Interview: Col. Bruce Hampton
When you look back at the history of the jam band culture, you can’t overlook Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit. Formed in the early ’90s from the Atlanta club scene, the founding members included Oteil Burbridge (bass), Jimmy Herring (guitar), Jeff Sipe (drums), Matt Mundy (keys), and Count M’Butu (percussion). A groundbreaking, genre-bending group, they are among the vanguard of the modern jam bands, joining like-minded bands such as Phish, the Spin Doctors, Blues Traveler, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones and Widespread Panic in 1992 to start the Horizons of Rock Developing Everywhere, or H.O.R.D.E. tour, basically a touring music festival that crossed the country each summer for seven years.
Known for their no-boundaries approach to music, ARU opened every northeast date on the initial H.O.R.D.E. tour, setting the stage and, some say, the standard for improvisation embodied by this second coming of the jam band. In an interview with Relix Magazine, Col. Bruce explained, “Our idea was to take every kind of music that had purity left (bluegrass, jazz and blues), and let it go. We never rehearse, and while we have a format, I’m not sure what it is.” In that same article, drummer Jeff Sipe added, “In all the six or so years that I’ve been playing with Col. Bruce, we’ve rehearsed twice. Some tunes have a definite structure which we stick to, but usually it’s free and open enough that if anyone in the band wants to do something as strange as vomit in the middle of a jam we could all respond accordingly.”
The band is on tour now for the first time since 2007 with Bruce, Oteil, Jimmy and Jeff, joined by keyboardist Matt Slocum. Bruce took a few minutes to speak with MusicFestNews before their show in Birmingham, AL.
MFN: This is a big reunion. The fans are definitely excited about it, and I’m sure the band is as well.
BH: Yeah, we’re having a good time.
MFN: Whose idea was it to get back together for this tour?
BH: We’ve tried for years. We’ve always played one date a year or something like that for awhile. But then Oteil was in the Allman Brothers, and they’re no longer together, and Jimmy’s always touring every summer. Jeff is usually out with Warren Haynes, so nobody has a chance to work it out. Our manager, the great Souvik Dutta, planned it last year.
MFN: I’ve scoped out a couple of the set lists from the earlier shows on this tour. There’s a lot of old, familiar tunes from back in the day, but it also looks like there’s some new material that the fans will be hearing.
BH: Yeah, we’ve got six new tunes.
MFN: I’ve listened to the band a lot, and I know that you draw on a lot of different musical styles, but the jazz or jazz fusion seems to be the taproot in everything that the band does. Is that accurate?
BH: Well, those three guys were born right in the era of jazz fusion, you know, so it’s definitely there. But we try to play blues, we try to play country, we try to do it all. Rap music, everything. Gospel music, the whole gamut.
MFN: Gospel music, huh?
BH: Yep. We do country blues, even a couple of Broadway tunes sometimes.
MFN: Really?
BH: Yep. We have. We’ll do “Candyman” by Sammy Davis, Jr., but if we do that, we usually do it for four hours. That’s the worst song in the world, and we make sure no one ever wants to hear it again. We have played it all night before.
MFN: (Laughing) Well I hope you’ll spare us that on this tour.
BH: (Laughing) We won’t do it. That’s back when we were young.
MFN: Yeah, there’s a lot of things we can’t do anymore at our age.
BH: Yeah, I used to play shortstop (chuckling). I have to be driven to the position now (both breaking up with laughter).
MFN: You’ve been everywhere, played with so many different artists and spanned so many genres. You’ve had a huge influence on the jam band culture. But you’ve chosen to stay away from the bright lights and notoriety that many you’ve mentored have experienced.
BH: Well, I think marketing music is wrong. It’s okay if you want to do it. But with me, the sound of my music always comes first, and money is second. I’d just rather avoid the hoopla. I have very famous friends who can’t go into Valdosta, GA and eat anymore, you know? It’s just never been appealing to me. Marketing the music isn’t my thing, but I applaud those who want to do it.
MFN: I’ve heard the word “chaos” used to describe some of the Aquarium Rescue Unit’s performances. Is there a chaos theory that the band applies?
BH: Well, they say 13.7% of your time on the planet is chaos. And the universe is chaos. We don’t ever have it planned, but sometimes some weird stuff happens and we don’t ever force it. You know, it takes a band or a football team a year and a half to coagulate before they start taking chances or anything. We’re just learning the new material for this tour, but we’re not playing it safe by any stretch of the imagination. The chaos is on the back burner until we get everything organized.
MFN: Yes, I can’t see this band playing it safe.
BH: My mentor is Duke Ellington, and he said everything he did was so he could do lojinks. Not hijinks, but lojinks. And he said the music has to be great before I do it. But he said that’s the reason he’s doing music is to do hijinks and lojinks. There was always joy in what he did, and that’s what I’m aiming for. The Bible said make a joyful noise to the Lord, but it doesn’t say anything about music. You know, sometimes chaos is nice. It’s a good friend sometimes, and it’s also an enemy. You’ve got to be very tasteful when it happens. The utmost of taste.
MFN: Absolutely. There’s an old Chinese proverb that says: “In chaos lies opportunity.”
BH: Well, you know, all great music is mistakes, basically. Reggae was from New Orleans, and they were just copying The Meters, George Porter and Ziggy. They couldn’t play funk, so they turned it around and made their music. And bebop came out of swing, and jazz came out of God knows what, back in the days of Louis Armstrong and Zutty Singleton in the early 1900s. But, you know, with chaos, when you’re doing nothing, something new will happen.
MFN: Yeah, this band has always had such freedom to experiment, to do something musically and take a chance on it not working out.
BH: Right. You can fall flat on your face. It’s okay.
MFN: Have you had a song on this tour that’s your favorite to play, or one that has been received well by the crowds?
BH: Well, one that me and Jimmy wrote called 1911.
MFN: I’ve seen that one on some of the set lists and wasn’t familiar with it.
BH: Yeah, we’re not either (both laughing). It’s brand new, it’s a week old, but it seems to be the best flowing tune we do. But I like ’em all; I generally like ’em all.
MFN: Sure, because they’re never the same from one set to the next.
BH: Yeah, there’s always a surprise waiting around the corner.
MusicFestNews will be covering Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit on August 13 at The National in Richmond, VA, with the band Hard Working Americans opening the show. The remaining tour dates are:
Aug. 12 The Ritz Raleigh, NC
Aug. 13 The National Richmond, VA
Aug. 14 The Howard Theatre Washington, DC
Aug. 15 The Capitol Theatre Port Chester, NY
Aug. 16 Brooklyn Bowl Brooklyn, NY
