AJ: I know. My brother and I were talking about how Bruce managed to bring Bonnaroo into his set. Jamming, over three hours. It wasn’t like, say, the Police, who were here a few years ago.
MF : Totally disconnected.
AJ: And Bruce was totally down with the program.
MF: And with the Police, it was like, they, I don’t know. At that point, I thought, maybe their music’s just not holding up like I thought it would.
AJ With Bonnaroo, it’s like, I don’t know. A pride, if you would call it that, in our music, diverse as it is. A few years back, Tool headlined and there were haters who said they didn’t fit. But they rocked it and Tom Morello joined in and it was a wonderful set, they connected. And the same was said about the Police, that they were borderline oldies act playing Bonnaroo that didn’t cross over like they should have.
MF: It’s like somebody didn’t give him (Sting) an update on everything. These people are not all Tennesseans. These are people from all over. There’s people from Japan here, you know what I mean? It’s not people from Manchester, Tennessee. And that’s what he kept saying, you know. He kept addressing everybody like that and I was thinking, he’s so totally disconnected man.
But I thought Bruce did a great job last night. I mean, he went down in the crowd, you can tell, it’s like, this guy’s having fun. It’s not an act. He loves that. And that inspires me. And it should inspire anybody who is a musician. Al Green I thought was just phenomenal. He brought it, man. And I knew he would.
I’m trying to think of who else we saw. You see all these bands and it’s like it’s just a haze. We saw a little bit of Booker T yesterday. And Allan Toussaint, we watched Allan play. It’s just so much; it’s hard to take it all in.
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AJ: Have you played Bonnaroo before?
MF: This is the second time. We played last year at one of the tents out in the middle some where. Maybe the Troo music tent? And we got invited to come back and play one of the big stages this year, so we’re really looking forward to that. We’re very excited about it. (The second main stage, The Which Stage, is where Mike Farris and the Roseland Rhythm Revue opened Sunday’s musical festivities).
AJ Do you have a different set list for the festival crowd than you would for, say, your regular Sunday night show?
MF: Same thing. Same thing. We don’t alter it at all. I mean once in a while a song comes and goes, but, yeah, it’s the same.
AJ: You have a really strong message in your music. It’s really spiritual, blatantly out there and generally well received. Is the music the message or is the message in the music? Are you more of the artist getting your music out there or are you the missionary truing to get the message to the people?
MF: I think you just, to affect anybody, in any way, the best way to do it is just not try to push your opinion on people or whatever, you just be. You don’t preach or whatever. That’s what all the great messengers’ quotes say. So, with the music, the message is there if you want it. Whatever you want to get out of it, it’s there. And you can take it or not, whatever. It’s not really about evangelizing, My personal beliefs just happen to coincide with the music that I love more than anything. This old, spiritual music. There’s something in that music that just warms me and gives me energy. And it does it wherever we play for people. And it don’t matter who it is, it’s the music. It’s good for me that all those things come together. I’m a happy guy, you know.
AJ: Tell me about the Screaming Cheetah Wheelies (Farris’ first band). Were they more music or message? The name doesn’t sound like you are in the same genre, am I right?
MF: No, it was like, when I first started out, when I was a kid, I really loved Van Morrison. I loved the way Van Morrison’s songs would paint these pictures and I would always go, ‘This guy must be on a spiritual journey’. Whether he is or not, I wouldn’t know, I’ve never met the guy. But that’s the way it appeared to me, that’s what I got out of it. So that influenced me with the Cheetah Wheelies, they were the only other band I ever had really. And I said, that’s what I want to do. I’m not a preacher I don’t do none of that stuff. I am on a spiritual journey. This is part of my life. And so I just want to paint these pictures and let people get what they want out of it. And that’s what the Cheetah Wheelies were, in a rock and blues kind of roots format. And, so, with this (The Roseland Revue), I just went straight back and did the music, focused on the roots of all popular music as we know it in the Western world.
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AJ: Well, you’ve been at this a while, but you haven’t met Van Morrison. Who have you met who might have been one of your heroes that you could finally ask a question of?
MF: Mavis. I met Mavis last year. To me, the quintessential, my all time biggest musical hero was Pops (Staples). Pops really created something that nobody else was doing. It was spiritual music, but it was so unique and all to itself over here. You know, it was kind of dark. It was still kind of happy, but it had those dark elements, like the reverb in the recordings, the older, early stuff. No other quote/unquote gospel act was doing that and because he had this special thing that he was doing, it drew you in. If you weren’t a believer, it didn’t matter. You could still appreciate and love the music as an art form. There was just something, I don’t know. I just admire him a lot. Here’s a guy who’s a believer and such going, you know, “I don’t want to be in a church. I want to be in bars and stuff. Who says I can’t?” And here I am on this spiritual journey and I want to bring joy to everybody.
And also, another mission of ours, and I’ve been saying this all along; this music has kind of been forgotten.
When the British invasion came about, they kind of stopped at the blues, like with Son House, Blind Lemon Jackson, Robert Johnson, all those guys. That’s what they found, that’s what they loved and it did something to them and they went, ok, we’ll take that. That’s what they were looking for.Then they went back and did what they did with it, tweaked it, and they used it. I don’t know if they ever went back another step, probably not.& nbsp; But if they had gone back another step, they would have found the very roots of it. Old soul music and spiritual music like that has kind of been forgotten. And I see it as part of our mission to re-introduce that type of music to America. Particularly because that’s our heritage, that’s our musical heritage. And we show it to the world, look what we found. This is amazing. We need to dust this stuff off and show it to the people. Because it’s always relevant, it’s born out of struggle. That’s always going to be relevant.
AJ: It brings peoples passion out.
MF: Exactly. Everybody can relate to that. Everybody needs to have the belief that tomorrow’s going to be better. Consider tomorrow, if not the next day, the sun’s going to be back out. Or maybe just here in a little while, at twelve thirty over on the Which Stage.
AJ: Where to from here?
MF: Telluride. We do Lawrence, Kansas and then Telluride. And we are playing the Hollywood Bowl, with Patti LaBelle, then the Hardly, Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco. But, besides today, the next big one is Telluride. My guys asked me, how should we dress for this? It’s going to be hot, etcetera. I told them hey, you’re get ting ready to play one of the biggest festivals in North America, if not the biggest, you can get dressed up for an hour. Isn’t that what James Brown would do? Or Al Green the other day.
AJ: He just ruled the stage, didn’t he?
MF: He was smoking, wasn’t he? He came right out with what, as of late, is my favorite Al Green song, L.O.V.E He came right out with it and didn’t let up.
AJ: He should have had the steps Bruce had so he could get to the crowd like he wanted, give those roses out one by one.
MF: I looked pretty closely and there weren’t any thorns on those roses. That was the nice thing to do, de-thorn the roses. To think, someone spent an hour or more peeling off all those thorns.
Mike Farris and the Roseland Rhythm Revue are appearing next at the High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, California on July 4th and 5th.
4 Responses
I don’t mean to sound negative here but I can’t help but wonder how much for this gospel thing is just an outlet for him to make some good money that he wasn’t making in the Screaming Cheetah Wheelies. SCW was a killer band and Mike himself was a pretty debaucherous dude doing lot’s of “bad” things. I guess anyone and everyone can change though. I’m just not feeling this stuff. It sounds and feels contrived. I’ll take him singing “Backwoods Traveling” off of the SCW “Magnolia” album any day.
I used to have the Magnolia album too. It was pretty solid. And I got it at Best Buy, so presumably they weren’t doing all that bad.
Nice work AJ.
Don, I agree that Magnolia and the SCW music was great and that Mike had a different past than his present. But meeting him (and his family) I saw an entirely different person than ‘back in the day’. His sincerity regarding gospel music and his delivery from the stage are true and honest to himself. I remember what I was doing ten years ago, I was no saint either. People DO change, hopefully for the better.I appreciate your taking the time to comment. Much peace.