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Features
The Columbus, Ohio based ekoostik hookah has been around for twelve years, quite an achievement in and of itself within a musical environment that calls for relentless touring and three plus hour shows. The six piece band features: vocalist/keyboardist/guitarist Dave Katz; lead guitarist Steve Sweney; bassist Cliff Starbuck; vocalist/guitarist Ed McGee; drummer Eric Lanese; and Johnny "Starrcatt" Polansky on percussion. This road tested sextet plays a brand of psychedelic rock that at one time represented the majority sound of the improvisational rock movement, but now finds itself in the silent minority during these post-Garcia years. The band clings to the sound that got them to where they are today, and aren't concerned with incorporating trendy infusions of funk, techno and hip-hop. Their sound represents more than it's renowned epic songs, insightful lyrics and feel-good rhythm, but it reunites the traditional values of band-audience community. ekoostik hookah is a home-grown organization that, since their beginning, has independently handled every single aspect of its growth. The have their very own production company - Acoustic Productions, Inc. that ensures Hookahville is perhaps one of the most fan friendly events around, as the buzz word is "no hassles or bad attitudes." The list of names that have graced the Hookahville stage eminently include: Bob Weir, Bruce Hornsby, Dickey Betts, John Bell, Jorma Kaukonen, Willie Nelson Dr. John, Little Feet, Galactic Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Arlo Guthrie and Medeski Martin and Wood. Along with the legends, Hookahville always includes some of today's most promising younger acts, keeping things in the moment and relevantly packed with innovation. Just recently, the band released Ohio Grown, their most accomplished studio recording to date, that exemplifies they are a force to be reckon with outside their legendary live performances. The album displays a number of reworked songs already witnessed in the band's shows along with a number of fresh songs that showcases how far the group has matured as both arrangers and songwriters. With strong lyrical content and polished arrangements, this is a promising harbinger for ekoostik hookah to achieve their long overdue national recognition that they so rightfully deserve. Often left out among today's top axe-men is lead guitarist Steve Sweeney, who is perhaps one of the most exciting, spirited and talented players around anywhere. A player who can truly tear a song apart with shredding leads that are simply breath taking. Not to mention, each of the other talented band members provide their very unique natural feel for producing inspiring music that is truly revered and a sincere reflection of each of their distinctive personalities. This year's Memorial Day Weekend Hookahville on May 23-25 provides two nights of music and camping, featuring ekoostik hookah along with: The Neville Brothers, Derek Trucks Band, Blue Oyster Cult, Robert Walter's 20th Congress, Old &In The Grey, Particle and Phish's lighting director, Chris Kuroda is on hand to choreograph the colors, sparkle the luminosity and garner effects above the stage. We had the chance to speak with the neighborly cool keyboardist, guitarist and vocalist Dave Katz about current events, spontaneous energy, this year's Hookahville and the band's appeal amongst our country's geographical music scenes. Have your live shows provided a certain release for your fans and music lovers with the war going on? I imagine that it's a good thing, anything that takes your mind off it a little bit, although you certainly got to be aware of what's going on. You don't want people to forget or anything like that. Entertainment throughout history has pretty much been a keen thing during any time of war. Everybody just can't sit home and be depressed about it. We just keep doing what we do and we try to stay away from impressing any of our views on anybody. We totally disagree with the people of influence coming out and laying their opinions on everybody like it really matters. I think music plays more of an importance in people's lives than it ever has?
As a musician, what effects the way you play your live shows? Is it the feel of the venue, the audience or something else in the air? It's definitely...a variety of things, I mean, first of all it always starts with how you feel, which is something that you sometimes have to try and push that aside. Everyday you aren't going to be on top of your game completely, but first you got to get past if you aren't feeling that up to it, but yeah, the crowd certainly has a lot to do with it, sometimes the venue, but really the venue in and of itself can't be much without the crowd. I mean you can be out playing at Red Rocks or something, but if nobody is there it's not going to be a lot of fun. You definitely need the crowd to interact with and get a feel from what they want to hear and things like that. When we go up on stage we don't have setlist so, there's a lot of trying to get a feel from the crowd to see what we feel like playing, to see what we feel will go over well at that moment, that type of thing. Definitely, yeah I notice how you guys don't use a setlist when you go out, so for your band it's all about the moment. Describe what being in the moment is for you? That's a hard thing to describe, because it's more a feel for something than anything else. And it doesn't always work real well (laughs). There's definitely some dead time on stage sometimes. Sometimes a show just flows out, and other times you might sit there and think- ‘wow, I wish I had a setlist.' But it's like that great golf shot you get once a round that keeps you coming back for more. Yeah, exactly, being in the moment is just a matter of, I don't know, I think it has to do with having feedback from the crowd, looking out on the crowd and getting a feel for what they're enjoying and trying to tap into that. Sometimes I'm sure it doesn't work and sometimes I probably get wrapped up in my own thing, and what I feel like doing. Are there any particular songs you thrive on playing when you're feeling really good out there as a band? Not really. There's definitely times when you'll be at a show and you'll feel like it's going a little slow, and you need a pick-me-up, and we'll just jump into something that's really quick and bluegrassy and something like that. That's pretty muck a lock when you do something like that, everybody's going to get into it. Really, I'd like to think that at most shows we can pull out just about anything and it would work for the time, it's just real hard to describe how you feel and what leads to each particular song, I never really thought about that. Your organization and fans all seem to be a rather large family with a common purpose. How do fans primarily get involved with your band and hear of you guys? Have things changed over the past few years, tape trading isn't what it used to be? I mean there's still a lot of it going on as far as I can tell, now it's become CD trading and there's still a lot of it out there, there's definitely links that lead off our web site that get you there. Like dubba's site is definitely a main hub for that. There's definitely a lot of that going on as far as finding out about us and becoming part of the family...that type of thing. A lot of our friends and fans help us out and help promote shows on a grass roots level, which really help out a lot and we appreciate that. That's something we always needed, because we've always done things at a grass roots level. It's not too hard to get involved, it's not really a huge family, it's a close knit family really, and people are pretty cool. Do you think your longevity - 12 years of history puts people off in terms of getting into your music. That's 12 years of history and live shows people have to familiarize themselves with to be a well versed fan? There's a lot of downfalls actually of being around a long time (laughs). I just feel there are a lot bands out there with such deep history, it's almost easier for somebody new to the live music scene to start becoming a fan of a less traveled band? Yeah, it's like old news, not that I think that, but yeah I hear that sometimes, and sometimes people are like you've been together that long, that's great , you know, on the other hand it's just a detrimental thing, but what are you going to do, it's not like we are going to start over. So, it's become what it's become and we are all proud of that, and it's still a lot of fun so we are going to keep doing it. It's really interesting when you do come across people who are like, ‘wow I've never seen them before', and it's like ‘you've never seen us before? (laughs) ‘You've been coming to this city for 12 years!'...but it's still good, we still get new people. I think we have songs that we play fairly frequently that are pretty catchy you know, if you leave your first show, you definitely still have things on your mind like - ‘wow, I remember that song.' It's not that obscure, or anything like that. I don't think it's too hard to latch onto really, so maybe that helps a little bit. So many bands playing today are backed around a danceable groove, amidst rays of funk and techno. Your band has balanced songwriting between the lyrics and music itself, and it really captures your imagination. How important is the lyrical foundation in your music?
Your themes really revolve around carefree aspects? Yeah, my songs definitely do. That is a good part of my personality (laughs). Righ..emphasizing that life shouldn't be taken so seriously? Right, it can be easier than some people make it. I noticed on Ohio Grown, some of your songs, like the version of "Music," you've got horns going on in there. It sound kind of Motown...funk based soul. Is that something new you're experimenting with? Not really. Some of my favorite bands are old bands that had horns from the 70's like Chicago, Blood Sweat &Tears and stuff like that. I just always loved horns, never had them in the band, but actually there has been quite a few times at Hookahville where I have done songs or cover tunes by those bands and brought up horn sections, and I always just like to dabble in that a little bit. "Music," that song is actually like one of the oldest songs that we do. I wrote that song even before the band was even together. I always knew it would lend itself well to horns, we've actually done it a couple times live with not quite as many horn parts, not quite as involved and I just wanted to try that on an album. I knew it would work. I think it turned out great and I love it! Yeah, the whole album sounds really great, is that the high point of your studio recordings so far? Yeah, that's definitely our best stuff, without a doubt. It came out pretty close to Seahorse, your other most recent studio release. Were a lot of the songs written over the same period of time? Yeah, I mean whenever we put out a CD, we don't necessarily put out our newest stuff or anything like that, we just kind of pick from our arsenal (laughs). Seahorse is actually a project that was interrupted, that took a very long time, was very disjointed. It's not something that I think any of us feel was anywhere near our best work. We just put it out because it was there really. I mean it started out with good intentions and all kind of stuff happened, which happens sometimes, and the Ohio Grown was a much smoother thing. We went into the studio, we topped it out, we made it and we put it out. That's why they were so close together really. I can't really remember, but we had started working on Ohio Grown before we put out Seahorse, but I can't remember exactly. So should we foresee a long bridge in time until the next ekoostik hookah Studio Album? I hope not. Right now we have a bunch of live stuff that has been laid down multi-track and we're playing around with the idea of putting something out with that; I don't know when or where or what, but we have a bunch of stuff we can draw from and can put out a live thing. I'm sure we'll go into the studio sometime relatively soon, I don't know when but I would like to think that sometime in the next year or so we'll have something out. For Hookahville this year you have a killer lineup. If I had to label these bands you got: Bluegrass in Old &In the Grey; Funky Soul in the Neville Brothers; Psychedelic Blues in the Derek Trucks Band; Classic Rock in Blue Oyster Cult; Jazz groove in Robert Walters 20th Congress and techno funk with Particle. So you have all these different mixes and your band incorporates a little bit of each into your entire sound. Did you purposely try to grab all these bands with various distinct styles? That's pretty much always been our main goal with choosing the bands for Hookahville and obviously we don't always get our first choice. We really try hard to get a good mix of stuff. We try to keep it mainly bands that we think our general crowd would like, obviously, but it's nice to introduce new bands which aren't necessarily new in time, but bands maybe that they haven't heard. Most people who are under age 25 that have come to see us have never heard of the Neville Brothers, which blows my mind, but it seems like they haven't. To me it's like one of the ultimate bands to have, so I think that will be really interesting for those people who haven't heard them and obviously people that have heard them are going to love them. We really try to get a good mix of styles and we also try pretty hard to get the variety in a sense that we get bands that don't play every festival. Like Blue Oyster Cult, The Neville Brothers and Old &In the Grey, and in the past we've had Bruce Hornsby who ended up playing a couple other festivals that year, but we were the first to get him...and like David Crosby, you know, people like that. It kind of goes both ways with the feedback we get because you kind of get that same thing with the older bands like it's a geriatric festvial (laughs)...you know, which, it is a lot of older people and we do that all the time but I don't think that has anything to do with how good they are, or whether you like them or not. If we had the Grateful Dead playing, everybody would want to see them, and you know they've been around for ever. So, it's like, I don't see that point really, of only wanting to listen to new music, so we don't limit ourselves to up and coming bands: although you'd like to have some of them too, that's where the Particle and Robert Walters come in. So yeah, we're trying to mix it up as much as possible really, keep it interesting and hopefully if you get some bands that aren't playing everywhere else, you get some fans that will come to you. Are there any bands you're looking forward to hearing the most at this years Hookahville? I can't wait to see the Neville Brothers, I haven't seen them in a long time. Blue Oyster Cult was like one of my favorite bands growing up in high school, I saw them like five or six times way back then, it ought to be interesting to hear them again. Obviously, Old &In The Grey is going to be incredible and Derek, I've played with him many times, he's always great. All of them, I'm up for seeing all of them. Can we expect a Particle/ ekoostik hookah jam? You know what, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure, it depends on what they are doing the next day. They are playing early on Friday and I don't know if they will stick around or not. Anybody who plays Hookahville and sticks around till we are on stage will be invited up to play. But a lot of times, especially the bands that play earlier in the day, they take off by the time we get going, but we'll see. Well then maybe a version of "Godzilla" with Blue Oyster Cult? (laughs) That would be interesting, I'd love to do that. Actually, I'm kind of hoping they pull out a cover of "Road House Blues," that is of the best versions of that cover that I've ever heard. It's on their double live Extra Terrestrial album and it's incredible. Yeah, it's nice to see that they are coming back. It's interesting to see how they are trying to get into the quote -jamband scene, which I never really saw them as that type of band, but I haven't seen them in 18 years or something. Well there's a lot of bands now, if you even look at the Bonnaroo lineup, bands like Sonic Youth and Les Claypool that want to be a part of it, ‘cause the scene has attentive listeners and are generally respectful. Yeah, and also generally just very receptive to different types of music. Absolutely. What has been the turning point of Hookahville? It was a smaller festival in the early 90's and now pretty much everybody's at least heard of it?
Well at your festival it's a bit smaller space to communicate with your fans? Yeah, even though it can get up to 10 to 15 thousand people, it's still got a very down home feel to it, which is nice. Is there anything really different between the Memorial Day or Labor Day Hookahvilles? There's not a huge difference really. Generally Memorial Day is bigger as far as the crowd goes, we've always tried to come with reasons why, but it's been very consistent in the percentage of like 60 or 70 percent of the crowd that is there in the spring will be there in fall. I kind of think it has to do with the fact that the spring one is fresh, it's one of the first festivals of the year, people are just getting out of school, they are just getting out doing their thing. By the end of the summer, they've spent all their money (laughs),they're tired, don't want to travel, there's been so much going on and they are going back to school, if they are of that age, whatever. That's the way I see it. It's pretty consistent that the fall one is smaller numbers wise and we plan for it accordingly. The quality of the production is just as good, but we may have less porto pots or something to adjust for the lower numbers. Other than that, we've already confirmed most of the acts for the fall one, I'm not going to tell you what they are, but the quality of acts is there, the same thing, it's going to be a good one. How has it been to the fans to have guests like Bruce Hornsby and Bob Weir at your festival? It's amazing, it seems like everybody has a good time there and they appreciate what we do, and they come out do their thing and they are amazing performers. It's an honor to share the stage with them, especially when it's our stage, it's just really cool. Everybody has heard of your band, but a large majority have not had the privilege of seeing you live. How come you don't tour in certain US geographic areas, particularly the Northeast? It's tough for us to generate the type of following out there that we need to be able to support ourselves out there, because it's so expensive to go there and with no backing and that type of thing, it has just proven to be a difficult area for us. We certainly have our little pockets of fans out there, but I can't explain it. I do get a sense that the East, especially the Northeast, for the past ten years has been more in tow with bands that have more of that funky thing going on. The Midwest just works for us, it could be that we are from here, I don't know, but going up there, we'll start doing our thing and sometimes you'll get that feeling of a lull in your show like, ‘wow, we really need to step it for the whole show,' and that's not our thing. Considering the way you describe your band, I bet you guys would do very well at Camp Creek. Yeah, we did that once. Yeah, well Max Creek is that type of band where they are not the funky type, you know, I can't really explain it, although we've tried, we'll probably try again (laughs), but we got to keep plugging along at our own pace. The band is obviously the pride of Ohio, are there any other cool bands that you've helped grow there? There's quite a few, it's really quite a great scene overall. I don't get that much of a chance to keep up on it as I personally don't live in Columbus. I'm the only one in the band who doesn't live in Columbus, I live in the middle of nowhere an hour outside of Columbus, so I'm rarely there myself. But a band called The Shanty who are real good friends of ours out of Columbus. A band called Guest is getting around, they are really techno/groove orientated and really good at it. There's a bunch of them, I mean there's a lot of bands in Ohio. Ohio is really a great place for bands, it's interesting to me that a lot of bands that we hook up with on the road and play with don't come through Ohio much and I don't know why, because the crowds here are great. They really latch on to bands and support them...but it seems to be a black hole for some bands. I hear you, it seems many bands skip it. They go from Pittsburgh to Chicago and skip most of the state over. Yeah...really, for the size of the state. There's a large number of people, large number of big towns and big cities, and a large number of college towns too. You can go like ten places in Ohio and not really cross paths with the same fans all the time. So, to wrap it up, you're obviously a huge Cleveland Browns and Indians fan, when could we expect to hear some songs about them? (Laughs) I don't know how they would really fit into my sound, it seems if I wrote about them, I'd have to get a little more anthemy, you know, so I don't think that's really my thing. I'll always support them though. For a chance at winning tickets to Hookahville, please visit our Giveaways section. To enter the contest, submit to us a story about your best ekoostik hookah experience. There are no requirements for the type of submission, so write about whatever it is that makes EH special to you. For tour dates and additional information on Hookahville, please visit - www.ekoostik.com Photos courtesy of Norman Sands.
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Currently, you can't help but notice there are more summer music festivals arising than reality television shows. Although 
I'm sure there are people who aren't going out right now, whether they are afraid to or they don't' think it's the right thing to do, or why should they be having fun, with that going on, but I don't think that's the right attitude. I think you got to go out and just keep living your life. That's the way it goes. 
Extremely. We are definitely not a funk/techno band (laughs). I don't think we will ever try to be. At times we might do some funk, but it's not our strong point, it's not something... we're not out there just to make people dance for 4 hours straight. Although, I mean obviously a lot of people love that, and that's fine, but that's not our thing. Lyrics, being a songwriter, are extremely important to me. If the lyrics don't complement the music, vise versa, then it's pointless. I mean, then we might as well write an instrumental...which we have some of those too. To me they are very intertwined and inseparable, and I guess that's redundant, it's very important. I don't think myself or Ed, who writes most of the rest of the music, really tries to come with any type of style or anything like that. I think we really try to expand across a bunch of different types of musical styles and we may not be virtuosos at any of them, but like you said, it helps with our imagination as songwriters anyways. Hopefully from the listeners standpoint they are getting into the lyrics, because for me, it's very important, it always has been. All of my influences, which are way too many to even begin to name are pretty much singer/songwriters in those types of things, more so than the groove orientated music.
I don't know a turning point, it's tough to say. I was really just a gradual thing. It really just comes down to asking people to play here (laughs). All these people are people, and they are in bands that love to play and they like to play in front of crowds and if it routs well and if everything works out well, they are going to play. It's just a matter of coming up with... there's nobody that's untouchable, well that's not true, there's a few, but there's very few that are untouchable. It's just very gradual, I mean, everything got bigger up to a certain point and then actually the crowds got smaller because there are so many festivals now. I mean, I don't want to sit there and say we were the first band to have their own festival, but it was a kind of novel thing when we started. Now moe. does it, the Big Wu does it, Leftover Salmon does it, which is great, but that's why I think in the last few years it hasn't gotten any bigger. It has just stayed the same size, which is fine, that works fine, they are great crowds. To tell you the truth if it got that much bigger it would kind of be a pain in the ass, just because it's our organization and we aren't Superfly Productions and have endless resources, that type of thing. So I think it works real good for what we do, and I think part of the feel is number one- we always have great acts, number 2 - we create a really good environment for the type of people who like to go there, I mean we really have a very good working relationship with the community around where we do it and it's just a very concert- goer friendly environment, and I'm sure the word has gone around about that. A lot of festivals are that way, but a lot of them aren't, you know, you get, people get popped and raided just by the way they look. There's a million different reasons why some festivals have gone down the tubes and we've really managed to keep it just a good environment and that helps a whole lot and we've really stayed true to our intentions the whole way. I don't know if people look into things and really care that we've done it ourselves, but we are proud of it anyway. So, it's kind of nice that's it been a homegrown thing, always has been, and pretty much always will be as far as I can tell. We're never really going to be Bonnaroo, but that's really not our gig, I'd rather play Bonnaroo, but we're not doing that either, so you know, what are you gonna do.
