Sometimes in order to go two steps forward it’s necessary to take one step back. It’s a complicated process which may prove more timely, but revisiting the past as you move towards the future can often provide a much further progression. So in a time when the greater rock world has become inundated with throwback sounds, quickly subtitling everything retro-this and post-that, an improvisational four-piece from Vermont is stepping out from an ominous shadow by reinventing a sound it would have otherwise never outlived.
When Chris Michetti was growing up in the early to mid-nineties, like many high school and college kids, he somehow found himself part of the H.O.R.D.E. generation. A grassroots music festival, with little significance at the time, the H.O.R.D.E. tours eventually retained a place in rock history as a catalyst for an entire new movement – the jamband genre. It certainly may have started off slow, but by the late 90s, jambands had exploded exponentially in both size and strength. The major players had moved from college gymnasiums to mega-arenas, and hundreds of smaller acts, following the path laid before them, flooded the bars and clubs in every city on every night. Atop the jam chain, fellow Vermonters, Phish, continued to lead the pack in innovation, steering the latest sounds and newest trends down through the influential cracks. Of course, some young bands managed to distinguish themselves by either creating their own voice or finding inspiration from an outside realm – techno, electronica and funk being most prevalent – but for the most part, if Phish jumped, they jammed how high.
Though over the last couple of years, as technology forged onward, the world changed in dramatic fashion and Phish took themselves off the road, most in the genre used the time to buckle down, create and move well ahead, finally distancing themselves from the Phish comparisons they had previously embraced. However, Michetti and his RAQ mates (bassist Jay Burwick, drummer Grey Stuckey, keys Todd Stoops) have entered the contemporary jam scene with any entirely new, yet seemingly old approach. They have revitalized that primitive-jam style they grew up on, reinventing it as their own.
Fearful to be cast aside as a Phish rip-off, most jambands have treated those early, glory days of H.O.R.D.E. and Phish as sacred ground, opting to steer clear by focusing on more modern, repetitive jamming styles. The quirky, start-stop compositions and oddball lyrics of ten years ago have not only been deemed outdated, but were genuinely outgrown by the bands and fans alike. Even though all the while, the unspoken word has revered that particular era as some of the best music the jam scene has ever created.
Whether subconsciously or not, RAQ isn’t bringing back the old school jamband style. They’ve invented the concept of jambands even having an old school style to bring back in the first place. So yeah, it sounds like Phish. But it also smells like your dorm room, tastes like your campus bar, looks like a Maxell XL-II, and feels like home.
With their new album, Carbohydrates, recently released and the band catching a much needed break from the road, we got a chance to speak with RAQ guitarist, Chris Michetti, about being the new kid on the old block.
The departure of keyboardist Marc Scortino and the subsequent arrival of Todd Stoops is well known, but can you recount the formative years when you and Jay first got together?
I met [Jay] through my girlfriend, who was good friends with his girlfriend at the time. We went out to dinner, I remember we went out to eat sushi, and I saw this other guy at the restaurant I knew played drums. I didn’t even know Jay played bass at the time. And as the guy was leaving he came by and said hi and stuff, and we were talking, and I said, “hey we should put something together.” And he said, “right, you play guitar” or whatever, “all we need is a bass player.” And Jay says, “well I play bass.” So what happened was, that guy, the drummer, he just never panned out, but me and Jay got together and just played around for fun. And that was really the first time I ever really played guitar. I had never really attempted to play with anybody before. And Jay was in a band at that time and they had gigs at a couple of the Burlington venues, but they broke up. And right as they broke up, one of the club owners called him and asked if he would do a residency. So he told him his band broke up, but he could probably put something together. So we put an ad in for a drummer and we found this guy, Phil, and he drummed for us…we’ve gone through a couple drummers, but that’s how it started. We were a trio.
We did that for about a year, year and a half or so…went through a couple drummers, and then we found Greg. So we were a trio with Greg, still just totally innocent, having fun…and then we played with Marc. And once we started playing with Marc, people started paying attention to us, saying “you guys should do this, you guys should do that,” and that really changed everything. And as momentum grew, I think Marc – Marc and I are still really good friends – but I think the [road], the touring stuff, the amount of commitment that goes into something that’s totally not for certain, was a little but much for him, and rightfully so. And we’ve always been friends with Stoops, and it was perfect. Even Marc recommended it.
Well, following the grassroots touring model definitely isn’t for certain. So being a young band with great aspirations, what do you think when you see some of the great bands that have gone before you, and they’re still in a van playing the same sized venues ten years later. A lot of jambands move from bars to clubs, but very few ever even make it to theatres.
We look at experiences of hanging with other bands, playing with other bands, whenever we talk about other bands, it’s always about learning. There’s not a single band we can’t learn from. And yeah, us being so young, we kind of look back and we remember when we were…when we didn’t realize the way it worked. Whether it be going to a gig, or opening up for somebody and you don’t have a sound check or whatever, and yeah, it’s tough. Being a young band, one of the biggest things for us right now is material. ‘Cause we’ve been on the road, literally, since last September. We had a month off and did the album…but with holidays, and someone gets sick, and family things, family always takes precedent, but after all that, we’ve literally rehearsed for probably three weeks and that’s it. So it’s kind of tough for us to get over this hurdle.
That’s one thing about some of these bands, bands I used to go see and think, “wow, these guys are gonna make it,” and then I go back and they’re still doing the same thing. [That’s] something I’ve learned from all of the bigger bands, I mean even someone like Madonna, she reinvents herself every album. It’s a totally new look, she’s talking about new stuff, playing guitar on her new album, rapping on her new album, gets all religious, whatever it is, she knows she has to in order to stay up there and continue her progress. So that’s something we’ve learned. Like I said, it’s tough right now because we just got off the road and we’re all burnt out, and we just want to go sit in a rehearsal room, and just fuckin’ play our instruments and come up with new music, and just create. But we’re a struggling band and we don’t have the money to take time off. So yeah, the flipside to this whole thing is how scary it really can be. Some of these bigger [jambands that have been playing for years], I mean every time I go see them it’s really good. They’re as professional as hell, the sound is great, the lights are unbelievable, they put on a show start to finish, they’re performing…they’re real performers. And yeah, you’re right, they don’t [always sellout theatres, leave alone] Madison Square Garden, and that’s the goal, and that’s scary. That’s fuckin’ really scary.
You’ve had an unusually quick progression, going from backyard parties summer ‘01, to High Sierra summer ‘02, to Bonnaroo summer ’03. But how different would it be for RAQ if you were from say, Raleigh, North Carolina as opposed to Burlington, Vermont?
We’ve been to Raleigh, we love Raleigh, all of North Carolina has been great to us. But yeah, using that as an arbitrary city, I have to say the northeast is a great place for us to be right now, especially in Burlington, Vermont. It’s like we’re in the mouth of the lion. Seriously, if we happen to play at Nectar’s some night and people come in right at the start of the show and just start boogying, wow, that will totally take us by surprise! Normally when we play Nectar’s, for the first two hours, regardless of how many setbreaks, people will just be sitting and staring, literally, arms crossed. And I’ve got a whole row of guitar players over here, and they’re looking at my equipment, every little thing I’m doing, and just staring with their arms crossed. I mean, these people have seen it, they’ve lived it and it’s an awesome place for us to learn.
The northeast is like a jungle…there are just so many bands. When we drive from show to show, all we’ll see is van and trailer, van and trailer. And the east coast, especially with jambands, it’s intense. I mean how many jambands will be playing within a 300 mile radius on one Friday night? It’s unbelievable. And everybody coming to your show has seen all of the jambands. They know it all. I mean, they know what Umphrey’s latest cover is, and if we happen to be playing [the same cover] just ‘cause we decided to play it or whatever, people will come up afterwards and say, “dude, Umphrey’s just played that last week” (laughs). So it’s tough.
[And then you go to Colorado], and you get to the venue and people are like, “thank you for coming,” and we haven’t even played a note yet. Outside the northeast, attitudes are definitely mellower. They rage out there, obviously, but it’s much more mellow. I mean, I’ve gone to [Burlington’s] Higher Ground and seen bands that just blew me away, like Charlie Hunter, and people are criticizing it. And it’s like, you’ve got a lot of life to live if you’re criticizing Charlie Hunter. I understand if you don’t like it, he’s a jazz man and some people don’t like jazz, others don’t like rock, but to criticize it when you’re only like 18 years old, I mean it’s crazy!
But [for us, Burlington] is a great place to be. That’s where we should be right now. It’s cold and it’s brutal, and it’s -5 degrees and it’s just dirty…so we get out the dirty, greasy funk. And we just sit in the little laboratory and think up new ways to go out there, but then we’ll think, “well, they might not like that.” And we’re definitely trying to mellow out with that a little bit, because a certain sense of truth gets lost when your obscuring things just for the fans. For a while I think we were wrapped up in trying to impress everybody, and it’s overwhelming. So for now, I think the RAQ mantra is to hang back and just do what we enjoy to do…what comes natural.
The mainstream rock world is heavy into acts right now that are reinventing nostalgic eras, whether it be post-punk or prog-rock or whatever. And RAQ seems to be working in a similar vein. Instead of the funk/electro/techno jam path everyone’s been through, you’ve gone back to the early 90s jam sound that launched an entire genre. Writing songs like “Carbohydrates” or “Circumstance” off your new record in that classic, “Reba” style, and honing in on God Street Wine harmonies. The glory days that no one’s touched in the last ten years…that vintage, retro-jam sound.
I remember where I was the first time I heard [“Reba”]. I was in a car in new Orleans and listening to it off of Lawn Boy, and thinking “this is sick!” And I would hope that that’s what comes through in the influence. And that’s what hit all of us from Phish and that whole genre. Back in like ‘93 or ‘94, it was such a cool time…the movie Dazed and Confused came out and Snoop Dogg and Dre and The Chronic came out, and the whole time with Phish and Rift…it was such a cool time. It felt like everybody was smoking weed for the first time and eating LSD and stuff…and that kind of sticks with you. And I think that’s what shines through, that influence. For the music, it’s so subconscious that it just happens. And we’re not out there to take anybody’s tricks or steal from them. If anything, we come across a lot of cool tricks and then it’s like, “aww, fuck, you know what, the Phish guys did that, or so-and-so did that already.” And we have to go back to the drawing board and rethink chords and rethink cover songs or how we’re gonna open up a show. And in a way that sucks, but it’s really flattering to be compared to anybody like that. I mean, [Phish is] unbelievable and it’s overwhelming sometimes to be compared to that. I’ve definitely had my fair share of anxiety attacks over it (laughs).
So in order to create your own identity, do you find it necessary to go full tilt, rocking out as hard as you can at all times?
I think it does push us to go all out, to the point that now, we’re having to control ourselves a little bit. ‘Cause we listen back [to a show] and we’re like, “what the fuck…we’re going 90 miles per hour the whole show.” And there are parts where I just get disgusted with myself, where I hear every little time I have an opening, I try and impress everybody, give you the best I’ve got. Which is good in one sense, and it’s definitely won us some fans. But in the bigger picture of things, like you watch the Grammys the other night and you think, “ok, these guys can all do that.” Like Vince Gill, when they did The Beatles thing, he just played like a really nice, melodic solo.
And I find it easier to control ourselves when we have a huge crowd and they’re into it. It’s like, “ok, cool, now we just sit back and let the music do its thing.” As opposed to when its twenty people and four of them are in the corner just kind of watching, and then you’re just trying to blow them away. And it’s cool that we can kind of harness that power, I love it, it’s fuckin’ awesome. When we play like an hour and ten minute set, just full-out shredding, it’s fuckin’ awesome! But I don’t think it translates over to the crowd as well. I don’t think that’s what people want to hear [all the time]. I don’t think that’s gonna get you to Madison Square Garden.
