Gigmor was lucky enough to chat with Michael K. Potts (who goes by Mike) and Ainsley Delissaint (who goes by Saint) of the Levee Music Group to sit down and discuss what it’s like to be an up-and- coming soul artist, how they (successfully, I might add) survive the gig economy that consumes the life of a musician, and how they see their music in the national landscape of today’s divided political schema.

Where and when did you and the rest of the band get started in the music? Where did it begin? 

Saint: Mike and I were both musicians before we met. A year after my former band’s break-up, I (Saint) placed an ad online – the band broke up when it got hard when we started to make waves on the scene, getting national airplay and opening for established acts. Michael’s response to my ad was, if I’m remembering correctly, the first I received. At that time, I was either in relationship, or somewhere in the middle of a break-up, contemplating the possibility of moving to California or New York. Once the two of us met, however, we knew we were on the exact same page when it came to music. We were looking to be original and at the same time make a statement. We wanted to be dynamic. Better than good. For the both of us, this was our legacy.  We started in December 2012 and added a guitar player in our previous band but we felt his longevity was not best suited to our passion.  Mike and I then went into creative frenzy- keeping our heads low so to speak and building up a repertoire of new music- which took about two years.  We then started to build to actually build a band in 2016.  This was however, a different process.  We knew anyone we would have audition with us would be fans of the music- but we needed the right people.  We painstakingly culled through our knowledge of artists and professionals to reach the right people- in other words people who would be on our level of talent.  You’ll be surprised to find the number of “musicians” out there that need a little work.  So when I say it took- almost 11 months of auditions and meeting people it definitely was a task but we got it together!

Mike: I responded to an ad on Craigslist for vocalist looking to form a band. At the time, I was playing with a contemporary jazz group who had an excellent sound but no room to express my compositions. Along with jazz, I’ve always has a fondness for progressive rock, the blues and funk. I have played every type of music, except opera. I’m a self-taught bassist and in the beginning, I started listening to Motown (the great bassist, James Jamerson), The Beatles, particularly Paul McCartney’s singing and playing, Sly & The Family Stone (Larry Graham) and Jimi Hendrix. I kind of put them all in a stew to develop my finger style playing.

What was the music that inspired you? I can tell, in listening to what you have sent me, that you hit a range of type of artistry in your music. What kind of music has guided that? 

Saint: Excellent question.  The true beauty of it all is that Mike and I have the same exact feeling about music.  We are not genre specific- we love blues, soul, rock, funk, R&B, theater, ballads, classical….. Performance-wise my favorites are Otis Redding and Jackie Wilson.  As a matter of fact, many don’t realize that Elvis gave a lot of credit to Jackie Wilson for helping him create his style performance (both his dancing and singing.) Some of my truest influences are Prince, Hans Zimmer, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan are a few- but I literally believe every genre has great music.  I’m a big Adele and Amy Winehouse fan too.  Oh and Lauryn Hill – oh my god, yes.

What is your gig schedule like? How many gigs do you play and what cities are they centered around? 

Saint: At present we are slowly working on a gig schedule. We played a gig in November 2016 and had an immediate call back to perform every week but we are prudent. News already spread about our one show and had another club actually offer us standing weekly gig as well. Our goal is to reach as many different people as possible. When it comes to gigs, it’s not really about financial gain. We agreed to play another gig in January- on the night of the inauguration. It would be fun to see how our music translates with people that night.   We will most likely start to get really busy right before spring.  They are currently centered in DC at the moment but we are destined to tour.

Mike: We are currently booking shows in the district, Maryland and Virginia, but we are looking to tour regionally as the band gains traction. We love playing out as the interaction with our fans is truly priceless.

Your music is great — soulful and moving. The lyrics and music is classically soulful yet interesting. Who is the lyricist in the band, and how do you typically collaborate when making your songs?

Saint: Mike and I are whores of collaboration. I love making music, composing melodies, thought patterns and lyrics.  Typically, I will come in with a song idea to present to him (record it) and he would go mull it over and comeback with some sick bass line that then makes me think differently about the song.  I typically will have lyrics assigned but that edge he puts into makes us become even more creative so that we end up not sounding like anyone else.  Mike will also come to be with songs and I would do the same in return.  As a matter of fact, Mike came up with Loneliness Code- I restructured the song and worked on a separate bass line at the end.  Then Mike ran with it and the new bass line and added a kick butt ending.  Mike is a very, very unique bass player- following the norm be damned.  His bass lines are so melodic and different. As a matter of fact you heard the almost final version of Loneliness Code, the new version has slightly different chorus lyrics edge.  I do write the majority of lyrics. Poetry was my go to as a kid.  My second grade English teacher (Mrs. Singer) would let little me recite a poem in front of the class every week- I’ll never forgot her.  But most importantly, our friend Curt is probably one of the sickest engineer musicians.  He is as good a drummer as he is guitar player.  When it came to riffs and such he would add so much to our music. We try and incorporate him into our compositions as much as we can.

Mike: Ainsley writes the majority of our lyrics. I often times, on songs that I bring to the table, will have a few lines or idea of what I want the lyrics to say. Sometimes each of us will have a complete song but most often we will present musical ideas to each other and we go back and forth, adding or subtracting things musically until we get what we want. The majority of lyrics are by Ainsley, he’s an excellent lyricist. Then we present the finished song to the band.

Where do you see your music taking you? Do you have any planned next steps for the year 2017?

Saint: Festivals, festivals, festivals.  Building an audience in DC as it’s ideal to be in a place that technically has lots of entertainment but not many bands get build a rep and get into the mainstream.  So as difficult as it will be, it will be just a fun.  Eventually, opening for large acts then center stage in 3-5 years.

Mike:  We are looking to release music for downloads, finish our first CD, “Epitome,” and push for airplay and hopefully get some mini tours in our area and the rest of the east coast.

Do you think the dire state of the world effects your music?

Saint: Absolutely. We are essentially ego-driven tribal creatures with a minimal lifespan compared to the rest of nature.  We lost so many people in 2016 and we forget that it’s not really about the accumulation of things but instead love.  I’m not Left nor am I Right.  I am also not in the middle- I’m a person who empathizes with each person’s unique experience.  Everything we are is learned.  We need to unlearn a lot of idiocracy.  If you’re racist- there’s a reason- you’re not born that way.  A homophobe?  There’s a reason.  We must not believe our own lies.  Afraid of commitment?  Think you’re unintelligent?  There is a reason for everything so I rarely get heated- I get deeper.

Mike: Absolutely. Even before the current US election cycle, the world was becoming a dark and sometimes distressing place, to the point I sometimes have to shake my head and say silly human race. My message through music is that there is still light and hope, but you have to be ready to give serious push back to the people, institutions and forces that may not have everyone’s best interest at heart. I think in r reality, ALL of us are not really that far apart in our hopes, dreams and aspirations. If we can make you think and feel something with our music, what more could we as artist, possibly ask for.

Let’s try to forget about all that comes with Vulfpeck besides their music. Ignore, for a moment, the genius of their branding. The impeccable attention to detail in creating their own typography. Try to forget their heavily acknowledged success in crowd-funding. Forget that they have a treasure trove of hilarious and character-based YouTube videos to match their music. Try to forget that Joe Dart could be (is) one of the best bassists of our time.

Let’s try to ignore Theo Katzman’s extraordinary, repeated ability to write a nearly perfect pop song. Let’s try and ignore that Woody Goss is a walking, talking funky carnival pianist. Forget about how magical it feels to show someone to Antwaun Stanley and “1612” for the first time. Or what “Rango III” can do to your nerve-endings. Or that Bernard Purdie, the world’s most recorded drummer and inventor of the world-famous “Purdie shuffle,” played with them at two sold-out shows  in New York City this summer.

With all our might, let’s try and forget about that first-round reviews of the album published by the Michigan Daily earlier this week. For a moment, just focus. Let’s talk about why Vulfpeck’s most recent masterpiece, The Beautiful Game, is a nearly perfect album.

Sweet Science

The Klezmer clarinet solo in The Beautiful Game’s first track,  “Sweet Science” is one of the most hauntingly beautiful album openers on a 21st century album. Michael Winograd, a klezmer music aficionado from Brooklyn, NY, draws listeners and fans in with what avid fan and OG Vulfpeck aficionado, Madeleine Chone, calls “a mournful, beautiful Jewish tribute to open up a deliciously funky musical present.” A better description can’t be found. It is truly awesome and original to see the inclusion of such a niche musical genre in the popular music space.

Animal Spirits

Tempo change. We’ve arrived at “Animal Spirits.” It’s the cute, older cousin of another one of Theo Katzman’s lyrical pop hits, “Back Pocket.” Woody Goss with the tingaling keys, Dart’s giving us the deep, deep bass. The Jackson 5 inspiration cannot be denied. Stratton said it himself in a recent YouTube video: “You don’t need a PhD to know that this is similar to the ostinato rhythm that Louie Shelton is playing on the Jackson’s 5 ‘I Want You Back.’” No, no you don’t need a PhD to realize that. You also don’t need a PhD to realize this song is nothing sort of pop greatness.

There are quippy, kind-of strange lyrics about astrology charts and mutual Facebook friends, sure. But isn’t that half the fun of any other song? The joy of music listening is interpreting it in your own way. Aren’t we allowed to assume what we want about the meaning of the 16 mutual friends they share? Yes we are. Vulfpeck graduated from the same high-bar university as the writers of this paper did. They are smart, and they are clever. Expect something original or just put your headphones on and groove, goddamnit.

1 for 1, DiMaggio

“1 for 1, DiMaggio” is similarly strange in its conception and lyricism. I don’t know anything about baseball, but I know the passion (go Cubs). The back and forth between Vulfpeck-regular,  University of Michigan native and one of the best soul voices around today,  Antwaun Stanley, and Jack Stratton is quippy, clever, fun and backed by an instrumental that Vulfpeck has been teasing for too long. It’s a sports disco song – what a fantastic thing.

Dean Town

In “Dean Town,” all the ladies and men in the room drop their pants and jaws. Here we get the man, the myth, the legend: the Joe Dart. A bassist god serving up some deep-dish dirty traveling basslines for three minutes and thirty three seconds. As a result, you find the funk that makes Vulfpeck so beloved. The drums in the back, Woody’s keys bouncing in halfway through, mind-exploding by the three-minute mark because Dart is still going, still carrying that bassline. Here is a song that many are categorizing as one of the best Vulf tracks yet, and I agree.

Conscious Club

From just one listen it’s easy to assume that “Conscious Club” is the brainchild of the band’s informal leader and hopefully the father of my children, Jack Stratton. An instrumental of “Conscious Club” was previewed in Vulfpeck’s 2015 album, The Thrill of the Arts. In its full conception, Stratton’s song is marrying Cheryl Lynn to King Floyd to  some fantastical groovy operatic dream he once had of a German funk club with the entry password, “Ich bein Dart.”

Laura Mace, a destined-for-greatness soul singer, makes her Vulfpeck debut in this track, balancing out the rich monotone of Stratton’s explanations. Historically, funk isn’t a magnet for storytelling. The best funk was first made for the foot-tapping, hip-shaking, and buttcheek-slapping. But somehow, in a way that only Vulfpeck could, this song does both.

Lovechild of the Vulfpeck boys, fellow University of Michigan grad and a phenomenal musician in his own right, Joey Dosik appears on the album as well. His alto sax solo highlights the high tempo, James Brown-esque seventh track, “Daddy, He Got a Tesla.” This one is a funk lover’s dream: Dart carrying some sexy bassline, Pegasus Warning and his intermittent, perfectly pitched scatting, Goss and that piano solo at minute two… we’re sitting there whispering “yes,” “oh,” “baby,” “give it to me.” Sexual innuendo implied: good funk is for some the sonic equivalent to getting some.

El Chepe

“El Chepe” is one of the two funk trance tracks on the album that we haven’t seen from Vulf before. Here is a low volume exploration of a track that is diving into something a little less funky than we’re used to from the Vulfpeck boys. “Margery, My First Car,” is similar in this, highlighting the variety of funky smoothness that Vulf had been hiding. Christine Hucal’s ethereal vocals ease us into a low tempo, layered track that brings back instrumental fourth track from the band’s 2013 EP, My First Car.

Cory Wong

“Cory Wong” is funky as all hell. In the classic Vulfpeck fashion, it sounds too good to be true. It’s natural, free-flowing and improvisational. Just like “El Chepe,” and frankly every other track on this record, there are educated musicians who have honed in on technical skills to create Donald Fagan-like levels of perfection.

Any critical review of artistic expression will always require context. Forming an ill informed opinion is a disservice to both the artist and critic. How is one to judge something one doesn’t understand? Constructive, respected criticisms aren’t based on feeling alone.

You don’t have to like Vulfpeck, and whether or not you listen to them at all is completely your prerogative. You have your right to free speech and all. But help yourself out and walk into the lion’s den with a chair.

Also if you don’t like Vulfpeck, you’re wrong. – MZ

From the archive: Book shows and get paid to perform

Gigmor talked to Sam Johnson, the 23-year-old Aussie behind the lo-fi hip-hop/electronic – or rather, just eclectic and cool –  music of very interesting track names. Read below for the interview and his music:

1. How old are you, how long have you been doing music, and when did you decide to start diving into the possibility of a music career? 

 I’m 23 and have been making music since my first day off after I finished high school, so just over 5, pushing 6 years. I think I started taking music much more seriously during my time doing an Audio Engineering Degree at JMC Music Academy, although it was the reception I got on the track “Tom Cruise Eats a Continental Breakfast” that really pushed me into the music scene. I guess I’ve never really thought about music as a career, more as a passion project. I spend more time making music than actually working in my career so I guess it probably is one now whether I like it or not. 

2. How did you find your sound? You are electronic music  but you tap into (or at least sample hip-hop and rap in a way that’s reminiscent of Tomppabeats and Doc Heller) a lot of different genres. How did you get there? What musicians inspired/inspire you to get there and stay with it? 

Defining the genre I make is always a bit of a challenge, but I would say my foundation is more in hip-hop than electronic. When people ask me how to find more music like mine, I usually tell them to google lo-fi hip-hop, so if you had to call it anything I’d say call it that. The fact that there isn’t a concrete name yet is an awesome thing though, it shows how new, exciting and broad the genre is. Like any genre you get a lot of people who make similar stuff, but I am constantly amazed with the depth, complexity and variation I hear from everyone’s music. I guess it’s one of the reasons I feel so free to play with any genres or sounds I feel like using, because the community is so accepting of anything as long as you’re carrying the spirit of hip-hop with you. 

I had been jumping around a few different genres before I found ‘my sound’. I had been experimenting with dub and more straightforward electronic music before a friend of mine suggested I play around with some hiphop rhythms as he thought my tracks would really suit it. I straight up called him an idiot and even felt a little insulted as I had no intention of doing hip hop at the time. But, being bored and not having many other ideas, I gave it a go and I instantly fell in love. It was one of the most important lessons I ever learnt in music, that even if you don’t like the advice or criticism someone gives you, you have to take a step back from your feelings and really listen to what everyone has to say. As much as you make it for yourself, music at the end of the day is for everyone, or at least anyone who wants to listen.  It was a couple years of playing with some different sounds until I released “Tom Cruise…” which was the first track I felt really encapsulated what I wanted to do with my music. 

In terms of inspiration I’d say one of my earliest inspirations was Hominidae, who I pray everyday comes back with some new music soon. Some more well known inspirations include Teebs, Ras G, Flying Lotus, Lapalux, Tomppabeats, Saito/Fumei, eevee, Bilo 503, bsd.u….the list is just too long! I’d have to give the biggest thanks to Borealism though, as not only was his music one of the biggest creative explosions for me, but he has been one of my biggest supporters from day one. Honestly I wouldn’t be where I am today without him and his belief in me and the music I make. 

3. Explain the song names, please. They are brilliant. 

I’m not too sure when the idea to make an album with those names initially came from, I think it started when I was looking at how big an influence anime is in the scene, and I thought it would be a cool twist to direct that theme back at the western entertainment world. My design brief I presented to Inner Ocean Records was that I wanted to humanize people who feel so distant from us, remind people that celebrities are humans, with human needs, desires, jobs, chores, goals, problems etc. I also think it created a story right off the bat that the listener could run with in their head. It kind of grounded the tracks somewhere a bit physical, since the nature of vocal-less instrumental hiphop can sometimes feel a little ephemeral and disconnected. Also celebrity names are eye catching! The benefit it gave to promoting the tracks was a nice side effect I didn’t plan. 

At the end of the day I make music because I love the process of creating a cohesive album with its own themes, story and vibe. I try to transcend the ‘what you hear is what you get’ and give the listener something to dissect a little more. Seeing how Flying Lotus and Lapalux create themes around their full length LP’s is super inspiring and the Celebrities idea kind of let me run away with my own theme. 

4. Where do you see yourself going next? Touring? Is this a side job?

Lately I’ve been mainly focusing on finishing my next album Passionfruit Falls, which is 98% done and will be released on vinyl, cassette and digital through Inner Ocean Records and Nekubi towards the end of 2016. On the side I’m also prepping some new singles and releases to be dropped in the coming months. I’m also playing live shows in Melbourne through most of November and will be playing with Tomppabeats and Where Two for their awesome Australian tour (big thanks to Beat Lab for hooking that all up). I’m looking into traveling to America early next year too as I’ve been offered some shows up there, but I don’t earn much money through music so we will have to see how my wallet is doing around that time. 

If you love music it’s always gonna be full time. Everything else is a side job.