Since their formation in 1997, Perpetual Groove (aka PGroove) has been a mainstay of the live music circuit. Playing a carefully crafted psychadelic/rock fusion, they've garnered a huge fan base while headlining shows across the country. recess's Tom Aten recently spoke with keyboardist Matt McDonald about the band's current (exhaustively long) tour, their upcoming show at Cat's Cradle and the inherent benefits of a certain pejorative term.
I know that sometimes you guys get stuck with the label of being "just a jam band," which is something that most bands-I think-aren't too happy about. How do you all react to that, and how would you classify yourselves?
The thing about this whole jam band label is that it is double edged, but if you look at the fans and the musicians that are part of it, they really are some of the best people around and they listen to live music that changes and really is interesting because it has a life and a soul and a conversation to it. That's what happens with improvisation-it's very inclusive with the audience. So if the audience is giving it back, the band takes more and more with it. So the positive side of being labeled a jam band is that it means that you're part of a group of musicians that are pretty well respected for their use of improvisation. The attitude as far as Perpetual Groove is concerned has always been more of a rock-and-roll, high-image approach, with peaks and crests that don't just plow in your face. Peaks and valleys are important in the experience. But it's not really a term that we're trying to get away from-it just is what it is. But as far as fans and the association with the musicians, it's a good thing.
I've seen you guys plenty of times, and I have to say that the fans are really right with you guys and right on top of you guys. It's one of the best parts about it.
It's having those really dedicated fans, and seeing that people that are into lots of different music, that's what they have most in common. The fans themselves may not have that much in common with each other, but they enjoy all of it.
A lot of the energy and the fan's reactions has to do with the song selection and how the set list is crafted. I know you guys are playing a different set list every night and that you have a lot of songs to choose from. How do you guys decide what you'll play? Is the set list something you create before the show, saying how do we get from here to here and see what happens in between or is it something you make on the fly?
We usually do have a set list now, but its very rare for it not to change or alter at all. We always go up there with a road map drawn out, usually a couple of us will do it. It's usually Adam, our bassist, and myself that will spend the most time on it together.
Along those lines, I picked up the set lists for the past three times you guys played Cat's Cradle. Is the venue and the audience you think is going to be there a factor? I look at those sets and it seems like there are a lot of older songs or rarer songs that people consider a bust-out played at Cat's Cradle. Is there something special about that venue to you guys?
Cat's Cradle, I don't know about a personal connection, but it's definitely our favorite venue in all of the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. I think it's the room that... It just sounds great there, there's a good vibe, the crowds have always been good. As far as bust-outs and stuff like that, I think what's happened in the past year or so is that we've finally gotten enough material that there's stuff that we've spent enough time on that we play them more than others just because we enjoy what happens during them. But we've been trying to keep it more varied lately, playing some older stuff and, you know, we've been writing a lot of new stuff. That's just a continual thing that keeps happening.
You guys came out with a new studio album, LIVELOVEDIE, last year and, at the end of February, Echoes From The Cave is coming out. LIVELOVEDIE is a studio album and this is a live album in that it was recorded in front of a live audience-I know that Tree Sound Studios is known for creating live albums-but could you talk a bit about the process of recording this album and what people can expect?
At Tree Sound, you have several studios inside of one complex so we've done our albums in say, Studio A and Studio M, and you sit in rooms for what you're looking for. What they also have is this room called the Cave. The Cave is a room, but its set up for live performance and live rehearsal, so you see a lot of bands come in there and do what you'd call preproduction, working on song structure, especially more the top-40, more accessible stuff. So you see people come in and rehearse there. What we did is went in and did a performance-there's a stage and everything-we sold 150 tickets through our website and that was that. We had kegs of beer, and they got to check and the studio, which was an intimate, unique experience. I think you'll probably see us do it again real soon, because it was about two years ago now when we recorded it. It was before we had a lot of gear we have now, and it was just different. It's cool as a snap shot of where we were as a band and where we are two years later. We're hoping to do something like it again this summer.
So you're in Atlanta on Friday and then here. All together, the tour has 41 dates?
That's something that we're not so much talking about. People can come to their own conclusions, as far as I'm concerned.
Well, I know this is a really long tour for you. So, if you don't mind me asking, all this time traveling, what's the music that you're spending your time listening to on your own.
So much different stuff, it really depends on the mood I'm in. I've been listening to a lot of bands like Rotary Downs, some of the new Cold War Kids stuff that's being released, and I always have a pretty healthy diet of industrial music. I've listening to a remixed Nine Inch Nails album. But, you know, Ben Folds, Nick Drake. I've actually been listening to a lot of Nick Drake lately. A lot of Nick Drake and a lot of the National has been in the rotation.
Perpetual Groove will be playing Cat's Cradle this Saturday at 10 p.m. Tickets are $15.
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