{"id":2195,"date":"2013-10-22T16:39:06","date_gmt":"2013-10-22T16:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/216.71.127.204\/wordpress\/?p=2195"},"modified":"2015-10-20T18:57:48","modified_gmt":"2015-10-20T18:57:48","slug":"interview-with-ian-craft-of-howlin-brothers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/2013\/10\/22\/interview-with-ian-craft-of-howlin-brothers\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Ian Craft of Howlin’ Brothers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
Written by James Killen <\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Oct 22, 2013 at 04:39 PM<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Image\"HMR- Hey, Ian, tell me what is going on with the Howlin\u2019 Brothers and your upcoming show at the Dosey Doe.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ian Craft- Yeah, man we\u2019re super pumped about coming down there.<\/p>\n

HMR- Great, great. Is this your first time down to this area or have you been here before?<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- We\u2019ve been there a handful of times, but not much. Every time that we\u2019ve been there it\u2019s been so cool. Texas is one of our favorite spots to play. The whole dancing culture\u2026it\u2019s such an awesome place.<\/p>\n

HMR- Great and it also doesn\u2019t snow, it\u2019s a wonderful thing. Have you ever played the Dosey Doe, before?<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- No, never played there.<\/p>\n

HMR- It\u2019s a nice little venue on the north side of town where wealthy folks live. It has a nice stage with a curtain. It\u2019s nicer than what you might expect from a regular road house.<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- That\u2019s awesome!<\/p>\n

HMR- Tell me a little bit more. How did the Howlin\u2019 Brothers come to be? I mean, you weren\u2019t born brothers, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- No, no. We were all going to school at Ithaca College in New York. We all met up and became buddies through music. Jared, the guitar player was a recording engineer and he was recording my steel drum band session. I had a five piece steel drum band, that I played the lead pan in. We met through that and started hanging out at the bonfires, picking old time folk and bluegrass. We met Ben and eventually we all ended up down in Nashville and that was really the beginning of the Howlin\u2019 Brothers.<\/p>\n

HMR- Very cool. Steel drum, like Caribbean steel drums?<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- Ha, ha, yeah.<\/p>\n

HMR- That\u2019s quite a jump there from \u2026 steel drum to Americana..<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- Yeah, I was a percussionist in college and I played a lot of drum set with rock bands. I was a rock and roller. We were all rock and rollers and then we discovered folk music, we all came to it at the same time. It was kind of poof, it just overtook us.<\/p>\n

HMR- There\u2019s quite a folk tradition up there in Ithaca, isn\u2019t there? Isn\u2019t that where the Burns Sisters are from?<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- Yeah and the Horse Five and Richie Stearns. There is a lot of great old time music up there.<\/p>\n

HMR- I just saw Jeannie Burns with Andrew Hardin down here a few weeks ago. They were great.<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- Nice. Awesome.<\/p>\n

HMR- I\u2019ve been checking you guys out on YouTube and listened to your latest album, \u201cHowl\u201d. Your influences seem to come from all over the Mississippi basin. Have you guys been drinking from the Big Muddy?<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- We definitely have been influenced by it. We haven\u2019t spent a whole lot of time down there. It\u2019s such a rich culture to be inspired by. The food and the music, everything about that area.<\/p>\n

HMR- Yeah. I really appreciate the way that you seem to put it all together. The Delta Blues to Dixieland Jazz to Bluegrass to Appalachian Folk, you seem to have such a great meld of all of that. It was all in there.<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- Thanks. We just love it all. We don\u2019t want to seem too scatter brained. We just want to represent traditional American music.<\/p>\n

HMR- Right. If you had to pick your biggest blues, your biggest bluegrass and your biggest Dixieland, who would that be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- For the blues it would have to be Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters, I just love those guys so much, and Jimmy Rogers from Chicago. I love all of the Dixieland guys. One doesn\u2019t stand out by himself. And what was the other one? Bluegrass?<\/p>\n

HMR- Yeah, right.<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- I\u2019d say like one of my favorites is Tim O\u2019Brian. He does a lot of traditional roots stuff but he also ventures out there a little bit. He keeps on moving it out there like music should.<\/p>\n

HMR- I\u2019m an old Grateful Deadhead, myself, and I have been a big David Grisman fan. I like to see how those guys pull from everywhere and keep pushing ahead. They were kind of the original Americana guys before people came up with the word.<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- Oh, totally.<\/p>\n

HMR- When I listened to your disc, it kept reminding me of a movie soundtrack, grabbing snippets from history. Have you guys thought about marketing some of your stuff in Hollywood?<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- It\u2019s always a hope. That would be something beautiful. It\u2019s like Levon Helms says, royalty checks, \u201cThose are checks from God.\u201d<\/p>\n

HMR- It seems like a lot of the recording artists today are looking for the movie and TV opportunities instead of the traditional recording contracts. People don\u2019t seem to buy whole records any more. They buy them song by song for 99 cents a pop.<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- It\u2019s a weird and frustrating time. You make a whole record like doing a concert. Everything kind of fits together. You have to get a whole taste of it.<\/p>\n

HMR- Right. It doesn\u2019t work for me. Somebody records a disc with a concept of where they want to take the listener on a little trip. If you buy one song it\u2019s like taking a single photograph from the whole trip.<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- Exactly.<\/p>\n

HMR- Tell me what you would like for people to read when they are thinking about coming to see your show.<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- I guess it\u2019s about music. Music, dancing, and fun.<\/p>\n

HMR- I\u2019m game for that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- Music, dancing, drinking and fun. Those 4 things, I guess.<\/p>\n

HMR- The Dosey Doe sure supports the idea of having a few drinks while you\u2019re out there as long as you have somebody to drive you home. That\u2019s part of how they make their living.<\/strong><\/p>\n

IC- Hell, yeah.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by James Killen Oct 22, 2013 at 04:39 PM HMR- Hey, Ian, tell me what is going on with the Howlin\u2019 Brothers and your upcoming show at the Dosey Doe. Ian Craft- Yeah, man we\u2019re super pumped about coming down there. HMR- Great, great. Is this your first time down to this area or… <\/p>\n

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