Interview with Umphrey's McGee

Umphrey’s McGee Member, Joel Cummins discusses all of Umphrey’s Glory, from Bear Creek and Beyond

Issue #22

Ignition staff writer, Sarah Locke recently sat down with Umphrey’s McGee member, Joel Cummins to discuss how the six-piece jam band and improv kings’ spent their summer, and what all they have lined up for the next year, including Bear Creek Festival which took place the second week of November at Live Oak’s Spirit of Suwannee Music Park. 

Congratulations on your successes thus far with 2011’s Death by Stereo, your first studio album since 2009’s Mantis. I know it took you guys close to 2 ½ years to finish Mantis, so what was the process like for this one? How long did it take to finish?
Cummins: With Mantis, we had a defined goal of coming up with all new material that we hadn’t played live, and to make an album with it, but still have the material be related. With Death by Stereo, our vision wasn’t quite going in that direction; it was more of having a bunch of new songs that weren’t necessarily related, in fact I kind of felt that there were two different sounds, one of them going in more of a danceable groove with songs like Deeper and Miami Virtue, and then a little bit in the proggier direction that Mantis was in with tracks like, “The Floor” and “Domino Theory”. I think that’s something that, going into it, we kind of recognized and it’s always been that way for us- we’re really about trying to get a concise and definitive version of the song in the studio, and so that’s what we were doing. We were looking at each song like its own little piece, its own creative element, and I think for the most part, that’s how listeners experience music today, so it makes sense to treat them with their own identities.

Every great improvisational band has incredible onstage chemistry. How long did it take to develop that chemistry with one another? I know you’ve all been friends for years, but as far as knowing where each of you are going musically, you don’t even have to give one another a nod or anything, it’s insane.
Cummins: We’ve come up with a lot of tricks over the years to communicate with each other. It’s almost like its own language in a sense because once you’ve played with somebody for a long time, you understand what they mean musically and what their intentions are,  but that’s something that can only really come with time, and just hours of playing together. We’ve also created a few visual cues to let each other know to do something. Our most recent thing though is our talkback mics so that we can actually say something since we all have in-ear monitors. I’ve played music for almost 30 years, and it really feels like just in the last five years, my ear has gotten to the point where I can hear what everybody’s playing individually and am able to play it back and understand and process what’s happening at such a quick level.  I think that’s a huge thing that doesn’t really get talked about much as far as like what you’re saying, having chemistry together and being able to understand what the others are playing.
We try to make it sound composed when we improvise, and really, we’re not an improvisational band in the sense of being noodly or getting away from melody. I feel like we always have this force that’s moving in a certain direction so when you’re able to identify it and respond in a certain way, that makes it a more cohesive and composed overall sound. The other thing that sometimes happens is that we come up with these things on the spot and later use them for parts of a song if it’s working.

How was your recent sUMmer School turnout? I know back in December you’d already sold 75 tickets or so.
Cummins: It was great. I think we ended up with about 110 students, and they told us it was the largest one they’d done. I’d say it went better than any of us had anticipated. Whenever you wander into uncharted territories and have people’s expectations about an event already high, it can be a challenge, but we put in a lot of work beforehand. I think one of the best pieces of advice we got from a few of our friends  who’d already done these, was to focus on what we think is special about Umphrey’s McGee-  what we do that’s different than other bands. We really focused on songwriting, improvisation, and all the things that make us tick as a band. We did a lot of breakout sessions too like master guitar and keyboard classes, and also technology and music business classes.

Any new developments with your Holidaze events? I know you were looking at Costa Rica and Puerto Rico as potential locations.
Cummins: Yes! My goodness, you’re really up on all this! How do you know that?

Because I do my research, that’s my job!
Cummins: That’s a good answer, nice work. Yeah, we’ve checked out a couple spots there. We also have two other potential locations, so I think 2013 is going to see a new home for Holidaze, which is really exciting for us.
 
I know you guys had to turn down playing this year’s Cannabis Cup. Any plans on making that up in the future?  That would be amazing to see.
Cummins: That was rather disappointing. I really wish we could’ve done that, but it’s a situation where we had the time off, but a couple guys had things going on. But I’ve always felt like we could go over very well in Europe, and whenever we have time to go do that, I’m all about spending more time playing there.

Your usual live format is a two-set show with an encore, but I also know that depending on the festival, sometimes its cut shorter. I’m curious though, what’s the longest lunge set you’ve ever played?
Cummins: I don’t know, that’s a good question. There’s got to be a couple times where we played for two hours straight, but I don’t know when that was. I know that this most recent show we did at Red Rocks was definitely one of the longer two-set shows that we’ve done, but I don’t know, I mean, are you going to tell me?
 

Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer to that one. Surprised?
Is it true that you coined the term Jimmy Stewart improv because of a particular rehearsal inside of a hotel’s Jimmy Stewart Ballroom?
Cummins: That is actually true, yeah. It was at the Renaissance Hotel in Pittsburgh, and it was our good friend, Jimmy Welch who is our webmaster and set list moderator- very good segue of questions there- but yeah, we were playing his wedding and at the end of the night, we had the brilliant idea after drinking for seven or eight hours, that we should go down there and try to play again. We were like, let’s turn out the lights in here, and maybe they won’t know where it’s coming from. Then we realized that if we took off the safety wheels of even being able to see each other, we could still improvise together, so it gave us kind of a boost of confidence and an avenue that we could further explore. We didn’t really improvise very much before, so that’s where the term was coined. That was in September of 2001.

Can you give us a sneak peek of what you guys have planned for the next year or so? 
Cummins: Just trying to tour a bunch January through March. I think a lot of those dates are going to be announced right after this tour in the beginning of November. Next year is our 15th anniversary, so we have some pretty big things planned to celebrate that, including a stop at a legendary NYC venue that we’ve yet to play. We’re going to be getting together in the middle of this tour to work on some potential new songs for the next release. We’ve also got a return date to Red Rocks next year pretty set in stone.

Everyone here at Ignition is looking forward to seeing you guys at Bear Creek Fest, that’s for sure.
Cummins: Nice! I can tell you this much- that’s one of my favorite venues in the world right there! We’re going to play the amphitheatre stage in the front which we haven’t done for a couple years. That’s one of the most gorgeous stages there. We couldn’t quite fit on it before, so now that they’ve added wings to it, it’s really going to happen. I can’t wait to get back there.

And we can’t either!
For more information on Umphrey’s McGee, visit their website at www.umphreys.com