Medeski Martin & Wood’s Radiolarians series started as a back-to-basics concept: write new songs, break them in live and then cut them to record. But well over a year later, the series has produced a documentary film, a number of music videos and countless bootlegs recordings which track the entire process. Though the three musicians originally pledged to retire their Radiolarians material after brining it into the studio, the group decided to bring the series to a close with a comprehensive box set featuring all three Radiolarians albums, outtakes, a variety of films and other behind-the-scenes commentary. Shortly before heading out on a fall tour with MMW, John Medeski sits down with Relix and Jambands.com to discuss Radiolarians: The Evolutionary Set, his upcoming residency at The Stone and what’s next for three of the scene’s most adventurous musicians.
The Radiolarians project started out as three season-specific albums, but quickly blossomed into much more. Can you start by talking about both how the series deviated from its original inttent and also how some of the special features in the Radiolarians box set came about?
It started off as just a series of tours and recording and, as we were working on it, it kind of just progressed. The idea was to create new music before every tour—play the music, develop it a little on the road and come back and make the record. That’s what we did and we did it three times. While we were recording, Billy Martin got really into making films, so he started filming us both on the road and in the studio. Somewhere along the way we also decided that we should probably put out a box set because there were a few new tunes that didn’t make the record for whatever reason that we were doing live. Some didn’t fit an album’s theme and others we just didn’t think needed to be on the record. It was also just an opportunity to get out a bunch of material and finalize the whole project so we decided to do some remixes. We got a lot of our favorite DJs to participate like Spooky, Logic, Olive, Scotty Hard, Dan the Automator and Mister Rourke. It’s a great lineup, and we figured, “Hey we might as well have a live record of some of this stuff too,” because these songs have taken on different shapes each night. The box set really gave us some insight into the process of making the record, and the DVD kind reveals how we went about making the music and creating the records and the evolution of how it all works.
In retrospect how do you feel about the writing portion of this experiment? Was it more liberating or restrictive than you initially thought?
We have in the past worked this way—writing some material before a tour—but never have we said, “Ok, let’s have new material each tour, and we’re not going to play any of our older material.” A lot of times we’ll have a new song and work it over time, but to have a whole night of new music that was nothing we had ever done before. It made for a really fun and creative year for us. The vibe of the band is better than it’s been—not that it was bad—but it feels like it was when we first got together. The spirit of doing this— forcing ourselves to create all the time—is really what we do best. We need to be inspired that way, individually and as a group. The whole point of our show is not about playing certain tunes or playing certain grooves or doing anything—it’s about creating a certain energy, it’s about getting to a place. It is about having music get us to a place that we can also take the audience to. And it’s about improvisation and spontaneity and it’s about music in the moment—the cathartic experience you get from improvised music. Having all this material and doing it this way fed us and enabled us to really do that a lot and have that feeling all the time. Now we have all this music from all three tours, and we have all this music to play.
Originally you said that you’d retire these songs at the end of year. At this point do you plan to keep them in rotation?
Absolutely, it’s really fun. It creates a variety for us depending on the situation, we can pull out different material, depending on what we’re feeling, what the vibe of the place is, what the sound is like. Certain songs work better in more intimate places. It really depends on the setting. So it’s great to have all this stuff, it’s very inspiring. Financially, it’s not a good idea [laughs]. Nobody buys records anymore, and to make three records in a year, it definitely wasn’t a business decision, but it was a creative decision that I think it really paid off for us.
You actually have even more new records than that if you count the Zorn album you recorded and your recent children’s project.
Exactly, we thrive on that. We could do this all the time, but we never had the opportunity before. The standard format of making records, especially in the old paradigm, was to make a record, and then go tour on it. We just turned that upside down. We said, “You know what, let’s tour on new material and made a record.” The original, original concept was to never play the music again. We would do the tour and that would be it, and we’d never play the music again. But we decided to be flexible because we actually enjoy playing these songs. The original concept came from the idea that there are certain birds that every year come back with a new song, and they never repeat themselves in their lifetime. We thought we should be at least like the birds. If they can do it, we were thinking of every season having a new song or a new set of music. But the reality of it set in and three albums made more sense because of the idea of the trilogy. The project evolved on its own. We had this basic impulse and idea, and then the project had its own course and we just followed it. The box set is sort of the final part of that.
Summer Camp 2008, Photo by Luke McCann
How do you feel the three albums function as a set? Do they feel like a stylistic package or three unique statements?
They are different, but at the end of the day it is like a sunset. Every night is different but it’s still a sunset. It’s still us, it’s still our music, it’s still our experience, it is still our way, so there’s no real concept holding it together except writing music to create a nice night of music. All of our songs are structured to have a great deal of openness to allow for improvisation in some way or another. That’s really it, all this music, all these different ways we can do that.
At certain gigs—especially festivals—you deviated from the Radiolarians concept and threw in some classic MMW songs. What was it like revisiting these tunes after a break?
It’s always good for us. Anything any of us does outside of the group, the bottom line is trying to create a certain vibration or energy. There’s so many different ways to do it and so many things that can feed that. For us working on new material, and not going back and playing songs we’ve been playing for fifteen years, that does breathe new life into it. We play them and they feel fresh because they’re surrounded by all this new stuff, so the energy is new. So when you throw something old into the mix, it feels good for us, if not the listener. And it’s been fun because we have actually occasionally thrown in some oldies, and it’s been really fun to play them.
To be honest, we’ve called some old tunes on stage and just trying to remember them was a trip, and kind of fun because it makes us treat them differently. It was great, because a lot of times in general when we start them, there’s a lot of openness and the more you do it over the years certain things becomes habit. With a lot of bands it starts off that way, but for us, we are very conscious of trying to not do that, but it’s inevitable, you landed certain things that work, and you end up doing them again. So by having all this new life around the creative energy of the group, it’s excited everything, including how we interact socially with each other. It’s never been bad, but we’re like family, sometimes you take your family for granted, and it’s really been great that way for us.
From a listener’s perspective it seems that way, and you guys have always been good about interspersing solo projects or different collaborations among the three of you in your normal tours.
Doing all those different projects has kept the fire going. It’s really a necessary thing for us at this point. I mean all along there were so many times we could have done the obvious commercial thing to do. I mean when we made The Dropper it was a turning point for us because we could have gone the obvious route and really catered to the jamband thing and maybe been more successful in a way. But we knew we couldn’t do that. We really had to be honest and ask ourselves what were feeling musically. We decided that we didn’t want to fit the obvious role for MMW.
That being said, now that you have completed The Radiolarians series, moving forward how do you envision your next album?
We are always talking about who we could collaborate with, and the thing is we each have our own ideas about who we’d like to work with. You know, we are a democracy—we got to throw it on the table. We’ve been talking about the next project being some kind of CD/DVD. I don’t know, that’s been the plan for a while. We started working on it, but we got all swept away with this Radiolarians stuff so we need to get back to it, but that’s sort of the next idea. We’d love to do a DVD where you can break down how we make music—almost educational in a way. It would be musical but you can break it down and see how we use rhythm, the way we turn rhythmic patterns that we sort of counterpoint into music.
Truckee Regional Park, Truckee, CA, 6/21/04-Photo by Adam Harju
Speaking of DVD’s can you talk about a little bit about Billy’s film for the box set?
Well, it’s definitely a film for people who are fans of the band [laughter]. It’s not the kind of movie that’s gonna turn everybody on—you have to already have some interest in the group. It’s about simple grooves—it’s not an MTV-style documentary. The pacing of it is really incredible. I was surprised that I really loved it, but it shows how we work together and how we communicate. What I’m surprised about when I watch it is how little we communicate in an obvious way. I take it for granted but we barely talk to each other, just little half statements. It’s very telepathic it’s really weird and it comes across in the movie like that. So basically the movie is scenes from the road in South America, and recording Radiolarians. It ends up being three or four “music videos” of MMW and each one is a prelude of us working on the music and hanging out. It’s a representation of what we do—it’s real, we’re not acting, we’re not trying to present stuff in a way other than really what it’s like. There is nothing false, nothing preconceived.
I know another project you’re working on now is curating a series of shows at John Zorn’s New York club The Stone. Who do you have lined up for that series?
If I really had it together I would have done it the whole month. We’re busy and we’re going on the road that month, so I’m doing a week where I do something every day of that week. The first night I’m gonna be out with Zorn, a couple of nights of solo piano. I’m doing a band called Hum with Marc Ribot, Calvin Weston and Billy Martin together. It is the first time we’ve all played together you know, though I’ve done stuff with Calvin, I’ve played lounges with Calvin and Billy and we’ve all played with Ribot but it will be the first time this band will be performing. And then I am doing a thing with a great master guitarist Tisziji Munoz, and it’s really kind of his band with Ra-Kalam Moses and two bass players, John Lockwood, and Don Pate. You can’t even really call it jazz or post jazz—it’s a fiery improvised music. I’m also doing a night with a band called Red Cred, that we’ve actually done here in Woodstock a few times with Ben Perowsky, and Chris Speed. Larry Grenadier also plays bass with us but he’s not around so we might be trio. It will be fun, and then the following week, I got Billy Martin doing a couple of nights.
Getting back to the box set, how much unreleased material is included?
There was only one tune on each set that was left off. We tried to represent the whole set of music, though sometimes certain songs didn’t fit musically. So on our fall tour we’ll draw from everything and the remixes should inspire us to take things in a different direction.
Next thing you know you’ll be covering your remix.
Yeah sure, or elements of the remix will be entering in you know.
Did the band try different recording techniques each time it went into the studio?
You know, having the benefit of touring on it, we went in and in three days, maybe, we recorded it. We were very clear about having to go about it, because as we were touring— we were thinking about what’s the best way of recording it, totally live? Or do we need a little sonic separation, and a little overdub? So that process is already being dealt with. Dave Kent, the guy who mixed the record, is also our front house engineer, so he’s been out there every night hearing these songs, hearing the development, and so he’s really a part of the process. I think he did an amazing job of capturing our live energy and actually making the record which is really great. In the past, a lot of our records have been works on their own and not necessarily reflective of how we sound live. We use the opportunity to be in the studio as a creative tool outside of our live experience. There is a live recording of all our shows out there anyway.
If you really listen with headphones there’s actually a lot of mixing going on during the Radiolarians series—that’s what I was saying, somehow he managed to use the studio and do lots of sonic things that you can only do in the studio and still capture the live experience.
