Galactic on Their Album with Irma Thomas, Tipitina’s & The Secret to Their Logevity

It’s not unusual to associate artists with certain geographic regions — Bruce Springsteen with Asbury Park, Willie Nelson with Austin, the Red Hot Chili Peppers with Los Angeles, etc. When it comes to New Orleans, one of the first artists that leaps to head of the sonic second line is Galactic. The group, whose main nucleus of musicians has been performing for over 30 years, have created music that embodies the culture, the aura, the vibe and soul of New Orleans. One of the main sources of this embodiment has been through collaboration with other New Orleans-based musicians to create unforgettable songs. In 2025, Galactic teamed with the legendary Irma Thomas on Audience with The Queen.

Recently, we caught up with Rob Mercurio, bassist and one of the founding fathers of Galactic. We spoke at length with Rob about working with Irma Thomas, owning Tipitina’s, and the band wearing its New Orleans heritage on its sleeve as they get set to play the main stage at Michael Arnone’s Crawfish Fest in Augusta, NJ on Saturday May 31, 2025.

I wanted to start out by talking about the new record, Audience with the Queen featuring Irma Thomas. You worked with Ms. Thomas back in 2010 on your album  Ya-Ka-May, but what was the impetus to do a whole record with Irma?
There’s a couple of things that kind of triangulated into the album.The first thing was …  I’m not sure if you’re aware but we have this Tipitinas’ Record Club.

I know you own the bar now but I didn’t know you had a record club.

During the pandemic we started this vinyl subscription called the Tipitina’s Record Club. You sign up and you get like six albums a year sent to you. It’s been going great. We have almost 3,000 subscribers. Ben Ellman (Galactic’s saxophonist) and I are the curators for the club. We’re always thinking of new ideas and concepts. We have some new records, we have some reissues done and some archival live recordings from Tips. We’re on our 28th release.

We’re always kind of having to think of stuff [for the club] and we thought about doing a new album with Irma Thomas. Our original idea was we’d pick a couple of covers of some of her older songs. We’d give it like a real stripped-down Gospel approach, put a team together and knock it out. At the same time, we were having discussions about what should be the new Galactic record. We’ve done a lot of collaborative albums with multiple artists over the last 15 years. We thought maybe it’d be good to do a full concept record with just one singular artist.

So those two conversations were happening separately, and I was in both of them. I think it was our manager who was just like, “Why doesn’t Galactic just be the band for the Irma record? Ben and I were like, “Oh, yeah, that makes total sense.” So we pivoted away from the cover concept/stripped-down thing. We were like, “Okay, if we’re going to do an Irma Thomas record with Galactic we gotta write new material. It’s got to be a little more ambitious than I think Ben and I were planning for the Record Club.”

We had done that one song with Irma, “Our Heart of Steel” in 2010, and it was such a great collaboration for us and for her. It’s part of her live set now. We’ve always wanted to go back and work with her again. So all the things just kind of lined up. And you know she’s 84 now, so you don’t want to kind of sit around and waste your time with somebody like that. So it worked out really well. And of course we’re really happy with the results.

You’re in the trenches producing for a longtime, but how is it not just performing with, but also producing someone who’s been in the music industry longer than you and I have been alive?

Really good question, because it’s hard. The respect level has got to be high. She’s been at this [a long time]. I mean there’s a line in one of the songs “I was in Paris drinking champagne while you were in diapers and crying.” That literally could have been directed at me. So that was not lost on Ben and I through producing this record.

In the same respect you need to push somebody to try to get the greatest performance out of them. So it was a balance. You can’t see the artists in our studio when you’re recording them; so there’d be times where Ben and I were looking at each other like, “Who’s gonna tell Irma that she needs to do another take?” It was kind of tough, and it was a little different. It was a different process for her as well. She’s used to kind of going in knocking it out with a live band in one or two takes. It’s like “Okay, yeah. That second take was good. We’re done. Let’s go on.” We do more of a modern production where we’re really focused on just the vocalist at that time.

We pushed her sometimes but we didn’t want to push her to the point of where she’s exhausted. It’s a balance to try to get the best out of somebody. Also you can’t just be like, “Yeah, that was great. We’re moving on.” If it wasn’t great you really have to be honest as a producer. You’re not just a cheerleader. You’re like a coach, and it’s like you’re talking to the pitcher. Sometimes you go out and really have a one-on-one with people.

Given her history in the music industry was there anything you learned as a producer or as a musician from working with Irma Thomas?

I think every artist you work with you learn a little something in handling artists, or even creation of songs. I can’t pinpoint one specific thing except for that, we really just leaned into her strength, and that’s the lesson. Sometimes you really just got to go with the artist and not not push them too far in a direction that doesn’t sound natural.

Can you talk about your creative process as a producer and as a band? Is it more improv or is there more structure?

We create demos which are usually not fully realized. There are drums. There is a bass guitar, keyboards and chord changes happening. There’s a verse and a chorus and a bridge. We’ll start there with a big pile of those and narrow them down to what we think might fit into the project. Then at a certain point if it’s going to be a vocal song, we usually reach out to a lyricist. Our forte isn’t in writing lyrics, and in a way  knowing your weaknesses is sometimes your best strengths.

Irma, at the beginning of working with her, said right off the bat like, “I don’t write songs so you the songs are going to have to be written for me.” Which was totally cool. We knew that going into it. We knew that even from 2010 working with her. So we would get to the songs to a certain point and we’d have the vocals. So we’d have Jelly [Anjelika “Jelly” Joseph”], our current singer, who has been touring with us who we love, demo the song and present it to Irma. We generate songs from the ground up [and build] a foundation up, and then the top of the roof. I guess I’m just into analogies today, but the roof being the vocals and maybe the horns would be the little decorations you can kind of put around the house.

Given Irma’s age are there any plans to do any shows with Irma on the road?

You know, it’s gonna be rough. She doesn’t really leave town too easily. It’s sad because we have had a lot of international offers and offers to go out of town. But understandably, it takes a lot for her to be motivated to leave town. So currently we don’t really have anything on the books with her.

I have to reference the shirt you’re wearing during this interview — which is from Tipitina’s, the bar/music venue you own. It’s fascinating to me that Galactic was the Tipitina’s house band… 

I mean, we didn’t call ourselves that.

Well, your press releases certainly do [both laugh].  So how does owning a venue change your perspective on the music industry? 

It’s been great. It’s been really fun. We’re in the unique position of being artists and concertgoers, and have been both sides of the stage at Tipitina’s for over 20 years. When we came in as the new owners we just had a unique perspective compared to previous owners. So it was really fun for us to upgrade the production and the backstage and stuff that would affect us.

The experience is really gratifying. I saw a show there on Saturday night, and the drummer took a moment in the show. I don’t even think he knew I was there. In between songs she  was just like, “Hey, I just want to give a shout out to Galactic, who have done a great job and made this place amazing to play in. And blah blah!” You know, he just went on, and I saw Mike Doughty from Soul Coughing a few weeks ago there, and he mentioned us. People are seeing the stuff that we’re doing and trying to grow the club. We’re trying to make it less funky, but also make some improvements, but not make it glossy and too nice. Tipitina’s has a very homey vibe. It’s been really fun and I’m happy to be part of it. The hardest thing is when a young band wants to play there, and they call, and they say, “Hey, can we play at Tips?” I’m not the booker, so I kind of can pass them off to the booker. But I know how that is. It’s hard to tell someone, “Oh, you’re not quite big enough yet to play there, but you know soon, hopefully.”

Galactic owns Tipitina’s. It has its own label. You guys produce albums. You have side projects. And you, oh yeah, you tour the world.  Is it too much? Or is this the dream?

This is the dream. I mean, it really is. We’ve toned down our touring. We’re really only doing about 40 to 45 shows a year where pre-pandemic we were doing somewhere around 90 to 110 shows. At the height of our touring we probably did 200 or so shows. It’s kind of a good balance where everybody can kind of do some other projects. I’m actually scoring this documentary right now for this local artist, Michalopoulos, and producing. I, personally, like being busy. I’m happy with the workload. Not everyone in the band is as involved. Some guys love not being involved and having a lot more free time. And that’s great. Some people really like to work. and Stan [Drummer Stanton Moore] really likes to play a lot of shows. I think he’s over in Greece doing some educational stuff right now. He loves [music] education. So it opens up the ability for us to kind of do a lot of different projects.

Bill Bodkin: So I’m from New Jersey, and we brand like every band or musician that comes out is labeled “a Jersey artist” whether it’s Bruce, Bon Jovi, Bouncing Souls, Gaslight Anthem and are revered by the people and the band wears their Jersey-dom on their sleeve.

Is it the same for New Orleans? Because I feel like when you hear Galactic. The next word is to it’s either New Orleans or it’s funk like, do you guys wear New Orleans with pride.

Oh, yeah, for sure.I think it’s very common to have the same kind of thing that you have in New Jersey. If you’re from here, and you’re playing music that represents this area in some way. You’re proudly saying you’re from New Orleans. In the music world there’s not a lot of  downside to saying you’re from New Orleans. And it’s funny because you read stuff, and people are like, “Oh, any band from New Orleans is great.” It’s definitely a great thing to associate your music with, or your name with, especially internationally. On the flip side, I feel like there’s a lot of lost history in this city that could be branded in some sort if it’s not historical plaques, like somebody’s birthday house. I wish that New Orleans celebrated its music a little more than it does.

I interviewed Stanton Moore 10 years ago and I asked him what the secret sauce of Galactic staying together, with most of its original lineup intact. He told me it’s because you all genuinely like each other.

We all get along like brothers is the truth. I think that we would have imploded many, many years ago if we didn’t know how to work together and we weren’t truly friends. I do think that bringing in new collaborative artists to work with has always been inspirational. We’ve been working with Jelly, but before her we toured with Erica Falls, with Corey Glover with Cyril Neville, a small time with Macy Gray, and then all the collaborations on the records. Our current trumpet player, Eric Gordon, is super-inspiring and very encouraging. You got us the five of us who’ve played together for almost 30 years, but injecting new blood every once in a while definitely adds a spark.

So you’ll be up in New Jersey playing Michael Arnone’s Crawfish Festival. When you guys play festivals like, is there a different mentality? 

There’s a difference between a festival [and] a club show. [At a club show] everybody there is pretty much aware of who you are … they’ve chosen to see you. At a festival you’re among 2,030 bands, and somebody literally could just be walking by and be like, “I’ve never heard of this band” and maybe they end up liking you. So I think there’s more motivation, in a way, at a festival to win over the audience. In the back of your mind you know how many people are maybe hearing us for the first time, and that might affect the set list. Maybe you’re not going to go into as many deep cuts as you would at a club show, or even a hometown show.

I try to end every interview on a positive note, so what are 5 things you’re stoked about for Galactic and yourself in 2025?

We’re going back to Japan for the Fuji Rock festival, that’ll be great. We’re also going to Europe in late June and it’s gonna be really exciting.

[For me personally] Scoring this documentary for the artist Michalopoulos. I’m currently also producing this album for this Asheville, North Carolina artist, Datrian Johnson. We’re halfway into it and are going to wrap it up this summer. I am going back to Europe in late August as the musical director for this show called Take Me to the River All-Stars: New Orleans.

Galactic performs at The Pavilion Stage at Michael Arnone’s Crawfish Fest at the Sussex County Fairgrounds in Augusta, NJ on Saturday May 31 at 5:15 p.m. Click here for tickets.