UM. Say That Again?
For those who know, Umphrey’s McGee is a must see show at any festival or concert venue. Since their inception in 1997 at the University Notre Dame they have toured relentlessly, boasting what many call the best live show for your money. (Tickets can often be purchased for under thirty dollars.) Their career is littered with great moments, like selling more albums than any other band on the bill at the very first Bonnaroo in 2002. Just to be clear, that bill included such acts as Widespread Panic, Old Crow Medicine Show, Gov’t Mule, Ben Harper, The String Cheese Incident, Jack Johnson, Jurassic 5, Galactic, Norah Jones, and many, many more. Founding member and keyboardist, Joel Cummins, found some time for me as he was sitting on a plane in his hometown of Chicago en route to Pittsburgh in preparation for their tour.
JC: Growing up in the Chicago area I started out studying classical piano for about ten years from age eight. When I got a little older I was singing in my high school choir, which is one of the most well renowned choirs in the state of Illinois. I got a lot of great musical inspiration from that, I would say. Then I went on to college and got a degree in music theory with a concentration in piano performance. That is where I met Umphrey’s and started playing in the band. But I’ve grown up playing all kinds of things from classical, to jazz, to rag time, to blues, and to rock n roll. I was somebody who was very interested in, and enjoyed, every style of music right from the get go. Some of my favorite artists are Miles Davis, Donny Hathaway, Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock, people like that. So I think I really enjoyed listening to people who also appreciate diversity.
BLANK: It sounds like you always wanted to be a musician.
JC: Well at first I wanted to be a baseball player. I played baseball and my dad was my coach for years and years. I was into lots of different things. I was into sports. I was into music. I liked doing a lot of activities back when I was in high school. Music definitely was always at the forefront of my mind, but I was never really sure what I wanted to do with it. I think once I started going to concerts, and I got to college, I really saw what the whole problem with trying to be a jazz musician is. It is incredibly difficult to do that as a living the way the industry is these days. But, there are obviously a lot of successful rock bands out there. So we got together, the original four of us at Notre Dame…Four guys that wanted to write music, and at the same time, work on our improvisational skills. And hopefully, at some point, we could become a band who would modge some improvisation.
Umphrey’s McGee has embraced the technological age in a way that most artists cannot even fathom. In the mid-2000s they broke new ground by establishing UMLive.net, the first ever single-artist streaming network. UMLive.net allows fans to live stream the band’s concerts as well as sift through every show they’ve played since 2004. A separate podcast on the band’s website is also so encompassing that one can easily find where Umphrey’s debuted a Run DMC cover, or who the guest vocalist was for a particular show in Asheville three years ago. While technology has obviously changed so much in the industry, I wanted to know if Joel thought it would have an impact on the part of that same industry in which Umphrey’s McGee is so specialized… the live show.
JC: Well I think there is something that is incredibly unique and special about the human connection that is made between somebody who is playing live and even more than that, a group who is creating music live. That’s a unique experience and there is something very intangible about what it really is. But you can’t get that necessarily from just listening to headphones by yourself, or even going to something like a DJ event or something like that. There is a different connection when the music is being created in the moment in that space. Music is as popular as it has ever been in general, in the world, and I think that more people are listening to more music now than has ever been listened to. I don’t think that’s going to go away any time soon. And I am obviously really happy about it. But I think it goes down to once the fans get that feeling and the human connection. On top of that, it’s making friends, and maybe meeting a spouse at a show or something like that. You know we have a ton of stories like that. There are lots of other things that come with the live music scene, and some of these things, I’m specifically talking about Umphrey’s McGee. But, in general, I think its alive and well and I don’t see things slowing down anytime soon.
BLANK: Umphrey’s McGee released their ninth studio album last year. The London Session is a collection of ten tracks recorded at the legendary Studio Two at Abbey Road. But even more impressive is the fact that they recorded the entire album in only one day. Technically it was only twelve hours, since they only spent half a day in the studio. How is that even possible?
JC: Well we didn’t really have a goal of making an album when we showed up at Abbey Road. We just thought, OK guys, we have twelve hours. Let’s bang out as much as we can. We had a good plan of what songs we wanted to do. We chose things that were going to be fairly easy for us to get in a couple takes. So it was a lot about how we approached the material coming in there. And thinking about what is going to sound good in this room. And, what are we going to be able to play confidently to make the best use of our time? We didn’t even really think we were going to get an album done. The goal was maybe an EP, or to have a few random tracks to let out from there. It was an incredible day, and I was pinching myself all day as we were going through this. We just took one or two breaks and kept playing all day. It is easy to come up with the energy to do that when you’re being told to go create inside Abbey Road studios. It was such an exciting day for all of us, and something that we will be proud of for a long time.
BLANK: Well after almost twenty years of averaging over one hundred shows per year, many of which sell out, Joel and the rest of Umphrey’s McGee have plenty to be proud about. But is it possible for such a storied career to contain just one moment dubbed their proudest?
JC: Oh man! Proudest moment? Well Abbey Road is definitely one of them. I would say as far as a live moment: The first time that we sold out Red Rocks and we played a great show for ten thousand people. That felt really good. I think that is probably the proudest moment to date. I am still kind of in disbelief that we’re playing there two nights this summer. I mean that venue is, easily, my favorite venue. So that is something we are very proud of.
BLANK: Looking back at that same career you are so proud of, is there anything standing out that you are ashamed of?
JC: (Laughs) That is a great question. Is there anything I am ashamed of? There are a lot of things I’m ashamed of, but its too long of a list. I’ll just share one funny moment here that was definitely one of the hardest things for me to recover from as far as getting my confidence back on stage goes. We were playing, and, I believe the band, The Slip, was playing after us, and we were playing first. We might have had a ninety-minute set or something, and it was this place called Studio Z in San Francisco. The lighting in there was really bad, and the stage was black, and the edge of the stage was unmarked. So at one point, pretty early in the show, like the first or second song, I fell off the stage into the pit. And Brendan looked over and was like, where’s Joel? (Laughs) And I’m down on the ground. Fortunately, there were only about one hundred people at that show. But it was very tough to get back up on stage and pull it back together.
Joel and I continued talking until his plane took off. Most of the conversation was music banter. He was curious as to why I was writing this article for a Knoxville paper when they weren’t playing in Knoxville. After my explanation, that we wanted to find any way we could to encourage them to come back to Knoxville, he was very gracious, and went on to tell me that they are very excited about a recent prospect of once again playing our infamous Tennessee Theatre. Rumors abound, but I promised Joel I would keep the details quiet for the time being.
