The names Alan Evans and Eddie Roberts should be familiar to anyone visiting this site, thanks to their respective bands Soulive and The New Mastersounds, but their new project, Matador! Soul Sounds, brings out a new side to both musicians’ repertoires, showcasing their commitment to funk and soul through the lens of a non-instrumental band, featuring the vocal talents of Kimberly Dawson (Pimps of Joytime) and Andryon de Leon (Orgone). We chatted with Evans and Roberts just prior to the release of their debut album, Get Ready, and the start of their first extended tour with the new band.

You have known each other for years. At what point did you decide to form a new project together?

Evans: The seed was planted at Jam Cruise a few years ago. I was hanging out and ended up in the jam room. Eddie was already on stage and he waved over to me, asked me if I wanted to come up and play, we just got in to some tunes, some Grant Green stuff or whatever, it was just a really cool vibe and Eddie and I kind of took over the thing for a bit. Then we were hanging out [at a later time], and he asked me if I wanted to do a run with The New Mastersounds [subbing for Simon Allen].

Roberts: It all came out of me and Alan wanting to play together. In late fall of 2016, he did a one-week run at the end of a New Mastersounds tour, and during that week I was like ‘oh man, this is something good.’

Evans: While we were on tour, we had a night off in DC, and we went out and had dinner, and Eddie and I ended up at a bar, and at one point we were talking about our scenes with our respective bands, and he just said ‘you want to start a band?’ and I was like ‘yeah, cool, let’s do it,’ and that was pretty much it. From there, we just started communicating some more and it just all kind of came together.

Roberts: Chris Spies, B3 player, I’d been playing a lot with him, and he suggested Kevin Scott, who I hadn’t met at that time, but Alan had played with him. I was calling it a social experiment: that we were all going to get together in the studio having never all played together.

Evans: I met Kevin years ago when I was doing Alan Evans Trio, down in Atlanta where he’s from, and he was in a band that opened up for us and he just blew my mind. We stayed in touch over the years, but never like ‘we should play’ or anything, just talking. So when Eddie brought up Kevin Scott, I said ‘well if that’s the same Kevin Scott, he’s the man.’ So they came out to my studio, we recorded an album, it sounded great, and it was done.

You both come from primarily instrumental bands. At what point did you decide to add singers to the mix?

Evans: There were a couple of tunes where I sang on the album. Eddie was like ‘you know Kim Dawson is a good friend of mine, maybe I’ll have her come out and sing some backgrounds on some of this stuff.’ After she did that, Eddie was like ‘maybe we should think about this.’ Both of us are in instrumental bands, and it’s like, people know us for that already, let’s do something different. And then that’s when the whole thing of bringing Kim and Adryon came in to play.

Roberts: We got together in Alan’s studio last March, but during the recording process I was like ‘you know what we need? We need a couple of singers on this, and I know just the two people.’ The original recording was just the four of us, but I had an idea that I wanted to use vocals, and use them in a different way, almost like a horn section, weaving the vocals in to the music rather than it being song-based like vocalists with a band backing. There was a couple of things that inspired me, old jazz albums that use a choir, like the Max Roach album called It’s Time. The first time I hung out with Adryon, I played her that album and she went crazy over it.

Evans: What we ended up doing was, right before the Brooklyn Comes Alive show at Brooklyn Bowl, we went back in to my studio and cut a few more songs with Kim and Adryon, and then they also added some vocals to songs left over from the previous session, and that’s really where the band solidified.

*Though this is a new project, you both have deep roots in the jam and funk scenes. Did you enter into these sessions with any rules to make this project sound different than your previous bands? *

Roberts: The nature of playing with different people you end up making a different sound. Everyone brings their own influences to the table, and everything was written right there on the spot [in the studio]. We didn’t really set out to do something specific, we just let it write itself and that dictates the sound of the band.

Evans: I don’t have to think about how this is different from Soulive, it’s different people so it’s different music. At the core, it’s as simple as that. We enjoy each other’s company and we like playing music together, and there seems to be people out there who want to hear us play.

Roberts: Making exciting, dynamic music with a lot of soul is what I’m hoping for. We’ve got some of the best people in the world in the band, so I’m just really excited to be inspired by everybody and be inspiring each other and I want to just let it musically grow organically. Everybody in the band is a talented writer, so we need to get the first record out there so we can find our feet, then I can see it growing pretty quick. It’s already got it’s own sound.

*Do you plan to tour heavily with Matador! at this point in your careers?

Evans: We’ve been lucky enough to be really successful with our primarily instrumental bands, but, as much as I hate to say that there’s a difference between instrumental bands and vocal bands, there is. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens with this band. With Matador!, I feel like the focus isn’t on our musicianship or playing all this crazy stuff all night, it’s really much more about the songs and interacting with the vocals and creating different kinds of grooves.

Roberts: I can kind of let the band drive with Matador! a little bit more [than Mastersounds]. I wouldn’t say I’m taking a backseat role, but I’m letting the band breathe a little more. I think it’s going to be interesting how it develops over these next few weeks [on the road], we’ll find out where we can stretch out and how we stretch out and who stretches out. Up until now we’ve only performed the album, now we’re going to get a chance to get deep in to the tunes.

Get Ready is available now, and M!SS hits the road this week.

Mar 15 – Rex Theatre – Pittsburgh, PA

Mar 16 – Union Stage – Washington, DC

Mar 17 – Brooklyn Bowl – Brooklyn, NY

Mar 18 – Fairfield Theatre Company – Fairfield, CT

Mar 19 – Brighton Music Hall – Allston, MA

Mar 21 – Ardmore Music Hall – Ardmore, PA

Mar 22 – Martyr’s – Chicago, IL

Mar 23 – Cervantes’ Other Side – Denver, CO

Mar 24 – Fox Theatre – Boulder, CO

Mar 26 – Great American Music Hall – San Francisco, CA

Mar 28 – Jack London Revue – Portland, OR

Mar 29 – Nectar Lounge – Seattle, WA

Apr 27 – House of Blues New Orleans – New Orleans, LA