Photo by Dean Budnick
To many, the genre-bending, wildly unpredictable outfit Vulfpeck burst onto the scene and into the jam world with 2015’s Thrill of the Arts leading to subsequent appearances at Bonnaroo, Lockn’ and other festivals that put them squarely within the jamband bubble. But to bandleader Theo Katzman, this was indeed a slow burn to success.
“It feels like nobody witnessed the first four years,” Katzman jokes, referring to the initial output from the band that included several EPs and relentless touring. “It hit a tipping point and then people started saying, ‘Oh my gosh, I just discovered this new band with this wealth of stuff.’ But really, it’s years worth of work.”
With Vulf, as Katzman calls it, firmly in the eye of the public and amassing crowds all over the world (the multi-instrumentalist gushes over 1,500 people in Dublin humming the bass parts to Vulfpeck’s infectious material), he is pausing ever so briefly to release a personal collection of songs appropriately dubbed Heartbreak Hits. Because, as he notes, if Vulfpeck’s early days are unknown to most, so are Katzman’s as he recounts the trials and tribulations of a young musician, bouncing from coast to coast and emerging through hardship to land solidly on his feet with a wealth of music.
You had a solo career before, so when Vulfpeck blew up, what was your reaction to that?
I have so much love for Jack [Stratto], Joe [Dart], Woody [Gass], Antwaun [Stanley] and the community that has been created out of Vulfpeck. That has blown me away.
Initially, I was surprised. It wasn’t my plan, because I was mostly thinking of myself, and still do, as a songwriter and singer. Initially, I was a little nervous, not knowing what it would mean for the expectations placed on me in terms of this being something too good to pass up. But actually, everyone in the band has been very supportive of me on my solo project.
Joe and Woody still play on my records, Jack was my drummer for a while. It’s very much a supportive scene. Initially I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to do both. After putting in a solid 1-2 years to really get Vulf to where it is, everybody in the band wants to focus it more and hone in on what kind of shows we want to play, what kind of media we want to make. We need to prioritize making records and getting together. That’s the thing that built Vulfpeck—YouTube and the records.
We’re going to take all that to the next level and it’s actually going to leave me with a little more time to do my solo project which I really believe in.
Within the next two years, I’m hoping my [solo work] can be sizable enough to have its own legs. It’ll be different stylistically. I really think Vulfpeck is a phenomenon and I don’t anticipate anything like it happening in my life again. It’s just this phenomenon that’s taken on a life of its own.
It all happened pretty quickly for you guys.
Here’s the thing, I’ve been working with Vulf for 6 years now so the first four years it was like nobody witnessed, in a way. We were just amassing this massive catalog. At some point it hit a tipping point and then people started saying, “Oh my gosh, I just discovered this new band with this wealth of stuff.” But really, it’s years’ worth of work.
The quick part was the way it hit the tipping point, it came seemingly out of nowhere for me, but I had been living a sort of balanced existence where Vulf is a very small part of the time that I make music. The rest I’m doing freelance stuff and working on my project. It was all great. We got to do the Colbert show and become friends with some of the guys in Stay Human now. I love those guys, great band.
Take me back to the Ann Arbor, MI music scene when you were just starting out as a student at University of Michigan.
We all went to the University of Michigan, I’m the oldest member of Vulfpeck. We were in the music school in various programs. Before Vulfpeck I was in this group with Joey Dosik and our friend Tyler Duncan who produces my records now and engineers the Vulf. He’s my main writing partner. We’re doing a project with Antwaun and that’s going to be a solo project for Antwaun, which is exciting. A little more of a pop thing, just cool music that I’m really proud of. That’s later this year too.
We were in the music school together, so we were homies and we would hang out, then we started a band with Tyler and Joey and a couple other people, called My Dear Disco. It was basically electro-pop meets this longform, trance thing. All our songs were 7 and a half minutes long. It was never going to be a pop radio thing, even though we wanted it to be.
I quit that band to start doing my own thing. Joe was my bass player and then at some point Jack and Joe were freaking out on this funk stuff, so we wanted to do one session for our friend’s senior recording thesis. We played a couple tunes and that became Vulfpeck.
I will say the Ann Arbor scene was really just essential. I lucked out that I happened to be in that town at the right time with those people. Then it came time for me to move and I wanted a bigger city and more musical opportunities and connections. I first came to New York and then I went to Los Angeles where I live now. But Ann Arbor will forever be the start of my musical existence. It’s still a place where I do a lot of work. Our friend Tyler Duncan has a studio, so it’s cheaper for us to fly to Michigan and spend a week there working on a Vulf record, so we do that a lot now. I’ve been to Michigan every other or every third month since 2011 when I moved.
When you put out your first solo record Romance Without Finance, you were in Brooklyn?
I put out my first LP in November of 2011 and I moved to New York in October of 2011. So it was about the same time. That’s going to look like it’s a six-year gap when my next record will come out, but a lot happened in those years. I did a lot of work in LA while living in New York.
I was working in LA as a writer for other artists and producers. I devoted two years of my life to that, and then Vulf took off so I took time for that. It’s funny to see myself put out a record five years ago but now I’m in a really good flow with my own writing and I know more about what I want to do—write my own music.
I’m less interested in climbing the ladder of the Hollywood writing scene. I really thought that was what I wanted to do but then I didn’t. It’s cool to try things out and that was my 20’s, but now I’m ready to make an album a year.
Your main reason for going to LA was to do the Hollywood thing?
I quit the Hollywood thing before I moved Los Angeles. I was in New York, quit the Hollywood thing, and went to Michigan. I lived at Tyler’s house rent-free for eight months. I just had to get my head together and figure out what I wanted to do.
My father had also passed away around that time. I had a break-up. I had to move. So it was a really intense, tough time for me. I got my head together in Michigan, then I decided to go to Los Angeles but not for the same reasons I had thought I was going there for. I realized every time I go to LA there’s the writing thing but there’s also the community of Joey Dosik, a huge reason I moved there.
I just hit a friend up to tell them I’d be around and they’d ask me to play nights at clubs all nights of the week. I had a bedrock of opportunity there so I went for it. I know New York has all that going on too, but I hadn’t connected with it when I lived here, so I came out to LA to try to get a cheap place to live and to be a weirdo artist.
Believe it or not, I have found both of those things. I have an affordable place to live, knock on wood.
It sounds like you had two very different experiences in LA and New York.
My experience of New York has been a ton of incredible artists and creatives who also have another source of income. They’re here just to do their art and it’s expensive to live here, so a lot of people need another gig in New York.
In LA, for whatever reason, I know, exclusively, full-time musicians. I think there’s a little more opportunity to make a living playing an instrument in LA. There’s a culture of music production and industry that seems more intense there than in New York. However, that thing can come of the expense of artistic pursuit.
The cool thing about LA to me is that I’m seeing a lot of people who are professional musicians starting creative music projects and a lot of people from New York move to LA and bring that attitude along. It’s easy to get around the east side of LA where a lot of us musicians live. There’s a ton of collaborating, more space. I finally have a place where I can have my drums and guitars set up, and I can go up and write music in my attic and have a rehearsal up there. People are down to come over and the Cali vibe is very relaxed which is good for me, I’m a high energy guy.
At the end of the day, I love New York. I’m from here. There are things here that you just don’t get in LA, it’s a more sleepy sort of place in general. You can spend your day really kicking ass on your music thing.
It’s just all about wherever your community is. That’s why I stayed in Michigan as long as I did. I was there for seven years after graduating. I had studio access, the players I wanted to play with, I had a space to write. It was cheap. If that place is New York for you, then go to New York.
Were you a session writer in LA?
I was trying to be a session writer. I had been called in to collaborate with a friend of mine, Darren Criss, who was an actor on the show Glee. He’s super famous, we went to college together. I can trace my entire music career to two streets in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Darren at the time was on Glee and had a contract with Columbia to do an album, and he’s an incredible songwriter. But he wanted my writing and production input on his records so I started working with him on it. We spent almost two years on it, and ultimately the record never came out which was a product of a billion things having to do with music industry politics and him being super busy with the show. It didn’t end up being the right fit for either of us. We’re still really close friends but the record never came out and from that, I got some other writing opportunities.
But mostly, I never landed anything. I wrote good stuff so I thought I’d rather do my own thing as opposed to potentially having a great song not come out. I thought, “Let’s just make our own songs.” Around the same time I was getting disillusioned with the Hollywood writer ladder, Vulfpeck started to blow up so the thing that was the most accessible is the thing that is carefree with my homies. So, I thought to switch gears.
With this new record coming out, you mentioned it’s been six years, when did you get into the mindset that you wanted to put out your own record?
My first record came in 2011, and almost immediately got calls to write for other people. I was pretty young and inexperienced at the time, I was 26, I wasn’t that young, but I thought to follow that. I looked up to people like Frank Ocean who had been a writer in Hollywood and then had their own record come out. Huge success. The writer/artist model is not an uncommon model.
In 2011 my record came out, 2012 I spent working with Darren, 2013 I get the opportunity to open for him on a national tour of 17 sold out shows. I did all the shows, I started my new record in 2013, got a couple songs done, then my dad died, and I’m super thrown off. My relationship ended and things just fell apart. I took an eight-month break.
During that time I worked with other bands, took a break from music even though I did three tours of Ireland. I had to really get my life together. When I moved to LA in December of 2014, I started writing almost immediately. I was in a great zone. I spent 2015 writing and 2016 recording. And now it’s going to come out in 2017.
I don’t want to be a person that holds onto ideas preciously because that holds me back as an artist; I like to be as prolific as possible. I haven’t been as prolific as I want to be, but I think I will be from now on because I feel that there’s a momentum with the process of writing and releasing music. I am an independent artist so I have been afforded the freedom to do whatever I want.
In a way, the record has some sort of manic dips of style. I’m kind of all over the map and I’m proud of that because that’s really who I am at the end of the day. My writing is really strong and the tones are great and my friend Tyler mixed the shit out of it.
Who else is on the record?
It’s me on drums, guitars, and vocals. Joe Dart on bass, Woody Guss on piano, and Lee Pardini from Dawes plays all the other Wurlitzer. One of my favorite bands. He’s a good friend and an insanely amazing piano player and person and I love him super hard.
My roommate Brett Farkas, who’s a super badass guitar player plays on a track, then two of my favorite singers in the world: Laura Mace and Mike G, LA legends. Laura is actually the singer on “Conscious Club” on the new Vulfpeck record. Laura and Mike sing most of the background vocals on it and we did those tracks live in three parts, double tracking around an omni-mic and then panning it, which is one of my favorite recording techniques.
Then Drew Howard from Michigan, who is like a legend in Michigan, not like a famous guy, but absolutely as good as anyone on pedal steel, he plays it on the record. It’s like a dream come true to work with these people. It’s sweet.
Looking ahead to the summer, you’re opening for Trey Anastasio at Red Rocks.
I’m psyched to open for Trey. He’s definitely an influence on me in particular as a guitar player. I’m a Trey fan. Red Rocks is insane, the fact that we’re doing it again is insane.
Speaking of Trey, how have you liked being in the jamband thing? Lockn’, Bonnaroo, how do you feel like these audiences have embraced you?
You don’t have Jack here to make sure I don’t say something controversial, which he’s good at. I hope I don’t offend anybody but none of us ever thought about Vulfpeck as a jamband because the things that got us popular are short, kind of pop song forms. It’s still very pop focused in terms of classic funk-pop, like Jackson 5. We were all kind of surprised when the jamband scene embraced us.
I kind of thought that it wasn’t going to work. We weren’t going to do extended jams, it’s not really what we do. There’s nothing wrong with that, I love that kind of thing in the right context. There are plenty of incredible jambands, but I see the jamband scene starting to open up to any non-mainstream music that includes instrumental improvisation. I see more and more bands that are funk, not so much jamband. I think some are even like a Cuban thing, or a West-African influence.
I think in that way, the jamband scene is really positive. I don’t know how well-liked we are in the jam community. I know there are some people that don’t like that we have repeated songs, which is funny because I come from the pop world—‘Play the hits.’ I love improv and jazz and my father was a professional jazz trumpet player, and I grew up with that music. But I play the hits and improv in them in the sense that it’s a new moment.
We play a Vulf show, and I hope we play “Christmas in LA” and “Back Pocket” because they’re two of our biggest songs. And I sing them so I really want to sing them. Those are songs people love and want to hear so I know we’re interested in reaching as many people as possible, so I have always associated that kind of reach with a more mainstream genre thing, rather than jam.
I think jam is a little more niche. It’s a beautiful community for what it supports but Vulf isn’t trying to close any doors. We want everybody involved. I sort of see us going a little more of a non-jam route in terms of the kinds of stuff we do, but I also am just thrilled that anybody is listening. Fans of jam, c’mon.
I think people are drawn to Vulfpeck in the same vein they are Soulive or Lettuce.
I was hugely influenced by Soulive and Lettuce. I know that Live in Tokyo Lettuce thing was huge for Joe. We really look up to those guys. They’ve been embraced by the scene but at the same time, stylistically, they’re doing whatever they want.
I’m not afraid of being pinned as a jamband, I think music and our videos speak for themselves. Jack is a freak of the internet. We talk about having a TV show one day. I don’t know, we got dreams and if somebody wants to label it one way or the other I don’t think it matters.
What matters is that people are at the show singing along. When you hear 1,500 people sing the bass line at you, this happened in Dublin. It’s like, “Whoa, people are into this.” People as young as 15 or 18. That’s getting into people’s lives which is what I’m into. I don’t care about being hip, I would rather communicate. If you’re hip, sweet. It’s hip to be hip.
You had a great tweet. You said A Tribe Called Quest album is exactly what we needed.
Dude I’ve been listening to it non-stop.
Great album.
Such a great album. My friend Louis Cado who plays in Stay Human texted me about linking up in New York and he said to check the new Tribe album, he did a bunch of work on it. I knew he played with Q-Tip but I was not aware that he was working on this record.
The reason I said it was timely is because there’s no doubt that America has been shaken by the recent election. Regardless of who you voted for, I think we’re all reeling in the realization that we’re really divided right now. That’s something to grieve. A lot of people are grieving over that reality in America and there’s been a lot of hate.
For such an influential hip-hop group, to return after a 20-year hiatus with a statement that feels like they wrote it the day of the election. The record came out on the 11th and I kind of wonder if Q-Tip finished the verses on the 10th because it was just so relevant.
I think that hip-hop can speak to people in a way that a lot of other music can’t at this point in history. I hope everybody listens to the new Tribe album, it’s amazing. The whole thing is incredible.
