Guitarist Chris Michetti has never been one to stick to a particular playing style or genre of music. In the past nine years, Michetti has gone from performing at high profile gigs such as Bonnaroo, High Sierra and Mountain Jam with the progressive-rock influenced ja band RAQ to playing instrumental “heady metal” at small clubs around the country, to nearly selling out Red Rocks Ampitheatre with the Disco Biscuits. After an injury left guitarist Jon Gutwillig unable to play, Michetti answered a phone call from Biscuits bassist Marc Brownstein asking him to be a temporary member of the band, an opportunity that would usher him into the livetronica scene as a member of the “Mega Biscuits” in March of 2010. After a few months of playing with the group, Michetti was asked to become a full time member of the Biscuits side project Conspirator along with keyboardist Aron Magner, bassist Marc Brownstein and a cast of revolving drummers, including Lotus’ Mike Greenfield, The New Deal’s Darren Shearer and Pnuma Trio’s Lane Shaw.
Recently, Michetti entered the studio to record dubstep and house music inspired by his experience playing with the Biscuits and attending electronic music festivals around the world. Influenced by artists such as Skrillex, Porter Robinson and Flux Pavilion, Michetti aims to get people dancing with what he describes as “straight bangers.” Jambands.com sits down with Chris Michetti to find out what he has been working on, and what his goals are for the future (and Marc Brownstein chimes in a bit as well).
Justin: So you started off as a guitar player, you were influenced by Eddie Van Halen and Zappa in your early career. Then a bit later it seemed that everywhere you turned people were comparing you to Trey [Anastasio]. So as of this moment, who would you identify as your guitar influences?
Chris Michetti: In the early days I started playing drums, that was my main thing. When I was really young, when I was like eight, I started playing drums, and I was into all the fusion cats and all the crazy drummers that only maybe Japanese boys like. Then through my older brothers friends and stuff in high school, maybe freshman year, I started listening to the Dead. My first real concerts, aside from Michael Jackson were The Who and The Stones. This was ‘89, when The Stones did their Steel Wheels Tour, The Who were on the Kids are Alright tour. Then it was Santana, Little Feat, the Allman Brothers I’ve seen a bazillion times. I grew up in the D.C. area, so we’d go see Danny Gatton all the time, and obviously the Dead was like this whole amazing freakout. I mean it’s R.F.K. Stadium three nights in a row with 30,000 people outside not getting into the show. Things like that that don’t happen anymore.
And then I think my first Phish show was 92 and it was awesome, seeing young guys. It was cool because every other rock star I’ve seen was old or at least older. So then when I saw see these young guys and it was almost like “You know, I could do this!” You know what I mean? I honestly think a lot of people got that.
You get like inspired, like “I could do this.” You get inspired to do it. I still love Trey’s guitar playing, and the early Phish stuff is some of the best music stuff, it’s amazing. Yeah, that was a big influence.
I guess before I got into the drums I was into Van Halen and all that stuff. And you always come back around to what you grew up listening to. When I learned guitar I went through this thing where people were like, “You gotta learn jazz, you gotta know jazz,” you know what I mean? Like you got to know all these jazz chords, you got to know jazz theory and stuff. But if your heart’s not there, your heart’s not there, and it took me a while but I realized that I just kind of want to rock. And I still kind of do that, I just kind of rock. [laughter]
I went through a guitar period during 15 years of my life where I just listened to everyone who plays guitar and studied it devoutly and tried to be the best that I could and practiced every day. The past couple years I haven’t really been practicing like I used to but I’ve been producing a lot, doing a lot more what I would call just music, instead of just guitar. And I feel like it’s made my playing better than it’s ever been—focused and relaxed. When you practice those licks everyday you want to play them and maybe this music doesn’t call for that. That’s why I did the Michetti thing [His solo album, Heady Metal, because I was like, “Here’s an album that I can put all this stuff into and not be forcing it, it’s meant for it. I’m talking about Heady Metal, the shred, it’s just like, let’s shred! That’s the name of the game there.
Justin: It seems like each project you’ve had has a certain goal and a certain focus.
Michetti: I think that RAQ had a goal, but we would lose sight of it and it would change a lot, due to what our success was for that year or what the crowd’s reaction was to certain things. I think we lost sight of having fun and enjoying creating, which is really what it’s all about.
I think we were going through periods where we were like, “Oh wait, we sound too much like Phish and they’re calling us Phish so now we have to sound like this” or “Umphrey’s is great, let’s make a crazy song.” Or the Disco Biscuits, we listened to the Perfume album, we had that in the van for two years and we listened to that like every day. It probably never really came out in our music but we were always worried about stuff…Until now! You know, now we’re just like “let’s have fun!”
Justin: A little while ago you talked about how your jamming style now is completely different than it was and how it’s a more patient, focused kind of jamming. Can you explain what that means and why it’s important, as well as what caused that change in sound?
Michetti: I started playing with the Biscuits and after that show in Miami we did a week or 10 days of rehearsal, and it was mostly just learning the heads or the form of all these crazy Biscuits songs. We learned like 70 of them or something like that, it was nuts, it was like my brain was spinning. But it was so much fun too. I’ve said it before, the Biscuits are awesome dudes, the nicest guys, really generous, the most generous people and they surround themselves with really serious, great people. Plus I was hanging with Tommy [Hamilton] and it was great.
So we learned the heads and then the first show we played on that tour was in Charleston, South Carolina and Marc writes the setlist. I’m going to begin the Brownie impressions now. And it’s like four song sets here. So I’m like, “Dude, what do we do in the meantime?” and he’s like, “We jam, we jam, we jam this into this, flip this, go into the ending of this, flip it around…” And they can talk to each other on stage so that helped a lot too but I was like “Holy shit, what is going on?”
So on the tour bus I like to learn as much as I can and Marc is willing to teach, which ended up starting the sort of communication that we still have today. We just had this talk where he’s like “Alright, I’m going to tell you the whole philosophy here,” and we talked. Then a couple days at a soundcheck there was a good moment, and Marc said to me, “Dude, right there is what you’re doing that no one else does. Who cares about all those licks. You got a billion guitar players out there that can play every lick but that’s what you do that no one else does and that’s what’s going to make you someone special.”
And it made me have this realization that I’m not 22 years old, I’m in my 30s and it’s time to stop being like someone else. Eddie’s great, you know, he’s the coolest guy in the world but I sleep better at night when I do my own thing. We were just at The Big Up and there were some great guitar players there. I used to get intimidated and be like “Oh god, I’ve got to come out swinging” and now I can appreciate everyone way more. I can listen and be like, “Ah man this guy is great,” or “This band is great” And then I go and do my own thing and if it sounds like Trey, who fucking cares? I’m not thinking about it when it’s happening, I’m just letting it flow. And it feels great. I’m making so much music these days and I’m all over the place.
I’ve had some kids come up to me and be like “Dude, what’s with the fucking untz untz shit…You need to shred!” And it’s like, “Wait, I just put out this album Heady Metal, have you not heard this thing?” And they’re like “Yo, what is that?” [laughter]. And then I say, “Here you go, listen to this for a second. It’s as shredding as it gets, for me at least.”
No Comments comments associated with this post