Photo by Chris Paul
In late June, moe. surprised fans with the announcement that drummer Vinnie Amico would sit out a few shows due to illness. Longtime moe. percussionist Jim Loughlin, who had formerly manned the kit, did so again for a few dates. Then, word came down that the group would cancel the bulk of their July dates while Amico recovered (a situation that Loughlin addressed in a notable Phantasy Tour post). It was not until last week that he returned to the stage with the band. In the following conversation, Vinnie explains what happened and looks ahead to this weekend’s moe.down which is back at its original home in Turin, New York.
So for starters, can you walk us through your health situation and how things evolved?
We got ready to start summer tour, and I was doing my regular routine, which is, I do over-do everything. I’m home, I’m running around with the kids all the time and coaching softball, playing basketball, lifting weights, doing yard work. I’m busy. And four days before I’m going away I came back from basketball and I didn’t feel well. And that night I had a fever, and the next night I felt the same, and then the next night was a tribute to Levon Helm that we were doing, one of the bands around here, The Stone Revival Band, one of my side projects. And I felt fine, and come that Sunday night, the fever’s back, I’m feeling like crap, and I have to go on tour Tuesday.
So I go to the doctor Monday, and he’s like ‘yeah, you got a fever.’ My glands were all swollen and he thought I probably had a sinus infection. He’s like, ‘Here, take these antibiotics.’ And I go on the road, we start summer tour. moe. starts summer tour. Al picks me up, we stopped to get Jim and stayed the night at Jim’s house, and I woke up in a pool of sweat and with a fever. So we get on the road, do the first show with Mule, and I’m not feeling well. I don’t know if it’s lyme disease, I don’t know what I have. We get on the bus that night and I wake up in a pool of sweat. So, we do all the Mule dates, that was four dates, and every night the same thing: Fever, spending all day in bed.
In terms of the gigs themselves, was it tough to get into your zone?
Adreneline is a very powerful thing. It’s very strong, and it’s stronger than the illness itself. So, by showtime as long as I rested during the day, once the first couple tunes go, you just play and that’s that. It wasn’t so bad with the Mule shows because they were one-setters, but you know we do a couple shows and then we’re doing a weekend at Asbury Park and I’m not feeling any better. I call the doctor and say, ‘The antibiotics aren’t working,’ so he gives me a stronger one, and it’s not working.
So we do the show Sunday, the Hartford show with Mule, we have Monday off before Tuesday and Wednesday we’re doing the Beekman Beer Garden in New York. So, between Hartford and New York, I went home that night, went to the doctor the next day and I’m like, ‘This is almost two weeks of 102 fever, and I’m playing gigs, not sleeping well. I gotta figure out what’s going on and try to get better.’
Were you freaking out or did you figure this was something that could be remedied in some form?
I just figured I had some sort of virus, or cold or whatever it was. One of the nights in my feverish rage in my bunk, I couldn’t sleep, so I’m on the internet of course, and I could have AIDS, I could have cancer, so I’m starting to think the worst. But it’s like, ‘Do I really have something wrong with me?’ let’s find out. So I go back to the doctor, I don’t go to doctors, I’m usually pretty healthy, but I go back to the doctor and he runs a bunch of tests. Mono, Hepatitis, all this other stuff.
On Tuesday I go down to New York to do the shows at the Beekman. I get a call that afternoon from the doctor when I’m laying there taking my daily rest so I can get through the show, and he says ‘You got Mono.’ So I told the guys I have mono, and did the show do the show Tuesday night at the Beekman. That was the first show of the tour that I was doing that was a full show.
By the end of the second set I was definitely feeling it. It wasn’t the same as a one set thing. By the end I was pretty toast. And then I did the Wednesday show as well, and by the end of that show I was feeling even worse. So Deb, my wife, was actually the one who texted Skip and was like ‘Call a band meeting, I don’t want him to go back out on the road.’ She was down there with me so she could just take me home to rest this thing off. So after that show Wednesday night, we called a band meeting and it was decided that it would be best if I bowed out for the rest of the gigs. You know me Dean, that’s a bruise to my ego but it’s the right thing to do because I was pretty frickin’ sick even though it was just mono, but anyone who’s had mono knows that it kicks the shit out of you.
So I got off the road early, which was the smart thing to do, got through the weekend and then that Monday I went back to the doctor and I still didn’t feel any better. Now we’re three weeks in, 102 fever, and my throat is now pretty much swollen shut and hurts so bad I can’t swallow. So I went to the doctor and I’m like ‘Now what?’ and he says ‘You just got a tough case of mono, not much you can do about it.’ I said, ‘I need something, I can’t continue to go through this fever and I can’t continue to deal with this sore throat.’
So he puts me on Prendisone, which is a steroid, and he said ‘You’ll start feeling better almost immediately, but don’t get up and do anything because it’s a false sense of feeling better.’ So, got on the steroids, started feeling better immediately. The week was up and it’s time to go back on the road and it’s like, ‘Should I go out on the road with still having Mono and having to do 14 shows in 18 days in the lifestyle of the road?’ And I was talking to Topper [moe. manager Jon Topper] and we agreed the smart thing for me to do is to make sure I’m healthy and not go out on the road. Everybody thought that was the smart thing because if I’m out on the road sick I spread it to somebody else, that wouldn’t be good. And making sure we can give everybody the best possible show also, because Jim could’ve done those gigs, but would they have been 2012 moe. or would they have been a different moe.? Would they have been able to do all the songs in the repertoire or not? There were a lot of things and in the end it was decided that we should cancel and make sure I’m better and do the best shows we can do with me. So, that’s what we decided.
And then by the time you went back down south last week, you were feeling better?
I feel normal now. I’ve been off the steroids for a couple weeks and I feel completely normal. I don’t know if I have 100% of my stamina back. I mean, my strength is pretty much back. Can I go and play two hours of basketball and go to a gig or can I run five miles and go do a gig? Probably not. I ran three miles yesterday or the day before and mowed my lawn and felt pretty good. I did the gig in North Carolina last Tuesday. Got through it. It was a whole show. Did the night after, the Allman Brothers thing and that felt good. So, as far as that is concerned I’m good to go. Am I playing the golf tournament at moe.down? No. Because I don’t know if starting out with a five hour golf tournament and then a four hour moe. show and then doing that all weekend… I don’t want to test myself and fail: not have the stamina and be spent by Sunday or relapse or any of that. All in all I feel good.
Did you see the post that Jim made on PhantasyTour regarding your health and the cancelled shows?
I did.
I think the point people that some missed in their frustration over the cancelled shows was that both of you need to be there to truly deliver a moe. show in this day and age.
Yeah, and people buy tickets, they spend a lot of money to do it. Do you want to go and see a half assed show or not go to see, say, whatever tune that Jim didn’t learn or doesn’t know how to play drums on. What if that’s your favorite song and you’re going to four shows and you expect in those four shows you’re going to see it? Are you gypped because you didn’t? Or there’s just certain things that you expect from us at this point and if it can’t be delivered because I’m not there then it can’t be. We’re not providing the service that we should be providing to people, we’re not giving them the best show we can give.
As far as Jim writing that, I think it’s great. I don’t go on boards, I don’t read any of that stuff, I don’t have the time to do that. If it were me, and someone said something about Jim, I’d be more like “Meet me in the parking lot, I’m going to kick your butt.” Jim actually spent time and thought that out very well and it was a very well stated and very well written thing. He defended me as a person, he defended the band, he defended us and our character as people and our business. It was very well said. Someone who doesn’t think of all that stuff, it’s not just going out and doing a show. There’s a lot to be said about what we do outside of just getting on stage and playing. So, as a business and as people we want to provide the best thing we can for people. It’s not because we’re lazy, it’s not that we’re not selling tickets, it’s not that I’m a faker. It’s, ‘Look, we got one of our guys down. We want to provide you guys with the best show- let’s do that. If we have to cancel a few, sorry if it inconvenienced you, sorry if you planned a trip and lost some money. That wasn’t our intentions by any means, it’s just that I’m frickin’ sick’.
Did you get any feedback from Jim after those four gigs?
Yeah, he said, ‘I don’t know how you do that every night.’ He said his hands were shredded. Granted he’s a very different style player and he hits a lot harder, but he’s like ‘I can’t believe you have the stamina to do that night in and night out.’ And if I were playing perc I would say the same thing because my muscle memory isn’t built for it, my hands aren’t built for it. Any of that stuff, so, and playing the tunes. It’s different being a perc player, guitar player, bass player, drummer. I am sort of controlling the tempo and the time of the gig, and when he was doing it he had to count the tempo in each song and to know what each tempo is and to keep that tempo for the whole time.
There are a lot of things you kind of forget about when you’re not doing it. So to have to come in and play the drums again is like ‘oh yeah, I need to keep tempo, and I have to count again in the right place and keep the energy up.’ And some of our songs that are 15,16,17,18,20 minutes and jamming, it’s like ‘Oh yeah I gotta be pushing this thing from start to finish instead of letting it push me.’ Yeah, I think he was like ‘I forgot what it was like to play drums for three and a half hours a night.’ Not that he didn’t enjoy it, he just hasn’t done it in that capacity in however many years as a band. I mean, he plays with Lynch and stuff, but it usually isn’t a three and a half hour show and it’s certainly not 18, 20, 25 minute songs and segues and going from 4/4 meter to 7/8 or whatever we do when we change meters and change tempos in the jams. So it’s just a different headspace, different style that he was used to playing kit on in a while.
When I see you guys play, it’s easy to get fixated on the guitar players, but sometimes I enjoy just watching you, do just what you’ve described. It’s really interesting and I encourage people to do that.
Well thank you, and yeah if you’re in a band that plays the same set every night, 90 minutes, each song is three minutes and your tempo is set and there’s no change in it- that’s one thing. For a band like us or Phish or Widespread Panic, a lot of these bands where songs are long, you want them to increase in intensity the whole time so you’re not going to drag ass and just sit there. You’re going to push the song a little bit so it has the energy to get from start to finish. There’s a meandering of solos, and not in a noodle-y way, I mean, you’re trying to get somewhere. So, whether you’re getting from point A to point B in the song or if you’re getting from point A to another song in another tempo or another song in a different time signature….and with the guitar player on top there’s key changes, so you want the song to move. You want it to be an experience and you want to take the people there, so we all sort of have to do that together. If that’s crescendoing to get to another key, that’s one thing. If it’s getting to another tempo, that’s another. If it’s just peaking a solo, still, the whole band has to get somewhere and it has to explode. It has to get there.
So, we all have to sort of do that together, and part of that is me driving it to get there. And, hearing Al or Chuck bring it up there, and for me to put the exclamation point on it. Or for me to get there and for Al to put the exclamation point on it. Or Chuck.. Whatever, ya know? It’s definitely something that we have over time gotten pretty good at, and all those bands that I mentioned that do this kind of thing- we’re making a statement for sure and we’re doing it together. Sometimes it’s the drummer pushing us there, sometimes it’s the guitar player and we’re following him, but it’s a collaboration of all of us together to get there. Whether it’s driven by me or by Rob or by Jim or whoever.
In just a couple days, moe.down will return to its original site in Turin. Can you talk about your memories of that site and what it will be like to be back?
Well going back, it’s always been a great venue. We moved it just to try something else. New location, easier to get to for fans because it was right off the highway. When we got to the spot we loved the way the new spot looked but logistically, the new place was a nightmare because you had to come downhill to see the show, which means you had to come uphill to go home. At Turin, if you want to go uphill it’s strictly voluntary. There you had to go down the hill to see the show so you had to come up the hill- not voluntary and I think it whipped a lot of people for their camping to be so far away.
Turin’s great- the camping’s right there, the parking’s right there, and the venue’s right there, everything’s just right there. You don’t have to walk far, you don’t have to go far and it’s just a great spot. So we tried something, didn’t quite work out. We wanted to go back to Turin to make the fans happy, to make everybody happy.
As far as highlights of moe. down, sitting on that stage and playing moe.down feels really great. It’s like our end of the year party for all our fans. moe. down is our party. So, to play there, to those people, to sit on that stage and look up because visually it’s really cool, looking up the hill there. We tend to play really well at moe.down, maybe because of that vibe and that it’s our thing.
In talking to other musicians who have their own festival, the fear seems to be that it’s very easy to get swept up in the moment with family, friends, and all of the events, which can have an impact on the performance.
Well, moe.down is a hard weekend. Everybody is psyched, but we’re so busy and so overwhelmed with people, family, friends, signings, talking to people, Kids Tent, whatever. We’re busy. Super busy. But, when you get up on stage it’s like ‘Ahh, here we are at moe.down.’ This is our big thing that we do every year. In that regard, I always feel that way when we get to the stage. We’re gonna rock it because we’re at moe.down.
For highlights, every year we put together a good lineup of bands. And it’s not too many so that you can’t catch a lot of music. I end up watching a lot of music at moe.down and I find it to be great because I get to see Levon Helm Band or Slightly Stoopid or Damien Marley. Or going back to the first couple- Charlie Hunter, David Grisman, Ani DiFranco. That year we had Presidents of the United States, they were freakin’ killer, ya know? Seeing Fishbone…everyone one of these acts are frickin amazing. The Roots! Frickin amazing! You know? It’s just fun, and it’s a great festival to see all those different bands, and then to go up there and play: ‘We have to follow The Roots now and they just kicked ass,’ or The Presidents of the United States. But how are you gonna go up there and not play awesome after that?
If I ask you to close your eyes and pick one moment from your sets at Turin, which one pops into your head first?
No can do. It’s like taking a final exam, where you cram, cram, study, study, and as soon as it’s done it’s out and you don’t remember a thing. That’s how playing is too so I can never remember. After the set’s done for an hour I might remember ‘that was freakin’ killer’ or ‘oh, I screwed that up.’ People ask me what I played that night and I usually can’t remember.
The vibe at moe.down has always been really chill and positive, at least it was at Turin. I wasn’t at the other site and I heard it was a little different there.
There was a different vibe at the other site for sure.
That’s what I heard. I was at Turin for year one and a few times afterwards and I’ve always been a fan of the festival.
It’s a little bit smaller than some of the others and then on top of it, there’s always kids events. There’s always kids there because the fans bring their kids because they know they can go to the Kids Tent and do stuff with their kids all day. I think that mellows out the vibe a little bit. Makes it a little more family friendly, makes it a little more family-oriented. It doesn’t necessarily feel like we’re at this big hippie festival, it kind of feels like, ‘Hey man, we’re at this big picnic with our families and everybody’s hanging out and there’s this great music all day long.’ And it’s got more of that vibe. I know, when you’re camping in the Gen Pop it’s still a crazy party scene, but the festival itself, the vibe within the grounds and the music area and the kids tent, it all feels very fair like. Or very family friendly and just mellow and not such a big, crazy, hippie, drug and alcohol fueled thing. It’s just a lot mellower and not so much about that, I think.
Looking back on Amsterdam and Europe, I’m curious what your memories and experience were with those shows.
I had a blast. We had gone to a lot of new places that we hadn’t been before. We had been to Amsterdam and spent a few days so we kinda knew the vibe in that town and everything. And with Jam in the Dam, we’ve met a lot of people from Europe so it’s nice to go over there and see these people that you’ve become friends with that you haven’t seen in a couple of years. Jam in the Dam is still a lot more Americans than Europeans, so you’re still getting that thing.
As we got into some dates in Germany there were less Americans, more Europeans. Granted, I want everybody to come, Americans and Europeans alike, but being in Europe and having some actual European fans and not just American fans following you around was kinda nice. We saw that in three or four of the dates we did in Germany which was awesome. Italy was like that as well- more Europeans than Americans. Paris and London were, a lot of Americans which was great, it was a lot of our friends. So it was like doing a smaller show in America, except you’re in London.
There were certain shows that stood out to me as being more European, and me not recognizing a lot of people in the crowd. And there’s two shows in Germany in particular, Lorsch and Plauen. When we were in the Dominican Republic we met these guys from Germany, really great guys. We ended up hanging out with them in the Dominican because they were just genuine great guys, but they were from Germany and spoke with these heavy German accents. So, Lorsch was their hometown and there’s this nice music venue, 500-seater, in town and three doors down was one of the guys we met, Peter’s, bar.
So, we’re walking through this town, just a bunch of Americans in this German town, and up pulls this nice ’73 Mustang Convertible. Beautiful, American, frickin’ mint car, and there’s Peter the guy who owns the bar. He’s like ‘Hey man get in!’ So we take a ride around, he shows me the town and then have a couple beers at his bar. We do the gig, which is mobbed and everybody’s raging because these guys have hyped us up and built us up. Everybody knows moe. because they play us at the bar right down the street. And then we get done, and go down to the bar which is mobbed and everyone is buying us drinks. It was just an amazing time, because these guys were such fans and have kind of promoted us in that area. And it was a great show and the town was cool and it was awesome.
We were also in this town called Plauen which is an old German town, and there are buildings there from the 1100’s/1300’s. The show was really cool, it was in this little club that reminded us of Broadway Joe’s. The people are raging with big huge beers and everybody’s getting hammered, it was awesome. So, it was just cool. Different experiences, you know. Being in Germany and having these shows with a ton of people and everyone knowing the songs. It was just a great experience.
What did you notice about the audience over there compared to the crowds you play to here?
It’s tough for me in the back. Once I get playing I sort of concentrate a lot and don’t really know what’s going on out front. One thing that was different is that in America the first few rows especially on the East Coast, it’s like I know every single person because I’ve seen them for the last ten years or whatever. So there’s that, although you do see certain people that you know because they came over to Europe.
What’s that like to look out there and know most of the people up front?
It’s amazing that I see these people come to this many shows all the time. I’m psyched about it because they actually care about it that much. I’m blown away that we get such support and such a deeply rooted fan base at this point that people continue to come to see us play. And it’s a testament to us that we actually still play well and continue to write new music so there’s stuff to keep these people’s interest so they don’t just bag it. I love it and I love how adamant they are about it and how they like to be up front and they’re fired up that we’re there and playing for them.
You mentioned that you play with some other projects when you’re off. I’m particularly interested in Floodwood. Can you talk about that band?
It’s sort of newgrassy, Dawg music-y, straight bluegrassy band with drums. It’s killer. The musicianship is great. We’ve got about 30-35 originals already. Probably 45 songs. So for being a short lived band we’ve got a lot of tunes, a lot of original songs. It’s a great bunch of guys and we all get along really well. We have fun with each other on and off stage. I’ve always liked bluegrass and I was in a band like this twenty something years ago in Buffalo. It was more of a cover band but it was more this kind of music which I’ve always really enjoyed, which is weird because it’s usually just string music and there’s no drummer. The drums definitely add a little rock to it as far, it gets it moving a little bit more. A little more energy, a little louder. Not too much louder but a little bit because I mostly play with brushes. It just drives the music a little more so it makes it a little more accessible beyond being bluegrass. But it’s a great experience. We’re cranking and we’re getting ready to do a bunch of shows in the fall, and we’re really in a building stage where we want to build it up to where it’s a legitimate band and not just a side project thing.
Are you thinking of recording?
I think in a fall we’re going to try to get a record together. We’ve been doing it now, it’ll be a year come moe.down because that was the first gig we did. And we have all these original songs and everyone’s been asking if we have recordings or t-shirts. We have no merchandise, we haven’t been pushing that. We just want to get the music out to people so they start liking us instead of ‘buy, buy, buy.’ We were just discussing today maybe getting a recording going maybe at the end of September/October. We’d like to have it in the can in the fall so that we can get it out in the spring because we’ll be doing a bunch of dates. It’ll be nice to get it happening.
Finally, how about a State of the Union regarding moe.’s music right now. How would you characterize it?
I think we’re really comfortable now. moe. used to have some good shows and some bad shows but now we come and every show we play really well. We’ve become such a tight band, and we always know how each other plays. The jams we played the other night were really good and different. We were able to push and move in some directions which is nice- it’s not just playing the same jam the same way every time. I feel like we can do whatever we want on stage playing-wise and it’ll be good, which is a good feeling to have. Plus we’re still writing tunes. We wrote a couple tunes we played at Summer Camp that we haven’t played since because I got sick. We’re constantly writing songs even though it’s a couple here and a couple there and not 10 at once. We probably have more in the hopper that we just need to get out there. We still like each other’s company.
Everything feels good. I don’t think anybody has any plans of wanting to stop. You see a lot of these bands that have been around as long as us wanting to take vacations or whatever and not want to play anymore, but I don’t think any of us ever think that way. We like doing it. It feels good and we’re playing good. And the state of the music scene itself is so different now that going out there and playing well every night is just good for us and good for the music.
