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Summer Incidents and Sessions:
An interview with SCI's Michael Travis

by Robert Makin

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In the midst of the Summer Session tour with the New Orleans jazz-groove band Galactic, the ultra-eclectic New York jam band moe. and the blues-rock power trio Gov't Mule, I spoke with String Cheese Incident drummer Michael Travis. His Boulder, Colo.-based progressive, ethnic roots rock band spearheaded the Summer Session tour, which also has included Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, Ziggy Marley and a variety of solo acoustic acts.

We talked about how The String Cheese Incident crafts an astonishing mix of roots music with intricate mountain bluegrass, transcedent Afro-pop rhythms, sensuous Latin melodies and breezy calypso grooves that branch from a trunk of traditional American rock. Fans of bluegrass, reggae, jam bands and other roots genres have strongly embraced SCI's music, as well as the band's ability to create a relaxed, fun environment at every show, which are better known as Incidents.

The quintet -- also mandolinist-violinist Michael Kang, guitarist Bill Nershi, bassist Keith Moseley and keyboardist Kyle Hollingsworth -- have created several international Incidents by taking fans to Negril, Jamaica, and Akumal, Mexico, last year. More international shows are planned. Pioneers of both music and the business of music, The String Cheese Incident have steadfastly refused to compromise any amount of creative control over their music by signing with a major label. Applying the grassroots ethic that has made the band into a successful touring act, The String Cheese Incident launched a full-scale label, Sci Fidelity Records. The band continues to build a grassroots empire with a website that attracts one million hits a month, an in-house ticketing service and a travel agency designed to cater to their fans.

With two discs under its independent belt, SCI plans to released a live double album in September. Tracks may be culled from the 1998-99 New Year's Eve celebration at the Kaiser Auditorium in Oakland, Calif., where the band performed with two of its greatest influences, Hot Tuna and the remaining members of The Grateful Dead. Three sold-out shows in the spring of 1999 at the legendary Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco also may be represented on the live disc.

In June, The String Cheese Incident returned to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival as a headlining act. They stole the show as an opening act in 1993, just six months after their formation. Looking toward the millennium, The String Cheese Incident will host a two-night New Year's extravaganza in Portland, Ore., that will encompass a large-scale world-music theme.

Who came up with the idea for Summer Session?

We wanted to collectively tour with bands that we like. Friends of ours. We all collectively came up with the idea. The bands that we wanted to play with was our idea. It was our idea to originally get everybody.

Summer Session seems like a variation on last summer's Hoodoo Bash, which had its share of problems with Leftover Salmon dropping off and shows being cancelled. Why will this be more successful?

I think this will succeed because the bands are all in a similar place with what we're trying to do. It's a really good vibe. I felt Hoodoo Bash was a success with moe. and Strangefolk. All the politics that go into booking a tour are a problem, but I thought the Hoodoo Bash went over really well.

Does Summer Session fill the void of The HORDE?

That's what we're trying to do, have a big touring circus or carnival with bands of different flavors coming together and creating a common thing.

How has the bill worked so far with Gov't Mule, moe. and Galactic?

It's worked out really well, better than anyone ever imagined. Everything is meshing well.

Do you think you'll do Summer Session again next year?

It's hard to say. That's a long way away. Next year we'll probably focus on our own shows, but it could happen on its own with other bands. It's only designed to be a one-year thing, but it could easily expand beyond that. Many bands try to avoid their greatest musical influences. They call it 'Kill Mommy or Daddy Syndrome.' But one of the things that all the bands on the Summer Session tour have in common is that they've whole-heartedly embraced their influences. Comment on how String Cheese Incident has gotten pretty tight with members of The Grateful Dead, particularly Phil Lesh, who participated in part of the tour.

From our perspective, it's the music that we like playing. To try to hide something might not be in our best interest. The bands here know what they love and try to be that as much as they can be. We love the Dead. They've been a major influence. To get to play with members of the Dead is an incredible honor. There's no point in trying to run away from them.

It was an incredible thing, from my personal perspective, coming from a place where I used to love to see them play. I learned to play guitar by playing Dead tunes. To be on stage jamming with them was quite an honor. SCI does about 160 shows a year. That must be grueling. How does being eclectic and improvisational make that pace more enjoyable?

For me, improvisation is the moment when the whole audience and band can be in the same place at the same time. Everybody is truly co-creating the music. You're on the verge, so you don't know what's going to happen. That enables you to open to other influences and feel what the audience is feeling, so they have more say. That's the most exciting form of music making for me, because it's always fresh. You never know what's going to happen, so the audience is always involved. A group experience is more present. Comment on how SCI strives to be eclectic in spite of the fact that the music industry has become increasingly segmented.

We recognized that the industry was all about making money. When you're running an industry for profit margins, making bands fit into a form makes it easier to predict what they're going to do as far as marketability. We never bought into that. We just try to make all the music we like to make whenever possible.

The reason we're eclectic is not because the industry doesn't want us to be. It's more that we decided to play a Latin tune because we wanted to. Or play a salsa tune or an African tune. Whatever styles are natural. We play everything we want to play, and we've set up an organization so we wouldn't have to be a slave to anybody else's ideas.

The band not only has formed its own record label but also a ticket service and travel agency for your fans to tour with you. Given how well things are set up, do you think you'll ever need to sign with a major label?

I don't think so.

Do you think Sci Fidelity Records might sign other acts?

Yeah. That's part of the plan. We've already done an album with Keller Williams, a solo acoustic artist we met in Steamboat (Springs, Colo.) a couple of years back. He's one of the acoustic acts on the Summer Session. We hope to sign other acts, but we're not going to sign bands all over the place. We'll sign bands that we know have fans and we feel a connection to their music.

Comment on how you've been able to sell out venues like The Fillmore in San Francisco outside the music mainstream.

I think that a lot of bands go with the whim of a major label, because they don't have the capital to tour or to get albums out. We're fortunate that we have parents who helped us get started, so we could get our footing. As we started taking baby steps, we built popularity. We've been pretty smart with our money. We knew how to allocate funds to make it work for us. But the boost, the heardstart came from people who supported us and made us able to do this financially from the beginning. It made it easier to get started.

Were your parents just being supportive parents or did they like the music you were making?

More the former, just knowing what we wanted to do and that they could afford to help out. We've paid all the loans back, but having that available in the beginning was a help.

There are a few bands who combine divergent styles like you, such as Leftover Salmon and moe. and even Phish and Dave Matthews Band. But you seem to be the only one that puts on shows in places where some of those styles originated, such as Jamaica and Mexico. Comment on the impact that those international Incidents have had on the band and its fans.

It's just about, again, doing what we wanted to do. We knew we wanted to travel to Jamaica and Mexico and wherever else, so we just did it. We lost money both times, but that wasn't as important. We just wanted to go to the Caribbean. About 150 people came down with us. The music styles was less the primary aim, but it turned out to be a benefit. Our music making improved a lot by going to Jamaica. We were really feeling the island vibe with reggae happening all the time. That was not our initial aim as much as a sunny place in the Caribbean with the ocean and a copesthetic culture that would be accepting of the whole thing.

Which international Incident is next?

It's hard to say. We'd like to do something in the Caribbean again. We love it there so much. We'll do it in the winter at some point.

What will the New Year's show in Portland be like?

It's going to be a great scene with lots of other artists, like Keller Williams and Jamie Janover, this hammer dulcimer player we know. There'll be lots of solo acts, environmental causes. It's going to be more than a show. It'll be a total environment. The decorating is going to be really thorough. There'll be lots of international acts doing their thing. There'll be multi stages and events going on. It'll be a mid-winter indoor festival.

You've released two discs on your own. A double live album is next. How much of that material will be previously unreleased and in what ways will previously released material be presented differently?

Probably about 75 to 80 percent will be unreleased. Songs like 'Don't Say' by Kyle our keyboard player, 'Missing Me,' another Kyle tune, and 'Barstool' by Billy. One of the things that we do is take cover tunes, particularly jazz covers, and rework them to be more our concept. On the new record we'll do that with Weather Report's 'Birdland.' We'll also have some of the tunes off the first album. They've changed massively since they were on the album.

Having played 160 shows a year for nearly six years, what's the wackiest experience you've had on the road?

Bill, our guitar player, is an experience on his own. He's a source of major humor. There've been so many high moments. I don't know if I can isolate just one. There's been great times all along the way. Leftover Salmon brings a boost of wackiness into the picture. We've had incredible times with them.

I suppose the wackiest was at the High Sierra Music Festival. We were doing a workshop that allowed questions. And one guy says, 'You all play music well and good, but when are you going to take off your clothes and jump into the pool?' So we stripped and ran into the pool naked.