In-Depth With String Cheese’s Keith Moseley On Hulaween, New Music and More

It’s an exciting time to be a fan of The String Cheese Incident. The band continues to push it, as they have plans for a new album, a fresh fall tour that includes two nights at the Theater at Madison Square Garden (win tickets here), and that Halloween festival that everyone seems to be talking about… HULAWEEN! we were more than excited to have a chance to sit down with the band’s bassist, Keith Moseley.

Our very own Rex Thomson went in-depth with the Moseley; read on for the interview below:

L4LM: Incidents, Carnivals, Hulaweens! Are you guys incapable of throwing a plain ol’ concert?

Keith Moseley: (laughs) We played a plain old concert last night, but it felt really special to me. It didn’t seem real plain, I don’t know. But yeah, I’m looking forward to Hulaween, special events, all that stuff.

L4LM: You guys have been doing this as far back as I can remember. Do you remember the first time you decided to try and do something this crazy?

KM: Wow. No, I don’t. It’s been going on as long as I can remember.

Even from the very first times that we played New Years Eve in Telluride in ‘93, I think one of our very first gigs, and the idea was – hey, what can we do to bring in some extra lights? Can we decorate the place special? Can we augment the sound system with extra speakers? What can we do to make it over the top?

Obviously it wasn’t very over the top then, but that’s kind of been the attitude from the beginning. I’m remembering back when we did New Years at the Oregon Convention Center ringing in 2000, the millennium, remembering that that show felt completely over the top in terms of production, entertainers on the bill – it just had a real carnival feel to it. It’s been going on for a long time for us… get in costume, dress up crazy, play some super fun covers… c’mon, who doesn’t like Halloween?

L4LM: It’s true. Halloween is like the biggest day in the jam band scene. It’s awesome.

KM: I don’t even know what anyone else is doing, I’ve been so involved in our show that nothing else is even on my radar. But I suppose if I wasn’t seeing String Cheese, I’d be out seeing someone else.

L4LM: Actually that’s an interesting side question. Do you get to pay attention to anything else?

KM: Well, yeah, we see a lot of other bands during the summer, especially festival season, we try to take in as much as we can of other acts at the festivals. And then, when I’m at home in the Denver area, we have a great local scene, tons of people coming through. In between the kids’ soccer games and musical performances and family outings, I try to get out and see as much local music as I can.

L4LM: When you get home, it’s got to be tempting to get in your bed and sleep for a week…

KM: We don’t hit the road as hard as we used to. Actually I get to sleep in when I’m on the road, when I’m home, I’m up early. Get the kids off to school and, you know, getting into the family routine at home with practicing music with the kids and helping with the sports and the homework. It’s a whole home scene. I got a home routine and a road routine, but the road’s where I sleep in.

L4LM: So with Halloween coming up, were you into that holiday as a kid with costumes?

KM: Somewhat. I remember when I was probably ten years old, dressing up as Ace Frehley from KISS and really loving that costume. That was one of my favorite years. But yeah, I’ve always kinda loved the Halloween thing.

Ever since we’ve been doing the band and playing the shows on Halloween, it’s been even more fun and over the top. I love getting in costume, love the whole theme idea, and all the special covers we do are always a blast.

L4LM: Speaking of which, any hints as to what we’re doing?

KM: Well, Ghoul Train is the theme, a play on Soul Train, so we’ve been watching a lot of the old Soul Train videos, a show which I remember watching as a kid on Saturday mornings. A lot of that 70’s, big hair, crazy clothes, throw down dance tunes are going to be featured. We’ve got a couple of special guest singers, horn section. We’re prepared to lay down the funk. It’s gonna be a good time.

L4LM: You guys pretty much had the entire Spirit of Suwannee Park transformed for Hulaween. It’s amazing how much you put into this place.

KM: Andy Carroll, our buddy who was our LD on the road for years and years, is now doing special events for us like Hulaween and Electric Forest. He’s really a master of turning the site into a whole other experience for people. We’re looking forward to another year of that.

L4LM: SCI has always blazed their own trail. When you wanted to release an album, you started your own label. Was that a monetary decision or a creative control decision?

KM: You know, it’s more about the control than the money. Truthfully there hasn’t been much money from selling the CDs or anything like that, but what we have been able to do is control our artistic destiny. We’ve recorded when we wanted, how we wanted, toured when and how we wanted instead of being under the direction of a record company.

They’ll say, ‘oh, you’ve got to record this album and oh you can’t tour yet, and here’s exactly where you need to go and how you need to promote the album.’ I’ve talked to a lot of musicians who have not had positive experiences with their record companies and, we decided early on that we wanted to be in control of all that. So we went about starting up our own record company, and while we haven’t had a lot of commercial success, I think we’ve really relished that we’ve held on to creative control, and I think that’s been a real positive thing for the band.

L4LM: You’ve brought other bands onto the label, starting with Keller back in the day. Have you ever used that to force artists to sit-in with you?

KM: (Laughs) We love the sit-ins, independent of whether people are on the label or not. Over the years we’ve had too many amazing sit-ins to even believe. We’ve been so fortunate in that, I consider that one of the highlights of my musical career, all the sit-ins.

The last big one was just a couple weeks ago at Lockn’ where we did a whole set with The Doobie Brothers. It was just amazing playing these songs with the Doobies that have been in my head forever. Songs that I’ve played on guitar as a teenager, and here we are performing them with the Doobies.

The collaborations are an amazing thing. The language of music is a common one that you share with all these other players. To be able to communicate with them, musically, and share the stage with them and your ideas and your passion together is a really special thing.

L4LM: Earlier this year you had Skrillex up there with you!

KM: We did. We had Skrillex, which was also amazing. And he played guitar, which he used to do before his whole fame as a DJ. And he loved it. And we loved it, it was a great cross-over. From Skrillex to Zac Brown to the Doobies, it goes on and on. Lots of bluegrass legends, too like Pete Rowan, Sam Bush. Kreutzmann, all those guys too. People like Dierks Bentley in the country realm to Karl Denson… I’m just scratching the surface. Jack Johnson. Lauryn Hill. We did a whole set with Lauryn Hill at Electric Forest a couple years ago.

It’s been really awesome for us to stretch our musical boundaries and it’s been such a great learning experience playing with all these other artists. Experiencing the way they play and relate to the music and finding a common ground with them has been a really amazing experience.

String Cheese Incident Brings Out Skrillex And Preservation Hall Jazz Band

L4LM: You were touching on the variety of guests you have, but I’ve always considered String Cheese to be a “Swiss Army” band because you guys are like a bluegrass-funk-soul-jam-electronica band. How do you keep all of that straight?

KM: It’s amazing, it’s so fun for us. We all have different musical loves and appreciate a lot of different styles. To be able to dig in to those different styles together and explore those different genres together is super satisfying and amazingly fun.

L4LM: Do you craft your sets to the crowd? If you’re playing at Telluride do you get more bluegrass and if you’re at Red Rocks do you get a little more electronic?

KM: Yeah I think so. Definitely we can tailor the set, and do. We’ve done some straight up bluegrass festivals where we’ll really lean heavy on that part of our repertoire, you know, and there’s Electric Forest where we played with Skrillex and the guys from Big Gigantic and we’ll tailor it more towards that end of our music. It does depend a little bit on the site and who’s around to sit-in and what we think the crowd is looking for, but it’s fun to go in any direction like that.

L4LM: It’s got to be a little tempting, like at a bluegrass festival, to just drop the bass and go nuts.

KM: If we’re at a bluegrass festival, we’re not going to be able to play bluegrass like Ricky Skaggs or Kentucky Thunder, you know, we’re not going to be able to get it just like they did. But, we might be able to rock it out in our own way. We’ve got some tunes like a Celtic fiddle tune with EDM beats to it, and no one else at the festival has anything like that. So yeah, it is fun to show them what we can do as well.

L4LM: So speaking of all these different styles, is there anything left to try?

KM: Well, I don’t feel like we’re missing out on anything, but there are endless musicians to play with and lots of great music still to be written by the band. I think we’re really writing our best material now, I think we’re still honing our craft as songwriters and players, and we’re still getting better. The future is bright and exciting for us. We’re really enjoying continuing to make new music together and write new music together.

L4LM: How’s the new album coming?

KM: Well we’ve been in our new studio. We have a new studio space in Boulder that serves as our warehouse, rehearsal, and we’re getting it set up to record now. We’ve been tracking right before we came out on the road, we had Jerry Harrison who produced the last album. He flew out and has been working with us on a whole bunch of new tunes. We hope to have some new music out by the end of the year or the early part of next year.

L4LM: Any thoughts on an album name?

KM: Don’t have an album name. Honestly, we might trickle some things out as singles as they become available, even before we have an album. More than the concept of “hey we’ve got to go in and do another album” it was just like, let’s just get started recording these songs we have. We just got this new music that we’re itching to get recorded, so we’re kinda just going at it piece by piece. And we may, as I said, trickle them out as singles, even without a complete album concept. We’re just super excited to get those songs recorded and start getting them out.

L4LM: Well any new Cheese is good Cheese as far as I’m concerned! Just a couple more questions for ya… There’s a new movement out to fight the scalper ticket bots that have been buying all the tickets. Cheese has always fought for the fans. What led you to take such a public stance on ticket buying?

KM: Since the beginning, we’ve been… not really mainstream. We’ve been in the jam band scene and been on management that always encouraged us to be independent, and we’ve grown together a little bit outside of the mainstream scene with starting our own record company, merch company, ticketing company…

I think when we examined the process of buying tickets, we realized that the companies really were charging a lot for the service, and maybe really not providing the best service. We’re fans first, and frustrated ourselves by the concert ticket buying experience. We wanted to see if there was any way we could bypass Ticketmaster and try to make it a better experience for the fans and charge less. It’s become really difficult to compete with monopolies in that realm, a lot of the venues or promoters are bound by agreements with the ticketing companies. It’s been increasingly harder to get around that.

We do continue to try and fight that fight and sell as much of the house as we can negotiate with them through our own channels, which we think provides better service and charge less. It’s a fight we continue to push on with.

L4LM: Do you guys consider Keller Williams to be an unofficial seventh member of the band?

KM: Well, Keller is one of my best friends and obviously has done a ton of shows with us, toured with us lots and lots in our early days. Any time we can have Keller on the bill it’s always awesome and welcomed.

That being said, I’ve been in Keller’s band when String Cheese was on hiatus. I’ve done a bunch of touring with him, and still gig with them now and then. There’s a couple of Grateful Grass gigs I did this summer with them, and I have a little gig coming up with them in December. He’s always on my radar and we love him like a brother. Can’t get enough of Keller, that’s for sure.

L4LM: One last question. You are a sports guy… are you a big Broncos guy?

KM: Absolutely! Big Broncos fan. We’re 5-0 right now, and our offense still hasn’t gotten on track. Our offense is only going to get better as the season goes along, and we’ve got the top defense in the league right now. So feeling pretty good, I think we’ll get a win this week against Cleveland, we’ll go into our bye 6-0. I’m feeling really good about it right now, I think we’re going to peak late in the season and make a run pretty deep into the playoffs. We’ll see. Green Bay’s looking good, New England’s always looking good. I expect us to be in the playoffs for sure.

L4LM: If they asked you, would String Cheese play the National Anthem before one of the games?

KM: Sure! Why not! Billy [Nershi] has season tickets and does as many of the home games as he can do already, but it would be a lot of fun to have the band out at one of the games.

L4LM: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us! Can’t wait to see you in New York and again at Hulaween!

KM: Thanks!