Sittin' On Top of the World: An Interview with Michael Kang

Boulder, Colorado's String Cheese Incident could possibly be one of every music lovers' favorite secrets right now. You want to jump into their fiesta and immediately close the door behind you, but you can't help to keep it open and share the spirit of the String Cheese Incident with others. Their mix of bluegrass, country, funk, rock, African and Latin styles has been steadily growing out of the Rocky Mountains since 1993. This year it has been the summer of Incidents, as their fusion of spirit, music and community has swept across the country from their very own festival at Horning's Hideout in Oregon to the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island. While in Reno, Nevada last month I had the pleasure of speaking with Michael Kang, mandolinist for the String Cheese Incident, shortly after the band had completed their sound-check for that night's performance at the Hilton Amphitheater. We spoke about the bluegrass-country-funk craze that is rolling across the jam band nation this summer...

Powers: Last night at the Berkeley Greek Theater you guys seemed to be having a great time. The setting just seemed perfect for everyone who attended. How was it playing in front of nearly 7,000 people at such a beautiful venue with the bay and the San Francisco fog and skyline as a backdrop in the distance?

Kang: It was great. It takes us awhile to get warmed up and it's definitely a new experience playing venues of that size. The more that we get used to it, the more comfortable we'll feel playing those venues. I think when you first start doing these venues that you can't help but have it feel kind of overwhelming.

P: This summer does seem to be full of many new larger venues that the String Cheese Incident has never played before. Has it been an adjustment for the band to learn how to "fit" the sound into these new spaces?

K: We're always striving to play well no matter where we perform. But sometimes it's more of a head game when you're playing in front of that many people. It should be no different...but it definitely is a little different. But after Red Rocks and the Greek, it makes 3,000 people seem very small.

P: Right, now you guys just did that Red Rocks show, what's up with this sudden growth? It seems to be exploding for you guys in the past year. How's that feel?

K: I think there's a lot of people out there who may have heard of the band, a lot of people who still haven't seen the band and a lot people who may have heard the band but not seen the band yet...so it's one of those things that just seems to be growing gradually. We'll see what happens.

P: A lot of this growth seems to be attributed to the Internet. There's the Friends of Cheese fan page and the IncindentaList email discussion lists. What's your take on the 'net and how it has affected String Cheese?

K: It's been really one of the biggest tools that we've able to use for our growth. Since we've always been an independent band and done our own thing, the Internet has given us the opportunity to kind of put ourselves out there. A lot of people who enjoy live music are tapping in via the Internet. So in that sense it's been huge for us.

P: The String Cheese Incident has been growing out of the west the past couple of years...first out of Colorado and then California. San Francisco, Portland and even Los Angeles seem to be second homes fan-wise for you outside of the mountains. Now the east coast seems to be rapidly catching on to the band...

K: The east coast is starting to grow for sure out there. Each place has it's own specific vibe I'd say. People in the south are just ready to throw down and just go nuts. People in the northeast are probably most reserved about our shows. I don't think they really got us for a while. It seems to have caught on now and there's definitely been more people coming out to catch us out there too. I think it takes awhile for people to get what we're about too. I don't think it's necessarily everyone's cup of tea so to speak... even though I feel we have a pretty wide appeal to a lot of different kinds of music fans. It (the music) just takes people on. It may not catch on some places, we'll see. But that doesn't seem to be the case at this point. (laughs)

P: Last night at the Greek, you took a minute to thank fans for making this summer so special for the band. There seems to be a special bond that has formed between the String Cheese Incident and the fans.

K: Well I don't think we would be able to do what we do without the fans to a certain degree. We've seen a lot of other bands go through growth like this, which just changes the nature of what we do and could potentially cause problems. We just want to keep it as pure as we can for as long as we can and I think it ultimately comes down to the responsibility of what everyone brings to the shows...the energy that they carry into it. This summer has been great because we've been able to really do things that are really cool in some special places like Horning's Hideout and the biggest venues being like the Greek and Red Rocks...and still those venues have a really intimate feel to them. It's just been really important for us to be able to put out what our general vibe and feel is so that people can be really respectful to each other and themselves at our shows as much as they can.

P: You just mentioned how you've watched other bands grow in the past and how String Cheese is using these groups almost as models to improve and build from. Who are some of these artists?

K: The obvious ones would be the bands that have scenes going on. The Dead at first and then Panic and then Phish pretty much. These were the ones that seemed to develop a tour culture around them...but then it ended up causing those bands problems for various reasons. I've been to Phish shows before where it's really hard to enjoy the show because of the scene and that's a tragic space to be in I think. It should never be about the scene, it's about the music ultimately I think. It just happens that way though. I stopped going to see the Dead when the scene got out of control, because I couldn't enjoy the music anymore. I just hope that doesn't happen to our band.

P: Now you've had Karl Denson open and sit in on the show last night and he's about to do it again tonight. It seems more often than not, that String Cheese has guests sitting in at every show. Obviously you guys seem to enjoy performing with friends and guests...

K: I think that comes from our festival mentality. We grew up basically as a band hanging out at places such as High Sierra Music Festival and Telluride Bluegrass. Telluride Bluegrass is really all about the sharing of music between the different artists up there and learning from each other. It's always been a good thing for us to really learn from our peers and mentors and involve them in the experience. For us it's also a blast to hang with out our peers and play with them. So for instance, when we get Paul McCandless and Darol Anger out, it's always just been a really good learning experience for us to see how people who have been doing it for a long time treat the whole thing. It's always been a big thing of what we do. I hope it continues.

P: Is there anyone out there who you haven't played with that you'd like to collaborate with in the future?

K: There's tons of people. (laughs) I don't know if they'll ever come by. We'll just see what happens.

P: Speaking of great guest musicians and festivals, the String Cheese Incident just played Jazz Fest a few months ago. You had the Flecktones sit in on a Birdland at the Saenger Theater and had horns on your riverboat cruise. What's it like being involved and getting to play at Jazz Fest?

K: That's as rich as it gets. Every time I go back to New Orleans I really can feel the musical voodoo, it just seeps up through the concrete. It's pretty sick. The creative flow that goes on in that town is pretty addictive and amazing. We love that kind of stuff. Things like that really do change the lives of every musician who gets to be a part of Jazz Fest. To a certain degree I think that's why it's there.

P: Did you hit any of this year's late night affairs or the Oysterhead show?

K: Unfortunately we had to leave to go to Atlanta the very next day. But we got to see Karl Denson's Tiny Universe and Galactic. Unfortunately I didn't get to see any of the real cool super jam stuff. Next year! (laughs)

P: It seems like the funk has invaded the String Cheese sound big-time this year...

K: It's definitely been a big influence. We've always had different influences along the way. First being the bluegrass thing...then there were always underlying tones of African, Latin and Caribbean music. This year it's just been really fun to explore different elements of funk and kind of get it into our writing.

P: Will we see this funk emerge on the next studio record?

K: Probably. A lot of the new songs have been more rock-oriented funk tunes or just straight ahead rock songs. We'll always be writing the folkier elements of music, but to get to really become a good funk band and feel comfortable playing it, you just have to play it. There's a hell of a lot better funk bands out there than us, but for us to be able to play it in the sphere of what we do is really fun. (laughs)

P: Right on, so funk doesn't come out Boulder, Colorado, eh?

K: No. It sure doesn't. (laughs)

P: When are you going into the studio? After this summer tour ends?

K: We're going to start doing pre-production in August and we're gonna be in the studio for two weeks in September with Steve Berlin, the horn player of Los Lobos.

P: So the new record will emerge in early 2001 or later?

K: Probably. Probably right before or after New Year's is my guess.

P: Is there anything special planned yet for New Year's?

K: We've just been tossing that around so far. We really haven't decided yet. But I'm sure it will be some kind of spectacle wherever we do it. (laughs)

P: Getting back to the Berkeley show from last night...what was the band thinking during that second set Texas you guys played? The 20 or so minutes of that jam was unbelievable at times. I was absolutely blown away.

K: I don't know. (laughs) Was it really that long?

P: It seemed that way. I think a lot of people thought that Texas was the highlight of the show.

K: Yah, we don't play that song that much these days. We've had songs that we have used to get us to certain places to a certain degree of musical exploration and Texas is one of the first songs where we've really had the opportunity to kind of just blow it out and see where we could go. What we've been trying to do is turn other songs into that kind of feeling...where we feel that we can just blow out the side of any song and go wherever we want. But sometimes some songs feel more comfortable for that. Whenever we do get to play a song like Texas...I think we've only played it two or three times this year...it just gives us the opportunity to blow it out and see what happens. We're trying to create our newer stuff into being able to have that vibe. I'm sure down the road that the newer stuff will get old and we'll have other newer stuff. (laughs)

P: So Reno tonight... When will the Vegas incident happen?

K: Vegas will happen when we can all go there and just have a blast of a time for a few days. It's not the kind of thing we want to do in the middle of a tour just to play there. We want to go and really have some serious fun there when we go and do it.

P: So the big blowout eh?

K: Yah, we'll see what happens. (laughs)

The String Cheese Incident share their craft of improvisation with New England next weekend as they settle in for a three day stint at the Berkshire Mountain Music Festival in Great Barrington, Massachusetts from August 11th to the 13th.

String Cheese Incident @ JamBase

For further details, check out the String Cheese Incident Website.
(Special thanks to Carrie Lombardi, Nadia Prescher and Reis Baron)