THE FLECKTONES ARE BACK: AN INTERVIEW WITH BELA FLECK
In 1988, four virtuosic musicians got together to play once, for a show on PBS. 28 years later, banjoist Bela Fleck, pianist/harmonica player Howard Levy, bassist Victor Wooten and his drumitar playing brother Roy (better known as Future Man) are still bringing innovation, creation, and beauty to music, whether in their own individual projects or as the world renowned Bela Fleck & the Flecktones.
It’s been five long years since the Flecktones last toured, but they’re hitting the road this month for two weeks of shows with the original lineup. That tour stops at Binghamton University’s Anderson Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday, June 7th. I caught up recently with the band’s namesake, the unparalleled Bela Fleck:
TRIPLE CITIES CAROUSEL: What inspired you to play banjo? Why the banjo, and not guitar or piano or something else?
BELA FLECK: I heard the banjo when I was kid on the Beverly Hillbillies TV show, and it just kind of shook me up. Your question is a good question; I can't really explain. I have no answer. I grew up in the city; I had no exposure to folk music or country music in my family. I just heard that sound and it shook me up. Over the years, I figured out what it was, and my grandfather got me one at a garage sale in Upstate New York, and once I got it, I couldn't put it down. I guess I still haven't.
TCC:It's such an interesting sound; when I've seen you play, you bring out a side of the banjo I don't often see. You have an innate sense of how to play the instrument.
BF: Thank you, I've been playing a long time. I think I found my own way about it, found my own personality about it. I feel like it's a cause, kind of a mission to get the banjo out of the stereotypical preconceptions that come with it. The truth about the banjo is that it’s so rich in history, it's incredible. It came over with the slaves and is a part of modern music in the United States. It's a part of jazz, in Louis Armstrong's band and classical bands and orchestras in the late 1800s. By the time I was a kid, no one remembered that. They just associated Southern white music with it; which is a wonderful, wonderful music and I wouldn't be playing if not for that music. But it's not the whole story; it's just a tiny piece of it.
TCC: It seems that's kind of what drives the Flecktones in general. All of you bring out sounds on instruments that you don't normally hear on those instruments. Was it a challenge returning to the original line-up, with Howard Levy? Or was it just sort of natural?
BF: First of all, I have to say, all of the Flecktones feel the same way about their instruments in the way that [their instrument] is relegated to certain roles. For instance, Victor Wooten feels like the bass is a cause the way I feel like the banjo is, because of the way it's normally played. Typically, it just does background stuff, and he feels like it should have a forward role as well; it should have a variety of roles. It's his natural bent to push the boundary. Howard does similar things with the harmonica, and Future Man, he has found a whole new way. It's kind of a league of innovators; putting our energies together, pooling our creative powers, we've helped all the ships arrive. But anyway, back to Howard. It was really great getting back with Howard. It was kind of like getting back with an old girlfriend 30 years later; you've both learned a lot since then, and you're better at getting along, you're better at you, and you have a lot of different things to bring to the situation.
TCC: What is your favorite part about playing with the Flecktones, as opposed to playing with Abigail [Washburn, Fleck’s wife and frequent collaborator] or any of the other groups you've played with? What really stands out to you as the Flecktones sound, or ‘tone’ if you will...?
BF: Well it's totally unique. It's really the only situation I play in with drums. Once in a blue moon I'll go out and play with Dave Matthews Band, sit in for a couple of nights. Aside from that, most of my life is acoustic these days. Playing with that rhythm section, that sound is just unbeatable; they're so cool. But we all grew up together; we all found our paths together, we all became men together. Not that anyone wasn't before, but the years of playing together shaped us all. When we get back together it feels so relaxed and so easy, and yet it's some of the most complex music that we play. It's an odd combination of familiar and comfortable, and that we push each other. We push each other like friends, not like competitors. We're not competing for applause. We're excited to see what we can bring out in each other, what new things we haven't heard in each other. It's very exciting to get back together, and to prepare for that process again.
TCC: Is there a reason that you're keeping the tour so limited and so short? It's 14 gigs in 16 days, you're gonna be beat, but –
BF: Yeah, we'll either be invigorated and excited, or we'll never wanna see each other [chuckles]. Actually, what happened is that we had been talking about getting together in 2017, but nobody could really make that work. Usually when we get together, we tend to shoot the moon, release a new record, go out and play some new music and go on tour for a year. But that wasn't making sense for anyone right now, with me as a pretty new parent, and Vic has four kids, and everybody with all their different projects; so we decided to shelve it for now. Then I got this request from Telluride, would I consider bringing the Flecktones together for just one festival and I said ‘you know, let's give it a shot. We've never gotten together for just one gig. Maybe everyone will be into doing it;’ we all do want to play together but we can't commit to a whole year right now.
I got in touch with everyone saying, ‘What would you think about getting together for Telluride with a few gigs to warm up?’ and everyone got back within an hour saying, ‘yes, let's do it,’ because we all love playing at Telluride. Then, the problem was everyone wanted the band. What kind of tour can we put together that will lead us from Nashville to Telluride, and end at Telluride? Victor has a gig the day after Telluride; he has to leave on a midnight flight after the show. It was like that. We could have worked every day, had two gigs a day, but we didn't want to do that. We just want to go out and play and have fun, and luckily there's still a lot of people that want to come listen to us. So, basically, we could do this. Everyone has the space, the time; after that, we'll talk. If everyone is excited and reinvigorated, we'll find other ways to get back together. It's an open question as to what happens, but we all love each other. We love playing together a lot; finding a way to keep playing together, and to make sure that it happens again is important to all of us.
TCC: It seems like the Flecktones are all so busy these days. What brings you back together with a newness and excitement?
BF: Well, it's going to be four or five years now since we played together; but just the idea of playing together, for me. Playing with guys that play like them - there's nobody that plays like them in the world. And nobody I play with typically brings out in me what they bring out in me. To hear them and see what things I can put on the table. It's an aggressive show - an unusual, eclectic show. I guess you could say that about almost anything that I do. Playing with Abby isn't a typical show, playing with an orchestra [and banjo] is eclectic too; if I'm playing with Chick Corea as a duo, that's eclectic. But this is something else; this is a whole band concept that is completely unusual: banjo and harmonica as the frontline instruments of a jazz group? And the jazz group has an electric drum, and the best electric bass player ever? It's a very strange group. I'm proud of everything we've done together, and proud to get back together, and play in front of people again, and see what happens.
TCC: I don't know exactly how to phrase this, but, Future Man's drum is an interesting instrument. Can you tell me what your reaction was when you first saw it?
BF: First I heard about it, and I thought, ‘wow, I'm putting together a band for a TV show and this thing is going to be really interesting to look at; this guy's going to be interesting.’ Talking to him on the phone, it sounded like quite a contraption. So that was the first thing. But I also knew - from people [who] knew Future Man - that he was an incredible trap drummer. I actually hired him to play for the show [...] without ever having met him in person, on the basis of the conversation and people's recommendation. People said he was a pretty unbeatable musician, and it proved to be true. But the instrument itself, it's like a drum guitar, and people call it a drumitar. It's an instrument that has a bunch of triggers, and if you think about a drum machine, the way you can press a button and hear snare, or press a button and hear a cymbal, or bass drum or high hat - that's what it is. The buttons are so sensitive, that he can play real drum music and get to a lot of things that you can't get to on real drums. Also, triggering sounds while you're doing it. It's incredible.
TCC: It sounds like a delicate instrument. All instruments are delicate in their own way, but that instrument, it’s –
BF: When you think about drums, drums are very physical. You're using your whole body. But to be able to walk around the stage, which is one of the amazing things, you can stand face to face with the drummer, and interact with him to his face. A normal drummer, you have all of this between you. Not only that, but you can go up to the lip of the stage, and interact with him. That's something that, really, I don't think has ever happened before. But none of it would work if he wasn't an unbelievable musician. Luckily, he is.
TCC: I can't imagine you would have played with him for too long if he hadn't been.
BF: Not in this band. In this band, everyone has to be the best that you can be. Everyone has to be incredible for it to work.
TCC: To that, you guys play such intricate music, in weird time signatures that you don't normally hear, and the harmonies can be odd. But there's also this element of freedom and conversation that you can see happening on stage. How do you manage that freedom; how do you balance that intricate structure, combined with that freedom? How do you decide where you're going to go with that?
BF: We do create structures, and we work those structures. We kinda know what's going to happen in what order. But the amount of time we're going to be in various musical places can vary depending on who’s leading and what it's feeling like. I wasn't trying to create a group that was entirely avant-garde, musically. The truth is I'm one of the controllers, one of the controlling factors. If I can't get it, if I think it’s too out there, I'm going to vote against it. I want it to be pretty and complex. Individual and intricate, and all that kind of stuff, but still have a heart to it that most people could relate to. A warmth to it or something? I'm always looking for that in the music: how can we get heart into this thing?
That's not too hard with the rhythm section of Victor and Future Man. They're the heart of the music, and Howard's the brains. I don't know what I am, but that combination of heart and brains - that's the thing about the Flecktones to me that makes it work. No matter what, the beat is danceable. Even if we're playing in 9/8, 11/8, whatever we happen to be in, the way the Wootens play together is so infectious. They have James Brown all over it. They make it feel like you could get up and dance to it, if you could dance in 11. You kind of want to; so that makes my melody and Howard's improvisations really soar. They're not as esoteric as they seem when you put a rhythm like that to it. But they're rhythms; they're not simple. [Future Man]'s not just banging out kick and snare in an odd meter. They're doing really interesting things with the rhythm. That's the thing I love playing with those guys. Howard is a very challenging as an improviser. He's a very advanced improviser and conceptualist. So that combination of the head and the heart, that to me, is the key.
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And isn't that the key to everything? The Anderson Center is located at 4400 Vestal Parkway East in Binghamton University. Show starts at 8pm, and tickets are $45 dollars inside, $23 dollars for lawn seating, and $15 dollars for student lawn seating. Oh my god, the Flecktones are back together, and I got to talk to Bela Fleck, and I'm spinning on a top built out of glee. Kiss me. But first, go to this show. Trust me.
