WILL KOSTER w/ TROUT STEAK REVIVAL

What were the first few albums you ever bought with your own money and do you still enjoy them today?  I remember really grooving to Michael Jackson at an early age and buying the cassettes “Bad” and “Dangerous.” I would crank my boombox and try to do the moonwalk. MJ is still the King. The compositions, performances, and production on his albums are still among my favorites.

How long have you been singing and what artists did you like to emulate most as a kid?  I started singing when I moved to Colorado in 2005. I started singing a lot of blues songs and wrote songs occasionally. Casey our bass player and I lived in a mountain cabin for a while and we dove into a bunch of artist’s musical catalogues. We would end up learning a lot of the songs we were jamming out to. Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, The Band, and Neil Young to name a few. 

Trout Steak Revival are helping lead the charge for the ever-growing ‘new grass’ movement and yet for so many it’s a brand new experience; What do you feel Trout Steak’s brings to the genre or are you more purists than anything else? I feel like a huge part of new-grass and bluegrass music is the strong community vibe. We love being a part of the bluegrass family. I hope that what we are bringing to the genre is honest and full of fun and love.

Did you grow up with bluegrass or was it an acquired taste?  I heard of bluegrass music my freshman year of college. I went to Indiana University and a friend from West Virginia who plays fiddle, invited me to Louisville, KY for the IBMA’s. It was quite the introduction to bluegrass watching the greats perform and witnessing the organized chaos of thousands of musicians hanging out in a hotel. My first bluegrass jam went pretty bad because I only knew how to play blues solos… a new friend told me I should get a Dobro because I liked to bend notes so much….. and so I did.

Would you like to sing more lead with the band? is that something you have to fight for being in an outfit where everyone can sing so well?  Sharing is caring.

What’s the bands approach to songwriting? (how do you come up with songs? you guys had mentioned you were a democracy when we me that night at BK) We approach songwriting in a very honest and collaborative way. We typically start working on a song when someone has some lyrics, a melody, and some chords. We will start playing around with the ideas and see how the band can support the song the best. We usually will add a few chords, come up with instrumental melodies, figure out harmonies and things of that nature, as a group.

In terms of lyrics, do you feel you guys have a message (ie – what are you guys really about?) Lately our songs have been pretty uplifting and positive, but who knows….we may go through a dark phase at some point? Mostly, we just want to sing songs that we feel and that are true to us.

Any tips on what it takes to stay focused, fresh and sane on the road?

1. stay hydrated
2. don’t drink hotel water
3. drink good coffee
4. shower when groovy
5. pack clean socks and undies for at least a week
6. to boost moral: come up with famous peoples names to replace everyday words. For example: Can you pick me up a Gregory Alan IsaCoffee? (Gregory Alan for short) or Russels! meaning please turn on the Courtesy Lights (Kurts) in the bus…. It sounds strange, but it helps.
7. Go swimming whenever possible
8. grow to love burritos, hummus, chips, and veggietrays
9. always order the meatloaf
10. be excellent to one another
    

What are you guys listening to on the tour bus this year so far? (any surprises?)  The Wood Brothers, The Lowest Pair, Elephant Revival, Fruition, The Infamous Stringdusters, The Deer, Kendrick Lamar, Prince, Bill Callahan, Bonnie Prince Billy, Mandolin Orange, My Morning Jacket, Ry Cooder, and Magnolia Electric Company are the ones that come to mind first. Surprised?

Do you think smashing a fiddle on stage would be cathartic, desperate or downright wrong?  I may differ to Bevin on this one. I would cry big tears.

MURPH DANIELS w/ WOOD SHAMPOO

Your new record as Wood Shampoo is a greatest hit of sorts; must be great to get 17 songs off your chest?

If feels like we just won the WBA title against Mike Tyson and we even have the bite marks to prove it.   We took some of the best songs we had written in the last couple of years that no one has ever heard and a few new cuts as well and we started up the band’s Lear and headed up to Gateway Mastering Studios in Maine to see the master himself, Bob Ludwig. After Bob performed his magic, we were all systems go.

It seems so few records these days have a sense of humor unless it’s tied in with a band’s gimmick overtly, where does Wood Shampoo fit in that spectrum?

Our motto is simple: we have nothing to lose, so let’s have so fun for crying out loud and try to put a smile on our fan’s faces. Life’s tough enough, so we want to give everyone an outlet to escape from that. Anything goes in our writing: from sexy girls, vampires, aliens, the crazy world of the stock market, dead rock stars, crack, cover girls, gambling – you name it, we probably have a song about it and if we don’t, then we will for the next album.

Do you think being from New York gives you some sense of entitlement when it comes to rocking (hard)?

That’s an interesting question. Would you be able to make that a multiple choice question and give me a wink when I am near the right answer (that used to work for me in my high school French class)? I think there is so much top-shelf quality homegrown music here thrown in with the greatest bands in the world always stopping by to make NYC an extremely competitive market. You just cannot survive in front of the NYC fans unless you are at your best because they will not settle for anything less. They’ll take you out in stretchers if you’re off your game – they’re that sledgehammer tough. Even my own family throws rotten tomatoes at me in those cases, so use your imagination.

What are your favorite cuts on the disc and which is your least?

Every track on the disc was picked by a panel of experts in the field using our proprietary analysis of qualitative and quantitative data. In other words, we like all the cuts. That being said, some of the ones that stand out for us are Wanna Be A Dead Rock Star, Top of the World, She’s So Fine, Cover Girl, Where’s the Party Earthling?, You Suck (Mr. Vampire), Ticker Tape, One More Chance, and of course our title track Crack, Crack Heart Attack. They just have a certain je ne sais quoi.  They are packed full of radio friendly hooks on every level and that’s how we like them. You’re lucky enough to get one or two on an album and here you are getting a lifetime supply. Go to our website, WOODSHAMPOO.net and hear them for yourselves and you be the judge and leave us a comment while you’re at it. We like to read them at breakfast.

I would say the cut that’s our least favorite is Three Cheers because it doesn’t fit into the format as well for this album, but we put it on there due to popular demand. It’s like early Bruce Springsteen meets Lou Reed and they decide to take a walk on the wild side. There’s great sax on that one from Frankie Tee.

What’s the story behind Crack, Crack Heart Attack the tune? I understand the CIA was involved?

What I’m about to tell you is the absolute truth (writer’s note: be aware Murph Daniels is currently wired up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree and has been connected to a Delco car battery by a couple of independent contractors who work for a nameless agency. They are also wearing cheap suits.). We were in the studio and one of my producers, who also happens to be a guitarist on the record, Eddie Martinez, asked me to play him the day’s songs I had written for the session. Turns out nothing caught his ear that day and we just don’t waste our time with a song that doesn’t make that first cut, so he suggested a song I had done on a Murph Daniels’ solo record that he really loved, but thought we could do it much better now. That song was Crack, Crack Heart Attack and everyone at the session knocked in out of the ballpark that day. On a crazy side note, when I get a bad headache, I have found if I play this song really loud in the car, it will cure me after a play or two. Try it for yourself, I’m not kidding. JJ Cale had been an inspiration for me with the writing of this song because I thought if he could have a hit with the song Cocaine then why couldn’t someone have a hit song with the drug crack. He just passed away and will be missed.

There are some monster players on the album: how does one assemble such a line-up without a major label budget?

Well, without getting into the budget, because the accountants are watching me 24/7, it’s really quite simple. You don’t want to spend an arm and a leg on studio costs, so why not get the greatest musicians alive to come down and do it right in one or two takes. Co-producers and guitarists Tommy Byrnes and Eddie Martinez are masters at their craft. They also put a crack (excuse the pun) team together. We not only captured Wood Shampoo at its prime, but had fun doing it. I called up Gateway Mastering and sent them the tracks and Bob Ludwig and team thought it was something they could definitely work with. They brought out sounds from the mix I had never even heard before. Bob is a genius and just an all around great guy. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I learned from working with him. And let’s not forget our fifth Beatle, Rich Gibbons. He was our engineer and mixer on most of the tracks and always had Wood Shampoo’s back. Rich fits in so great and I think part of the reason is that he is a Senior Producer at The Howard Stern Show and with that job comes a great sense of humor.

How does the writing process work for you and how do you know or feel a song is complete and ready for recording?

I usually hear or read something that catches my attention and knocks me off my feet. I then use that phrase as a building block for the rest of the song. Other times I come up with a catchy riff first and the lyrics follow somehow as I play the riff over and over again on guitar. I take the songs to my producers, which usually is Tommy, and they continue the process. Inspirations for some of my songs have been from hearing someone saying “you suck” to their parent and wanting to find a funny way to use it in a song which turned out to be You Suck (Mr. Vampire), to having my best friend ask me for years if he could have my guitars when I die and that one later turned into My Best Friend Died (and Left Me His Guitar).

What’s the first album you ever bought and the first you ever tossed out in a disappointment (if any?)?

I think the first album I ever bought was Elton John’s “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy.” I was truly amazed by the musicianship. I think I probably traded the albums I didn’t like for the ones I wanted at a local store so I never actually would throw one out.

Gun, or billy club, to your head: what are your favorite three albums of all time?

I’m a huge music fan and I really love a mix of everything from Talking Heads, The Clash, Guns N’ Roses, Elvis Costello, Nirvana, Otis Redding, James Brown, Johnny Hallyday, The Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, The Jam, Al Green, Joe Williams, My Morning Jacket, Wilco, Roy Orbison, Hoodoo Gurus, Moby Grape, Toots Thielemans, and Johnny Hallyday. Stop me when I pass three okay?

If you had put out a Wood Shampoo double-live opus in the 70’s, what would it have been called and how were sales?

I think we would have called it “Wood Shampoo: One Lump or Two?” and it would have been a limited sold-out run of one million copies in blood red vinyl.