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Getting Tangled With STRING CHEESE INCIDENT An Exclusive Interview Prior to Their Midwest Fall Tour
By Scott Baker
The acoustic/electric slide guitarist/vocalist for the jam-grass musical circus known as the String Cheese Incident has been keeping quite busy during the band's recent downtime. While SCI is getting ready to fire up the tour bus again for a fall/winter run, which includes a stop at the Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor on Oct. 28, Nershi and company have been rehearsing for the next album and splitting time between side projects as well as their family. One of the biggest exports from Boulder, CO, SCI exploded over the last five years on the jam scene, paving the way for bluegrass and acoustic/electric exploration in what has come to be known as the jam band scene. Following what was to be a trek on the ill-fated Lollapalooza tour, the band made a quick jump into its own summer tour immediately after the Lollapalooza cancellation. "I think that we did a quick recovery from it and we've ended up having a really good summer," confirmed Nershi during a phone interview a few weeks back. "At first it was a little weird that it got cancelled. Then we took a deep breath and said, 'Hey, now we can play full shows instead of 90 minute festival sets', so we ended up having a good time this summer. We had a few (dates) built into the tour anyway, so we just kind of built around them." Taking a breather at his home in Colorado, Nershi, mandolin/violin/vocalist Michael Kang, keyboardist/vocalist Kyle Hollingsworth, bassist/vocalist Keith Moseley, and drum/percussionist Michael Travis initially met while skiing and jamming around in their home state back in 1993. "I'm watching the snow come down up here," stated Nershi enthusiastically. "Yet it will still be a little while before they can hit the slopes. “Well, not yet. I mean the mountain probably won't open until Thanksgiving. But I have a feeling it's going to be a good year. The first good snow year in a long time here in Colorado." "Things are going - we're kind of taking it slow right now. We're waiting for Keith and Kristen to have their baby. Today, the 21 (Sept.), this is the due date. So we're on hiatus. Everybody's kinda doing side project stuff right now waiting for String Cheese to crank back up in October." Fans of the Midwest, SCI got one of their first big industry pushes by traveling early in their career to Wolverine country. "We
like it up there," said Nershi. "That was one of our first hits when we started
coming out to the Midwest--Ann Arbor and Madison. We've been coming out there
for a long time."
"Kyle's finishing up a CD that should be just about mixed and mastered this
month. I'm not sure when it's going to be released, but I know he's finishing it
up this month." "I've
been playing with my wife Jill in an act that we call Honkytonk Homeslice
and it's like honkytonk (music) and we play stuff like Whiskey River’ and
do some of my original tunes. Just kind of a fun deal. We spend a lot of time
working on harmonies and we both play guitar and are getting ready to go to
California. We're going to play a string of house parties and small bar gigs.
It's back to the roots, back into the truck driving across the country. Quite a
switch from the String Cheese life of mega-tour buses and big rooms everywhere.
It's definitely rejuvenating." "We've been meeting and playing some music and hanging out with our producer and talking about tunes," said Nershi. "We played a bunch of the songs that are potentials for the album. A lot of new stuff--a lot of stuff that is in the process of being written now. After we get done with our fall tour, we're going to be back onto the album. I would say next spring probably." With the studio sounds from producer Youth on their last album Untying The Not garnishing the band much recognition, Nershi wants to make sure the band heads in a different direction this time
"We're going to do a different type of record I think. Much more rootsy on the
next record. Working with Youth, it was a real different style as with his
influences and where we were at the time and the songs we were writing. But we
want to change it up for the next record." "A little bit more acoustic down and less techno stuff. We'll definitely be playing some stuff that will end up on the record, but it's hard to say exactly what will be on the record until we get ready to record." One of the big plans of the cancelled Lollapalooza was a show with Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction on lead vocals in Colorado. SCI did the Jane's song Idiot's Rule with Farrell during this year's Jammy Awards in New York City back in March. "We
still want to do a Perry Farrell Incident," said Nershi. "We don't know when
it's going to happen, but that was a part of the Lollapalooza tour that was
going to be really cool. In Denver we were going to play a show and have him as
the lead vocalist and learn a bunch of Jane's tunes and do that, but we might do
that in the future. We definitely made a good connection with Perry and want to
continue to stay in touch with him." "This winter we're going to be recording and then we're going to be doing New Years in New York (City). Then what we'd like to do next spring and summer is some more three-day camp out kind of shows with other bands. Kind of like what we do at Hornings (Hideout, North Plains, OR)--that kind of a deal. Pick a few places around the country where we can set up for the weekend and everybody can set up camp for a while and everybody can get to see a lot of good music. We're finding that those are some of the most memorable shows that we play and we want to do more of it. There's a place up in Wisconsin that's really good. Devil's Head (in Merrimac, WI). I think that's what it's called. We've performed a weekend show years ago. So we might make it up that way with a camp-out scene. We'll see." Not every state will be so lucky, so Nershi hopes to hit each region for everyone to make their camping plans around.
"We'll try to do it in all the regions of the country, definitely not in every
state," he said. "We're psyched to get out to the Mid-West again and see
everybody up there in Michigan and also we're going to be doing Halloween in
Madison, WI. We're going to play Ann Arbor and we're going to go to Chicago and
play the UIC Pavilion (for two nights) and then the next day we're going to play
Madison, WI. So if anybody wants to get on tour for those shows, it could be a
fun run."
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