Wade Schuman interview

Wade Schuman joins me on episode 60.

Wade is the singer / songwriter and leader, and of course harmonica player, of the New York based 8-piece band, Hazmat Modine, with the harmonica playing a pivotal role in the sound of such a big band. In fact, there is often a second harmonica player in the band.

Wade absorbed many musical genres from a young age, which helped shape the eclectic styles of music played by Hazmat Modine, from African, Asian, Klezmer, Caribbean, all with an American roots core. The band has released five albums, with another in the pipeline.

Wade started out learning pre-war harmonica, an approach he has integrated so well into the big band line-up. And he was a central part of the New York harmonica scene in the early 1990s, mixing with many of players who have gone on to establish themselves as the leading players in the harmonica community of today.

Links:
http://www.hazmatmodine.com/

Yazoo album of 1920s & 30s harmonica:
https://www.downhomemusic.com/product/harmonica-blues-great-harmonica-performances-of-the-1920s-and-30s/

Harmonicas, Harps and Heavy Breathers book by Kim Field:
https://www.kimfield.com/new-page-2

Pat. Missin website:
https://www.patmissin.com

Hog2 Octave pedal:
https://www.ehx.com/products/hog2/

European tour 2022:
http://www.hazmatmodine.com/tour-summer22.html

Videos:
Wade playing with Hog 2 octave pedal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjEgH7YAmEw

Live at the BBC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeiWUMpVdpQ

Outdoor concert filmed for the Nobel Laureate Committee:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llL5v5PL9dA

Solo piece at Stockholm Jazz festival:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwgN8IgLNI4&t=13s

Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/

Chapters

• 1:26 Origins of Wade’s name
• 2:15 Now lives in New York, where in settled in the 1990s. Originally from Michigan
• 2:33 Influence’s on Wade’s music
• 3:32 Enjoys music from all different cultures and styles
• 4:18 Started playing harmonica around age 10 and first harmonicas owned
• 4:43 Hohner made some of their harmonicas in Ireland
• 5:28 What drew Wade to playing the harmonica
• 6:18 Wade’s generation of players learnt to play by ear and were self-taught
• 6:59 Where blues music originated from and why Wade writes his own music
• 9:26 Harmonica was part of the immigrant culture of the USA
• 10:34 Wade’s approach to playing the harmonica
• 12:14 Harmonica is usually self-taught, with few structured lessons and why that is
• 13:09 What Wade sees as the strengths of the harmonica
• 13:59 Is the singer in Hazmat Modine
• 14:47 Started the band with another harmonica player, Randy Weinstein
• 15:08 After playing harmonica from 10, stopped playing for a few years due to quality issues with the instrument
• 15:59 Got back into playing harmonica in the late 80s and discovered minor key harmonicas
• 16:26 A group of US harmonica players discovered each other in the early 90s, including Joe Filisko, Kim Field, Howard Levy and Pat Missin
• 17:57 Wade’s strengths on the harmonica
• 18:47 Discovered overblows and incorporated some into his playing
• 20:31 Some of the younger players have great technique now, helped by online resources
• 21:01 When became a bandleader became really interested in songwriting
• 22:12 The origin of the name Hazmat Modine
• 23:14 A group of harmonica players started meeting in New York: The New York Reedsters Club
• 24:12 The harmonica group is where he met Randy Weinstein, and they formed Hazmat Modine
• 24:43 Other instruments were added to the band, eventually making eight members
• 25:22 The role of the harmonica in such a big band and having two harmonicas in the band
• 27:25 Wade is now the only harmonica player in the band
• 28:10 The different genres played by the band and where Wade drew inspiration for that
• 29:11 First album from the band is Bahamut, crafted over seven years at great expense
• 32:49 About to record a new album
• 34:19 Lots of virtuoso playing now, but it’s niche
• 35:51 Songwriting is the primary goal of music for Wade
• 36:11 Second album is Cicada and then a live album was released
• 37:23 Box Of Breathe album is the most recent, with Extra Deluxe Supreme released before that
• 37:48 Extra Deluxe Supreme song
• 38:36 Song with Son of Dave
• 40:13 Harmonica players obsession with gear
• 40:37 Dark River song uses a cheap karaoke mic with the harmonica
• 41:50 Has used a wireless mic from the beginning
• 42:07 Uses octave pedal and being a forerunner of using pedals
• 43:08 Jason Ricci has encouraged more harmonica players to use effects
• 43:36 Uses clean microphone and sound
• 44:07 The sort of sound favoured by the other harmonica players in band
• 45:13 Lost Fox Train song dedicated to Joe Filisko
• 46:43 The harmonica community is very supportive of each other
• 47:21 Steve Baker book revolutionised the harmonica scene
• 47:41 Doesn’t do much session work, but has done a little
• 48:42 More on the collaborations Hazmat Modine have done
• 50:06 Ten minute question
• 50:30 Amp taking on tour and autowah pedal
• 51:28 Harmonicas of choice: plays Filisko customised harmonicas
• 51:49 Off-the-shelf harmonicas are such good quality now
• 52:10 Influence Steve Baker has had on harmonicas community
• 52:30 Using low tuned harmonicas recently
• 52:42 Used Seydel harmonicas for a time and likes them
• 53:07 Still uses a lot of minor tuned harmonicas
• 53:52 Strengths of Wade’s harmonica playing
• 54:09 Embouchre and over emphasis on technique these days
• 56:25 Touring Europe in June / July 22 and plans for new album

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Wade Schumann joins me on episode 60. Wade is the singer, songwriter and leader and of course harmonica player of the New York-based eight-piece band Hazmat Maudine, with the harmonica playing a pivotal role in the sound of such a big band. In fact, there is often a second harmonica player in the band. Wade absorbed many musical genres from a young age, which helped shape the eclectic styles of music played by Hazmat Mordin, from African, Asian, Klezmer, Caribbean, all with an American roots core. The band has released five albums, with another in the pipeline. Wade started out learning pre-war harmonica, an approach he has integrated so well into the big band line-up. and he was a central part of the New York harmonica scene in the early 1990s, mixing with many of the players who have gone on to establish themselves as the leading lights in the harmonica community of today. I'm delighted to announce that Seidel Harmonicas have agreed to sponsor the podcast. Be sure to visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Seidel Harmonicas. Really appreciate it, guys. Welcome aboard. Hello, Wade Schumann, and welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24

Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25

First of all, we'll start with your name. So, Wade, that's quite an unusual name. Where did you get that one from?

SPEAKER_01: 1:31

My great-grandfather was an artist, and he was very obsessed with trees. So he gave trees all around his neighborhood. He gave them names. So on my uncle's lawn was an ancient, was a balsam tree of some kind. And it was called the Jotham Wade tree. Jotham Wade was an ancestor in the family from England, as a matter of fact. It's my middle name, and I'm named after a tree.

SPEAKER_00: 2:00

What about the name Schumann? Where does that come

SPEAKER_01: 2:02

from? Well, so my father's Jewish. He's from Cincinnati, Ohio. And my mother was old, old New England wasp. So I'm a conglomerate of two different Jews. pools.

SPEAKER_00: 2:15

And now, of course, you're living in New York. Have you always been a resident of New York?

SPEAKER_01: 2:19

No, I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, went to school in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, spent a lot of time traveling over the years. I moved to New York in 97 and I started the band shortly after moving here.

SPEAKER_00: 2:33

Your music is a conglomeration of lots of different styles and genres. So was that from your traveling when you were younger then?

SPEAKER_01: 2:39

No, I think often artists and musicians crystallize on their very early impulses and experiences. I had a brother who was seven years older than me, who was an extremely talented pianist and obsessive music collector. So from the age of seven on, I was hearing music constantly, and his tastes were also really unusual for that time. We're talking the 60s, early 70s. So he was very interested in pre-war music, stride piano, boogie woogie, blues. Kind of unusually, I was listening to that music constantly from a very young age. You know, he was also listening to Bulgarian music and Romanian music. So I was hearing Eastern European music. And then I kind of followed his tendency of just constantly searching out music. I really enjoy music from all different cultures, all different languages, all different styles. But it's interesting to me that a lot of people find music from other cultures either unpalatable or alien. I've just never felt that way. For whatever reason, I can be very moved by, say, Middle Eastern music or African music or Central Asian music. All of that makes a lot of sense to me emotionally, even if I don't know the language. So to me, it's all kind of mix together.

SPEAKER_00: 4:18

So I think you started playing harmonica around the age 10, was it?

SPEAKER_01: 4:22

Yeah, I think I got the first two harmonicas I remember having. One was an echo harp I got actually in Scotland. My parents, we moved there briefly. I guess I was around sixth grade. I'm not sure how old you are, 11 maybe. I got an echo harp. I think my other first harmonica was a Lancer harmonica made by Hohner. Briefly, Hohner was making harmonicas in Ireland. They made the Pan American harmonica, the Lancer harmonica, the Pan Canadian harmonica. My first diatonic was this Lancer harmonica. I got at the Campus Bike and Toy in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

SPEAKER_00: 5:03

That's new on me that they made those harmonicas in Ireland. So yeah, you learn something new every day.

SPEAKER_01: 5:08

Well, it's funny to have a harmonica. The theme of it was a knight on a horse with a lance. Now, what that has to do with a harmonica, I have no idea. But in the early part of the 20th century, they were just making so many different harmonicas and they had all different themes and ideas and names just to get people to buy another harmonica, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 5:28

So what drew you two playing the harmonica in the first place

SPEAKER_01: 5:31

you know i was a kid i didn't have much money it was easier to get it was easy to carry around you could just play on it constantly uh i would ride my bike and play no-handed and then you know uh one of the first records i got my brother gave me was harmonica blues of the 20s and 30s on yazoo records so And I just became obsessed with that record and tried to learn everything on the record. And I also had a Sonny Terry and Brian McGee record that I had found in the trash. You know, those were the two kind of fundamental influences when I was like 10. My generation of harmonica players are kind of interstitial. There were no lessons. There was basically two books. There was no information. And we just learned learn from listening and kind of trying to replicate what we heard. But most, you know, so I'll be 60 this summer. I was born in 1962. And then, you know, the previous generation of harmonica players who largely played blues are probably in their 70s now. So, you know, 10 years older. None of us had the podcasts or YouTube or lessons. We are all more or less self-taught. And there are good things and bad things about that. There's also the very strange cultural phenomenon of blues where primarily the people learning and playing were white people playing music that had its origins in African American culture. That's a very bizarre transference if you think about it. A music form that arises from one culture and then kind of dies out in that culture and is then taken up by another group of people with a different history. You know, I think that there's a lot of paradigm One of the reasons why I write my own music is because on some fundamental level, I feel discomfort with replicating a language that is not my cultural origin in many ways. My approach to music and the harmonica is that I want to create something of my own for my own time with my own language. And it's deeply, profoundly influenced by blues and influenced by specifically those early blues. techniques I learned, but I don't want to be a kind of historical jukebox.

SPEAKER_02: 8:08

So

SPEAKER_00: 8:26

Yeah, but again, it's interesting because, again, we'll get onto it more shortly when we talk about the band. But you've already alluded to, you know, you've taken lots of influence from lots of different cultures. So that's a very important part of your music.

SPEAKER_01: 8:37

It is. When I was very young, I was very interested in playing pre-war music, the 20s and 30s, which was a high watermark in American culture on all sorts of levels. If America is a melting pot between African American culture and English immigrant culture and colonial culture, it comes on to its own in the 20s and 30s, where you have a kind of beginning of American cultural dominance. And a lot of that has to do with jazz and blues and gospel, but also kind of modernist artistic culture. And so that was a point of real interest to me because there's a freshness and a vivacity and kind of profound creative aspect of what happened at that time. And harmonica was a part of that because harmonica was an instrument of immigrants, right? It was cheap, it was easy to move around, it came from Germany, and it was played not just by African Americans, but by all sorts of people coming to America or in America because it was a cheap and portable instrument. The techniques used at that time were really quite sophisticated. You know, cross-heart playing, which people associate with blues, was also widely used in country, southern country music. The imitative qualities of the harmonica where it imitates trains and fox chases and things is also cross-cultural. It wasn't just an African-American invention. In fact, fox chases go back to English and Scottish music on the fiddle back to the 19th century at least. To me, it's all interrelated. And those places where you have synthesis is where creativity happens. And I'm interested in creativity. And I try to stay close to the ethic of the quality that makes American music interesting without literalness to form.

SPEAKER_00: 10:34

Talking a bit more about your musical background. So you learned some other instruments, I think, back in high school.

SPEAKER_01: 10:40

I really only play harmonica. I play guitar. I enjoy it greatly, but I play entirely by ear. I don't read or write. My approach to music has been kind of from the outside in. You know, I pick up things and I play them And I play them with feeling, I hope, but I'm neither a sophisticated chromatic player nor somebody who does literal replication of things. And those are both strong points and weak points. I'd say my greatest facility was playing those earlier styles. And I can, I have some very good technique in that regard, but I kind of learned more by obsessive compulsiveness than any ordered structure. And I think that also reflects my generation. You know, if you listen to Paul Butterfield play juke, it's a total approximation. He's a pucker player. He's not tongue blocking. If you compare it to contemporary musicians who play Chicago style, their precision and technical virtuosity in terms of understanding the language is much more sophisticated and closer to the origin. But for me personally, I prefer Butterfield because I think he's a creative guy and he was doing something else in a way.

SPEAKER_00: 12:13

I think it's interesting with harmonica, isn't it? Because most people are, you know, sort of self-taught. They just, like you say, play along with records, maybe take some lessons off the internet these days. We definitely don't have structured lessons like, say, you get in violin, and it gives the instrument a much more about feel, isn't it? You know, what is it about the harmonica which lends itself to that, do you think?

SPEAKER_01: 12:32

Well, I think it's the nature of the instrument that it's not taken seriously and it's not approached in a conservatory manner. I think it's also the history of the instrument and the music associated with it. I mean, it's essentially a folk instrument to begin with. The chromatic harmonica came fairly late in the game, you know, early 20th century, really. It has some limitations as a chromatic instrument. To play legato through from top to bottom with complete fluidity is a difficult thing on the harmonica. But because of its oddness, it allows for qualities that other instruments don't have. I mean, what I like about the harmonica, for me, is that it's a rhythmic instrument that It plays chords and can play melody, has a glissando that is vocal-like. And the rhythmic aspect and the vocal aspect are what make it very special. If you think about saxophone, it can do vocal-like glissando, but it doesn't play chords. Harmonica has some qualities that make it special. To me, the chromatic aspect of it is much less attractive than it would be on saxophone or piano or even guitar because although it can do that I don't think it does that in a way that sonically is as beautiful to me as other things it does.

SPEAKER_00: 13:54

Yeah and I think it's that vocal quality of the harmonica as well isn't it that people respond so well to. Not forgetting of course you say you're only a harmonica player but of course you are the singer as well in the band so that's an important part of your role.

UNKNOWN: 0:00

...

SPEAKER_01: 14:19

So, you know, I've had my own journey. I started really playing harmonica. I moved to New York. I thought, okay, if I'm going to do music, I want to do my music. And so I'll have to be the band leader because if I'm going to spend time doing it all, I'm going to do only what I want and nobody else does what I want to do because I'm I have an odd assortment of influences and tastes. And so I started the band with another harmonica, Randy Weinstein, who's a remarkable harmonica player, very creative guy. My original idea was to have a harmonica band, but I couldn't find anybody really besides Randy who would play in the band. I couldn't find like four harmonica players. I'll back up a bit. I played harmonica from 10 and then I hitchhiked around Europe for a year. I played in the streets. And at that time, I was just playing pre-war stuff, ragtime blues. And, you know, I was very influenced by like Sonny Terry and Peg Leg Sam and Dee Ford Bailey and Gwen Foster. Those are all pre-war players, more or less. I mean, Sonny Terry isn't, but stylistically he is. And then I gave up harmonica in the early 80s. At that point, there was mainly Hohner. It was So I was so frustrated and there was Suzuki also at the time, but they were hard to get. It was a very different world. Like I said, everything has changed. So I was frustrated. I was in art school. I was focusing on painting. I just gave up harmonica for like, I don't know, eight years, nine years. Then at the end of the eighties, I was down in Baltimore and I saw a Suzuki harmonica in a window and I'd never seen one before. And it was, I forget what it was called, but it had a metal comb and it was clear in the attempt to make a high quality. So I bought it. That kind of got me back into it. And so I started playing again. I also at that time kind of discovered the minor key harmonicas, which were also really exciting. There was this kind of explosion at the end of the 80s, early 90s, where there were new instruments available. And then a bunch of us kind of found each other, kind of obsessive harmonica geeky people. So at that time, I met Richard Slay and I met Joe Felisco. Somebody gave me an article about Joe, and so I wrote a letter to him in Joliet, Illinois. At that time, there was no email, right? And then I got his number, called him, and we became quite close. And then I also got Kim Field's book, you know, The History of the Harmonica, Harps, what's it called?

SPEAKER_00: 17:01

Heavy Breathers one, yeah, Harmonica.

SPEAKER_01: 17:03

Right. So I just called information, got Kim's number, and called him up. He was living in Massachusetts. So it was this kind of exciting connect. And that was also the time where, you know, people suddenly became aware of Howard Levy and his extended techniques. It was this kind of both a personal excitement for me, kind of new materials, new instruments, new technical ideas, also information. I was also in touch with Pat Misson, who's this kind of secret genius. There was Bob Shatkin who passed away. We all kind of found each other. And, you know, we'd all kind of existed in isolation. I had never really met anybody. The only other harmonica player I'd ever really met, he was in Ann Arbor, where I grew up. But I didn't really know Matt Catt well. And, you know, he was older than me. So I kind of learned on my own. You know, I had developed a pretty impressive technique for a young guy in terms of my own style and fairly fluid up and down the harmonica. And I think I think also because of my attention to the pre-war players, tone was an important aspect of it. Rhythm was an important aspect of it. And also bends on the higher end of the harmonica, which traditional blues players tended to avoid for some reason. Post-war players did. And then in the late 80s, early 90s, by accident, I had heard of overblows, but I'd never heard anybody do it. And then I was playing with somebody. I had a, I think it was a D-flat orchestra. I don't remember if you remember the orchestra harmonicas. They no longer make them. It was a honer harmonica with a, it had metal teeth in the cone. They were the first honer harmonicas that were in harmonic minor. They didn't have natural minor. They have harmonic minor. They have different orchestra harmonicas in different keys and sizes. And anyway, I accidentally played a six over blow. And I was like, holy smokes, this actually exists, you know, because I just heard of it, but I never done it or heard anybody do it. So then I kind of got obsessed with that, drove everybody crazy, you know, making awful sounds. But that also became part of my technical language was involved, you know, playing more modern techniques mixed with the older technique.

SPEAKER_00: 19:46

Do you play many overblows now?

SPEAKER_01: 19:48

Yeah, but I'm not even close to somebody like Howard. The overbow six is the best bend in the harmonica in a way because, you know, you can bend it up and you can start up and go down, but you can bend it, I think, a tone and a half. So, you know, in terms of gliss, you know, second to the two and three hole... It's the largest gliss on the instrument, practically. And it's an important note in blues scales, right? So I tend to use that fairly often stylistically, and I use overdraws. At a certain point, when I started being a band leader, over time, my musical emphasis has really shifted. I mean, two things happen. One, I'm no longer a hotshot. There's so many people that are way hotter shotters than And I am. There are people who are just mind-boggling now. They also benefit from, you know, endless YouTube demonstrations by people like Jason. And I think this is something that's not just for Monica. It's everywhere. Like technical prowess has grown phenomenally in instrumental. That has its own issues. You know, I really became a band leader and then I got really interested in songwriting. Musically, to me, songwriting is the most interesting aspect of being a musician because you're just giving birth to something that didn't exist before. And the challenge of lyrics and melody together is are really complex and hard. You know, like you can write melodies and you can write poetry, but writing lyrics that relate to a melody that deal with content is another kind of creative language.

SPEAKER_02: 21:37

And

SPEAKER_01: 21:48

I find that Most harmonica players are oriented towards being instrumentalists. And I've really become less and less interested in that over time and more interested in the idea of creating music, creating a sound, creating synthesis.

SPEAKER_00: 22:06

I think that comes through because your harmonica, it's part of a big whole, isn't it? So let's get on to the band now. So your band is, if people haven't heard of it already, I'm sure they have, is Hazmat Mordeen. Probably worth you just explaining what the name means.

SPEAKER_01: 22:20

Hazmat is a word for hazardous materials. So you see it on... Thank you. tunnels and trucks and, you know, no hazmats allowed. And Modine is a brand of heater that uses forced air from a small town in Illinois. It's an American brand. I just, I like the name Modine. It sounds like a 50s band. I like the fact that the name sounds exotic, but it's really quite American.

SPEAKER_00: 22:48

So the band has been going now for, I think, 24 years. I think you said 1998 you formed it.

SPEAKER_01: 22:53

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:54

Initially, it was with... Randy Weinstein, yes, as you mentioned. And it grew from there into what is now a big band with what, like eight, nine members, yeah?

SPEAKER_01: 23:02

Well, so the original idea was I wanted to have a harmonica band. I approached Dennis Gruenling. He was a kid at the time. He wasn't interested. You know, he does his own thing. Randy and I met. So when I moved to New York, I met Rob Paparazzi. He's a professional harmonica player living in this area. One of the main studio harmonica players.

UNKNOWN: 23:25

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 23:34

We started something called the New York Readsters Club, I think it was. And once or twice a year, we'd have a get-together with all these professional harmonica players. So Donnie Brooks, I don't know if you know Donnie, played with the outlaws like Wayling Jennings. Pierre Beauregard came from the Cape. Joe Felisco came. Howard came a bunch of times. And then we had a bunch of the older chromatic players. The Skrull Brothers came. I mean, it was really kind of an amazing thing. All these people, you know, like I said, we kind of found each other at the time. Kim Field came. It was just a group. And Randy was one of the people who was brought by somebody else. So I met him. Everybody went around the table, said what they were interested in. Ironically, Randy and I were interested in the same thing. So I said, okay, let's start a band. For a year, we met and didn't really do anything. And then a friend of mine had a wedding. He said, well, you could play the wedding. And I was like, okay, I've got to get this together. I always wanted wanted tuba because i just think it's an amazing instrument never had a bass player from the beginning we've had a tuba player from the very

SPEAKER_02: 24:42

beginning

SPEAKER_01: 24:43

so it started with two harmonicas guitar tuba and drums over the years you know personnel has changed or morphed now you know it has a full horn section so we have saxophone uh he also plays clarinet and flute and we have trumpet and we have trombone we've had various times had two harmonicas two guitars but but we've also used accordion, claviola. We've collaborated with African bands and Kronos Quartet. Over the years, the band has really grown both in terms of instrumentation, but also like my concept of what I'm doing with it.

SPEAKER_00: 25:22

What about the role of the harmonica in such a big outfit then? Because I think a lot of harmonica players might be intimidated by the fact that there are all these other instruments, you know, saxophone and clarinets and flutes, but that's something you embraced, right? You want at all those instruments.

SPEAKER_01: 25:35

Yeah, I mean, I love the palette and I'm greedy. And, you know, I always like this instrument. I want this instrument. I want that instrument. Initially, the sound was very much about the diatonic and chromatic together. And Randy also, you know, swings both ways. So he plays chromatic very well and he plays diatonic very well. But, you know, that sound of two harmonicas, I really love.

UNKNOWN: 26:03

piano plays Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 26:10

Because when I first started writing songs, I had an old boombox, and I just, you know, I did what a lot of harmonica players have done over time, is just overdubbed one over the other. And that was kind of the first idea of the sound of the band. Like, I couldn't play two harmonicas at once, so I wanted to find other harmonica players to do it.

SPEAKER_00: 26:30

There's not many bands with two harmonicas. Bacon Fat comes to mind.

SPEAKER_01: 26:34

I mean, it was completely unusual. I mean, as far as I know, it was the only band... know for over 10 years it was always two harmonicas i think harmonica players are often insecure they overplay and they're competitive but i just like the sound i also like the sound of chromatic against diatonic because they're really basically kind of two different instruments

SPEAKER_00: 26:57

yeah i think that is unique i don't think there's any band i've heard with a chromatic and a diatonic regularly playing together

SPEAKER_01: 27:03

right and and randy has beautiful tone because he studied chicago playing first before he became a jazz player so he can really get a great sound. And then after Randy left, he was in the band about 10 years. We had Bill Barrett, who's also an extraordinarily talented chromatic player. And he was in the band, I think, five or six years.

SPEAKER_00: 27:25

So are you the only harmonica player now?

SPEAKER_01: 27:28

I am. You know, after Bill left, I just didn't feel it was necessary to have both. It's honestly very hard to find someone who plays, generally speaking, diatonic players play blues or rock, chromatic players play jazz or classical and we don't play any of those really. The kind of music I play is not really jazz but it's definitely not really blues or rock. So finding people who are interested in doing it and also have the ability to play fluidly in that musical context is just not that common.

SPEAKER_00: 28:06

We'll talk through some of the albums that the band's had now just to get a flavour of all the different styles of music you play. So, you know, reading through the list, you sort of played African music, Asian music, Caribbean, Klezmer, Gypsy, you know, all we kind of blues as its core and a kind of American roots band, I think you describe it as, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 28:23

I would say we're influenced by all those musics, but I don't purport to play any of that. I've never studied Romanian music. I've never studied Central Asian music. I'm just influenced by it kind of tonally and conceptually. I've never been interested in being a kind of repertoire. You know, like people play Irish music and they learn Irish music and they learn all the ornaments and stuff. That's beautiful, but that's not the kind of musician I am. I think people hear that a lot of our songs are in minor and they jump to assumptions, you know. And I also would say that so many people in the band come from different musical languages that the end result is the influence, but not the literal truth. So

SPEAKER_00: 29:11

talking about your first album, which was released in 2006, I think, Bahamut. A fantastic album. If anyone hasn't heard it, I highly recommend you check it out. So I think this took you sort of five years to get out there. Were you putting it together for five years? I think it

SPEAKER_01: 29:25

took seven years.

SPEAKER_00: 29:27

I mean,

SPEAKER_01: 29:28

I would say my strength musically is taste. That is, I have a very clear idea of what I'm trying to do. And it comes from... very deep impulses and sensibilities i wanted it to be exactly what i wanted it to be somebody once said to me you know the difference between now is in the old days musicians played all the time and toured but they hardly ever recorded and if they did record it was very expensive and they didn't have control now everybody can record anything at any time very easily but nobody plays all the time and and performs all the time like in the old days and i think that's very true. And I think a lot of contemporary production is not very creative and not very sophisticated in terms of the concept of what an album is. And I am profoundly in love with the old-fashioned idea of an assortment of related musical ideas that create a kind of overall aesthetic effect. I didn't just want a record of the band. I wanted to create a piece of art that existed in and of itself. You know, say like how Sgt. And so Bahama took me a long time because I just didn't like so many things. And I've also always been interested in field recordings. I did a lot of recordings of sounds and brought things together. That first album is really made of many different musicians who maybe came in the band or left the band, were placed by other musicians. It was hard won. I probably spent$70,000, at least, making that album. making that album over those years, which was a lot of money.

SPEAKER_00: 31:33

Yeah, but it was really well received when it came out. And again, it is a fantastic album. I think, you know, what a mixture of fantastic songs on there and lots of great harmonica on there too. So it did well. Did you recoup much of that$70,000?

SPEAKER_01: 31:47

Yeah, I mean, back in those days, people bought music. So this was kind of at the very end of a certain time. You know, we were doing something that was a little bit cutting edge and that there was interest at that time. The wall had come down and East Eastern European music was influencing, brass music was influencing kind of a certain scene in New York. And we were kind of associated with a certain kind of scene at that time. And there was still record stores and airplay. The title track, Bahama, was kind of a hit and still is a hit.

UNKNOWN: 32:23

¶¶ Bye.

SPEAKER_01: 32:41

I still sell that album all the time. Now, of course, nobody really buys music. Everybody streams. So that's a whole nother thing. But we're living through the death of the music industry as we knew it. And the repercussions are just beginning to be understood.

SPEAKER_00: 32:56

On that point there, that's like you say, the death of recorded albums. I mean, you know, would you go and spend$70,000 on making an album now? Right. You probably wouldn't. Right. Because, you know, you'd never get that money back.

SPEAKER_01: 33:07

We're about to record a new album. We have enough for, I guess, couple albums of new songs. But yeah, there's no format for selling it I mean, literally now at a gig, I ask the audience, I'm very interested in this. I'm also a teacher. And I remember I would ask students, how many people have a computer? And, you know, three people would raise their hands. Or how many people have a phone, like a cell phone? Three people, you know, now everybody has a computer. Everybody has a cell phone. Now I ask people, how many of you have a CD player? Nobody has a CD player. Now I'm asking, how many of you buy music? Nobody buys music. They literally don't buy it. They don't even think about carrying it with them. They just stream and streaming does not pay. It's cultural phenomenon that is so profound because you're making something that people don't pay you back for. They get it like water. And so that is going to change everything and has changed everything. The relevance of the album as a concept is completely gone. Really? Mm-hmm. in America. That's a demographic, and that demographic changes, and that changes the meaning of music and its history and what happens creatively. You know, harmonica has always been not a primary instrument like saxophone or guitar. People talk about Little Walter as this kind of point where harmonica was popular, but it's still tiny in comparison to the larger pop music world. Historically, the most famous people who play harmonica are like Bob He's far from virtuosic. It's a different kind of relationship of the instrument. You know, harmonica players are also kind of preoccupied frequently with this kind of tiny music world within larger circles of other music worlds. There are some exceptions. You know, Toots was an exception in the jazz world, and he was also successful in the pop world. Or Stevie Wonder. But there is no... Hendrix of the harmonica in terms of its relation to larger culture. That's good and bad. I don't mind that, but I think of music in a different way than a lot of harmonica players do in terms of my orientation to what I care about. To me, songwriting is the thing that everything exists within. You

SPEAKER_00: 36:06

mentioned that lyrics are really important, so getting back a little bit on some of your albums. Your next album in 2011, Cicada. Maybe a little bit less harmonica here, but, you know, more emphasis on the songs after your first album, was there?

SPEAKER_01: 36:19

Yeah, I mean, I wanted to move towards writing more songs. I wanted to somewhat replicate the success of Bahamut, the song Bahamut, which, you know, that's pretty much my one kind of hit. And it's still too harmonic because that's Bill Barrett on that.

UNKNOWN: 0:00

... music music

SPEAKER_01: 36:52

So that was, you know, I was pushing my own songwriting more and that, and there was a lot of collaboration with other people in the band. I think after that, we did the live album. I do not care for that album. I'm not a big fan of live albums in general. Usually live music is better alive. Our band was large and messy and hard to rein in. You know, it was an album that we had to do. There were songs we needed to record. I think it came out pretty good.

SPEAKER_00: 37:22

Well, your most recent album, you say you've got one in the pipeline now, but your Box of Breath album in 2018. Right,

SPEAKER_01: 37:29

before that we did Extra Deluxe Supreme. So the last two albums, Extra Deluxe Supreme and Box of Breath, both of those are all original songs written mostly by Eric Delapen and myself. He joined the band about 11 years ago. I

SPEAKER_00: 37:48

like this concept of the Extra Deluxe Supreme, which is basically about the fact that you get marketed to buy new things yeah

SPEAKER_01: 37:57

You know what I want. You know what I need. There's

SPEAKER_00: 38:08

some great lyrics on some meanings in your song. So I was wondering if this could be applied to harmonicas and musical gear about always having to go and buy new musical gear.

SPEAKER_01: 38:18

Well, it's larger than that. I mean, the Extra Lux Supreme, which was originally going to be on the album of that name, and then I didn't finish it. In fact, the band's never played it. It's only been recorded. There's some songs that I approach very differently constructing, so they really only exist. I also, on the last album, we did a song with Son of Dave. That's never been played live either.

SPEAKER_00: 38:42

That's Lazy Time. Yeah.

UNKNOWN: 38:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 38:56

I

SPEAKER_01: 38:57

mean, he's one of my favorite harmonica players, and he's also a songwriter. I have complete admiration for him because he's reinvented the idea of a one-man band. And he takes, you know, relatively traditional technical language and reinvents it in a way that makes it really fresh. And I also think he has just a great, wacky voice. You know, we worked, he was in town, and we wrote the song and then finished the song him in England and me here, just by sending tracks back and forth. But the idea of Extra Deluxe Supreme is about the fact that we're always looking for something to solve our problems. If you look at mankind from the outside, we're all about stuff. We produce stuff. We're like animals that make stuff. We use them as a way to deal with depression, love, excitement, death. Everything we do involves things. So that song is about this idea of a thing as a solution to everything. So it's not just about commercial things. It's about animalistic obsession that people have with stuff. And I think... I think harmonica players get obsessed with gear and it's ridiculous, you know. I'm not a super gear guy. I'm kind of lazy. I've never had the right amplifier. I also don't care for the kind of fetishization of things or to sound just like somebody else. That's never been my goal.

SPEAKER_00: 40:36

A good example of that is on Dark River on your Box of Breath album. Apparently, you're playing for a really cheap karaoke mic.

SPEAKER_01: 40:42

Yeah, I got this thing for$13. I got it for$13 at this second store. And it just has this fantastic sound. And also I can get it to feedback melodically. So it'll feedback in the key and I can shift the feedback. I can actually gliss with the feedback. But it's only this one. I bought like 20 others, the same brand. They all suck. It's so cheap. You know, it keeps breaking. Luckily, my brother's an engineer, so he fixes it. But sooner or later, it's just going to be over for this.

UNKNOWN: 41:18

So

SPEAKER_02: 41:21

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 41:33

But it's kind of inspired me. So I didn't come out of the Chicago blues scene the way most harmonica players my age have. So I never really went through the electrical, you know, like the obsession with mics and all that. I've always approached it differently. From the very beginning, I used a wireless mic before anybody, because I just thought if I play a harmonica, I want to walk around, I want to run around, I want to get on tables. I want to be a performer. You're playing the harmonica. So I've always used a wireless from the very beginning. And that, of course, affects your sound. I've also, from kind of the beginning, used an octave pedal at times because it's a great sound. It's an organ sound.

SPEAKER_00: 42:14

So this is the Electro Harmonix Hog 2 pedal you use, isn't it?

UNKNOWN: 42:28

So

SPEAKER_01: 42:30

Right. And originally, I was using the POG. So I was doing this, like, you know, not to sound arrogant, but I was kind of doing a lot of that before other people were doing it. The only person who was doing it way early was Mad Cat, of course. Mad Cat was experimenting with pedals, and he had his own microphone. You know, he was doing this stuff back in the 70s. Most people were like, they get the same static mic, and they wanted the same amps. And I just never done that. So my gear is very different than most people's.

SPEAKER_00: 43:03

Do you think that's because of your, you know, the set up of your band and then sort of music you play?

SPEAKER_01: 43:07

Well, now it's become much more common. You know, Jason Ritchie has been a huge influence. I think he's the primary influence on a kind of younger generation of players now. And, you know, now people have these massive pedal boards. I'm not a fan of a very synthetic sound. I use it for certain songs for certain things. I would say I play one third of my songs acoustically, one-third with a harmonica mic, and I use a much cleaner mic. I use the EV-110, I think it is. It's a vocal mic. It's not as broken up as, say, an ecstatic. And I use the pedals maybe 10%, 20%. I've only just this past year started to use any kind of reverb or slapback or anything. Also, the way I play doesn't really necessarily work that well with a certain level of distortion i like a cleaner sound generally i think that most harmonica players like

SPEAKER_00: 44:07

yeah and what about the when randy and bill were in the band were they also getting quite clean sound

SPEAKER_01: 44:11

bill liked a very overdriven sound randy less so i mean they're both very original players i don't think either of them sound like anybody else that was also important to me i didn't want somebody to sound like me and i don't want to i never really played normal blues you know i've never played chicago blues and we don't have the makeup of any kind of normal band i mean what harmonica band has a tuba player i can't think of one and in fact you know joe felisco said to me once you know like i'm the literally the only harmonica player that full-time has a horn section touring in the world i don't know of anybody else it's unusual for harmonica player to have a full horn section

SPEAKER_00: 44:55

definitely yeah and it makes it such a unique offering from your band, which is great. So you did the Lost Fox train on your Bahamut album, and it says for Joe. Was that for Joe Felisco?

SPEAKER_01: 45:20

Yeah, so, you know, I met Joe. Joe was... I met Joe, I don't know, 30 years ago. So we were both pretty young. And he was at the time kind of starting his journey as a technician and making harmonicas. At that time, I think his main influence when I first met him was Mad Cat. You know, kind of through me and through our shared enthusiasm, he got involved in pre-war styles. I had been doing Fox Chase and Lost John style playing back in the early 70s, you know, when I was a kid, because I was listening to Son Terry and Peg Leg Sam and all those guys. So when I recorded it, I kind of wanted to dedicate it to Joe. I mean, at this point, Joe's the best of that style. And he's much more kind of, I would say, an orthodox player than I am stylistically. He has been a huge part of my musical journey because he supported me all these years, both with instruments and with love and camaraderie. And I'm extremely grateful to him I would not have had the career I had without Joe. And I think that Joe is a fundamental influence on so many people for a number of reasons.

SPEAKER_00: 46:32

He absolutely is. You're the 60th episode of the podcast. The amount of people who mentioned Joe is uncanny. Joe is sort of like hovering behind everybody. He's done a phenomenal influence on everybody.

SPEAKER_01: 46:43

Well, you know, here's the beautiful thing about our silly little goofy instrument. It is a kind of homegrown instrument. thing where you can literally know most of the people who are significant in the field yeah that's lovely and interesting and beautiful you can just call somebody up and they'll be interested and we all kind of know each other you know that's the wonderful thing about it you know if you're playing saxophone how many saxophone players are there in the world and i and i also think like as i said there's was a kind of technical explosion steve baker wrote that book that book changed everything. At the same time, Howard was kind of getting known for what he was doing. Powers was working on his things. Richard Slay was working and Richard hooked up with Joe. So it all changed at a certain point. And I felt lucky to kind of be in the mix at that time.

SPEAKER_00: 47:41

So as well as your own albums, I think you've done a little bit of session work. I've got you on an album with a Natalie Merchant album, Leave You Asleep. Have you done much session work?

SPEAKER_01: 47:50

I used to do a little. I I'm not the best session player because I don't have the ears or the musical knowledge that somebody like Howard would have or Steve Baker or certainly Powers. I think that I like collaboration. I know Natalie through Eric, who's the co-songwriter and kind of co-leader of Hazmat now. And so we did that session with her.¶¶

SPEAKER_02: 48:21

music music You

SPEAKER_01: 48:32

know, she's an amazing, amazing musician, singer. I felt very fortunate. She put the Fairfield Four on there, which is a great gospel quartet, Jubilee-style quartet. We did a collaboration with Kronos Quartet. They're kind of the number one classical quartet in America.

SPEAKER_02: 48:54

Rain falls on the town Crickets into the dawn I know

SPEAKER_01: 48:56

Dead Crow It's so In fact, David Harrington reached out to me. He just heard one of the albums and he reached out to me and I said, well, let's do a recording. And I said, I'd like to write a song for that. So I wrote a song. Again, we never did it together. It was all done digitally over the internet, essentially.

SPEAKER_00: 49:22

Yeah, the advantage of that.

SPEAKER_01: 49:24

And Gangbae, we met in Malaysia. We played in a festival. They were there. They're an eight, nine piece brass band from Benin in West Africa. So I was in touch with them over the years to record together. We finally recorded with them. We've toured with them in Russia, Siberia with them, and some in Germany. And then recently I worked with Bala Kouyadi, who's a great balafon griot from Mali. And we, of course, worked with Hunhertu and Alash. Both those groups are from Tuva, which is a Central Asian republic in what used to be the Soviet Union.

SPEAKER_00: 50:02

Yeah, so great collaborations, again, bringing them So a question I ask each time, Wade, is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

SPEAKER_01: 50:12

So we're going back on tour. This is our first tour in three years, the longest I have not been in Europe in my entire adult life. And we have 29 shows in a month. It's kind of insane. So this time I've decided to try and bring an amp instead of using Backline. I have a modified 185, which is the Gibson. It's a Charlie Crane. Christian amp. It's literally an 80-year-old amp. So I'm trying to get that together with a pedal board that I've made myself for traveling. So at the moment, in terms of that, I'm trying to get the sound together, get everything working. I'm having trouble with the hog. I don't know why it's not working. I've also got an Ottawa pedal, which I really like. I'm just trying to get all of the gear to work together. If I had 10 minutes to practice, which I was doing today, I'm just trying to see if I can get this amp to work, how the hell I'm going to get it to Europe without it being destroyed, and how I'm going to tour with it. You know, I've kind of made my own thing, this 80-year-old amp with an auxiliary speaker that goes on top. So, you know, as usual, I'm making a synthetic mix of modern and old. Pedals are contemporary, the amp is ancient, and I'm kind

SPEAKER_00: 51:27

of in between. What harmonica do you like to play now? You mentioned that you started out on honours.

SPEAKER_01: 51:31

I'm a honour guy, honour endorser. To me, You know, that's my instrument. That's where I feel home on the Marine Band. I've only used Felisco honers basically since I met Joe, almost 30 years at least. Once you get used to something like that, you can't go back. I think that the off-the-shelf harmonicas now are so much better than they were in the 80s. Both the range, the quality. I think both Steve and Joe have done so much for the harmonica world. Steve Baker basically saved the diatonic in many ways. And then Joe showed people what could be done to enhance it. Really have to give a shout out to Steve Baker. I think he's a remarkable player. I think he's an extremely generous man. I think he is very important to the instrument in terms of his preservation of the quality and his influence on Hohner as being responsible to the rest of us as players. Recently I just have used a lot of octave low harps. It fits in the band, it fits with the horn section.

SPEAKER_00: 52:37

So these are the whole new Thunderbirds you're playing?

SPEAKER_01: 52:39

Yeah, they're all Thunderbirds. I used Seidel's for a while and I was an endorser and I love the company and I love the people involved. Seidel also makes some of the best low octave harps. They kind of jumped ahead of Hohner initially with that. And you know, they're the oldest harmonica company. I'm just so glad they're around. I think there's so many choices now with customization. I just think we're in a very good time for the diatonic so and I still use a lot of minor harmonicas I really like minor tunings

SPEAKER_00: 53:13

So are these minor tunings ones that you have set up say by Joe or are you buying off the shelf minor tunings?

SPEAKER_01: 53:19

They're off the shelf and then modified by Joe I basically only use Joe's and he's been very kind and generous over the years helping me out and he's always lambasting me for being brutal on the upper end I tend to blow out the nine hole. I tend to blow out the six hole overblows. He's always giving me a gentle, hard time about technical things. I'm always saying, look, Joe, I learned in the 70s. There's certain things. It's hard to change certain habits. I would say as a player, my strengths are that I have a good acoustic tone and I have a real full tone in terms of a sound that really has its origins in listening to the early players.

SPEAKER_00: 54:08

Are you a tongue blocker, a puckerer from that?

SPEAKER_01: 54:11

I'm not a pure one or the other. I'm very much of my generation. You know, we were, I think, and this is, you know, Joel will get angry at me about this, but I feel there's a kind of fetishization of technique now that I don't care for. I'm going to give an analogy. I studied art history. So 16th century, you have the Renaissance, then you have Mannerism. By the end of the 16th 16th century in painting, you have people that were obsessed with either Michelangelo or Raphael, and they kind of over-stylize a kind of technical language of classicism. And they miss the point of those early painters, which was a kind of originality and a freshness of their form and language. I feel like the same thing happens in music. You get an originator who has a kind of freshness of their language and creative impulse, and then there's a kind of fetishization of that technical language. And that's my problem with a lot of contemporary blues players is it's a kind of constant reiteration of something that happened 70 years ago and it starts being overly technically. Maybe I don't play with the same technical precision in terms of purity of language, but I think there are other aspects of musicality that are lost when people do that. I'm not a black harmonica player playing blues in Chicago in 1957. That's not who I am. I'm never going to be that. And I don't want to absolutely replicate any style because I want to be who I am at this time and moment. And there may be aspects of my technical language which could certainly be better or improved or clarified or more musical and melodic. But I'm also juggling a lot of things. I'm a band leader. I'm a singer, I'm a songwriter, and it's a big band. And my general instrument, from my point of view, is the whole band making the music that's unique to this band. And within that context, I think what I do serves the band well.

SPEAKER_00: 56:23

Final question then, Wade. So you mentioned there that you're going on tour soon. So you're going to Europe in June this year. You're mostly in Germany, yeah, but also playing in Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands. Belgium so that's your future plans you've got this tour coming up you're starting to gig and also you're getting another album out when we see that

SPEAKER_01: 56:45

wow Getting eight people in the studio and doing it, I'm hoping that once we get back, we'll be all juiced up. We'll have all the songs really down. We could record when we get back. And I want to kind of record it as live as possible.

SPEAKER_00: 57:02

Yeah, where do you record an eight-piece band?

SPEAKER_01: 57:05

I mean, you know, recently, I don't know if you saw it, we did like four or five songs for the Nobel Laureate Committee. And they were in Germany. So we did it online. I just took the money. I said, OK, I'm going to record it live and my backyard in Harlem and it came out really well I thought the sound came out so I was kind of hoping to just do it outside live we'll see what I can do it's always really hard with such a big band to have that separation that you need the hope is to record this summer and then you know it'll probably take me at least till the spring to with overdubs and stuff

SPEAKER_00: 57:41

so it's been great speaking to you and thanks for joining me today

SPEAKER_01: 57:44

it's a great pleasure Neil

SPEAKER_00: 57:46

thanks to Thanks so much for listening again. And many thanks to Ashton Johnson for making a donation to the podcast. Thanks so much, Ashton. Be sure to check out the website, harmonicohappyhour.com, and be sure to check out Wade's great debut album, Bahamut, as well as the rest of them, of course. And I leave you in the capable hands of Wade Schumann with his Lost Fox Train.

SPEAKER_02: 59:09

What?