Legendary Buffalo, NY jam heroes moe. are coming to the Seaside Heights Beach Stage in Seaside Heights, New Jersey on Sunday, July 10. Bassist/vocalist Rob Derhak recently gave me a moment to discuss the evolution of moe. over their 30+ year career, how the festival circuit has grown and changed along with them, the perks of a solo album, and much more.
Andrew Howie: moe. has stood the test of time for a good long while now. How would you say you work differently as a band than you might have in the early days?
Rob Derhak: Well, this is 32 years for us. Before, it was kind of like a dart board thing, you know? You just kind of wing your music at the board and see where it goes. Now I think we’re a little bit more thoughtful about every little bit that we do. Everybody knows a lot more about music than we did when we first started. As far as the theory goes I’ve learned quite a bit (though I probably know the least), but I’ve still learned a lot about what I’m doing as far as how to write a song and put it together.
I think as a band too, we’ve gotten better at listening, hearing what other band members are playing at the time, and reacting to that. That’s one of our biggest strengths in our live show, the way we listen to each other, react, play and improvise as a unit, almost as one being. It’s like one brain with a bunch of different hands working at the same time. I think that’s taken 32 years to get to where it is. I wouldn’t say our approach is different per se, but it’s changed. It’s the same idea, something that we’re always striving to improve, but it’s gone way beyond what we were 30 or even 20 or 10 years ago.
AH: The music scene has grown and changed as well; what do you think makes the whole festival thing so enduring and popular?
RD: You know, we have this discussion quite a bit in one way or another, and I think really it sort of comes back to this: there are so many styles that fall under the jam band umbrella, it’s quite a wide-ranging term. You could be as far to one side of the jam scene as something that’s EDM-focused a little bit like The Disco Biscuits, or you could be Billy Strings and be considered a jam band. They sound nothing whatsoever alike. So it really has to do with the fan base; not as much the music, but the people who come to see it and how they relate to the music and how they relate to each other. I think it’s just sort of a free and accepting type of attitude that people who go and see that music all have in common. That’s sort of what unites the whole thing. Of course, there’s also all the drugs. At least weed, so many people smoke weed now, it’s so widely legal. It’s a party for sure, it’s not like a new country party where there’s a bunch of whiskey and beer and fights in the parking lot. It’s a party that you want to be at, and you know you’re going to have fun.
AH: Speaking of parties, you’ve been a huge part of the Summer Camp Music Festival from the very beginning. What has it been like watching it turn into what it is today?
RD: The crazy thing about it is when we first started, it was just like a truck stage, one of those pop-ups, and we just played on that. It had like a county fair vibe in this rural area, where it was nothing, there was nothing to it. Now it’s like this major festival that has hundreds of acts across the board, two main stages, another stage that’s good-sized, all these little stages everywhere, and then the late-night Barn. It’s just a major undertaking. The guys who put it on, this is an all-year planning thing. Once we’re done and we leave, they’re doing the site ops and getting it back into a regular park for a couple weeks. There are probably thousands of people involved, it’s beyond us.
AH: What can you tell me about your solo record, Songs For Other People?
RD: It was a weird thing, I’ve never done a solo album before. It was a situation where the tech was available for me to record the instruments and drum loops and play everything and sing. COVID was not kind to a lot of people, but I had to figure out what I was doing with my life when I was stuck at home, and that just evolved into an album. It’s funny because it literally started out with me writing songs for other people.
I was doing Zoom house parties, Al and I were, where we would play a song on acoustic guitars for like ten people. What I started doing was making little loops and backing tracks in GarageBand or other programs to back my singing and playing up, and I found myself really getting into that part of the work before the show. I would work on those loops all week, and I realized I liked doing that more than a Zoom party. I asked ‘Would anyone want me to write them a song?’ and put that out there and fans were all about it. They gave me the material, ‘can you write this for my wife’ or whatever. I still own the song and whatnot, but I’ll send you the lyrics and give you the recording, so I did that and wrote a bunch of songs that were pretty simple, nothing too crazy, and I ended up with all this material, so I thought ‘why don’t I make an album with it.’
I said fuck it and just put it out. It’s nothing major like a big vinyl release, but there are eight songs, and I got it mastered and everything. It was honestly one of the projects I really liked doing maybe more than anything I’ve ever done. I don’t know about the future, but for what it was, I loved it. Right now my plate is full. When I’m not doing moe. I’m doing this thing called Blue Star Radiation, and that takes up all my extra time after moe. stuff is done.
AH: Who plays with you in Blue Star Radiation and what’s that group all about?
RD: Originally we were picking all these classic rock songs that just rock that no one is playing, and putting a jam band vibe to that. Not completely unlike what Govt. Mule was doing a bunch of years ago, but maybe with a more psychedelic thing to it. It’s me and Nate Wilson, who was in Percy Hill, and is in Ghosts of Jupiter but also playing with moe. at this point, Vinnie (our drummer in moe.), and Tim Palmieri, who’s now with Lotus, but was with The Breakfast and Kung Fu and all that. The four of us just really hit it off.
The first few shows, people were really like ‘holy shit this is a cool supergroup’ if you want to call it that. I joke, but it’s just a bunch of guys from these other northeast jam bands putting this stuff together, and we actually play a few songs from that solo album I did, along with some other older unpublished material from one of us, other songs that we’re writing with each other. When we have time we get together and it’s kind of a rager party, people dig it.
AH: You mentioned Nate Wilson playing with you in moe. currently – how did that come together? Have you worked with him or your guest guitarist for this before?
RD: Percy Hill was his first band, and they’re a New Hampshire band. When you talked earlier about how the jam band scene has grown and changed, they were among our peers in the years back when moe. was starting out. I don’t know if you remember God Street Wine, bands like that, but Percy Hill was of that time, and we were all playing a circuit. That’s when we met Nate, and over the years he has sat in with us a number of times. If you asked me which tracks I wouldn’t remember, but he’s come and laid down some keys tracks on some of the albums we’ve done. But the other guy on guitar is Suke Cerulo. He is in a band from that era as well called Schleigho (and who incidentally is out touring again a little bit). He’s just a shredder guitarist. He’s been woodshedding all of Chuck’s parts [guitarist Chuck Garvey, who is recovering from a stroke], and those two guys have been filling in for Chuck for this summer. It takes two guys to fill his shoes!
AH: If you could pick one musical goal with moe. for the future, what would it be?
RD: I would love to have moe. be the backing band for Robert Plant and play Zeppelin tunes. Every time we try one we’re like nope, can’t do the vocals. That would be my dream, a show where we’re playing Zeppelin and Robert Plant is singing. I don’t know how likely that is to happen, but who the hell knows?
