’s definitely a different look.
CK: Yup, I’m just going in a new direction. It’s the whole thing with all incandescent sources. I love the ACLs. I needed a layer, that’s why I added them back in. They’re only three racks. But, they’re slow. If you hit the button on a big par can look, it’s going to take a second to get there. It’s the same with the ACLs. On R. Kelly [tour], I had a bunch of these Atomic 3Ks that were there for accenting and that’s something I stole from R. Kelly. The whole time I was on these different tours – Aerosmith, Black Crowes, R. Kelly – I’d come across new things or I’d see other people do new things and in the back of my mind I’d say ‘OK, I’m going to do that with Phish if the day ever comes.’ So, when the day came I tried to [implement those elements]. I’m just trying to be different. You know, I don’t want it to look the same. The kids say ‘Phish 3.0’. It’s new no matter what it is.
JW: Are there elements of your new light show that you’re not happy with?
CK: That’s a good question. No, right now I’m pretty happy with everything. I have to say. I’m still in learning curve mode. I’m still getting used to this gigantic animal, as I consider it to be.
JW: I’ve noticed that the whole rig is a lot sparser than some of your rigs back in the late 90s.
CK: The whole vibe was to go more sparse, yes. That was the whole vibe before Hampton when we were talking about what we were going to do. That’s why we wanted the brightest hard-edge gobo light we could get.
JW: And why that decision?
CK: I would look at photos of my lighting with old Phish. I’d have a stack of pictures in my hand and I’d look at them and go ‘too busy,’ next picture: ‘too busy, too cluttered,’ next picture: ‘too clumpy.’ They were all too busy. I wanted a cleaner look. So, in an attempt to make a cleaner looking light show, we went for less fixtures with more power and spread them out. There are a couple trusses up there that have only two lights on them, but it makes space and spreads things out.
Photo by Jeff Kravitz (insidecelebpics.com)
JW: Is that something you learned as you matured as an artist? That seems to be a common theme among musicians. You could use Phish as an example. As they’ve gotten older, their songwriting has gone from complex to a lot of three-chord rock songs. The ‘less is more’ philosophy.
CK: I would say that’s fair to say, absolutely.
JW: Are there any particular lighting designers that have influenced you in the last few years, as that new philosophy has blossomed?
CK: Well, when Trey opened for The Stones, they were playing gigantic stadiums, but it wasn’t just mountains of fixtures. It was really spread out and when they’d light up their looks it was very clean looking for such a gigantic rig. Patrick Woodroffe designed that. Everything he designs has a really clean look to it. So I’d have to say he is an influence. Otherwise no, I kind of know in my head what I want this to be and if I see other ideas that other people use, I’ll try to incorporate them if I like them. Over the four years [since Phish last toured] I thought about this every day, in hopes that if the time ever came, I’d be really prepared and I’d know exactly what I wanted. I didn’t want to say ‘Oh, Phish is getting back together. I wonder what gear is out there. What should I use? What’s going on?’ I wanted to have a handle early.
JW: I know that muscle memory plays such a large role in what you do – the same physical hand movements for a given song over and over again. In the past, you had two additional board operators [and for a time, only one] who you would call cues to over a headset. You had to verbalize a large portion of the light show to them as you were working. So now that you’re no longer doing that and you’re running everything by yourself, is that a challenge?
CK: It’s a challenge as far as timing, but it’s a relief just as far as running the gig. I really enjoy it just being me. I really love not wearing that headset. I really feel apart of it. I make a lot more mistakes because I can’t call cues to other people. I’m trying to do it all. But, I can live with the mistakes for the overall picture. It’s bringing the fun back to it for me. There’s a lot of stress involved in calling cues and trying to think three different ways at once. This is just much calmer.
JW: Did calling cues over the headset to additional board operators also provide a safety net of sorts? If you’re running a big effect, you could have another effect set up and ready to go when you need it instead of having to manually execute it yourself.
CK: Yeah, that’s what I’m sacrificing. I used to be able to say ‘Set this up and stand by to run it.’ It’s easy to say that, it’s hard to actually press the buttons when you’re thinking about what’s happening in the song and what’s coming next. You can’t really let go of what’s going on onstage until all of your focus is off what is coming next. Whereas, if you’re calling it to an operator, he doesn’t care what’s going on onstage. He’s just listening to you, waiting for you to ask him to do the next thing. It’s easy on both ends in that regard. But, I’m willing to sacrifice that. I mean, one desk runs the whole show, so why shouldn’t one person run one desk?
JW: It occurred to me during the tension and release at the end of “David Bowie” last night. The band is going back and forth between two very distinct sections: the arpeggios and the cacophonous buildup and you use two very different lighting cues to accent each. Now that you no longer have an additional board operator running separate cues, you have to get from one cue to the next on your own, very quickly. The lights have to physically ‘jump’ from one effect to the other.
CK: I try to use different lighting systems so that you don’t see that too often. But yeah, it’s challenging. The way we used to run that section is both operators would set something up and I’d have something up on my system. I’d black out and they’d bump in. I’d bump in and they’d black out, all on ‘stand by and go’. While I’m in, I’d say ‘Please set this up next. Stand by to bump it in.’ I mean, I have so much work to do here. I have this vision of making a “David Bowie” button that does that. It would be seven or eight effects and back to the stage and however many times they do it, it’s all set up for me instead of having to grab and choose in eight seconds where I’m going to need it again. It’s stuff for the future that I’ll get to someday, but for now there’s no time. I barely get things ready to do the gig each day as it is without adding anything new.
JW: You talked about not thinking. Was there a moment during the first show when you thought everyone – the band as well as you – was in sync for the first time?
CK: Yeah, it was right away, probably towards the end of “Bowie” especially, during that first night at Hampton. First night of Hampton was good. But, second set, second night was when I felt like myself again. It was all just perfect. And then, the third night felt like a complete and utter disaster, so you just really never know what’s going to happen.
JW: Why the disaster?
CK: It just didn’t click the third night after clicking so well the second night. I should say, I didn’t click. It’s me, really, where I’m at, not hearing them right, not following them right or getting lost.
JW: Do you find that it’s easier for you to have a great night when the band has a great night?
CK: That’s it. When they’re struggling, I struggle, plain and simple.
JW: Being so intimately involved in the musical process, how would you characterize the band’s current improvisation style compared to other eras? There is certainly a direct correlation to what you’re doing.
CK: I think the only way to answer that question is that it’s just so fantastic that we’re back. They’re playing so well. They’re making some mistakes like everybody is, but who cares? This is bonus. You know what I mean? I heard some people complaining the other day about the show in St. Louis and I just thought to myself, ‘Hey, c’mon. At least they’re here. Gimme a break.’ Complaining. Last year or two or three years ago, this was finished. Over. Done. So, here we are again. It’s just so special. I think the band’s feeling it. They just seem happier than I’ve ever seen. Everyone’s just so happy. It’s unbelievable. I just think it’s great. I think they have their stellar nights and they have their normal nights, just like any human beings. They’re trying their best every night. It’s just great that they’re up there trying. I love it.
JW: Do you find your lightshow being influenced by the band’s different jamming styles over the years, where you might write more cues for a certain style?
CK: Yeah, it’s different. They’re jamming differently. It’s harder to follow. It’s like a new learning process to understand the new Phish. The jams are concise. They’re not 25-minutes long. Things happen a lot quicker. I’ll be in something dark and I’ll need to brighten it up sooner than I used to. It’s almost like listening to it in fast-forward, compared to ’98.
JW: Are there certain Phish songs that you are lighting differently now than you did, say, ten years ago? Do you find yourself doing more or less of certain things?
CK: I actually have had a lot of moments where I’ve forgotten what I used to do for this part of this song or that song. So, I’m sort of developing a new style. Sometimes I’ll remember and try to mimic it and sometimes I just don’t remember so I’ll try to do something else that fits.
JW: Maybe that’s a great thing. It’s good to be new and fresh.
CK: Could be a great thing. Absolutely. It’s funny how something that’s so embedded for so many years disappeared mentally after such a short amount of time. It’s been only four years or so that we’ve been broken up and I had done it for eighteen years before it. There are so many parts of songs where I go ‘God, I can’t even remember what I did here.’
Photo by Jeff Kravitz (insidecelebpics.com)
JW: It seems like the band may be having the same experience at times. For a large portion of their career they were writing songs that weren’t conventional and throwing these curveballs and not adhering to standard 4/4 time signatures. It kept the listener off balance. Now, if they don’t remember certain composed sections, they’re trying to rely on their instincts, and trying to guess where the “one” is and getting thrown off by their own curveballs. As an organization, you raised the bar so high for so many years, and it’s hard to get back to that level.
CK: I think that’s it. And I think that the band is experiencing that exact same phenomenon as I am. We’re all just kind of still getting back into it, remembering how we used to do it. It’s a gigantic library of stuff and they want to play it all. It’s just a matter of getting to that point. They’ll try some nights and they do a really good job I think. But, I think it’s similar with them in the sense that it’s only been a short four years and they had to basically relearn their catalogue as well I’d imagine.
JW: Moving forward, are there any fantasies that you still want to explore as far as video projection?
CK: I do. Originally we had spec-ed this out with a bunch of DML 1200s and surfaces all around the band and we were going to project and get some content from Mike [Gordon] and really go down that path. The whole goal was to make video not look like video because we don’t want to look like anyone else that does video. But it kind of went to the wayside. The Phish philosophy has always kind of leaned towards purist. You know, we had all talked and decided that we weren’t ready to add another element yet. Let’s get rolling and get back to what we used to do and see what the future holds. But, we just wanted to keep it simple.
JW: With the current light rig, I feel like this may be the first time in a decade that you’ve actually had anything hanging down behind the band, since the Minkin backdrop.
CK: Yeah, and I’ve certainly never had lights like that in a vertical sense.
JW: And that is something that I assume you can’t do in an arena due to the 360-degree seating.
CK: No, we can’t do it in an arena, so we’ll do floor lights because sight lines are so important here, but that’s an idea I got from Tom Petty. Tom Petty did a lot of that stuff and I thought it looked great. So I sort of tucked that away in the back of my mind. I actually did ladders similar to this on a Trey [Anastasio solo] tour and really dug ‘em.
JW: You talked about not thinking. Have you been able to pinpoint what causes a really amazing night as far as you and the band members and the synergy or is it just completely random?
CK: It’s completely random. I honestly think it has a lot to do with personal headspace. I think when it’s fun, it clicks. When you’re forcing it, it doesn’t click. I honestly believe, very thoroughly in taking your mind out of the equation and just acting on instinct. It seems to work a lot better for me. When I think too much, my timing gets all weird because I’m like, ‘Should I hit it now? Should I wait? When should I hit the button?’ Instead of just boogying down and hitting the button naturally, you’re hand just does it. When I do that, it all jives, it’s all right on. When I stop and think too much, it sucks.
JW: Have you ever had a fan come up to you during the show and ask you to turn the bass up and in the process you completely miss what you were counting and your concentration is blown?
CK: Yes, last night as a matter of fact. Absolutely. It happens all the time. Someone messed me up trying to bum a cigarette from me last night, yelling from out there in the seats, ‘Hey you! Sir!’ [laughs]. Wow.
JW: You’re obviously in a different place now, you and the band members. You have a daughter now.
CK: Yeah, she’s turning six in a couple days, just finished kindergarten. It’s way different. It’s hard. It’s hard for her. It’s hard for me. It’s hard for Mom. Just having a kid, Mom is 24-hours a day, work-work-work, just by having a child. She never gets a break. She gets up at 6 a.m. every day. My daughter kind of gets messed up. I’m home and then I’m not home and then I’m home. It’s really a mental struggle for her. And then I miss them terribly when I’m out here. But, at the same time, as much as we talk about that stuff as a family all the time, we’re also well aware that this is what I do. And as hard as it is, we’ve always found a way to make it work. I have to commend my wife. She’s an amazing woman. She tolerates this and puts up with it and deals with it every day with a smile on her face. She knows that this is what needs to happen. She can’t sit around going ‘I wish Chris was here.’ She doesn’t and that’s a quality that I really respect in her. So we make it work. A lot of roadie relationships don’t work eventually, but we’ve been married 10 years and we’re still making it work. We’re definitely committed.
Jefferson Waful is the lighting designer for Umphrey’s McGee. He first interviewed Chris Kuroda for Jambands.com back in 1998 .
