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feature
Lake Trout:
Serving the Music Up Hot and Greasy
interview Page 1
Page 2 of interview
Every American city has its own unique subcultures influencing its day-to-day life. As these subcultures grow, they begin to collide with each other, creating new ways of life in the process. Take Baltimore, Maryland, as an example. The city is located on a port amid the urban centers of Washington, DC, and Philadelphia, the suburbia of Northern Virginia, and the rural regions of West Virginia and Maryland's Eastern Shore. The culmination of all these influences can be found in the music produced there—most notably, in the contemporary improvisational sounds of Lake Trout.
The five-man troupe is not easily classified, due to its assorted influences and ever-changing musical approach. Two years ago, one may have heard the group playing song-oriented sets reeking of funk, soul, and blues. Now, the group improvises with ambient texturing held together by drum & bass beats transported from a U.K. club scene. Lake Trout hasn't abandoned the styles of old completely, however; they've just incorporated them into the band's growing gumbo.
Talking with Lake Trout's five members—guitarist Ed Harris, guitarist and vocalist Woody Ranere, bassist James Griffith, drummer Mike Lowery, and horn and keys player Matt Pierce—one discovers a tight-knit, eclectic group of people. musictoday.com hunted down these tirelessly touring musicians to find out their opinions on road life, modern music, being an independent band, and trying to establish a name without fitting into any specific genre. Take a ride up the Chesapeake Bay and find out more about Baltimore's Lake Trout.
musictoday.com: To start things off, how about giving us a little history on how the group formed.
Matt: Woody and I went to Goucher College to study music together. While we were there, we started playing together. We met Ed and Mike and they wanted to play music, so we got together. I played with Mike and Ed and another bass player and we formed a band and called it Lake Trout. It's a Baltimore thing. Mike came up with the name. In Baltimore, all the lower-class neighborhoods have this thing…
Ed: It's a soul food.
Matt: You see signs all over the place that say, "Fried Chicken and Lake Trout." Actually, the inlay of our first album is full of signs that we took pictures of that say "Lake Trout," because they are all over the place.
mt: So, it's one of those things where, when you get it to go, you can see the grease seeping through the bag?
Ed: Yeah. It is an open face sandwich with bread, fried fish, and hot sauce.
Matt: I've never had any, because I don't like fish. So I met those guys, and we started Lake Trout with another bassist. Meanwhile, Woody and I were playing together separately in another band. Later on, Woody joined the band as another guitarist.
Mike: It was all instrumental music at that time.
Matt: Yeah, all instrumental. Then James moved down with a bunch of friends that went to Goucher from New Hampshire. Our other bass player graciously stepped down when James came into the picture. So that is pretty much how we started.
mt: Seems that your sound has made some major changes in the last few years. How does it differ from maybe three years ago?
Matt: Based on the instruments we had—okay, a band needs drums, bass, guitars. Well, I played saxophone. Before this started, I had never played saxophone in a band. I was training in classical theory. I was trying to make what I played fit into whatever they were into. It was kind of like this thrown together collage. They were into funk, like Tower of Power and P-Funk. I had a horn, so I tried to jump into that mix. It was heavy with a jazz side, and I wasn't schooled or well versed in either one. I was just trying to fit in. Then Woody came in from the blues side of things and added that sort of guitar feel to the mix. James came in, and he was into a lot more punk and hardcore, so we had to change again to help accommodate his style.
mt: How difficult is it to make those kind of sudden stylistic changes?
Matt: It was more that we liked the people we were bringing in and they liked us, so we just wanted them to fit into the mix and whatever changes had to be made just happened. It didn't sound great by any stretch, but it was an interesting collage, and more importantly, we liked each other. That is why it has taken us four years to get where we like what we are doing a whole lot. I mean, I played sax at first. We had to figure out how to make our parts fit.
mt: But you don't play sax anymore with the group. Seems as if you have been beaten.
Matt: [laughs] I never thought of it that way. Damn, I guess I have been edged out. There came a time when our eyes were opened. I mean, at least my eyes were opened when I started listening to a lot of DJs, especially DJ Shadow. DJ Shadow was doing exactly what we were trying to do—I mean, he was pulling drums from rock songs like Led Zeppelin, guitars from Metallica, horns from jazz tracks, and he put them all together, and that was kind of what we were trying to do. Guys like that were really eye-openers to me. I saw that I could play the saxophone and treat it like a sample. Even though it doesn't fit stylistically into the music, if you make it really far out, then it is just like a sample thrown in there. That is how we started playing.
James: The fact that we never sat down and said we were going to do it a certain way is really what got us here. Had we tried to do one thing it would have really hurt us. We would just try new things. I mean, we would write songs and play them for maybe three weeks and people would like them, but we would drop them because we were moving on and we didn't want to stay on one thing. That is why it took so long to get to this point. It took years of the same members being on the same page to develop to where we are.
mt: James, how did you get into playing the bass, and how did getting involved with these guys change the style that you were developing for yourself?
James: At first, I was really into chops, you know, I was trying to see how fast I could play. But, when I moved down from New Hampshire, I started listening to funk, and it was more down low and for the feeling, like Rocco and Tower of Power [mimics a bass line]. The more I played, I realized that I just wanted to hear that one note that rang out and you could feel. People always ask me what bass players I like and can't name one, but I am in to this guitar player or this band. So, I am into bass as being a part of a band, not just my individual instrument. When I first started, I was into individual players, but I was always into music; so when I moved, it just expanded my horizons and I became more into bands and the overall feel. I think everyone in the band is like that.
mt: Damn, after finding a bass player that doesn't have an ego, you all must have chained him to your ankle to keep him from going anywhere.
Woody: Yeah.
Ed: I think that is the whole case with our group, there aren't supposed to be any egos here.
Mike: It would f**k up the sound of the whole group.
Ed: We go about doing things by whatever works for the song. There are times where someone will barely play a note for an entire song because it just isn't needed; there is nothing else that needs to be there, so why put something there. It is not about having a style and building from it, it is about having an idea for a song and building around that idea, so whatever comes out comes out. Sometimes that involves simplicity and sometimes that involves complexity.
Mike: That is the breaking down of egos in itself. We are constantly reaching levels where any form of ego is broken.
mt: Do you find yourself crying on stage as your ego is being destroyed?
Mike: Yes and no. I am constantly going through changes where I have to realize that I don't need to play as much on a certain song or at a certain part [mimics sniffles]. It is hard to see through all the s**t and see the bigger picture. We are constantly breaking that down.
Woody: I think one of the biggest things about our band and our sound is our sense of humor and the way we get along. We were talking about how we make things fit. Well, it is more like we get along and respect each other's views and ideas surrounding the music. It is more about that than about who could play what and how good they were. It is about how we got along and how we could make that work.
mt: That has got to be difficult considering there are five of you, but no one seems to be the sworn leader of the crew.
Woody: Exactly. That is the cool thing. We are brothers and best friends and we all respect each other. One of the biggest things, when people ask us how we stay together, is just that we have the same sense of humor. We laugh about everything all the time.
Mike: People ask if we fight. We never fight. We bicker like little schoolboys sometimes.
mt: That is got to be a pretty solid friendship you all have. Being on the road, your relationship together has got to be well established. Speaking of the road, you have some major things coming ahead…
Mike: We are going on the SnoCore Icicle Ball tour with Les Claypool and Galactic on January 12. That starts in Las Vegas. I really think that is going to make things step up a lot.
mt: Is that a national tour?
Mike: We are doing the West Coast and the Midwest and then swing back to do one East Coast date. That is going to step our live show up a great deal.
mt: Traveling can be real bitch sometimes, can't it?
In Unison:: Hell yeah.
mt: It isn't all the glamour and glitz that it is cut out to be sometimes.
James: Les Claypool and Galactic have roadies and tour buses, we have a van and we do everything ourselves. I mean we have seen bands with a lesser draw than us have, like, two people on road crew, a manager, and a soundman. That doesn't make sense, because you're not doing anything. For right now, we are happy with just us right here.
Mike: We do it so much that it is just routine now.
James: I look at setting up and breaking down like the job part of music. If we get to the point that someone could do that for us, I would love that. I love the band, I love the guys, so if I have to set my own s**t up, I believe it is worth it.
Continued on Page 2...
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