Photo by Jay Garner
moe. continues its third decade with a West Coast run, which opens tonight in San Francisco at the Fillmore. The New York jamband has led a long and storied career, helping to pioneer an independent and unique path for other bands that combine improvisation, punk, pop, prog and classic rock themes into their music. Having said that, perhaps, moe. is at the forefront of a genre onto themselves. Indeed, as Jambands.com catches up with guitarist and vocalist, Al Schnier, the answers as to how moe. has endured for two decades of gloriously exciting, innovative, and segue-drenched music are pondered. Schnier is a gifted conversationalist, and more than willing to dig deep and honestly into the methods of a band that has remained as humble and determined as they were when they began. After all, as the guitarist quips in the interview, “(moe.) are still the same idiots from Buffalo…”
RR: The 20th Anniversary tour kicked off on January 22 at the Roseland Ballroom for a WHY Benefit, which also supported the Haiti earthquake relief. moe. had numerous guests, as well. What are your feelings about that particular night?
AS: It’s certainly great to come together for the cause. For us, it’s a treat to get together as musicians. In a lot of ways, it can be like herding cats. There’s a lot of ground to cover. With moe., we don’t necessarily have a band leader or musical director. It’s very much a collective, and now you have a collective running an even larger collaborative group of guys, so there’s potential for catastrophe. (laughs) The thing is that it just worked out great. We each chose a guy that we would be in touch with, and worked with them on material, and then, in the end, we all came together to rehearse. The whole thing came together really well.
One of the key components was that everybody who showed up, first of all, are all phenomenal players, and all guys who could have just walked into the gig without any preparation whatsoever, and it would have been an awesome show. And the fact that we took the time to actually learn some songs together, and take a little time to go over it, made it that much stronger. It’s a real treat for us to really get to play with Marco [Benevento] and get to spend some time with him. He and I have played together on random occasions—a song here or there—but never really dived into anything.
It’s sort of the same thing with Butch [Trucks, Allman Brothers Band drummer]. We shared the stage, and maybe played a song together here or there, but had never really done an event together, or really planned anything. Same thing with Jeff [Austin, Yonder Mountain String Band]. I’ve been a fan of Danny’s [Barnes], literally, for 20 years, since he was in the Bad Livers. It was really cool to get Danny to come out, and be a part of this thing. I foresee working with all of these guys again in the future.
David Sanborn was another one of those guys that I never ever would have expected to somehow be a part of this thing, and as it all came together, we were just blown away by his presence. He was totally humble the entire time. Here’s this legendary musician, and after the whole thing was over, he was ecstatic, and looking forward to playing again.
It just ends up being a really great bonding experience for all the musicians—not only because we’re all just there for the music and for the cause, but, you know, it’s not anybody’s gig. It wasn’t really a moe. show. It wasn’t a show that featured any one of those artists. I guess we could all put the business behind us, and just be there for other reasons. It almost clears your mind in a really good way, and you walk away with the potential for a really great musical experience.
RR: moe. wore suits and ties to celebrate the opening of the 20th anniversary tour. Will the formal attire be retired before the tour kicks into gear on the West Coast?
AS: Ummm…well, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Yeah. It’s something that we’ve talked about for years. It was really sort of inspired by Reservoir Dogs [Quentin Tarantino film], ultimately. Last summer, we spent some time on the road with Del McCoury, and those guys just look so good on stage, and to hear Del talk about it, too, just how important it is from a real old school entertainment value perspective—just really being there to put on a show in a proper way. It makes a difference. These people are paying their money for their ticket to come to see a show, and the least we can do is put on our best clothes, and play our best music, and really give them a show. We don’t have dancers. (laughs) It wouldn’t be right if we just showed up in blue jeans and t-shirts, and did the same thing. It would be disrespectful towards the audience in some way. To hear him say it, all of sudden, it sheds a new light on that. “O.K.—you know what? We should really do the suit thing. (laughs) I think the time has come.” And we just found ourselves in a situation where we, all together, were able to get the suits. We figured the 20th anniversary was a good time to bust it out.
RR: The moe. festival season begins next month, starting off with snoe.down, which takes place March 26-28 at Killington Resort in central Vermont. That particular festival has had an interesting history over the years.
AS: Originally, we did do a snoe.down event in Maine, at Sugarloaf, which was not the same scale event that it is these days, I guess, that it’s grown into. That’s where the moniker comes from. Once it moved to Lake Placid, we had the proper facilities there, and we were able to bring in other bands, make it weekend-length, and incorporate the event on the mountain, in the lodges, and turn it into a weekend, village-wide festival. That is sort of what we were interested in doing, and, unfortunately, the powers that be in Lake Placid were not receptive to it. I happen to love the Adirondacks. It meant a lot to me to get up to Lake Placid. It was especially rewarding to be able to be at Whiteface, for example, playing on a mountain. A very small but vocal minority just didn’t want to see the event back in their town. It’s a very old school traditional town, and I don’t think that they want a rock festival of any kind in their town. So be it.
Unfortunately, the other 95% of Lake Placid was very receptive and very nice. It’s a shame that we won’t be going back there. On the other hand, the folks at Killington have been really receptive. They have some great facilities there. Obviously, the mountain is one of the best in the northeast, and we’re really looking forward to working there. What can I say? We’d be ecstatic if we can continue to do this annually.
RR: And I imagine you’re looking forward to engaging in some winter activities, as well, in that environment.
AS: Yes, I’m looking forward to skiing there, as well. It’s probably been a couple of years since I’ve been back to Killington. Any excuse, anything where I can get in a day of skiing when I’m on tour with moe. works for me. I generally try to whenever we’re in the Rockies. Sometimes, when we’re in Tahoe, out that way, I get to ski, also.
At snoe.down, there was a group of us that were skiing together. I’d actually ditched my family (laughter), and skied with a bunch of fans at one point. We were skiing on the blacks [Author’s Note: a difficult course on a particular mountain, and, generally, very steep, and often ungroomed], and we were skiing pretty aggressively. It was great. We just had a great day of skiing together. It was so much fun that these guys actually went out, and made these Olympic gold medals for the group, and it became known as Team Extreme. It even had a meeting time for the following year, and planned other ski events around moe. shows depending upon where we were. They kept inviting me to them. (laughs) They wanted me to keep skiing with them, but it’s difficult for me to do that and work at the same time.
RR: Let’s go back to the beginning. Obviously, the band began its original incarnation in 1990, but you didn’t join until late 1991.
AS: Yep, fall of 1991. I moved to Buffalo at the end of the summer in 1991. I was playing with these guys a few weeks after I had moved to Buffalo. (laughs) It was just completely random. It wasn’t a permanent move, at that point. It was just a temporary thing. I was just filling in.
RR: What were your goals back in the 1980s? Did you have goals back then as a young musician? [Al laughs] I know. I know. Who has goals at that age?
AS: That’s the thing, you know? I had just graduated from college. I should preface this by saying that I started playing guitar at around 12 or 13, and have played in bands almost the entire time since then. Since I could form a power chord, I’ve been playing in bands. Until moe. decided to do this full time, it was never serious; it was just something I did. I just always played in a band. I don’t think there was ever a time when I wasn’t in a band. It was something I always did as a hobby.
And that was the case with moe., too. By the time I had moved to Buffalo, I had graduated from college. I had a degree in philosophy and a degree in graphic arts. I was working for a newspaper in Buffalo as a graphic artist. It only fit that I would end up playing in a band, ultimately. Prior to moving to Buffalo, I had been playing in a lot of psychedelic rock bands. I was a huge Deadhead in college, and I played in a lot of those kinds of bands. I also really liked punk rock and a lot of alternative rock, and things like that, so the music moe. was making wasn’t a huge stretch for me. We had a lot of common interests in the music of Frank Zappa and Primus and Fishbone and things like that which was just sort of left of center. That’s the stuff that we all liked.
At that time, this was before the [Red Hot] Chili Peppers were a Top 40 band, before they had become mainstream. That was the kind of stuff that we liked, and before grunge even had a name. (laughs) This was back in the olden days, before Nirvana was a popular band. I think Nevermind was becoming popular at that time, and the whole face of music was changing so meeting those guys, and playing with them, and being in a band at that time was just what we did. All of our friends were in bands. We often referenced them in our songs. We referenced the bands Monkey Wrench, Scary Chicken, and other bands that we were friends with. Monkey Wrench was a punk rock band; Scary Chicken was an alternative college rock band, and very much in an R.E.M.-kind of vein. We would play shows together all the time with these guys, and it totally worked.
RR: Monkeys have been a consistent theme in moe. lore with monkeys on ecstasy, of course, formed from the moe. acronym.
AS: Yeah, that’s been a code name for when we play a stealth show some place, and we’ve used that name in the past. Although, (laughs) it’s not much of a secret these days. Yeah, that is what was going on in the early days in Buffalo. Everybody was playing in bands, and some of it was pretty serious. Like the guys in Monkey Wrench and Scary Chicken were really good. They were much better than we were. They were doing really well. They were way ahead of moe. at that point. They had already made several really great recordings, and they were actively pursuing record deals, and got them. It was great to be friends with those guys, and to see them actually pursuing that dream, and doing well with it.
I was done with school. I had a job—it wasn’t a great job, but I had one. The other guys in the band were still in school in various states of…uhhh…(laughs)…I don’t know what the best word to use…well, they were doing O.K. in school. I think at one point, Jim [Loughlin, percussion] got kicked out of UB [University at Buffalo] because of his grades. He got demoted to Buff State until his grades improved. I think Rob never actually graduated. He’s two credits shy of graduating. So much of this was because we were getting very busy with the band. It was becoming a priority. By the end of that four years in Buffalo, it became very obvious that we either needed to really really do this, or NOT at all. So we did. We all loved playing in the band. It was a lot of fun, and it seemed to be working. We decided if we’d just devote all of energy to it, it could be a lot more successful than it was at that time. We’re still trying. (laughs)
RR: You brought up several interesting points that I’d like to elaborate upon. The role of serendipity, especially in the jamband world, was critical in developing independence in the music and the business. moe. was also at the very cusp of the era where bands really had that do-it-yourself mentality. Nirvana, of course, elevated that philosophy to a different level, but it is interesting that in the early 90s, moe. began to work within a framework that has become an almost anti-establishment standard. In the past, I’ve spoken with you and other moe. band members about your tightly-run, family-oriented business. You’ve succeeded through years of trial and error, and other bands may not know how to do that now.
AS: Right. Right. That’s true. You’re absolutely right. It’s kind of like having to learn how to cook your own meals as a kid, and then moving out on your own. It’s like oh, yeah, you know how to make your meals, so you don’t sit around starving, I guess. Or, you don’t just order out all the time, and eat lame food. It just made sense to us at the time.
We did it because nobody else was doing it for us, but it’s also what made sense. We recognized, early on, that recording a demo, and sending out a bunch of demos to a record label, and then, sitting around and waiting was dumb. (laughs) That wasn’t going to work. Nobody’s going to listen to those demos. We would be crazy to think that somebody would actually listen to our demo, and then, some cigar-smoking record executive is going to call us up and say, “Hey, I want to give you guys a record deal. I want to make you millionaires.” No. We need to be out there playing our butts off, and building a fan base. This is the only thing that’s going to work. It very much was kind of that DIY-punk ethic that made sense to us—building that kind of a fan base, and working within those parameters because we had nothing else, and that’s what you did. We existed outside the mainstream for a long time, and, eventually, some booking agents came to us because we were a commodity that they recognized. (laughs) “Holy crap! Who the hell are these guys? You’re booking your own shows? Let me help you.” And we were in a position where we could actually negotiate: “Well, maybe; we’ll think about it.”
It was the same thing when we signed our deal with Sony. They came to us. We weren’t looking for a record deal at the time. Our A&R guy was blown away by the following that we had. He had found us on a message board on-line. It was the early days of the Internet, and he couldn’t believe all of the chatter about our band, and how fervent a following the band had, I guess, at the time, because it was unprecedented in that day and age. Now, everybody has a message board, and there is chatter about people’s bands on. There are whole web sites like MySpace, which are built for that kind of thing.
RR: Yet, moe. had a rare opportunity in the mid-90s of having major record label support, and then, the band evolved out of that, and continued their independence.
AS: Yeah, you know, the thing with Sony was that when the opportunity presented itself, we were thrilled about the prospects. It’s just one of those things that come along in a career, especially in a career like this—it’s so tentative, even to this day. People may not know it, but it still feels tentative a lot of the time. You’d be surprised. Obviously, twenty years in, it feels secure enough, and we feel lucky enough, and we’re established enough, and we can count on a certain sort of…I don’t even know how to put this…it’s sort of difficult to describe. Let me put it to you this way—if I worked for somebody else, and I had a job where I showed up and worked from 9 to 5, and I had a paycheck, and I worked within the system of some other corporation, there are certain expectations, or certain comforts, which come with that, that you can rely upon.
But when you’re a) a musician, and b) running your own small business, there’s so many variables that are just unsure that you feel like it could all just go away tomorrow. And that’s always been the case with this because we’re just musicians in a rock band, and we’re running our own business, and there’s like little or no stability in what we do. (laughs) So, there’s that.
When things come along like being in Rolling Stone magazine, or getting a record deal with Sony, every now and then, it’s like “Hey, we’re a real band! Hey, that’s kind of cool. We’re not just the same idiots from Buffalo, doing this on our own,” even though, that’s what it still feels like years from now because we still are. We’re still the same idiots from Buffalo that are doing this on our own. Even though, some things have come and gone in the mix throughout all of this, it’s still the same people working on this really hard, and it’s still us.
Every now and then, we have these real moments like getting to open for The Who. “We’re a real band. We’re opening for The Who. I saw The Clash open for The Who. This is ridiculous. Now, moe. is opening for The Who. I can’t believe it.” (laughter) Granted, we’ll never be on the same level as The Clash, but it’s kind of cool. We played Radio City for New Year’s Eve. When my father-in-law is bragging about it to his friends, they have no idea who moe. is, or what kind of music we play, but it doesn’t make a difference because it’s important to them because we played Radio City, and I realized that we’re a real band. They care about us. It’s nice to know because it’s more than just us making this up as we go along, I guess. (laughs)
RR: moe. has a legacy all its own, as well. Veering off from the more obvious live triumphs over the last 20 years, let’s look at the evolution of the studio output, specifically the timeframe of the last decade from Wormwood to Sticks and Stones.
AS: Sticks and Stones seemed like the next obvious step in that evolutionary chain from Wormwood to The Conch to Sticks and Stones. In each of those things, we were trying something new in terms of our studio albums. We were trying something creatively in terms of the methods by which we were making the albums. We found right away with Wormwood that by setting out these variables by which we would make the album in a large way informed the material, and the creative process that fed and drove the album.
The technological variables that we laid out in the beginning were “we’re going to do it this way; we have these 15 songs, and we’re going to record them live, on stage, during the summer, but this is what we’re going to do: we’re going to write out potential album sequences for Wormwood, and then, play them live as a first set, every day on our summer tour. Then, we’ll see if any of those can work as the framework for the album.”
It grew from there. We had four or five different albums that we were playing. When we got into the studio, we realized that none of them really stood on their own, so we made another one. We copied and pasted sort of the best bits of the best versions of different songs together, and we had a whole new framework for the album. That directed and guided the whole process for how we would finish the album in the studio. Now we had this scaffolding that we had made (laughs) based on what we had performed live over the summer. We had built the album from there. But there were so many things wrong with it technically because we played on a different stage every day, sounds were different, and I spent a week working on a computer in the studio. My eyes were bloodshot. I spent 18 hours per day, on a computer, never ever going into the other part of the studio where we were supposed to be recording because I was just busy editing, and trying to fix things, and work on things.
When we did The Conch, we said, “Let’s do this again, but let’s avoid that whole week of crap that we had to go through; let’s do this right.” So we did the same thing, but this time it was in this theatre in Maine [Portland’s State Theatre] in a controlled environment—empty theatre, great-sounding room. Then, “let’s bring in an audience; with and without an audience; maybe, use the room, use the audience.”
The next time when we got to Sticks and Stones, we said, “O.K., well—we’ve done that. We’ve done the live thing where we tried to do. Why don’t we do the same thing, or something similar, where we try to record the whole album live, but instead of in a theatre, or at a live venue, what if we tried some place else? What about some place more organic, or some place more comfortable? What about one other variable? What about— instead of that, instead of material culled over the years, of just sort of playing live—writing the whole thing in that place and time together? And then, that will lend some cohesion to the album, too.” That’s how we ended up at that church in Massachusetts writing this whole thing. Again, we were all together, live, in the same room, and we would literally write a song. The first week, we roughed out all the songs we had demoed. By the second week, we would practice the song in the morning—we had to re-learn it from the week before because we had only played it one day (laughs)—and then, by the nighttime, we were recording a version of it. The cool thing about all those songs is that they’re so new. We, literally, had only played them a half dozen times, or something like that, by the time the basics got recorded for the album. They’re really really virgin recordings, and have a very Neil Young quality to it, I guess, in that at least the energy there is very new. We wanted to capture more of the songwriting creation, rather than what happens to a song after it’s lived on the road for two years. What happens to a song right after it comes out? Capture it in that state.
RR: Which leads moe. to the present day. What are the current studio plans?
AS: Now? I don’t know. We spent some time in the studio over the fall, and recently, in this break over the winter, re-recording some of the moe. classic songs for a new “hits” album that will be coming out in the springtime. Originally, the plan was to re-release a bunch of A-list favorites because, like you said Wormwood is your favorite album, but if you ask the fan standing next to you, they may say, “Oh, well, no, Tin Cans [ and Car Tires ] is,” or maybe they’d say, “ No Doy is,” or, maybe they’d say, “ Headseed has all of my favorite songs,” or, “I really like the versions on L better.” You know what I mean? Everybody says “the version of this song on this album,” so when anybody comes to us, and says, “If I could buy one moe. album, what would it be?” There’s never really a good answer. (laughter) Everybody has like “WELL, if you like this, maybe this,” and we thought, “it’s been 20 years, there should be a good answer to this question.”
Here’s your introduction to moe.—start with this; here you go. Originally, we were just going to use the original recordings, but then when we started putting them all together, the stuff from Fatboy and Headseed sounded so different from the stuff from Wormwood and The Conch. In the end, the versions had evolved so much, too. Why not just do updated versions of this stuff? Let’s just bang them out in the studio, and get really good, tight studio versions of these songs. So, we’ve done that with a lot of songs. Now, people will have an updated studio version of a lot of the classics.
RR: We’ve discussed the band’s evolution in the studio. Let’s look at the live area. How does moe. keep fresh, and stay in contact with its audience? How do you get motivated after all of these years? What drives you to keep doing this, other than the fact that you have families, and you have to pay the bills?
AS: (laughs) Right. It’s a really good question. It’s not something that we generally have to think about. The only time it really comes up is when I sit down to write a setlist, and I’m looking at the same old songs. It’s like “what can we do that’s different, somehow? What’s interesting, but will still make a really strong show?” It would be interesting to the band, and it would be interesting to hardcore fans to, you know, open up the show with something you wouldn’t typically open the show with, or put “Meat” first, or have something really weird as the opener. That doesn’t necessarily make it a good show just because it’s different. So there’s that. That enters into my mind every time I write a setlist. It’s just something that you have to think about then. But when I go out on stage, I don’t have to think about what I’m going to play. If I ever start thinking about it, then I’m not doing my job, or I’m distracted somehow. I don’t want to have to think about what I’m playing. I want to be focused, but I also want to be free from that distraction of having to think about it. I want to be open-minded because that’s what we do.
Having played something like “Timmy Tucker” for 20 years (laughs), it’s still got to be fun for us. It’s still got to be interesting. Sometimes, it just means changing gear. Sometimes, it means just a slightly different approach to what we’re doing. Maybe, we start off the song differently. Maybe, during Chuck’s [Garvey] solo, the band is going to take it in a little different direction behind him—not intentionally, but just open to it; you’ve got to be receptive to it. The one thing that bugs me is that if we start to fall into ruts, or patterns, or complacency. As long as there’s…it doesn’t have to be something new every night, either. It can just be really good. As long as there’s that, that’s all that really matters.
And there’s bound to be disappointments if we’re going to take chances. Look—if we’re not playing to backing tracks, and we’re not playing the same sets every night, and we’re not pitch-correcting our vocals on stage—hell, we’re singing our vocals, which is more than 90% of the bands that are out there doing at this point—there are bound to be things that don’t work. But, at the same time, at least we’re putting our best foot forward.
One of the things that we tried all last year was to really work on the whole presentation of our show. We were actually trying to create, and arrange, different sections of the show. So we had come up with different arrangements, and sometimes, it was spontaneous, and other times, it was by grabbing different musical interludes, and turning them into songs, and re-visiting themes throughout the night. But it got to the point where our soundchecks were now becoming two or three hours long because we had to rehearse these transitions. Some of those transitions were no longer improvised, or spontaneous, and I’ve actually heard fans complain that we were becoming lazy because we weren’t improvising anymore. What they don’t realize was that we were actually rehearsing this stuff, and working several hours a day, the day of the show, to try to make the show tighter, and better, and maybe, they didn’t perceive it that way, which is O.K. In our minds, we were trying to make the whole show come off that much better.
We figured we had worked really hard on our songwriting skills. We had worked really hard on jamming. If we could put those two worlds together, and, actually, add some of that songwriting and arranging skills into the jamming, into the instrumental portions of what we do—and not take it away entirely because there are still long solos, and there are still going to be passages where we do jam—and let’s add a whole other palette of things that we can draw from that we can make the show more diverse and interesting. Maybe we’ll have a really tight show where we don’t have those awkward moments where we just kind of “Oh, what the hell are they doing? Just go to the next song.” We were trying to avoid that, and worked really hard on it, and it ended up being a lot of work. And it still is a lot of work. We also developed a lot of cool music in the process. It’s just one of those things where we’re trying to…we’re always, always, always (laughs) trying to develop what we do, and trying to keep things interesting. Even without doing that, and the first part of this year, we didn’t do that stuff so much, and we would still go out, and our soundchecks are still two hours long because we’re practicing some of the songs that we’re going to play that night, or even stuff that we don’t end up playing, but we go out and rehearse for two hours before the show. It ends up being a really long day, but it gets us in the right mindset for the show. These are all the things that lend itself to the show being more interesting to us. (laughs)
To be continued in Part II…
