Interview: Shane Parish (Ahleuchatistas)
“Lots of buds here! Oh man,” says Shane Parish as he looks over the lineup of artists playing the Hopscotch Music Festival, Sept. 5-7, in downtown Raleigh. “There’s a lot of bands from around North Carolina that are on the bill, but it’s great to see so many Asheville folks.”
Among the musical friends from near and far that the longtime local guitarist points out are Tyler Ramsey, The Dead Tongues, Nest Egg, The Messthetics, and Ryley Walker, whose forthcoming compilation Imaginational Anthem, Vol. 9 includes Parish’s song “Leicester Hwy.”
Joining them is Ahleuchatistas, Parish’s instrumental rock duo with drummer Ryan Oslance, which will be playing the festival for the third time. Parish also played a solo set in 2017 at the A.J. Fletcher Opera Theater, an experience he calls “incredible,” but in returning for the event’s 10th anniversary, the band had one stipulation that Parish hopes doesn’t make him sound like a diva.
“We didn’t want to play at Slim’s again. Every time we play [Hopscotch], we play at Slim’s,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong — I like the vibe of that place, but it’s always weird to go to a big festival and then play a small dive bar that you could just play any time. So when they invited us this year, I said we didn’t want to play Slim’s, not because it’s not cool or whatever, but it’s a lot of effort.”
His objections were for naught, however, as the Hopscotch organizers placed Ahleuchatistas at Wicked Witch in the 9:30 p.m. slot on Thursday, Sept. 5. Parish will also take part in one of the festival’s many free Day Party shows when he and Brooklyn-based drummer Jason Nazary play Neptune’s on Friday, Sept. 6. Oslance, meanwhile, will pull triple duty, drumming with The Dead Tongues on Friday’s bill in the 12:30 “technically Saturday” a.m. slot at Pour House, where he’ll return the following night at 10 p.m. with fellow Ashevillian Michael Libramento’s band Coconut Cake.
Ahleuchatistas started in 2002 and, after going through numerous changes, has featured the Parish/Oslance duo since 2009. Over that time, they’ve recorded multiple records together and are excited to present a brand new set at Hopscotch.
“We have these production cycles or life cycles, and we have a lot of down time built into it. So, it’s nice that, as we were gearing up to do a couple other gigs this year, a few months ago, we got together and composed a new concept for what we’re doing — and that was much needed because I think we were getting bored,” Parish says.
“We have new gear and new stuff that moves us forward with what it is we do — and what it is is sort an organism that exists separate from us at the point, but that we can plug in to and then step out of and come back. We have a great relationship to be able to exist longterm. I can see us doing this 20 years from now — if there’s not total ecological collapse of the planet.”
While Ahleuchatistas will be playing at the same time as Sleater-Kinney, a show Parish would love to see, he hopes to catch sets by Dirty Projectors, Moon Duo, Milford Graves, Mdou Moctar, Zen Mother, Susie Ibarra, Luke Stewart, and Anteloper before heading home to Asheville. A passionate supporter of Hopscotch and its programming, he’s also quick with advice for attendees looking to get the most out of the festival.
“See what you want to see, because you can really end up catching 15 minutes of this and that — which can be kind of cool at these types of things. It’s difficult to not be in more than one place at a time,” he says. “And maybe check out some stuff that you have no idea what it is. You could be surprised. A lot of times, if [music fans] don’t know what it is, they’re not going, but having open ears is always a good way to navigate such a diverse and enormous program.”
(Photo by Alex Mousan)
