While at Bluesfest, we had a chat to one of the bands invited to play the festival each and every day – Poor Man’s Whiskey. Dressed in Wizard of Oz attire, the San Fransisco based six piece were here to play tracks off their immensely entertaining Dark Side of the Moonshine double album – an interpretation of the classic Pink Floyd album, set in the style of Bluegrass. We chat about this album, the festival, using a bike as an instrument, Willy Nelson mating with a Sasquatch, and much much more.
Welcome guys! Is this your first time to Bluesfest?
Eli: Sure is.
How have your experiences gone down here so far?
Eli: George, how is Australia treating ya?
George: Australia is a land of very beautiful people. Simply breathtaking. A lot like California. Weather’s great. I’m really enjoying it. I haven’t seen anything about Australia that I didn’t liked. We’ve been treated very well, having a great time, it’ll be hard to leave.
Eli: We’re looking forward to catching some surf after this. You’ve got some great waves here.
Have you had a chance to surf at all yet here in Byron?
Eli: Not yet. Josh got to the water once to dip the toes in, but it’s been pretty busy. We’re playing here all five days, so we’ve been in music mode, but yeah we’re psyched.
Josh: We’re going to take a week off after to just hang out and surf.
Will you be heading anywhere else in Australia or are you a Bluesfest exclusive?
Eli: Just exclusive to Bluesfest this time! We thought we’d save it just for this.
You’re here performing songs off of Dark Side of the Moonshine… what led you to choose one of the greatest albums of all time to interpret?
Eli: Well this guy right here, Jason Beard, woke up at about 4 in the morning, and he had this idea where he realised that the album Dark Side of the Moon would work really well with Bluegrass instruments. And so he brought it to the band, and said “Hey guys this is a great idea” and presented us with some great arrangements. And so we put out heads together and what came out of that distillation is Dark Side of the Moonshine. We’re pretty excited about it.
Jason: Which is a double disc. One side is Dark Side of the Moon, but the other disc is all original music.
Eli: That’s the Moonshine!
Is any original material making its way into your sets here?
Eli: Yeah, we’re going to be doing our (final) two sets with just our original stuff, which features tracks off Moonshine.
Josh: I think tonight we’re going to be doing “Three Years Gone” and “Whiskey in Heaven” – those two are off that album. And tomorrow night we’ll be doing two more.
Jason: This is our third album, but we’ve only brought this one here.
And I hear you just did an impromptu show, walking through through the crowds?
Eli: Yeah we love playing out in the crowd. Usually when we play shows at home, we start the set out on the floor and get everyone together for a big singalong, get them all riled up. And it starts out acoustically based, because our band is really acoustically based – even though we like to go on these odysseys: some pretty loud rock stuff or some crazy Theremin/Space Jam stuff or some Polka slash progressive Afro Funk Jazz – When we’re not doing those things, it all comes back to acoustic instruments. So at the end I usually come down and also play acoustic with everybody. It’s just a nice start and bookend to the evening. But we can’t really do that at festivals. The only way we can get that experience is going out and playing for the people. That’s what we do.
Josh: Yeah and that’s what our instruments were invented for. Back in the days before electricity it was about getting out there onto the street or the field or the porch, so we like to bring that aspect to our music.
The weather must have helped with making that possible today!
Eli: Yeah we were wondering if we were going to be playing under umbrellas or not today. The sun came out at the right time!
We’ve definitely been blessed with the weather this year – it’s been amazing!
Eli: We’ll take full credit for bringing it over here.
George: We brought it over from California.
Eli: If you want it next year just have us back!
And you’ve gone for a Wizard of Oz theme for your show, each dressing up as a different character –is that something that’s exclusive for Australia?
Eli: Actually, the three of us (Josh, Jason and Eli – I believe) went to College, and watched the movie the Wizard of Oz. And we’d heard that on the third Lion’s roar, if you hit play on Dark Side of the Moon, and if you turn the volume off on the telly, then it’s the perfect soundtrack. It’s a really interesting sub-underground cult experience. So we thought since we’re already playing Dark Side of the Moon bluegrass style, Dark Side of the Moonshine, we wanted to be more theatrical with it, so we have the costumes. But at home we have the lasers and the fog show.
Aspen: I’m confused… I thought we were doing this whole Wizard of Oz thing because we’re in Oz?
Eli: You know, that’s right! At home, we dress up as Kangaroos!
How did you choose who was going to dress up as Dorothy?
Eli: We’ll I am by far the most unattractive in the band, so they figured that the bearded lady would be the way to go. I lost the bet. And this guy right here (Jason) he has a big heart, so we thought we’d make him the cowardly Lion. And this guy (Josh) is always lighting himself on fire, so we thought we’d make him the straw guy. And over here, we’ve got the Wicked Witch, Aspen. I’ve never seen a skin complexion that holds green face paint quite like his. So he was just a shoo-in for that.
Josh: And he likes to put on an avocado mask at home for his complexion.
Eli: It’s a California thing. And we’ve got the Wizard down there (Nathan), he’s really running the ship back there on the drums. So we really pay attention to what he says. And you can’t have a (suitcase player, George) that’s not a tin man. Because when he’s not playing quick enough, we like to oil him up.
Josh: We give him a lube job!
Yesterday I saw you use some pretty interesting instruments up on the stage? You’ve got some beer cans up there for “Whiskey”, your interpretation of “Money”?
Eli: On the album we used some real PBR cans, and I think we got the right tone on like the fourth take.
Josh: Y’all drink PBR out here? Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Aspen: It’s only the greatest beer on the planet.
Josh: I might be comparable to VB. Kind of cheap cheap.
Eli: It’s not a true classic beer like… Fosters, the Australian beer *laughs* so we did the next best thing and we’re crackin’ VB’s up there. We’re not a microbrew kind of band.
Josh: We’ve been through that stage.
Eli: We can’t afford em.
You won’t be bringing out the Dos Equis anytime soon then!
Eli: Out here we hear you’ve got the Quad Equis! So we’re pretty excited to check that out.
Aspen: I notice that when I get really drunk here, things start spinning in the other direction.
Same as when you throw up?
Eli: We’re going to find out tomorrow night (their final night at the festival).
Can you talk a little bit about the instruments you use on the album and live? Some of them are quite unique to the Bluegrass sound.
Eli: Well George here is the undisputed master of the green suitcase, so we’ve got that in the repertoire. The Theremin is a really fun one that we like to do. We used to do the duck tape, that was a big one. We’ve had cows and sheep… those are good… and then hay bales, and steel balls, and spoons and I think grapes was the last one. I won’t even describe it, it’s just something that you’ve got to see.
Jason: Bicycle Tyres.
Eli: Oh yeah! We play a mean band bike. It takes 6 people to do. For those who aren’t in the know, if you flip a bicycle upside down, it turns into the ultimate jam rap station. So if you have someone who can freestyle pretty good, and you get 4 or 5 guys working the pedals, tyres and spokes, it’s a phenomenal sonic experience.
Can we hear this experience anytime soon?
Eli: I think this is coming up two albums from now, which is going to be called “Hell on Wheels” *Jason breaks his straight face at this and start laughing*.
Aspen: It’s a Neil Diamond tribute!
Eli: It’s either that or “Wheels of Fire” or “Wheels in the Sky” – we haven’t quite figured it out yet.
So what is next for your guys?
Jason: We’ll be working on a live album later this year. We only do the Dark Side material maybe a handful of times each year.
Eli: We do it specific tours.
Josh: As soon as we get home we’re going to be doing sort of a tribute to what got us interested in Bluegrass music in general. Which was Jerry Garcia, from the Grateful Dead, who was actually a really good Bluegrass Banjo-ist. He formed a band back in the 70s with Peter Rowan, who was one of the greats, so we’re going to do a tribute to that entire album. We’re going to have some special guests. Peter Rowan is going to be there with us. We’re going to play some of the tunes off that album, and do a live show.
Eli: I would keep your eyes peeled to YouTube, because we’ve been talking about doing an underground release of our Bluegrass Devo style called “Whisket”. So I’m just going to leave it at that, and you can see what happens. Keep it on the radar.
Whiskey bottles on heads instead of cones?
Eli: I can’t tell you about the costumes. You’ll see them on YouTube. It’s pretty sweet. You gotta watch the original, and then this one. It’s pretty jaw dropping.
I don’t even know what to say to that!
Eli: It’s all about DEVOlution.
Have any of the Pink Floyd guys heard the album as far as you know?
Eli: Yeah, Roger called me up last week, and he was frustrated that we changed “Money” to “Whiskey”, but then we sent him a few bottles of our homemade stuff, and then he called back two days ago and gave us the thumbs up.
Do you actually have your own line of Whiskey?
Eli: We do. But the only problem is, if you sell it in California, there’s all this legal spiegel, so we decided to embrace the real aspect of it, and just go back to bootlegging.
Is it ironically expensive?
Eli: It is. But we have more of a barter system. If the tour bus runs out of gas, we’ll pull a few jugs out and fill up the tank. We have a pretty high octane.
Sounds like you’ve been hanging out on Willy Nelson’s tour bus!
Eli: We actually have here the illegitimate love child of Willy Nelson (Referring to Josh). It was long night, Willy was hanging out with a donkey. It was that or a Sasquatch. But Josh was the product of that unholy union. Moonshine and donkeys and Sasquatches. A bad combination. But we love him, so we’re glad it worked out like that.
Find out more about this hilarious band at their official website:
http://www.poormanswhiskey.com/
