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Dec. 9, 2009
Interview
with the Moon Mountain Ramblers:
Hi there, this is Joe Schulte, the
mandolin player of the band, I will gladly answer some questions
you had.
1. How did this band meet and how long
have you been playing together?
A good friend and I moved to Bend from
Alaska
to live and go to school. We grew up learning bluegrass and "Dawg" music
from the same teacher so we had a bunch of tunes but we needed a
bass player to fill out our sound. We were 18 and a couple of
trouble makers at the time.
So one day I saw an ad in a
local music shop for an upright bass player seeking
swing/jazz/bluegrass band. We thought this would be perfect for
our kind of music. So we called him up and set up a meeting. We
get to the door and he opens, it was then we realized our age
difference! “Bass Dawg Dan” as we now call him was in his 40's and
dressed in nice clothes while we were practically in rags and just
out of high school!
We decided to try it anyways and long
story short, we decided we loved playing together and started the
band! We soon found we needed a fiddle and another friend of mine
who worked at the local theater said a gal he works with plays in
the orchestra. We had her come over and taught her how to play
without sheet music and we now had Jenny, who is still our fiddle
player to this day!
Then a few years later we
added "Mai," a great multi instrumentalist and singer. None of us
could sing very well so this was great for us. Over time Mai took
over the guitar position and my high school buddy went his own
way. We now had our core group who are all still together today as
the Moon Mountain Ramblers.
Besides David Grisman, one of
our big influences was a semi local band named TAARKA. Sort of
acoustic gypsy music that was heavily drum based. We came to find
that their drummer was a local Bend
resident, and when we heard the news that he could no longer work
full time with TAARKA, we quickly found his number and gave him a
call. This was the last step in creating our current line up which
very much feels like "the" line-up. We work very well together and
enjoy making a "non-traditional" bluegrass sound with many other
musical influences.
Dan and I met 10 years ago, and Jenny was
part of the group then too, so 3 out of 5 of us have been together
that long. Mai came in about 6 yrs ago and Dale the Drummer about
3yrs now. We now use Dale’s house as a practice and recording
space.
2. Your bio lists an impressive list
of folks you guys have played with. That seems to be a common
theme here for upcoming shows in
Hood River (we've
got Cascadia Yulegrass coming Dec. 16 (which is a show your band
should check out, btw)). What's it like playing on the same bill
as McCoury and Grisman?
It was amazing to get these offers, I did
mention TAARKA as a main influence, and this is true, but Grisman
and Del McCoury have always been our top inspirations, long before
we ever shared a stage with them. When we got these offers, it was
like the greatest feeling in the world. Especially opening for
Grisman. We were a younger band at the time and we were
playing a lot of his music, so we had to think of other songs we
could play that would not conflict! Don't want to play Dawg's song
in front of him, no way!
This was the biggest natural
high I ever had, and probably will ever have, I think this holds
true for the other members too, it was amazing. It was a friend of
Grisman’s who taught me how to play mandolin so I always had a
deep respect for David Grisman and his music, and his influence on
modern acoustic music. And as for Del and
the Boys, I mean WOW. We couldn't believe that either! Mai, our
lead guitar and singer is especially fond of these southern boys'
music. We had all recently seen Del
in Portland too and as every body knows,
these guys are the kings of bluegrass music. To open for them was
such a rush, and it was right here in downtown Bend
in the small intimate Tower Theater. We were sad that the boys
showed up late to the show so we didn't get to chat with them long
but still, it was a great night for us, one we nor any of our fans
who were there will ever forget.
3. A few years ago I was on the Alaska
Bluegrass Cruise, which featured John Reischman and the
Jaybirds. I even took a mando lesson from John, but, alas, I still
can't "play like him." Who do you guys "go to" for music
inspiration?
Well, from question number 2 you can get
a feel for our main inspirations, but the cool thing is, each
member of MMR
has a very distinct and different background in music. Dale is
more of a world music lover, Dan comes from Texas and it shows, I
am the instrumental Grisman/Taarka type while also listening to
Hip hop and rock music religiously (I know, weird), Mai comes from
Chatanooga Tennessee and loves Southern rock and rootsy bluegrass
music while Jenny has a strong classical history.
All of these influences show
strongly in our band. It makes for a unique sound at times I must
say, but we and our fans seem to really enjoy it, it works for us.
We are still searching for the perfect tag line or slogan or just
explanation of our music, bluegrass just isn't right, although
it probably is still the strongest root of our sound.
4. Tell us some technical details
about your stage set up - how do you get the sounds we hear on the
CD to the audience? When you make a CD, is it all individual
tracks or do you go with everybody at once?
We have done a bit of experimenting in the
studio, mostly because we realize the importance of staying true
to our live sound while still trying to make an excellent studio
record. On our latest album "Let it All Be Good," we did live
takes, each with our own separate mics. This way, we captured our
live energy, but still had room for small edits if need be. If the
mandolin or something slipped on a chord or didn't quite get the
right solo down, it could most likely be re-recorded. We were
unable to be in separate rooms due to our studio options though so
this only worked up to a certain point, only small edits were
possible, so we really had his pressure of getting good "live"
takes in order to put down a successful record.
I think it shows too, I feel
good about this latest album, I do feel it gives a good
representation of the band. You may notice though that Track 1,
the title track is all electric with electric guitars, bass, drum
kit and all. We do actually do this live, although very rarely,
usually just on New Years Eve gigs or bigger special gigs like
that. We usually like to just stick to our acoustic set up. We
decided to throw a true live track on the end to really show our
listeners what we do completely live, it is our take on Grismans
popular tune "E.M.D."
Our first self titled album
was also done this way, with the live takes, while our second,
"Borderline," was done completely separately, one track at a time.
It turned out good, but you can tell it's lacking that live feel,
it has some great tunes on it though.
On our live stage, we all plug our
instruments in although we understand it will never give the same
quality as going all microphones. We do this because many of our
shows get loud and rowdy and people love to get down and dance and
have a great time.
We feel that at our shows it
is more important to be heard than to worry about perfect tone,
although I must say, for all being plugged in, we seem to find
pretty darn good tone. We have a great sound man who works with us
and we try to use top quality gear, as much as we can.
I compare our sound to other
similar bands when I see there shows, and I always walk away
feeling confident about what we are doing. At select shows, we do
enjoy using just mics, sometimes even huddling around a single mic
much like Del and The Boys.
5. "Stuck in the Middle" is a great tune,
but way out of the bluegrass genre. Not that I mind, though. How
do songs get on your setlist?
As I kind of mentioned earlier, we as a
band of five have a largely diverse musical background and
interest. At our shows it's not uncommon to hear us slip into some
early rock or other influences such as Pink Floyd, Beatles,
Zeppelin, Herbie Hancock and more. Heck we even throw some Michael
Jackson in there now and then. We thought that might be silly but
the crowd always seems to love it!
Our main goal as a band is to
have tons of fun while always respecting our roots and always
staying concerned that we are putting out a great sound. We take
pride in our sound quality, instrumental performance, harmony,
dynamics, and really try to feel out the crowd making sure to do
our best to accommodate the scene. We have about 7-8 hours of
music we can play- a huge list, so we can play very different
shows if we want to.
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