Rob Derhak – moe.
By: Lori Smerilson Carson
Overcoming obstacles and living life to the fullest truly seems to portray jam rock band moe. Since their formation thirty-five years ago and releasing their debut album in 1992, these outstanding musicians have made their mark in the music industry displaying their unique blend of melodic, bluesy, psychedelic, jamming rock music. As they continued to grow their career releasing amazing music, they not only toured playing various venues with world renown artists, but they also performed several fundraising shows, and are still creating events that fans can take part in.
In the last several years they’ve overcome illnesses and devastation in their personal lives. Now, they recently released their latest LP CIRCLE OF GIANTS which reflects those experiences in songs that not only showcase their extraordinary talents but are very relatable. They are also taking these new tunes (as well as previous fan favorites) on tour, and Florida fans can see their shows in Jacksonville at The Bier Hall at Intuition Ale Works on March 13th, in St. Petersburg at Jannus Live on March 14th, and in Miami Beach at Miami Beach Bandshell on March 15th.
Catching up with Bassist/Vocalist Rob Derhak, he revealed some details about the show and album that he and bandmates Guitarists/Vocalists Chuck Garvey and Al Schnier, Keyboardist Nate Wilson, Percussionist Jim Loughlin and Drummer Vinnie Amico have created, as well as a bit about their past, and what fans can look forward to.
SFL Music Magazine: moe. will be playing in Miami Beach, St. Petersburg and Jacksonville. What can fans look forward to?
Rob Derhak: Well, it’s gonna be a lot of our new material that we just recorded with our new album. Hopefully we’ll get a lot of those songs out, but we also play a lot of some of the older stuff that are fan favorites. So, it’s going to be a good mix of stuff. It’s two full sets, so I think fans are going to be very happy with the show.
SFL Music Magazine: About the new album CIRLCE OF GIANTS, what would you say inspired it?
Derhak: It was a collaboration with all of us. We started sending demos to each other a while ago, and we’ve been playing the material, testing it out, working it out with each other on the road for over a year. So, the inspiration is just us still wanting to go out and still make new material. Plus, we have a new member in the band who’s very excited to record, and we had Chuck who had some difficulties. He had a stroke, and he came back and was on fire and ready to play. So, all of those things added to like getting a fire under our butts to get this together and happen.
SFL Music Magazine: Nate Wilson wrote “Giants” as a title track? I like the psychedelic rock intro and how it then became more rock style.
Derhak: Yeah.
SFL Music Magazine: What would you say the song is about?
Derhak: The funny thing is we named the album CIRCLE OF GIANTS, and he was like, “you know, I have a song called “Giants”, and we hadn’t recorded it yet. We’re like, “oh really?” He sent it to us. We were like “whoa dude, this is perfect for the album!” So, we were recording at Tank Recording Studio in Burlington and that’s where we did most of the album. I was just like, why don’t we come up to my barn in Maine and let’s finish it. I asked him what the song was about, and he was very elusive about it and wouldn’t really tell me. I don’t really know. I’m thinking it’s some sort of Dungeons and Dragons, prog rock kind of thing (he laughed).
SFL Music Magazine: The single and video that is out, “Ups And Downs”, you wrote for a man who asked you to write a song about his wife and he stated they had their ups and downs? Would you please elaborate on how that one came together?
Derhak: Yeah. The story with that is, during COVID lockdown I was trying to figure out what to do with myself and how to still play music. I started writing songs for people. They would give me a story or just a couple words about what they wanted the song about or who it was for, and this one guy gave me this whole long backstory about his relationship with his wife who he was still just really thankful and wanted to give her a gift. In the description he was like, “you know, like anybody else we’ve had our ups and downs and stuff,” and I’m just like, ok wait. That’s what hit me. Then you write the song, and I put a couple lines of the stuff that inspired me in his description about her, but when you’re writing a song about anything, it’s got to come from stuff that you know. So, it’s really about my life and my experiences, and I just try to make it translate for him to his wife. He absolutely loved the tune. So, we did that, and then Al and I were doing some work down the road after that. We were doing some acoustic duo stuff, just the two of us, and that was one of the songs we played because it wasn’t a moe. song. He really liked it. Then when we came down to deciding we’re going to make an album, I presented it to the band, and it turned into a whole thing where it was a band effort, and it wasn’t an acoustic song anymore or a singular thing that I was doing. It just turned into a whole different scenario for a song.
SFL Music Magazine: You mentioned life experiences. You recovered from Cancer; you talked about Chuck’s serious stroke, and I read where you lost your son. I’m so sorry, I can’t imagine. You’ve been through a lot.
Derhak: It’s been hard. During the recording of this album, I lost my oldest son to suicide. He was twenty-five years old at the time. I’ve been open about it. It’s not easy. My wife and I,
SFL Music Magazine: I read you have an open dialogue?
Derhak: Yeah, it’s an open dialogue. It’s hard to do, but it’s also, there are so many people struggling mentally in this country and they can’t talk about it. People don’t talk about it. There’s no real solution or help because people don’t want to put any time or money into it because people are embarrassed or whatever it is. We made a decision we’re going to be open about this. We’re going to do whatever we can to get it out there. If I could get one person to re-think their decision, the final decision that they have, it’s worth it for me.
SFL Music Magazine: That’s wonderful because it is more prevalent than people realize.
Derhak: It’s the leading cause of male death from, I think it’s like sixteen to thirty-five. I forgot what it is, but it’s the number one killer of men.
SFL Music Magazine: Is this also reflected in the song “Ups And Downs”?
Derhak: The song takes a new meaning now because it was already written, but one of the songs “Bat Country”, the last lines are about my son, and the weird thing was it was written the day before he took his own life. The stuff I wrote was just, it was dealing with his mental illness for ten years. It was hard, but it’s really close. It’s a tough one. He knew everybody, like everybody in the band. Everyone was close to him. He was like the kind of kid who reached out to everybody and would call them out of the blue all the time.
SFL Music Magazine: That must be difficult for everybody. Al wrote the song “Living Again”. Is that reflected in this or is there another meaning?
Derhak: No. The weird thing about all this material is how it fit together, but “Living Again” is a song that was written probably ten to twelve years ago, and we never recorded it. It was for another album. It just didn’t fit with the album, and we had been playing it live, but never recorded it. I was like, we should start playing this song again, a while ago when Chuck started playing back with us. Then I suggested we put it on the album because it had never been recorded.
SFL Music Magazine: Is the song “Beautiful Mess” sort of a love song?
Derhak: Yeah. It’s another one of those COVID songs that I wrote for somebody else. So, that and “Ups And Downs” were both in that boat. The funny thing about that tune was when we decided to record “Giants”, we’re like well, we’re here in my barn. Everybody came up and we finished the song, finished “Giants” and we were like well, what do you want to play? We still had space on the record. What do you want to put on there? We went through a bunch of different stuff, and one of them was we were going to do a cover tune and then realized that we couldn’t do the cover tune because someone else had already made it their thing. Then we were like well, I have this song. How about we try that? Everybody put a bunch of songs out and they were like, no this is the one we should do. It isn’t exactly like all the other stuff on the record, but it kind of fits in a weird way.
SFL Music Magazine: Are there going to be any new videos coming out?
Derhak: Yeah. I think the next thing they’re doing stuff for is going to be for “In Stride”. I think that’s going to be the next thing the management and ATO (Records) are going to push.
SFL Music Magazine: What was the reason you all decided to record at Tank Recording Studio in Vermont?
Derhak: Well, we had done that before. The last record we did in ‘22, ’23, something like that, was recorded up there. The recording engineer does archive stuff for Phish and he is somebody who works with them on their audio, and he started his own studio. His name is Ben Collette, Tank Recording, and we just had such a great experience, and he just does such a great job. We could go in there without a producer and produce it ourselves and just say, “this is what we’d like to do. This is how we’d like it to sound,” and he just gets it and does a great job with it. So, we went back there knowing that and we’re able to really work with him, and we worked really well together. It’s just a good matchup between him and us. It was a great experience. Probably end up doing it again for all I know.
SFL Music Magazine: You guys are celebrating your thirty-fifth anniversary. You started at The University of Buffalo in 1989. First record was FaTBoy released in 1992. You’ve won The Jammy Award for Live Performance of the Year. What would you recommend to an up-and-coming artist for the longevity and success you have had?
Derhak: Chuck and I started messing around and jamming in 1989, and I think moe. sort of did our first gigs in 1990. So, that’s thirty-five years ago. That’s a long time ago. So, the stuff that we did, some of it doesn’t translate to nowadays. Like I don’t think you need to go around and get a mailing list at shows and hock your mailing list and send out post cards to people. You don’t need to put up flyers on telephone poles, but the stuff that does translate is that if you’re with a band where everybody can get along, that’s a big key. If you put the work in and you’re serious about it, then that’s your first step right there, but the one thing that’s kept us together the most is the ability to collaborate and the ability to take constructive criticism, and the ability to give kind criticism so everybody can make the song better. You can have a great tune for a song, but it might not be completely together, and it might not be right, or it may be like a situation where somebody has a vision, and you really just need to understand what their vision is and try to be able to play the thing that they may want to hear. That’s really the beauty of working together is being able to get that final product, and it’s not necessarily like trying to make it your own. It’s trying to make it a good thing for everybody.
SFL Music Magazine: That’s great advice! That would explain how you all write wonderful music! moe. has played many benefit concerts like tsunami for Sri Lanka and WHY (World Hunger Year), and at the Landmark Theater to support Kelberman Center for autistic preschoolers. Are there any other benefit concerts coming up?
Derhak: Well, we don’t have any concerts coming up per say. I know a percentage of our sales in L.A. are going to the wildfire stuff. I mean, we’re always trying to do something. The one thing we do every year is called Rock The Pink and that’s in November or October. I can’t remember, but it’s for breast cancer awareness, or just really for cancer. We’ve been heavily involved in that for three years at this point. We do all sorts of raffles and things people buy. Like Al for instance, a package was, you pay to go skiing with Al. He was just up in Portland. And golfing with Jim. We do all these different things, and then we have giveaways and all sorts of things that are involved. We’ve been raising money for that every year for the past three or four years. So, every year it gets a little bigger.
SFL Music Magazine: Is there anything special you want people to know about your shows in Florida?
Derhak: We get down there and especially the outdoor stuff, but all of those things are just so fun. We put on two sets. As far as the special thing, every night is special for us. We put on a different show every night and its different songs you won’t hear. You could come to all three shows in Florida and not hear the same song, and then you could go to a show before we get to Florida and one after, and you probably won’t hear the same music either.
SFL Music Magazine: Is there anything else you want people to know?
Derhak: The one thing I’ve been saying to a lot of the interviews has been, go out and see live music for people. It’s hard for bands, especially younger bands than us. It’s hard to tour because just like everything else, the cost of touring and being able to be a live musician and not just record and send stuff out on Spotify or whatever the thing might be, to be able to do it, you have to pay for gas. You have to go and get hotel rooms to get from place to place. These young bands just can’t afford to do it anymore. So, support live music the best that you can, and try to be aware of bands coming into town that might be good, especially if you’re into music. Don’t just sit down on your couch and listen. Go out and do something.
