“Ooooooo, whatcha put into that Soup?”
10 Questions for Mike Tallman of Eufórquestra
Hey Vagabonds! I had a chance to catch up with Mike Tallman, guitarist of Eufórquestra and ask him my 10 burning questions. We discussed the new albumSoup and their plans for 2010. I’m really pumped about where these guys are headed this year. I’ve seen them many, many times and I would recommend downloading their new album Soup from their website http://www.euforquestra.com. Eufórquestra is playing two nights in the Denver/Boulder area this week and what better way to get excited for the shows than to talk music? See them with DubSkin at the Boulder Theater Wednesday February 3 and at Cervantes in Denver, Thursday February 4th.
1. MV: I’m really excited for your show on Wednesday at the Boulder Theater. How did you come to know your co-headlining band, DubSkin?
MIKE: We actually knew the drummer, Cory (who is also the drummer for Pretty Lights), from our first trips to Fort Collins, when the band was still based in Iowa City. He was one of our first friends in the Fort Collins area, and we always kept in touch on returning tours. We just kind of formed a relationship with the band and finally are getting to play with DubSkin for the first time, two nights in a row. We are very excited!
2. MV: Soup is your first album in three years, why such a long wait?
MIKE: We started another album about two years ago and started recording five or six tracks and made some progress on it. We didn’t feel it was coming together the way we wanted to. We decided to put it on the back burner and come back to it, and started touring heavily, concentrating on promoting the band. Touring and playing together constantly inspired a lot of new music and got us a lot of material. After the touring we decided we had enough songs to start recording an album and then we focused on creating Soup.
3. MV: I love Eufórquestra’s other two albums, but I especially love the cohesive sound of the latest; I’ve heard the short version of the inspiration behind the title track; can you give our readers the lo-down?
MIKE: The inspiration behind “Soup” is a fictitious story with a little bit of truth to it. The alto sax player, Austin Zalatel, wrote the song as a non-sensical song which was inspired by his family. They are all great cooks and he drew some creative juices from his grandmother’s soup. Everyone’s always asking, “Whatcha put into that soup?”
4. MV: Where does your Cuban/Caribbean influence come from? I would say that it’s uncharacteristic of a band from Iowa.
MIKE: Well, we all got together at the University of Iowa which is in Iowa City. Matt Grundstad (Percussion and Vocals) and Adam Grosso (former Bass – now Drums) studied Afro-Cuban Drum and Dance at U Iowa. They traveled to Cuba to study the music in person and played with some of the most renowned musicians there. The rest of the band was really interested in playing the style of music and began exploring the genre as a band. I guess you could say we all got the Afro-Cuban “bug” and just went from there.
5. MV: I wanted to revisit a question that I saw in 2007 interview with Matt Grundstad and Home Grown Music, the question went like this:
Home Grown Music: You categorize yourself as an Afro-Caribbean- Barnyard-Funk band. Who first defined your music this way? Would you consider yourselves revolutionary? Do you know any other bands that would fit in this category?
Matt: People are always asking us to describe our music by putting it into a specific category. That’s not an easy thing to do because the answer to that question would depend on which song they are asking about. Since we don’t stick to any specific genre, we decided to describe it the same way it is created: by combining genres. Most if not all new music in the world that gets created and would be considered “original” is a product of combining ideas that already exist.
MV: That said, I feel that Soup is more focused than your first album The Adventures of Glen Devey. Do you still agree with the category “Afro-Caribbean-Barnyard-Funk”, or do you feel the band has grown into a different hybrid of genres?
MIKE: We still tend to use the same descriptions, but do change it up a little. Sometimes our posters and promo pieces will highlight us as “high intensity global dance music”. The new album has more of a focus on dub and reggae influence with a little afro-funk. We tend to move in phases as a group, it depends on what we are all listening to on our own and how we translate that to what we play as a band. With the album Explorations in Afrobeat, that was where we were at the time. We tend to move in these phases and concentrate on something we are interested in exploring at the time. I think we will always play and incorporate all different sounds and I don’t think we’ll ever abandon anything we’ve done in the past. We still want to maintain an eclectic perspective on our music so I don’t think we will ever focus on just one style that we play.
6. MV: I follow Eufórquestra online through the Eufórquablog, Facebook, Twitter etc. Do you feel it’s necessary for today’s up and coming artists to use digital media strategies to communicate with their current and potential fans? If so, why and which medium do you find most successful for Eufórquestra?
MIKE: It’s hard to say if it’s absolutely necessary for everybody. There are definitely a lot of advantages for people who do utilize digital communications with fans. The age of the internet has changed the music industry drastically, so it’s important to keep your eye on the trends and stay ahead of the curve. It’s made up and coming artists accessible to their fans. We spend a lot of time focusing onFacebook promotions and do a lot of interactions directly with the fans. We don’t have a publicist posting for us, which I think people really like because they are interacting with the band. It allows you to have a personal relationship with the band and communicate back and forth in a candid way; it’s also fun! We try to be really proactive about communicating through Facebook by sending info from the road and posting set lists. I think it’s a valuable resource for a lot of people and we find it’s a great tool for communicating with music lovers.
7. MV: Over the past year, which show has been your favorite experience?
MIKE: I’d have to say that a really awesome night for us was back in November when we played The Belly Up in Aspen for the first time. We were really looking forward to playing there for a long time, so it was that was a pretty cool experience. I’d have to say our CD release show in Ft. Collins was amazing since it was the first time we sold out our home venue, Hodi’s Half Note.
8. MV: How’s the outlook for 2010? What makes you excited about this year?
MIKE: We’re definitely excited to push the album really hard this year. We want everyone to download Soup from our site (it’s FREE!), get people to check out the album and come out and support us live in greater and greater numbers. We feel there’s a lot of momentum for the band now and we are really excited to keep touring and building on that momentum. Overall, I’m just really excited to keep pushing and getting out there. One of our biggest highlights every year is always Camp Euforia (Lone Tree, Iowa). It’s the centerpiece to our summer touring schedule and we spend a lot of time planning and stuff around that.
9. MV: I know that we have a lot of Vagabonds on the east coast, any plans to make it out east this year?
MIKE: We are going to be out there towards the end of May. We are really excited because that’s new territory for us. Close friends of the band are getting married in Baltimore and we are going to play their wedding. Since we were going to be out that way, we decided to do an east coast tour because we have always wanted to play out east. We are shooting for the end of May and beginning June but don’t have concrete venues and dates yet.
10. MV: Which Eufórquestra album would you recommend to our Vagabonds who want to start listening to you guys?
MIKE: I would recommend starting with Soup because it’s most accurate representation of what we are doing right now. It would definitely be what would turn someone on. If they like it, I would then say travel back to Explorations in Afrobeatand The Adventures of Glen Devey to look at where we came from to get to this album. In those first two albums we were just recording what songs we had been working on at the time, Soup was more collaborative and we put a whole ‘nother level of effort and creativity into this album that I think really speaks to us.
11. MV: Ok, I lied, there are 11 questions. This little bonus question might be the hardest; which is your favorite Eufórquestra song?
MIKE: Oh geez, yah you’re right, that’s a toughy. Right now I’m really digging the stuff off of Soup, the first being the instrumental “Melody Truck”. I also love “The Events of December 11th“, but I might be a little biased because there’s a big face-melting guitar solo in the middle of that.
Hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about one of my favorite bands. Until next time Vagabonds…
Music to your ears – from mine – with love
<3 L.Sizzle
