Offline vs online
Interview by Stijn Buyst
Music students from Kask & Conservatory also sent Sungazer their questions for this interview (see below). Before the concert they will meet the band in a master class.
In the future jazz duo Sungazer, bassist Adam Neely and drummer Shawn Crowder bring a blend of explosive fusion, progressive rock, and eclectic electronica. Equally fascinating is the way they interact with their audience.
Adam Neely directs from his Youtube-channel - with 1.8 million subscribers - the most diverse content into the world. About his experiences in a wedding party orchestra but equally advanced music theory lectures.
It has earned Sungazer a young audience that carries them on its hands and, at the end of a concert, cries out in unison for an exotic time signature instead of the obligatory "one more song.
How do you navigate as a musician in a digital, ever-changing world? When we speak to the duo, they have just completed the second leg of their U.S. tour.
Do the tours run a little smoother these days than we could see in the vlogs of your younger years?
Adam: Touring a lot has given us a much better understanding of things like itinerary planning and mental health. We've been dreaming about this for so long that now we're going full steam ahead: we've got 56 shows planned in North America and Europe. But it's incredibly important to take care of yourself when you're on the road so much.
One memorable clip from those early tour vlogs was when your Ableton software decided to auto-update in the middle of a show.
Adam: 'That such a show goes down the drain is a story that works on social media of course, but we really had to unlearn to repeat that trick. Before you know it, you're known as the band where everything goes wrong.
We have learned to build as stable a live system as possible before a tour, which gives us all the freedom on stage to just play. That way we can just concentrate on our instruments.'
You are now touring with your second album 'Against the Fall of Night'. How does it differ from your debut 'Perihelion'?
Adam: ‘'Perihelion" was a typical pandemic album, with Shawn and I sending tracks back and forth. It was a very piecemeal process of writing cool sounding stuff together without thinking about ever having to play it live.
There was also an incredibly clever track on there where I had to keep pushing a bass patch on a synth live. Now I'm Adam Neely and I don't want to do that, I want to play bass.
Against the Fall of Night" was written much more from a live situation: we wanted to write songs that we could play night after night.'
Sungazer is a duo, but you are supported by various guest musicians. Saxophonist Jared Yee is a regular, who else do you play with these days?
Adam: ‘We very often play with Button Masher, a keyboardist who gets to work with Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis computer game sounds and does very crazy things with them within our fusion jazz.
Coming to Ghent is Joshua de la Victoria, who comes from prog rock and progmetal. We like to incorporate those sounds into the Sungazer sound.'
So why the idea of working as a duo?
Shawn: ‘When we started ten years ago, very exciting things were happening in New York. Dana Hawkins and Evan Marien, who played bass in Allan Holdsworth's (Eddie Van Halen's favorite prog rock guitarist, sb.) last band, had a duo that combined electronic music with jazz improvisation.
Adam: I remember seeing them play and we said this is the coolest concept ever, let's do our version of it. You should know that we considered Sungazer a side project for a very long time.
It was only when we went on tour with Shubh Saran that we realized there might be an audience for what we were doing. We played for small venues, but people were very enthusiastic.
It was only when we went on tour with Shubh Saran that we realised there might be an audience for what we were doing. We played for small venues, but people were very enthusiastic.
Adam Neely
Speaking of duos, who is your favorite rhythm tandem of all time?
Adam: 'I'm thinking of 'Flood', a live Herbie Hancock record, where Mike Clark and Paul Jackson Jr. interact beautifully. It's probably the best rhythm section I've ever heard in my life.'
Shawn: 'Dennis Chambers (Parliament, John Scofield, as well as the house drummer for the Sugar Hill label) has two solo records on which he plays with Gary Willis, the bassist of Tribal Tech. An obscure choice perhaps, but the two make an incredible, groovy combination.'
Adam: ‘What strikes me about both of our choices is that they both bring a very fluid combination of bass and drums. They are totally intertwined, but never in a rigid way. That's actually what we're going for. We're a long way from that, but someday...'.
YOUNG AUDIENCE
Electronics are a big part of your sound. You borrow elements from the past, but at the same time it is very much music of today. I can even hear echoes of Squarepusher or Aphex Twin in those weird time signatures. Were those influences as well?
Adam: That influence probably comes from listening to acts that were directly influenced by it. I myself was listening to a lot of stuff like Rage Against The Machine and System Of A Down at the time.
You have a very young audience. That's pretty exceptional in jazz.
Shawn: 'We know it's special, but we don't strive for it. We just play the music we like. On our last tour it was a memorable moment with Adam.'
Adam: 'We played the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., where I grew up. And there I was, in front of a very young audience, on the same stage where I had gone with my father to see Victor Wooten 20 years earlier.
Many of these young people know us through YouTube, and many of them are also taking music classes. Of course we are influenced by musicians of the past, but I think you can only make music of your own time. And I think that resonates with these young people.
What is special about jazz is that young musicians often play with absolute veterans.
Adam: Sometimes I miss that generational aspect now that we play so much with this band. Don't get me wrong: I love my boys, but I would like to participate in some local jam sessions during our European tour.
Adam, a year ago you announced that you were going to scale back your YouTube activities because you felt it was starting to get in the way of Sungazer a bit. What would you recommend to a young musician today?
Adam: 'Make that you become very good at music.
Bill Evans once said, "Take care of the music, because the music will take care of you. But I'm a social media grandpa now, so it's hard to give advice on that.
What I can say is that it's important to have something to say. Until you master your craft, it's very hard to get people to listen. So work on your music before you get into communication.
"Take care of the music, because the music will take care of you."
Bill Evans
Was YouTube like a day job for you, like teaching is for other musicians?
Adam: Good comparison. I work half time now: I still make YouTube videos, but only when I have something to say, not every week. And because we tour a lot now, I get a lot of ideas, but I save them to work on in the months between tours.
Your vlogs are about much more than music. I remember one video where you try to figure out why every artist for the last twenty years has sung the phrase "stuck in the middle" to the same melody and rhythm. Does a lot of research go into that?
Adam: 'I think we both research our videos very thoroughly. For me, it's also a way to learn.
Without bragging: I already know a lot about music theory. So it's interesting to bring up topics that touch on subjects outside of music. Linguistics is a hobby of mine, so I enjoy exploring such a phenomenon.
But I also hit the ball wrong all the time, you know, and people let me know that constantly and in painful detail in the comments. But whether it's music theory or neuroscience or linguistics: I always try to support the story I tell as best I can.'
You also do feedback videos, analyzing and critiquing submitted music. Isn't that a bit of a balancing act?
Adam: 'I think of these videos as short private lessons. But it's a strange position, because I'm giving people feedback and advice on something very personal, while a whole audience is watching and ready to criticize.
To really teach, you need more interaction: 'It's a different ballgame than a YouTube video.'
BOBSLED TIME
Before your concert in Ha, you will also give a workshop with students from KASK & Conservatory Ghent. A few students have already whispered a few questions to me. Tibo Polleunis asks how you maintain the balance between technical skill and emotional expression.
'It is not a choice between one or the other. Good technique is one of the keys to delivering an emotional message. You have to be able to express your ideas on your instrument, to get the emotion across.'
Shawn Crowder
Shawn: 'It's not a choice between one or the other. Good technique is one of the keys to conveying an emotional message. You have to be able to express your ideas on your instrument to convey the emotion.'
Adam: 'I understand the question. When you study music, you get completely consumed by the technical aspects. Then, for a while, you may lose touch with the feeling of why you were so excited to start making music in the first place. But at some point the two come back together.'
Jesse Vandecaetsbeek wants to know if there's any music you didn't like or even looked down on at first, but you learned to appreciate because you had to play it in school or for a job.
Adam 'I learned very early not to look down on music because it happens to be popular. I look down on bad music.
I learned to hate certain music because I had to play it. I played in wedding party orchestras for five years - playing reggaeton at weddings: wonderful!
But in the US, there is a genre written specifically for opening dances at weddings - father-daughter and mother-son dances - that I hate with all my heart. It's pure garbage: syrupy ballads with very cheesy lyrics.'
Another question from Jesse: Have you ever felt that your evolution has stalled? And how do you deal with that?
Shawn 'I think inspiration is important. Just listening to music can be a solution. It's important to give yourself time and space to play and just see what comes out. When you study, you have to give the material time to settle into your subconscious.'
Daan Vekeman wants to know which exercises and methods have had the greatest impact on your skills.
Adam 'You get very little out of individual exercises. I have young bassists practice a lot, but there is no one exercise that is the gold standard.
An exercise serves a purpose and fits into a larger whole. For the bass alone, you have exercises for fretboard control, technique, ear training, ... Only a combination of these different exercises will get you anywhere.
Shawn 'My teacher Mike Mangini wrote a book about this, ‘Rhythm Knowledge’, and it is not about what to practice, but it is full of principles and advice on how to practice.'
The best question comes from Ruben Van Hijfte: What melody gives you comfort and what melody do you use to encourage yourself?
Adam 'Sometimes I find myself humming "he's got the whole world in his hands," a hymn from my youth. But I don't really use melodies to comfort myself. As for courage... (thinks)
Ah! 'Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme, get on up, it's bob time!'
Shawn 'That's the answer!'
Adam 'This is a catchphrase from the bobsled movie 'Cool Runnings' that we chant in a circle before every performance. I guess you could say it gives us some courage.'
‘Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme, get on up, it’s bobsled time!’’
Adam Neely
See you at the concert!
Sungazer
Sizzling fusion jazz + Ha Jam Session
20:15 Tickets
