MS: When you said there are some things you save for live shows, what are you saving for live shows?

 

CF: With us, we’re like five producers. I look at it like, you’re selling two products. In the studio, you have nothing but space and opportunity to work with compression, work with different knobs, phasers, really create – and that’s a whole other universe.

 

You don’t get that in a live show, you know what I’m saying? So it’s kind of interesting to be able to save that other energy for when we play live. Because then it’s like, you’re feeding them something different. You’re giving the listener – ”Okay, we can hear this on the record.” But then when they came to the live show, “Oh wow, okay, they’re really opening up.” And then you’re hearing more of our personality: we’re embracing what’s in the room at that moment in time.

 

Because every show is going to be slightly different. We still have this mindset of the jazz attitude. Like with Wayne Shorter and Miles, the Miles Second Quintet, they would go onstage and just vibe. But they trusted each other so much that they knew it was gonna be dope.

 

I think we have that same approach, but it’s just more of today’s approach. Where it’s like, okay in the studio we do this, but live, we’re gonna do a different take on it, but people are gonna enjoy it.

 

MB: Yeah. They’re different types of art. In general, we feel certain things aren’t appropriate on a record, like taking a four-chord solo – it’s just not really the space that we operate in. We know that in the jazz space that that really is totally fine, but in terms of stretching out, in the studio, we’re here to make a record, we’re gonna really produce the shit out of it and we’re gonna do all these overdubs and do all these things. And then the live show, we figure out how to make it live, and we figure out how to fill it up, and we figure out how to vibe it out, and take solos that really feed off the crowd.

 

So they’re two different types of art, I think and all of us think, and that’s usually our approach. We’re gonna be playing shows, so I don’t think we need to focus on making the records like the shows and the shows like the records. Let’s just get in the studio and make the best record that we can. And then when we get to the shows, we can do something different.

 

MS: So when you’re in the studio and there’s that process of figuring out what the song is going to be, are there ever times when you guys are focusing not so much on melody and harmony and rhythm, as just on timbre and the sonic worlds you’re creating? How much time do you spend focusing on that aspect of what you’re doing, and building tracks that way?

 

MB: Man, we have a great engineer named Adrian Wilson. Most of the sessions for Solar Music were at his studio. And he takes those liberties – he does it while we’re doing shit [laughs], he’ll just start messing with some modular synth shit or start patching different things in there. He’s like a sixth musician in the room, except he’s just engineering. He explores a lot of that stuff while we’re doing that, but we’ll also take time to really get into the sonics of stuff. “Eye Never Knew,” the latest single, and “I Can Say to You,” both of those are really sonically dense songs; they have a lot going on.

 

So we do spend time on it. We don’t really nerd out on harmony or any of that. We all know it well, so we don’t really put the main focus on that stuff; it’s kind of hard to explain. ’Cause we just know it, so it’s not like we need to spend two hours sorting it out – it’s just like, “Cool, cool.” And we know each other’s tendencies, and we know where it’s going, typically. 

 

We do spend a good amount of time on the sonics and the mixing.

 

CF: Sound is important for us – we’re sound nerds for real, through and through. We spend probably just as much time on that as we do on just playing.

 

I still go back to the drums on “Gum In My Mouth,” from #KingButch, and it’s like, that was nuts! And it’s amazing how something you think is minimal can have an impact on a song: you can listen to the version prior to that, mix number five or six, and it sounds very different. Something minor can have a big impact.

 

To have an Adrian on our team is extremely clutch.

 

MS: How long have you been working with him?

 

CF: Over ten years now! He’s our guy for all the mixing. 

 

And another cat in Richmond, Lance Koehler, who’s also very dope. We’re spoiled, man, having cats that are very creative and artists in their own right behind the desk, that we trust to take some artistic liberties.

 

MB: If the harmony and the melody give a song the body, the sonics and the mixing give it the character, the personality. It’s really advantageous that we get to work with Adrian. They’re both special. Lance is amazing, too.

 

MS: What bands are examples for you guys in terms of the interplay among the musicians?

 

MB: Hmm. 

 

CF: I guess I’ll go first. I’ll give you the past, people that inspired me.

 

Miles Second Quintet, with Tony Williams, Herbie, Ron Carter and Wayne – next-level. 

 

Weather Report. The Head Hunters. Return to Forever, of course. The Head Hunters and Weather Report were really the ones for me; I think Head Hunters was just special.

 

Today – I gotta get into Robert Glasper Experiment. That’s no longer the band, but there was a special period in time, in the 2000s and early 2010s, when what they were doing – with Chris Dave, Derrick Hodge, Casey Benjamin and Glasper – it was next-level. And I don’t think anybody that’s Gen-Z or millennial can say that they weren’t responsible for a certain sound.

 

That’s my take on it. It was those cats right there for me.

 

MB: Yeah, same – same people. The Roots, D’Angelo – all of that stuff for sure. When D’Angelo did the Black Messiah Tour – and I didn’t even get to go, but Corey – 

 

CF: It was nuts!

 

MB: He had that super band, we see all those fucking videos – this shit is nuts. A lot of that.

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But for sure Head Hunters. My dad loved Weather Report and Return to Forever and Spyro Gyra.

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CF: Mhm.

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MB: All of that.

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MS: So we’re going to publish this interview in an issue of our magazine called “The Psychedelic Issue.” 

 

CF: So this is you! Okay, cool! [Laughs].

 

MS: So I just want to say why I associate you guys as being in a way “psychedelic” as a band and hear how that sounds to you.

 

Part of it is just that there’s the historical association of music and psychedelics with the ’70s, and I hear you guys having a lot of ’70s sounds in your music. 

 

And then part of it is that I associate the idea of being on psychedelics, of psychedelic perception, as being about attunement to change. And I hear so much change from record to record with you guys, and you seem like this naturally evolving organism.

 

And then I notice that on your website, you do use the word “psychedelic” to describe yourselves. So throwing all this out there – what’s your response to that? And what does the word mean to you?

 

CF: Man. Sonics, I think, are very psychedelic. I listen to a lot of that. I love Portishead – that’s one of my favorite groups, I just love that sound; they were all about sound design.

 

I’m always seeing colors when I hear music. If I hear a certain chord, I do hear a color. Or a certain aesthetic. Marcus and I always talk about this orange sky whenever we hear certain music, or that’s a goal that we have in mind when we make music, we want it to sound like dusk. That aesthetic – a hazy, orange color. 

 

It’s something different for everybody. I definitely feel like when people hear our music, I want them to go on whatever spiritual journey they want to take, whether that’s mushrooms or smoke weed or do some acid. I think it does enhance the music in multiple ways, depending on the person.

 

And I think for us, the psychedelic sound is about being creative and taking risks – taking all types of risks. That goes for both us, the musicians, and the front-of-the-house engineers – we got Zack Victor and Camden Peters, who are really dope, and they take those risks; or it’s Adrian in the studio, mixing the record. We always mess around and say that we want it to sound like drugs. So that’s my take.

 

MB: I think it’s the open-mind piece. 

 

Notoriously, I guess, classical and jazz musicians – the whole jazz academia thing, there’s this portion of the history of jazz where the attitude is, “Really, jazz is swing.” But all of us don’t feel that. We feel like we come from a jazz lineage. If people want to call us jazz, cool, because it totally comes from that.

 

But having an open mind about where things can progress and where they can go is important, and that’s definitely the psychedelic spirit. Anybody like Kamasi Washington and Robert Glasper – that’s totally jazz, and you’ll have people that argue that it’s not, because it’s not the stereotypical sound. But it’s improvised music. Jazz has to keep moving forward, and if Miles had lived longer, he would have kept doing that. You hear Tutu and you hear Bitches Brew, and that shit is extra psychedelic, extra different.

 

So having an open mind is really important. And it also creates a good space for everybody in the studio, to where all of us feel like we can give whatever idea, because nobody in the band is gonna shoot it down, because everybody has an open mind. So the mixes and the music are of the open-mind spirit; our chemistry is of the open-mind spirit. I haven’t done any psychedelics, but I think that spirit is definitely encapsulated by what we do. I think you’re spot on.

 

MS: We’ve got some material about the Grateful Dead in this issue.

 

CF: I was about to mention something about the Dead!

 

MS: What was that?

 

CF: I was gonna say the Deadheads like us too.

 

MS: The Deadheads like you too? Alright, perfect.

 

So here’s the thing. We interviewed this guy, he’s a professor at the University of Toronto of both musicology and comparative religion. And we’re also publishing an excerpt of this new book, this study he’s written of the Dead, and the evolution of their improvisation.

 

So at one point in this chapter, he talks about how one of the thinkers in San Francisco who was influencing the Dead when they were coming up, was saying that at the heart of all authentic religious-mystical experiences is some experience of telepathy. And then the Dead, being influenced by this guy, start taking part in Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, which are basically big acid parties where they’re the house band, and they’re playing for hours on end [all laugh].

 

But for them, they’re genuinely trying to forge this group mind among all of them – and they believe that they do. They feel like they forge an actual group mind, a kind of telepathic connection, that outlasts that period of time when they were doing those parties.

 

Is the group mind for you guys, as a band – is that a metaphor, or do you feel like there’s real musical telepathy that takes place?

 

MB: Man, that’s a crazy question! [Laughs].

 

CF: Whoo!

 

MB: That’s heavy.

 

CF: I think so. There’s so much cosmic shit that goes on in this band. It’s the weirdest shit, bro. I feel like we’ve had situations off the bandstand where we might say the same thing at the same time. 

 

MB: For real.

 

CF: We’re so locked in, it’s weird – I know I’m not the only one; Morgan, you can speak on that, too. We’ve either said the same thing, closed or slammed a door at the same time, clapped our hands – it’s something, just strange shit.

 

To your point, man, it’s all in that same family. And that’s just what happens when you spend a ton of time with each other and you all actually get along, when there’s actually a spirit that connects you – when it’s not just the music, and y’all have developed relationships over time, outside of just music. Those things make sense.

 

It’s almost like having twins. I don’t have a twin, but I know that if a twin is separated from their sibling for too long, they can tell if the other one’s not feeling well – because they’re also not. It all goes hand in hand. 

 

And so it’s similar in that way with Butcher. We’ll just be so locked in on random shit. I couldn’t even imagine if we all decided to do some acid and play some music for a couple hours. That would do something [laughs]. It’s there, for sure.

 

MB: Bro, we were somewhere – and I don’t even remember what the song was; we were on tour, doing some show, we were going to the show. It might have been me and Andy, but we just started singing a Butcher song, it might have been “Frontline,” and we started singing the same part of that song at the same time. I was like, “What the fuck!” [all laugh]. Shit like that does happen a lot.

 

CF: It happens a lot.

 

MB: I think when you really get deep into the chemistry of music and the chemistry of a band, you have to have that telepathy. We know where we’re going.  I’ll know where Corey’s going, or I’ll know where Corey and Andy are going if I’m taking a solo over a bed that they’re laying. And it’s not because they always play the same shit;  it’s just, we’re on the same mindset.

 

I was thinking about this the other day, because just the idea of really stretching out on a solo and taking your time on it is dependent on the bed that’s laid, so it’s dependent on the rhythm section. And those moments where a solo really is five or six minutes, that’s pure – we’re literally thinking the same thing; we know exactly where’s it going to go. 

 

I don’t think that’s far off at all, for us. We play a lot of music together and spend a bunch of time together.