by Dan Alford and Jocelyn Russell

Aaron Katz has been crucial to the development of Percy Hill's sound. As drummer, his solid backbeat and dancing high hat is half of the revamped rhythm section, which is rounded out by bassist John Lecesse. Together the pair drive the serious funk-rock explorations that are winning over more and more fans with every show. And as a singer and songwriter, Aaron has added a whole new dimension to the band. Finely sculpted and extremely satisfying instrumentals coupled with lush, involved lyrics are his bread and butter. Jocelyn and I had the chance to speak with the multitalented Katz before the debut of his new solo project Earth Suits Off! in Durham, New Hampshire. I found Aaron to be a truly genuine person, friendly, gracious, interesting and interested. We spoke about ESO, Percy Hill and songwriting. Be on the look out for an upcoming ESO album and a new live double disc set from Percy Hill.

jambands: Let's talk about tonight. What can we expect?

Aaron Katz: Tonight is a new project called Earth Suits Off! It's a new take on my song writing, working with different sounds. People I've been working with since I first started around this area, when I was going to UNH. Andy Gallagher who I played with in a funk band, Vitamin C. He was the lead alto sax player on that and now he's playing alto sax with this, and he's expanded on keyboards. He bought himself a new synthesizer and we're just incorporating a whole variety of new sounds, orchestral sounds and synthetic sounds. Also a new drummer who lives right near me. What to expect? Rock and Roll.

jambands: So this is really a different outlet for your songwriting?

AK: Yeah definitely. And expanding on songs, jamming on them.

jb: And you're playing guitar on this?

A K: Yup, acoustic, electric, singing. Strumming along...

jb: What's the difference between that and drumming? You sing a lot with Percy.

AK: Freedom from having every limb moving and trying to sing at the same time. It is hard to express the song to the point which I want them to be expressed while my whole body's in motion. Sitting also. Being able to stand is a lot more comfortable. The drums, your whole body's got to be moving. This is the first gig and we just had a soundcheck and it felt very natural. I'm first and foremost a songwriter and I feel as though they're delivered best when I'm delivering them.

jb: What happens when you write a song and bring it to Percy Hill? What kind of changes happen?

AK: I write songs on piano or guitar, so what I do is, it all happens at once, the music and the lyrics all happen at once, and then I write down all the chord changes for the band. Then I just bring it in for them and sometimes we'll talk about different areas where there could be a line connecting one part into another part, or where we could have a harmony. The basic song is already done but then the influence of each person will come into that song. With Earth Suits Off! each person has such different influences. The same with Percy Hill.

jb: What is the process of writing a song? For instance, with Ammonium Maze, did you think "I'm gonna write an environmental song?"

AK: Ammonium Maze was inspired by an Environment class at UNH. Actually, I was just feeling as though I was not helping the environment at all. But usually songs just happen by sitting at the keyboard and finding sounds, and that inspires feelings from me. And from those feelings I just come up with nonsense-type words and then I take those sounds which are created from the nonsense words and put experiences into them. Like Ammonium Maze started, maybe, "Looking down. I can't believe I was holding back." You know, just really finding the sounds, and then developing. Something meaningful to myself. I'm an oversensitive individual, so I just feel a lot of things. It just happens to be the way I deal with feeling things intensely. If I write about it and put it into music, it's just another way of dealing with it. Life is filled with lots of things to deal with.

jb: I'm gonna jump to the tough question. I would be remiss as a Percy Hill fan if I didn't ask about rumors of a break up. Is there an abnormal amount of tension in the band?

AK: The band still has gigs set up that we're still doing, and I live with Joe [Farrell]. I mean you're gonna see a bunch of them here tonight. It's just the road is a hard lifestyle and sometimes it's difficult to have your independence and create music with people. That stifles your independence sometimes. I love those guys. I've learned so much from working with Percy Hill, I can't even put it into words- how to be a musician pretty much. A live musician. I mean, I could always just be a songwriter- stay at home, and write, and feel amazing and jump around the house when a song is done and just feel like I'm thirteen again, but Percy Hill taught me how to just grind it out, every night. Even the night I didn't want to play, still get on stage and just feel it. I owe it everything.

jb: Well the winter tour was phenomenal. The phrase that popped up during the fall was "playing at a new level" At the Wetlands for instance, there were multiple times when the four of you had you eyes closed, all staring up and the jam was totally in control...

AK: Oh yeah. I love it. I love every minute I play with them, every single time.

jb: Or we were just listening to the Union College show with the 27 minute Color in Bloom.

AK: Yes that was fun. That was fun. Yeah. Nice, nice. The techno Color in Bloom. We should expand on that. It's great like that. Percy Hill is such a great avenue to just really have free jamming and this band really incorporates that but at the same time we have the three-minute pop songs, or the more Samples- type songs. Having that ability to appeal to a different crowd, while at the same time, I want to jam out. I enjoy that feeling. But I also enjoy relating to people. That's what music is all about for me, sharing something.

jb: What about the new album, the live album? Who's picking out the tunes?

AK: We all are. We get together, go over to John's. He has a big computer. He's way into producing. He's great at that. He pretty much produced Color in Bloom. You know, he sat there at the board and was like, "Do that again!"

jb: What an amazing album. One of the best things I have ever heard. I'm a live music junkie and rarely listen to studio work but...

AK: I loved making that, yeah. We actually recorded for only a month. We were just so psyched. That's why you're feeling it. What's the difference between studio and live really? It's just making music. You just get a chance to kind of perfect things a little, more overdub. But your stomach is still turning the same way.

jb: Well, what is the difference between studio and live?

AK: I mean, pretty much that perfection, being able to perfect things. Live is in the moment. Right there is what you're going for and that's what you're putting out and that's where everybody else is. In the studio you have the opportunity to paint something perfectly, and look over it again and then come back the next day and hear it, then dream about it that night, then come back and deal with it on a whole other level. It's a different art form, but you're still making music.

You know this band is really inspired by Reid [Genauer], from Strangefolk. I love those guys. Luke [Smith] is one of my biggest inspirations, the drummer; just him as a person- just his spirit overall. And Reid, up in front, really has just inspired me, talking to him, to do this, to be the songwriter. Been playing drums professionally since I was thirteen, so I'm ready.

jb: What kind of drumming training did you have?

AK: My parents are both musicians. I kind of always had instruments in the house and just took to them. I took a few lessons. I got into college for jazz drumming but I've never been serious about really anything but songwriting. Spend all my time thinking and walking through the streets thinking of that. I love playing drums. I'll always do it. I love playing for people. I love sitting around fires playing drums, but when it comes to what I wake up thinking about, it's putting together a song. Like Color in Bloom. It means everything to me. I put every inch of myself into all of it. That's why Nate brought me in pretty much, because we were in school together and he just wanted to go in a more songwriting direction. Percy Hill has developed into such a unique thing, like with all the techno-y kind of stuff. Taking songs and making them into techno experiences, but he really wanted to go for more of, the craft of the song.

jb: Where does the name Earth Suits Off! Come from?

AK: I was watching Oprah Winfrey and there was this guy on. I know this is nuts, I don't even remember his name. But she was making this big stink about this being the biggest guest of all time, and it was advertisement after advertisement, and she'd come on with this serious tone to her voice, like "This is the thing you can't miss." And this guy came on and I watched some of it and he was just talking about how to get in touch with your soul and how to see through being fake and how to find harmony in your life. And I remember I fell asleep during it. But when I woke back up, I tuned right back in and he started talking about how if you only see people as a tall white male, or a short black female, or fat, you're just seeing the earth suit. I had been searching for this idea of how to just relate to the fact that music is just all about your soul, your feeling. Relating beyond that level of just looking at each other. Earth Suits Off! is just, rip it off man, bare it all.

jb: Are you going to do more gigs with this outfit?

AK: Oh yeah, yeah. This is just the beginning. We already made a recording. Our guitar player happens to also be a sound engineer. His bedroom consists of a small futon mattress stuffed in the corner and the rest of it is just a soundboard. So we went to Dizzy Land one day and did some drum tracks, and right now we're just laying over dubs. So we pretty much have an album already. The drummer is a monster, you'll see. The kid's just so inspired. And we threw done seven tracks in about two hours. It took us like two weeks to do that with Percy Hill, to make an album.

jb: So the energy's there.

AK: So positive. We'll have something for people to hear pretty soon.

jb: So it's kind of a standard jambands.com question to ask what do you think of the title "jambands." The idea that Karl Denson's Tiny Universe, SCI, and Project Logic all fit under one name?

AK: Jambands- People need to categorize things to deal with things, so I'm all for it. I just love making music, love making music for people. I want to share it- jamband or heavy metal band or funk band. It's all good with me. Do we do that so we fit into a group together, or do we do that so we can all relate to something and say it's ours? Is Paul Simon a jamband? Have you listened to Rhythm of the Saints? It's jammin'. What does it mean to jam? Maybe jam is just built up around the idea of style. Is it a style of clothing or a style of music or a way something's being sung? If you add a synthesizer is it no longer a jamband? Does it have to be organic or acoustic? I like being a jamband. People who follow jambands, they make a lot of sense to me. They seem very interested, involved with the music, paying attention.