Photo by Scott Harris

Back in the spring of 2010, when the Brooklyn Bowl was still in its adolescence, Soulive kicked off the inaugural performance of Bowlive, the annual one-band festival that has helped the venue become an institution of New York music scene. Fast forward to this week, and the organ trio, made up of brothers Neal and Alan Evans and guitarist Eric Krasno, are in the midst of their sixth year of Bowlive, while simultaneously celebrating their sixteenth year of the band.

Since they formed in 1999, Soulive have become known for both their jazzy funk and their funky jazz, but mostly for their energetic live shows that have steamed up music rooms around the globe. Always up for a collaboration, Soulive has regularly invited special guests to play with them during their annual two-week residency of Brooklyn Bowl, proving that these guys have the chops to jam with absolutely anyone.

Taking a rare break from shows and rehearsal, drummer Alan Evans takes some time to discuss the beginnings of Soulive and Bowlive and what they have both become, along with his most memorable special guest over the six-year run, hip-hop godfather Darryl “DMC” McDaniels.

How’s the run been going so far, about halfway through now? It looks like you guys are having a lot of fun up there.

You know, [this is] our sixth one, so I think we’ve finally really figured out how to do it. It’s definitely a lot of work, because we’re learning a bunch of new tunes and rehearsing every day for it before the show. I was telling my wife earlier when we were out walking, “Last night was the first night of good sleep I’ve gotten in a while.” The thing is, we wake up, we usually get the Bowl somewhere around like 2 o’clock in the afternoon and we rehearse. Then whoever’s the guest artist will show up like around 3 usually, then we run through tunes. But before Bowlive, we’re figuring out tunes for the entire run, like with every guest, so we start listening and, like I said, every day we rehearse all the stuff. So, you know, then you play the gig, and you get to bed, and you can’t stop hearing music. [Laughs] You sleep for a little bit, a few hours, then wake up, and you’re either dreaming about it or you’re just hearing music in your head. And you just gotta get up and do it all over again, you know?

Other than that, it’s been cool. Like I said, I think we’ve just kind of figured it out now. We’re just kind of relaxed about the whole thing, whereas the first year or two, we definitely put a lot more pressure on ourselves to have it perfect. Now it’s kind of like, you learn the tunes as best you can and everyone has to be open to—I wouldn’t say mistakes—but well, yeah mistakes. I mean, it’s just a lot to learn all those tunes, and of course maybe someone it gonna miss a hit or go to the bridge or chorus a little late or whatever.

So six years ago, how did this all start?

Well I’ve known Pete [Shapiro] for a really, really long time—you know, back in the Wetlands days. Then he was working on the Brooklyn Bowl, and he was talking with our manager at the time, Eric’s brother Jeff [Krasno]. And he was like, “I want to do something big to really set off Brooklyn Bowl. I want to do ten nights of Soulive.” Jeff told us his idea, and we thought he was crazy. I mean, the longest run we’d probably ever done in New York was like a three-night thing, you know?

*So how did you guys respond when he came up with ten nights? *

I don’t know, Pete makes it really hard to say no, you know? [Laughs] And I guess the idea was kind of cool. We were like, “Ten nights? How are we even gonna do that?” Then it was like, well he wants you to do it with guests, different guests every night. Then it starts to make a little bit more sense. We just said “Why not?” Like I said, Pete made it really hard to say no. He felt really confident that it was gonna work, and out of all these different cats I know, different promoters and venue owners and things like that, Pete usually makes it happen. And it did.

The first year was a success, and he was like, “Man, we’re gonna keep doing this.” The funny thing is, I remember one year we were hanging out backstage—it might’ve been during Bowlive’s last night—and Pete was like, “We’re gonna do this every year.” We’re like, “Yeah, yeah, cool.” “And then we’re gonna do it in Vegas.” And we’re like, “Yeah—what?” [Laughs] He was like “Yeah man, we’re gonna get a plane, we’re gonna fly out to Vegas and we’re gonna play there.” I was like, “Where in Vegas? What are you even talking about?” He says “Aw, man, I’ll tell you later.” And sure enough, a few years later, Brooklyn Bowl Vegas. He makes stuff happen, you know?

How do you choose the guests for Bowlive? Is it just people you know are going to be in the area at the time, or do they ever reach out to you?

Yeah, over the years it’s obviously become a little bit easier—people know about it now. The first year or two, honestly we were just reaching out to our friends. And then it’s kinda like we want to do something different each year, and that’s always been the biggest challenge. Yeah we can have Derek [Trucks] or Sco [John Scofield], but after a while, it’s like all right, we gotta flip it up. So then we just started reaching out to different people, and now people are hitting us up. It’s kind of funny, right around January or February, all of our phones start blowing up. [Laughs] People are like, “Oh, what’s up?” But yeah, now we’re just lucky in that. A few years ago, the New York Times did like a big feature on Bowlive, which was cool. A lot of people know about it now, so it’s definitely easier to get guests to jump on. And it’s been really fun—using Bowlive, we’ve been able to meet a lot of people we didn’t know. Like last year, we had DMC, which was incredible. Never met the cat before, but he came in and it was super tight. It definitely takes a considerable about of planning, though, to get all the guest locked in. So we usually start way, way in advance. We start talking about it almost six months before it. But it’s been happening.

I was very interested that Charles Bradley was a part of it this year, and the show was incredible. Did you guys know him before?

No. I think Kraz said he may have sat in with him at a festival or something like that, but our manager, Jason [Bau], has been trying to get him on for a couple of years now. He was like “If we could get Charles Bradley, that’s gonna be ridiculous.” And this year was the year, and man, that dude went crazy. [Laughs] He just went crazy.

And the crowd went crazy for him.

Oh yeah. The funniest thing is, I wish I had a camera myself to take some photos or video of people right up front, to see their reaction to him, you know? [Laughs] It was pretty hilarious to see these people. I mean, people’s mouths were just wide open like, “Whoa, what is going on?” This guy is laying it down. He’s just old school— old school—the entertainer/singer. And it’s all genuine, you know what I mean? He’s singing the stuff that he’s lived. It was pretty interesting just talking with him backstage. I mean, that cat is far out. Wow, man, he has lived. And you feel it, you know? When he’s out there, you just feel everything coming off of him, off the stage. It was pretty incredible—definitely one of the highlights for me, for sure.

Pages:Next Page »