moe. is Rob Derhak (vocals, bass), Al Schnier (vocals, guitar, keyboards),
Chuck Garvey (vocals, guitar), Jim Loughlin (percussion), and Vinnie Amico (drums).
For a sense of the heady balance that moe. brings to its crisp musical attack,
consider the range of its three Jammy Awards. One was for best live album (the
double-disc L), another for best live set (the first of moe.'s three Bonnaroo
appearances) and the latest for best studio album, honoring the band's experimental
song cycle Wormwood.
In the process, moe. topped such peers as the Allman Brothers Band, Phish and
Widespread Panic. And beyond the jam scene, Wormwood earned four stars
in Blender, the same rating that Rolling Stone bestowed on predecessor Dither.
"For us, it has always started with having strong core material, and to
build the improvisation part on top of that," says guitarist Chuck Garvey.
"We have a strong love of pop music and far-out-there music, and it has
always been a balancing act."
Perhaps the best judges of moe.'s bold musicianship, superb songwriting
and malleable performances are the fans who have followed the upstate New York
group on its decade-plus journey from college upstart to leaders in their field.
"We have a very dedicated fanbase that's in it for the long haul,
that's in it for the music," says guitarist Al Schnier. "It's
not like some other band took a vacation or its tour ended, so those fans say,
‘Well, what do we do? Well, let's jump on moe. tour!' and the
traveling circus continues. We've never had much of a traveling circus.
Somehow our tours have a much different feel."
That's lucky for moe., because the band certainly has the kind of musical
and conceptual imagination -– and deep catalog of songs –- that lets
fans bask in the glow of multiple shows, including a share of special events.
The quintet named after the Louis Jordan song "Five Guys Named Moe"
has drawn upwards of 6,000 fans to two-night stands at such storied venues as
New York's Beacon Theatre, Chicago's Aragon Ballroom and Denver's
Fillmore. At the 2004 Bonnaroo festival in Tennessee, moe. preceded David Byrne
and Trey Anastasio before a main-stage crowd of 90,000.
Each Labor Day weekend for the past five years, the group has also presented
its own moe.down festival, inviting such kindred spirits as the Flaming Lips,
Ani DiFranco and the Disco Biscuits to supplement heaping helpings of moe. In
contrast to Bonnaroo, Schnier says, "The idea is kind of like a moe. family
picnic."
New Year's Eve shows are more of a grand-scale party, while thematic staging
marks Halloween concerts where, he says, "The problem has become trying
to outdo ourselves." Band members once dressed up as characters from "Willy
Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" and delivered songs from that movie. Another
year, moe. covered Pink Floyd's entire Dark Side of the Moon, synched to
a screening of "The Wizard of Oz." And in 2003, moe. delivered a Spinal
Tap-ish impersonation of a heavy metal band, churning out a mix of beefed-up
originals and metal classics -- including a version of Metallica's "Enter
Sandman" that still surfaces at general moe. shows.
Any moe. concert, after all, is the place to experience a nightly juggling
act where rotating favorites like "Meat," "Rebulula," "Timmy
Tucker" and "Recreational Chemistry" morph through taut, near-telepathic
jams. "We've been together for so long and know each other so well,"
says Schnier, "we're always finishing each other's sentences."
"We don't talk about how long the segues are going to be, or about
the improvisational parts of the show –- that's the number-one rule
of improvisation," he says. "We know where point A is and point Z
is, but all the points in between are subject to inspiration and spontaneity.
In any given minute of the song, you should never be able to detect where we
change gears. It should always be a seamless transition."
"It comes down to being comfortable enough onstage, and confident enough
with our instruments, for our personality to come through," says Schnier,
whose linear flights complement the angular colorations of guitar foil Garvey.
"Chuck always avoids what you expect to be the next note," says Schnier,
who adds occasional textures on synthesizer. "I have a much more caveman
approach."
Behind them, the rhythmic backbone of drummer Vinnie Amico and percussionist
Jim Loughlin provides breadth as well as drive, especially when Loughlin plays
electronic vibes to Zappa-esque effect. "A lot of the percussion stuff
becomes this immense steamroller," Garvey says. "They mix a lot of
different styles in a very easy way."
And finally, at center stage, bassist Rob Derhak weaves fluid, funky lines
that provide the bottom-end glue, sealing the chemistry between the longtime
bandmates.
"We're brothers," Derhak says. "We love each other dearly
and hate each other fiercely, and we can't live without each other."
"The prime directive is that we all enjoy what we're doing musically,"
Schnier says of the group, which drew on such influences as Steely Dan, Frank
Zappa and the Grateful Dead to shape its sophisticated fusion of rock, country,
jazz, funk and bluegrass. "By keeping that in mind, you always end up with
music that's going to sound uniquely like moe."
The versatile group's signature extends to vocals as well as instrumentation.
Derhak, Schnier and Garvey trade lead vocals with contrasting styles -- and
a balanced quality. "Certainly singing in key is a good place to start,"
says Schnier, "but it's also being creative with your harmonies and
vocal parts."
It's no wonder that the quintet constructs broad, cohesive studio CDs
that stack up song by song. "The songwriting has been a focus for us for
years and years now," he says. "Early on, we fell into the trap of
writing a song that was merely a platform for a jam, and there's no longevity
in that." Derhak and Schnier split most of the writing, but the rest of
the band contributes to the music as well. "Even if I write a song from
beginning to end at home and bring it in," Schnier says, "there's
still a collaborative effort involved in getting that song up and running."
"A true definition of a band," Derhak says, "is everyone contributing
all they can -- no matter what it is -- to every song."
Each song then continues to evolve onstage, to be joyfully dissected by fans
in person or through live recordings. Those include releases on moe.'s
popular "Warts and All" series, which, like studio albums, are available
on the band's own Fatboy label.
"That's the greatest thing about owning the record label that you're
on, that we're certainly the big fish in the pond now, and it's nice
being in control," says Schnier, whose group made two major-label albums
in the mid-90s. "We're at a really good place, not only within the
jamband community, but within the music community at large. We're in a
unique position where we can exist as an independent band, yet somehow forge
a somewhat stable career out of it, and stability is almost an anomaly in the
music industry."
"We're starting to really hit our stride," he says. "I
feel good about the level of musical communication that's happening onstage.
We're really on top of our game now, and that's exciting."
