at this link<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe Catalyst spoke with founding guitarist Chuck Garvey, who reports he\u2019s on the mend following a devastating stroke at the end of 2021 (bassist Rob Derhak underwentr treatment for cancer a few years before that).<\/p>\n
The news is all good for this ever-innovative band of brothers. Could a couple of measly health scare actually slow these dedicated guys down, when there\u2019s music to be made?<\/p>\n
The answer, of course, is No (aka no.).<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
St. Pete Catalyst: Let\u2019s start here, my friend. How\u2019s everything going?<\/p>\n
Chuck Garvey: Things are going well. After my stroke, it was a very slow process of getting back, getting speech and playing guitar again. And still I have to work on it. I actually warm up before I do something like this (interview), I have to think about getting my brain in a good space where I can actually find words and talk.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a weird thing, but I feel like I\u2019m doing really well. I feel good.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the things I like about jam bands, and about Moe in particular, is that there aren\u2019t any boundaries, or restrictions on the styles of music you play. No \u2018That\u2019s not what we do.\u2019 Has not pigeonholing yourselves been the rule from Day One?<\/p>\n
Yeah! Everything was up for grabs. Even within a song, we wanted to have a couple different kind of feels, or genres, included. And even if it was weird, or ill-advised, it was kind of funny and fun for us to do that.<\/p>\n
And we still feel that way. Why limit yourself? So we still want to use every new song as a new starting point.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
After 35 years together, how do you continue to pull new things out of each other? <\/p>\n
One thing that we do is: Every show is a mix of all of these songs that we\u2019ve written over 35 years. It\u2019s a different show, and hopefully we will present them in a different way. Or we\u2019ll have segues, or bridges between, song-to-song. And that stuff \u2026 sometimes we come up with something new. Completely new that we never tried before.<\/p>\n
Even though we\u2019re the same people \u2026 it\u2019s like your family. Sometimes you know what your sister or brother would say. But there might be a new spin on it; and also, everyone has grown in a different way throughout their whole lives.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think any of us want to be like a rote player. And also, one of the things that we really want is improvisation.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Does the existing fan base sustain you? Is that all you need? Or is there something higher to reach for, like \u2018This next album will be the one to take us over the top\u2019? <\/p>\n
\u00a0At this point, odds are not in favor of that happening! But at the same time, if we don\u2019t see or listen to music that we bond with enough, hopefully we will actually make our own version of that.<\/p>\n
And one of these days, maybe people will find our music, and maybe it\u2019ll blow up in a different way. But we\u2019re not really thinking that we\u2019re going to blow up.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But is it enough?<\/p>\n
I have heard so many bands who have played five years, 10 years, even 20, but they fall apart or they don\u2019t want to deal with each other. Or whatever! And we are very lucky that we have our fan base and our friendship. Everything is intact.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re really lucky that we can hold on to all of this right now, in our lives. There\u2019s no other way to say it.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Is playing live still an adventure? Do you still get off on that?<\/p>\n
Oh, yeah. If you been in a band for any time, and you\u2019ve been on the road, either playing the same show every night or doing something like we do where you have to try to improvise \u2026 a lot of people don\u2019t like being on the road. It\u2019s not the best way to live. But being onstage and being able to have a job like this where you can create, that\u2019s the buzz for everything. Like, this is the reason you\u2019re on the road, trying to make something new on the spot.<\/p>\n
And that feeling is always a lure to keep going. And keep playing with your friends.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stalwarts of the jam band universe for three and a half decades, the half-dozen guys named Moe stir…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-200181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}