Interview: Marco Benevento

Last winter, Asheville audiences were treated to a triple dose of Marco Benevento with Warren Haynes’ Christmas Jam Pre-Jam and opening night of the Jam proper in early December, plus a headlining show in late January at The Mothlight with River Whyless singer/songwriter Daniel Shearin.

That local ubiquity is nothing new for the Woodstock, NY-based keyboardist/vocalist, who’s kept Asheville a regular stop on his tours and has played just about every music room in town over the past 20 years. Prior to returning to The Grey Eagle on Tuesday, Jan. 21, in support of his smooth 2019 album, Let It Slide, Benevento spoke with Asheville Stages about local connections, the joys of studio hopping, and his go-to recreational activity.

…on his Christmas Jam experience

That was really fun. It was my first time doing it and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

I’ve known Warren forever. A while ago, the Benevento Russo Duo opened for Gov’t Mule, back in like 2004 or something. And I’ve played with him in various other situations, just sit-in, festival-style situations. We’ve done some stuff along the years — not a lot, but…and I’m close with his keyboard player, Danny [Louis], too.

…on favorite Asheville haunts

There’s this really cool speakeasy bar-type of place that we like to go after gigs. The last time we were there, that’s where we went with a bunch of friends — Mike Gordon [of Phish] being one of them — The Crow & Quill. That place is pretty dope.

I’ve [also] visited the Moog factory many times and have a Moog endorsement and I frickin’ love going there. I should probably mention that place versus a bar. [Laughs] I’m a huge fan of Bob Moog and love the documentary that was made. But, yeah, I have some gear in my studio that I leave in my studio. I don’t really take the Moog out on the road. I just acquired a Moog for my birthday, a Voyager. I used to have a Moog Prodigy back in the day and I have a Moog delay that I use a lot.

I feakin’ love Asheville. Asheville has a little bit of a vortex going on. There’s something cool going on in that town — I can’t figure it out — and weird at the same time.

…on connecting with Shearin — Dan Shearin

It was totally random. I really dug his music and we got along great, hanging out every night for the few nights he was on the road with us. But I don’t know of any…I gotta get my finger on the pulse in Asheville, man! I don’t know who the hip bands are in Asheville these days. It’s been a while. I’ve gotta check it out.

…on whether Let It Slide’s tennis cover image has real-life implications

Yes, and the guy that I made the record with, who produced the record, Leon Michels, is a big tennis player, too. We wound up playing a lot of tennis together and working on music together. It’s kind of how we start our day. [Laughs]

I like singles better just because you get to run around more and get into some good rallies. You get to hit the ball a little more. But I like doubles because it’s like strategy play and team play, and you’re not crazy exhausted at the end. But singles can tend, if you get a good player, you can really run your ass around and get a good workout — which I prefer to do because I’m on the road all the time, so when I’m home I want to do some crazy running and as much exercise as I can.

But I love tennis. I was raised playing. My dad played tennis. He played soccer, too, but he also liked to play tennis. We would play a lot growing up. I have it in me. And Leon did, too, and we just realized we were out of practice, and when we started hitting, we were like, “Oh man, we’ve gotta do this more. We’re going to get so much better quickly.” And we totally dorked out on the whole tennis thing for a while. I went on eBay and bought a bunch of vintage shit. I got the Bjorn Borg outfit.

I’m a baseliner, but I’ll charge the net just to change shit up and see what happens. But I’m mainly baseline.

…on the sonic cohesiveness of Let It Slide, despite its quasi-piecemeal creation

[Credit goes to] Leon. We were just going back and forth between his studio and my studio. It wasn’t too crazy. We did a lot of the basics in one place, which adds to it being cohesive. Leon has a place in Queens called Diamond Mine and we did mainly all the bass and drums there, so that’s also why. But Leon also produced the whole thing, so everything ran through his ears before hitting everybody else’s ears. He really added a lot of his thing to the mix.

I don’t know if you’ve ever checked out his music. He goes my El Michels Affair, which is his thing, his music, his “band.” We made a record with Richard Swift, who unfortunately passed away about a year ago — a great drummer. We made a record with Swift, five or six years ago, and that’s how I met Leon, and I was like, “I’ve got to check out Leon’s stuff.” I wound up subbing for Leon in Dan Auerbach’s band called The Arcs, and that’s how I met him, but my super dope musician friend Richard Swift was just like, “Oh yeah, you gotta check out Leon’s stuff.” And even Dan Auerbach had a lot of really good things to say about Leon.

And then, also, Leon was part of that new Dr. John record [Locked Down] that came out like six or seven years ago, the one Dan produced. Leon was on that as well. But I totally dug all the records he made and wound up calling him up and hitting him up and becoming friends with him and playing tennis with him [laughs] and recording music. His kids are the same age as my kids, too, so it became this whole thing now. We’re hanging out all the time and he got me involved in this Tiny Desk Concert for Freddie Gibbs and Madlib and now we’re doing all sorts of stuff. He’s a super fun new friend.

…on crafting album standout, “Send It on a Rocket”

When we were making the record, I had all those songs demo’d out. I had a lot of tunes demo’d out with this Casio drum machine that I love, that we do use live a bunch. I remember Leon asking me, like, “How married to the drum machine are you?” I’m like, “I don’t care! You can do whatever you want!” So we ditched the drum machine and had Nick Movshon play drums. I guess it originally started with a vastly different thing, but we morphed it into a human sort of drum vibe and all the intricacies that come with that.

What happened was, we pretty much had the tune. We recorded the tune and that whole sort of bridge section, that was all done at my studio. I would say that song is the perfect blend of both studios, where there’s a lot of Leon in there and a lot of Diamond Mine sounds, but then during that bridge where all these synths come out and weird sounds and the piano comes in, that’s all done here at my place. And then we even had our kids sing at the end for sort of a chorus effect on the vocals. That was a top fave for the majority of my friends and family I played that record to.

…on translating the new songs to the stage

It’s been pretty smooth. I made the record with Leon and Nick — it was basically the three of us making the record. And I was playing the rough mixes for Carina [Rykman] and D.B. [Dave Butler], our bass player and drummer, as we were working on the tunes, so they were super psyched. And they were also like, “Yo, send us the music when it’s done because we gotta learn this stuff!” They were wanting to learn all of Nick’s basslines and drum beats. We basically made the record and then we had a couple of practices up here and they just learned all the parts and they got it. So, it wasn’t really an issue at all.

The coolest part about having the rhythm section learn the record is that when we play it live, when we’re on the road for 10 days in a row, or something like that, this music can lend itself to interpretation, too, in certain sections. Particularly “Send It on a Rocket,” when we play it, we tend to sort of jam out on the ending and it kind of has a whole new ending. It’s kind of cool to watch the studio tunes grow into live tunes. Some songs are pretty much the same like on the record, but some songs really lend themselves to stretching them out a little bit.

…on genres he’d like to explore down the line

I definitely listen to a lot of old reggae, like the Studio One records. And I like the stuff that Big Crown [Records] is putting out — that’s Leon’s record label. I like checking out record labels. Now-Again is pretty dope, too. Check them out. Light in the Attic Records is a really cool label and Numero Group is really cool, too, and they cover all sorts of genres from psychedelic funk from Nigeria to Indian movie soundtracks to French…all sort of stuff, all sorts of crate-diggers stuff. All sorts of crazy cool funk and psychedelic and pop and instrumental records — all across the board.

…on newer/emerging artists who inspire him

There are so many. My lord! I listen to all sorts of stuff. Have you ever heard of Field Music? They’re pretty dope. I like listening to everything. Anderson .Paak is pretty cool. Jay Som, have you ever checked her out? Or Cate Le Bon? She’s legit. There’s so much out there.

…on plans for the rest of 2020

I have a lot of new music that I’ll be working on. I’m always working on tunes. We’re still pushing this record. It came out in September, so we’ve still got some ground to cover and I hope to just play more around. We might be playing more in Europe. I think it would be cool to do some shows over there. I’m looking forward to that. We just got a European booking agent, so that was cool. We went to Japan in the Fall, so that sort of sparked this whole bug of us being, “We’ve gotta go to other places!” We went and played in England a few years back. I think maybe that would be a cool new thing to maybe try and do this year, so I hope we do that.

IF YOU GO

Who: Marco Benevento with Ian Ferguson
When: Tuesday, Jan. 21, 8 p.m.
Where: The Grey Eagle, 185 Clingman Ave., thegreyeagle.com
Tickets: $15 advance/$18 day of show

(Photos by Matt Long)