M&M’s in New York this past May – photo by Vernon Webb
Few drummers on the scene are more in-demand than Stanton Moore. The New Orleans-based virtuoso has his hand in a number of different projects, from Garage a Trois to the Stanton Moore Trio, a couple of residencies on both the West and Gulf Coasts as well as countless sit-ins and one-off projects. Then, of course, there’s his longtime jam-funk outfit Galactic, which he’ll be rocking with this weekend at Gathering of the Vibes before kicking off a four-night residency at the Brooklyn Bowl in early August.
Moore took some time to talk to us about some of these projects, as well as his upcoming performance with another group, the M&M’s. He’ll be joining the band, which features fellow allstars Maceo Parker, John Medeski, Marco Benevento, Papa Mali and Robert Mercurio, later this month. A smaller version of the group played a gig in New York City back in May, but the newly expanded lineup will be laying down the groove at this year’s Equifunk, a one-of-a-kind all-inclusive festival that takes place August 16-18 in Pennsylvania’s Poconos. It’s a unique band for a unique festival.
You’ll be playing with the M&M’s at Equifunk, which features John Medeski, Papa Mali, and your Galactic bandmate Robert Mercurio. The project debuted a few months ago in New York but this one will be a little different, can you talk a bit about that?
Yeah it was super fun. You know, always love playing with John and I’ve played a lot with Papa Mali over the years. I’ve played a little bit with John but not as much as I would like. So it’s great to get an opportunity to play with John in a different situation than what we would normally do. We kind of would only do instrumental stuff. So to do vocal stuff with John was really cool. So yeah, it gelled really well and that was exciting. And this line up at Equifunk will be an elaborated lineup. It was looking like John couldn’t make it, so we were gonna have Marco (Benevento), and then now John can make it so we’ll have both (laughs). So that’s cool. And then we’ll also have Maceo (Parker) so that’s really exciting.
How did that project come into being?
I’m pretty sure Eric [Kamen, Equifunk founder] had the idea and just contacted us. He wanted to get some different players who haven’t played together a lot and I guess he realized that we all had M’s in our names (laughs). So now when Medeski couldn’t make it, we had to find somebody with an M in their name and luckily Marco was around and has an M in his name. Then of course, Maceo. So, it’s kind of cool.
So festivals have been evolving a lot recently and Equifunk’s all-inclusive experience is something kind of new. Can you talk about what sets Equifunk apart from other festivals?
It’s really cool that it’s on those grounds and the guys throwing it have a lot of history with the grounds and kind of grew up there, so that’s cool. I dig being able to walk off stage and walk to your cabin, so that’s also cool. For us, usually we’re staying off site like in a hotel somewhere, so it’s cool to be able to just have a cabin like right there that’s walking distance from everything.
Speaking of festival evolution how have you seen the festival scene evolve over the last few years?
There seems like there’s a lot more of them. You would expect that there would be a lot of oversaturation and I guess there is. But there’s been some new festivals that pop up and it’s been interesting to watch them grow into very successful festivals, you know? I mean All Good seems to do really well every year now. Wakarusa seems to be doing pretty well. So it’s interesting to watch these festivals start and then they grow and then become these kind of destination festivals. That’s interesting as well.
So what’s in store for Galactic coming up soon? Do you guys have any studio material in the works?
Oh absolutely! We’ve been working on stuff. We’ve got four singles that we are about to release in succession a few months apart from each other. So yeah, that’s coming out and that’ll be exciting. Instead of doing a record we’ll be doing these four singles with different guests and all this so we’re excited about that. Looks like we’ll have some interesting songs, and we’ll be doing these four singles as opposed to trying to do a full record this time. That’s the idea for this next set of releases.
Galactic has a four night run coming up pretty soon at the Brooklyn Bowl. Is there anything special that we can expect from that?
Oh yeah! There’s gonna be lots of guests and then so yeah. We’ll have David Shaw (of The Revivalists) two nights; we got Maggie Koerner for two nights. I think they’re gonna overlap with each other. Maggie Koerner is a singer who sang on “Hey Na Na,” and we’ve done a little bit with her here and there, but we’re excited to have her now start doing some gigs with us and that will be exciting. So that will be a new element. Corey Glover will be on one of the nights and then there’s some other guests that we’re talking to that hopefully will be able to participate as well, but I’m excited that we have strong singers for all of the nights. That should be fun and I’m sure there’s gonna be a lot of other surprise guests as well.
Very cool. And speaking of Corey Glover, you guys have been touring a lot recently with him and then Corey Henry has been with y’all a while too. Are you guys planning on continuing with that trend?
We don’t see any end in sight with Corey Henry. And then Corey Glover’s got this other little band that he works with from time to time called Living Colour. I’m kidding when I say little band because they were a big influence on us as we were growing up. So to have him in the band is awesome but he’s also remaining active with Living Colour. We like to have him as much as we can, but he’s also juggling Living Colour as well. So yeah, when Corey can’t make it we have other people filling in for him. We’ve been having David Shaw, and it looks like Maggie Koerner coming up. We’ve had Cyril Neville over in the past. We have a great rotating cast of vocalists who will come with us so Corey is definitely one of many contributors. Just right now we have to see when he’s available, but we love having him when he is.
Galactic just announced a Halloween show coming up at the newly renovated Civic Theatre in New Orleans. Do you think that venue will become a staple of the New Orleans scene?
I hope so! I haven’t stepped inside of it myself yet, but I’ve seen pictures and half the band has been in there to look at it physically and they say it’s amazing. I know that there are plans to do a lot in there and it’s great because we don’t really have a room quite like that. I’ve seen the schedule and there’s a lot of great things coming up there. It looks like it’s gonna be in the rotation and hopefully it will be successful. We’re looking forward to playing there on Halloween. I mean, it’s gonna be our first Halloween in there. We’ve kind of been going back and forth between Tipitina’s and Stubb’s in Austin. So this will be a nice little mix up—a change—you know. So that’s cool too and we’re looking forward to that.
Do you have anything in the works with any of your other projects like Stanton Moore Trio or Garage à Trois?
I’ve been doing things with my Stanton Moore Trio. We still play a good bit and then what I’ve been doing a little bit more with lately is my Piano Trio, which is David Torkanowsky on piano and James Singleton on upright bass. It’s more of a jazz approach to what I do and we’ve been doing it every Tuesday night at Snug Harbor in New Orleans, which has been awesome when I’m there. Right now I’m based out of Los Angeles all of July, so I’ve been doing every Wednesday there at The Mint with Wil Blades on organ. Our first week we had Leo Nocentelli. Second week we had Mike Dillon playing vibes and percussion, which was super cool. The third week we had Ivan Neville play Rhodes and clav, while Wil was playing organ. This week coming up I’m gonna have Will Bernard,the regular trio guitar player, and then the last week we’ll have Marco Benevento. That’ll be just me and Marco as a duo. We did that at Jazz Fest and that was super fun and I’m hoping to do more of that with Marco because we have a great rapport and we have a lot of material together, having played in Garage à Trois over the years and having played with his trio. So there’s a lot of music that we have together already which is cool. So that’s the Wednesday where I’m going to be here in LA and the Tuesday residency is in New Orleans at Snug Harbor.
As far as recording with my trio or with Garage à Trois, I don’t think there’s anything right now that we’re planning on doing. I am planning on recording with my Piano Trio, so that’s exciting. Be on the lookout for that. I’m excited about that project because it really gives me a chance to dig in to more of the jazz side of my time, which I’ve always been nurturing or working on but I don’t always get a chance to do that. So now I’ve kind of created an outlet for myself and put together this trio that I have regular Tuesday night gigs when I’m in New Orleans.
Lastly here, what can we expect from this M&M’s gig coming up at Equifunk?
I’m sure it’s going to be tons of fun. I mean Maceo Parker is probably my favorite living musician right now so I’m always super super psyched to play with Maceo. And of course, John Medeski and Marco Benevento you know are two of the great organ and key players right now. So those guys are fantastic. I love those guys and to have them together on the same stage is going to be amazing! So I think it’s just going to be really exciting and really different and I’m very much looking forward to it.
