Tomorrow night, Burlington, VT jammers RAQ will return to the stage at Nectar’s in their hometown for the first of two shows this weekend. “Taking it kind of old school” as RAQ’s keyboardist Todd Stoops puts it, the band will look to carry its momentum from standout performances at Catskill Chill into these gigs, something Stoops says shouldn’t be a problem.
This is an interesting time for the members of RAQ. Stoops has garnered rising success with his new project Kung Fu while guitarist Chris Michetti is finding his groove with part-Disco Biscuits side project Conspirator. With so much outside noise clouding the RAQ revival, how much stock can we really put into it? Evidently enough. The band has already announced two late night shows at Brooklyn Bowl in January as well as a supporting gig for The Disco Biscuits in February, and it appears there should be more to come.
One of the most overwhelming aspects of this interview was the true sincerity and excitement in Stoops’ voice throughout. He is clearly a guy who is excited about the here and now, but also the possibilities of the future. Read on for all things RAQ and what the future holds for the band as well as some tidbits on touring, Kung Fu, coming up in the festival scene and much more.
RAQ is playing two big shows in Burlington, your hometown, so tell me about how you’re feeling going into those; what can fans expect?
You know, we’re taking it kind of old-school, we had the choice to either go to the Higher Ground Ballroom—which we were playing before the band took a break—but the band kind of started at Nectar’s. We used to do residences there and we’d play all different nights a week. So we had an opportunity to do something a little more old-school, I suppose. So we grabbed that opportunity and we’re going to play Nectar’s for a couple nights.
The band is pretty dialed-in right now. We’re in constant communication even though we all live in different places. The last set we played was at the Catskill Chill and it was a blowout. It was one of the most favorite RAQ sets that I’ve played. You know, I talked to [guitarist Chris] Michetti afterwards and we were both pretty dialed-in that it was one of the best shows we’ve played in a long time. We’re kind of harnessing that energy and taking that with us into these two shows. That’s kind of the mentality going into it. We’re gonna keep it loose; kind of keep that vibe rolling that we have from Catskill Chill. We definitely jammed a lot; I think we played like seven songs for 90 minutes—so it was definitely more of an improvisational adventure.
What’s the key to keeping that momentum going into these Burlington gigs?
Well, we’re best friends. I talk to Michetti a couple times a week, and not just about music. You know, we’re just buddies so we’re always in communication. And Adrian [Tramantano], our drummer for RAQ now, is also our drummer for Kung Fu. So I’m with him and we just finished a 20-day east coast tour, so when we have off-time on the road we’ll talk about stuff for RAQ or even go over some things at soundcheck. So that kind of keeps it tight, and we all obviously talk to Jay [Burwick] as well.
In 2013 now we can Skype and Facetime and all that stuff and do some cyber-rehearsing and talk about the ideas we have for the material to keep it fresh. And then the day before the next few shows we’ll roll into Burlington a day early and rehearse for a while. So, actually the RAQ material is so ingrained in us all by now that we don’t have to get together and rehears so much as we just have to hang out for a little while. It’s that kind of vibe.
As far as improv goes, you seem like you don’t need that much time, it just sort of flows naturally; the chemistry is there.
Absolutely, that will never go away. But some of the RAQ tunes are difficult; they have some hard passages and you don’t want to screw those up. If the band is playing six to eight shows a year, you really don’t want to fuck up your songs. (laughs) You know, the fans really don’t want to be like, “Hey I flew all the way from North Carolina to Burlington to see you guys play but wait…you screwed up “Beauregard.” [Laughter.] So, you know, that’s not really an option. So we write some setlists in advance, and then we all do our homework at home and go over parts that might be challenging and then we’ll get together and iron out that stuff. But the improv is easy, that’s like turning on a faucet.
Despite not hitting the road hard over the last few years, your fans still show up and pack the rooms. What does that say about them as well as your live performance?
I owe my entire career to the RAQ fans, really. It was kind of a right-place/right-time thing, but RAQ really grounded out from 2002 to 2008 all over the country touring. In doing so now, I’m touring with Kung Fu and we just finished a 20-day east coast tour and every single night on the East Coast—no matter where we were: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida—every single night there were RAQ fans. And they were asking what festivals we’re gonna do next year. And they’re Kung Fu fans as well and they’re there and they’re jamming and they’re cool, but they’re waiting around at the end of the night to talk about RAQ. And that’s a really humbling feeling that, by an outside chance, music that I might have written or Mischetti might have written when we were eighteen or nineteen years old has touched some people to the point where it’s still affecting them now. That’s a really humbling feeling.
And I like I said, I personally owe everything that I’m doing now to those people that were dedicated and followed us around, and spread the word by word-of-mouth because that’s the best kind of press you can get: when someone vouches for your band to a friend or brings a friend to a show, and so-forth and so-on. That’s kind of how this whole jamband scene was created. You know, dragging two or three of your friends to a show, whether they’re kicking and screaming, and at the end of the night they say, “Wow, I want to see this band as much as I can.” So, the fans are really what it’s all about. That said, we have been talking about playing more shows and actually taking some time—I know Conspirator is really busy and Kung Fu is really busy—but we’re actually taking some time to be able to play together a little bit more than we have in 2013.
Would you say the positive feedback over the course of the Kung Fu tour inspired RAQ to plan some additional shows?
No, honestly we had such a blast – some of the shows we played this year were some of the most fun we ever had in RAQ. We do have a new drummer now and that brings a new energy and a new change. Mischetti and I, we were kind of like school kids at the Catskill shows. It was ridiculous. After our set, we stayed up all night and just hung out and talked. It was great. We’re really old friends, we kind of grew up together and we did all this together.
So I guess the answer is that we just wanna all hang out together and because we’re so busy in our other bands, the only way to do it is either we’re at a festival where Conspirator and Kung Fu are playing or it’s RAQ and we’re playing New York City or Philly or Boston or something like that—or Burlington or Atlanta or some of the places that we would play—and then we get to hang out for a week. And that’s where we’re at right now. And you know, there’s really nothing better than making music with your best friends on stage. There’s just no feeling like it. And you play better too, it’s great when everyone loves each other—it’s a bro-down—and it’s a great vibe. That’s kind of the impetus behind playing. We just want to all hang out.
How about a triple bill? How about Conspirator, Kung Fu and RAQ all go on tour together? Just tour the whole country!
[Laughs] I don’t know…
Some managers might have something to say about that
It’s not even that. Oddly enough, a lot of people suggest that to us. They say it to Chris, Brownie and Magner, and they say it to me and Adrian. At the end of the day, it would just be ridiculous. Everyone’s working triple duty, double duty, you know? It’s just a lot. Kung Fu is a made of a lot of bands. Kung Fu is not like RAQ. I think Kung Fu has like almost one percent improvisation where most of it is soloing, and RAQ is mainly improvisation. So we’ll get through the first form of a song, and then almost every song that we play—at least the way RAQ is playing nowadays—every song will give ourselves a section to stretch out. So I think it would be a lot; it’s too much medicine on one spoon for people to take.
With the success of Kung Fu and Conspirator, is it a little bittersweet for the members of RAQ? On one hand, you’re all in successful projects but it seems like you really want to carve out as much time as possible for RAQ.
Yeah, I don’t think any of us internally feel like it’s bittersweet. You know RAQ was really at the height of our popularity in 2006, 2007, 2008. We did take a break, so I don’t know if it would sustain the type of touring that Conspirator or Kung Fu are doing right now, if that makes any sense. I guess we’re at the age right now – or we’re at the point in our careers, I should say – where we’re not really trying to play Omaha, Nebraska on a Tuesday night for fifty people. Not that there’s anything wrong with Omaha, but on Tuesday night for fifty people…(laughs) we’ll leave that to the younger guys in the younger bands to grind that out.
So you know we kind of pick our spots, we pick our battles and we try to make the most out of the shows that we’re gonna play, as opposed to touring for the sake of touring or just grinding like that. The bands that we’re grinding right now have more of an axe to grind. Conspirator and Kung Fu are constantly pushing new music. That being said, though, we have been throwing around the idea of recording with RAQ, which is kind of funny. We’ll see what happens with that, so who knows. But like I said before, the more we hang out the more we tend to book shows. You know, the more we hang out we’re like “This is awesome, we need to do this more often.” It stems from that.
Hey, it’s better than the opposite: hanging out and being like, “You know…I don’t really want to do shows anymore.”
Totally, like “Wow, Stoops, I didn’t realize how much of a dick you are. We should maybe never do this again!”
So how much touring is RAQ going to do in 2014, if you had to make an educated guess?
Well it’s all up in the air. We’re going back and forth talking about our schedules right now. We’re going to try, but it’s hard to quantify it. Opportunities will come up and we’ll be like, “Hey, is Kung Fu playing?” or “Hey, is Conspirator playing?” or “Hey, are both of those bands playing?” So opportunities sometimes pop up out of nowhere. But at the same time, Chris and I have been talking about just trying to make sure that RAQ gets at least ten-fifteen shows a year, something where we can at least get together. But who knows, maybe more. We’re going to play some festivals this summer and, like I said, the idea’s even being thrown around about trying to record some music so I don’t know. It’s an exciting time not to know, I guess.
But with bands like Kung Fu or Conspirator, we kind of know our plans out through 2015 pretty much. So it’s pretty neat to have a band that we know we can throw a show sometime and not have to be so over-the-top stressed out about it. It comes a lot easier with RAQ these days.
So the more you guys hang out, the more shows will be planned. So we just need to get you guys in a room as often as possible and then tours will start coming out, and then albums and all that.
Absolutely, there you go! It’s just that easy.
That’s good though. Obviously you guys have been together for a while, so it’s good you can still get together and still have fun, because a lot of bands don’t; a lot of bands go the other way.
Yeah, every band has it’s struggles and every band has it’s growing pains and, at the end of it all, I think you start to realize why you started the band in the first place: because it was you and your best friends in a garage hanging out and dreaming of “Hey man, wouldn’t it be awesome if one day we, dot dot dot.” And when you come back to that vibe and that mentality and it’s fun again, then it’s easy. And then not only is it easy, when you get up on stage it feels so good that you’re playing better, and the music sounds better, and it’s more inspired and you’re taking more chances when you’re improv-ing. It’s all kind of symbiotic.
I think the crowd picks up on that, too. As a member of the crowd, I can definitely feel when everybody is on the same page and is into it. It heightens the experience for the audience.
Oh, absolutely! That’s one of the feedbacks we were getting at the RAQ shows this year. In particular when we did a quick run in the northeast; we did Boston, New York and Philadelphia. Each night of the shows, we would hang out with the fans afterwards and they’d be like, “You know just watching you guys on stage and you’re smiling and you’re jumping up and down, it just makes me freak out! It makes my insides go crazy and I just wanna jump up and down and smile and laugh!” So you forget, that’s why we all started doing this in the first place, to interact with your crowd.
Especially if you’re in an improvisational band – the jamband scene – that is the bread and butter of what we do, is feeding off crowd energy. And it works both ways. Sometimes you’ll have a crowd where, if you know you’re not hitting on all cylinders, the crowd can tell and you’re like, “Wait a second, we’re getting into a vibe here.” It works both ways. If you have a tuned-up crowd that’s ready to rock, you’re gonna have a kick-ass show.
