Despite the possibility of evacuation due to severe weather, hundreds of students flocked to the intramural fields to hear performances from DJ Denzo, Evolfo and B.o.B last Friday. Although it rained several times during the performances, the concert continued unabated. ACE President, Blair Champion, said that over 1500 tickets were sold.
The Hill News sat down with Evolfo members Kai Sorensen (trumpet, tambourine), Ron Lanzilotta (bass), Matt Gibbs (guitar, lead vocals), Benjamin Adams (guitar, trombone), Angelo Spampinato (drums), Rafferty Swink (keys) and Jared Yee (tenor and baritone saxophone) in their trailer before their performance.
Hill News: Where are you guys from?
Adams: We’re from all over the country, it’s like half east-coast, half-west-coast. Ron’s from Long Island, Kai’s from Nebraska, and we all met in Boston as a funky-funk band and forged everlasting friendships.
Gibbs: Make sure to put a ‘funk times twenty’ in the interview…Super ultra mega…funk…we’re a little bit funky now.
Sorensen: But we made the conscious effort to go away from it.
Hill News: How did you guys form the band?
Gibbs: I started the band in San Francisco, Calif. in like 2009 when I was in high school. Then I moved to the east-coast to go to school and when I started this band these were the guys who, you know, like moths to the flame, and now they’re burning alive. It’s been really, like, this group. We’ve lost a couple percussionists over the years…a saxophonist.
Lanzilotta: It’s a pretty consistent line up for so many people, and we all managed to move from Boston to New York City within a year of each other. I think that the fact that we all stuck together and made it down to New York City was significant for being in this group.
Hill News: So when was your first official gig?
Gibbs: It was a basement in Austin, Mass., where we met and played. Then we played in a cafeteria, and we did knee slides in macaroni.
Hill News: Where are you guys living?
Gibbs: We’re all in Brooklyn now.
Hill News: Which song do you believe most speaks to St. Lawrence students?
Gibbs: We play exclusively original music, so it’s hard to say what of the original music people are going to enjoy. If I’m being completely honest and not putting my own ego in it, what I want people to like, it’s gotta be “Moon Eclipsed the Sun.” It’s the song that’s most popular, and it’s for a reason – it’s groovy. It’s got this psychedelic 60’s vibe with a horn section and people like that.They respond to that. As much as I would like them to enjoy another song, that is the genuine response to that question I believe. People like the horns and they love to be able to move.
Hill News: Where do you draw inspiration from?
Gibbs: Personally, when I’m writing it’s really different from performing. With the performance aspect, I like people who just give it all on stage; that’s kinda my thing. I think there’s a good yin-yang with that in the band because I’m about the guys who rip their clothes off and tear their hearts out on stage, such as Lux Interior, King Khan, or [David] Bowie. That’s my stage inspiration, I just love to see the human soul manifest that way.
Lanzilotta: As far as the sound goes, we all have tons of very diverse influences. But i think with this band it’s very much about finding forgotten sounds of the 60’s and 70’s from all different genres. It’s all interesting stuff, and we try to re-blend it back into our own original sound.
Hill News: What is your favorite part about performing?
Sorensen: Just being on stage with my friends and having fun. Honestly that’s really what I look for in this. Being in a trailer’s pretty sweet, but I had just as much fun last night as I’ll have today. I just love being here.
Gibbs: It’s good to forget yourself on stage, that’s what I really look for. If I come off stage and I’m like, holy shit, I just browned out, that’s the feeling i’m looking for; it’s just this sheer ecstasy.
Lanzilotta: It’s an opportunity to be really present.
Hill News: What advice would you have for someone trying to make it in the industry?
Adams: Be yourself. There’s no right way to do it. You can’t be like ‘yo dude you got to get on Facebook, you gotta get profiles of your face that look good or else you’re not gonna make it in this business.’ That’s bullshit man, you gotta work on your craft and all that other shit will come.
Gibbs: Find your collaborators, too. Don’t be afraid to say ‘‘I am really proud of my music but I need someone to do the visual stuff or something’’. Collaborators are important, it’s delegating work and having someone else bring your shit to life. So I think that’s something that I learned recently that I wish I’d learned like 10 years ago: not to be afraid to find the people to work with and help me with the workload.
Sorensen: Take as many gigs early on as possible so you can learn what you don’t want to do. I think we’ve been in situations where, in hindsight, we’d rather have not been there. It’s all a learning process.
Hill News: What do you do in your free time, other than make music?
Gibbs: Rafferty’s the best at free time.
Adams: I like to play video games.
Gibbs: I’m actually really curious what Jared does in his free time cause I feel like he is a saxophone.
Yee: I usually just watch Youtube concerts, and I really like writing.
Swink: I really like to watch Youtube videos, and sample random bits of audio from them, just like watching stupid interviews and sampling five seconds of someone saying something and then putting it in a song. Or I really like to read interviews with comedians, and also with architects, because it’s good to have perspectives from other artistic fields. Comedians and architects recently have been the two, and people who work with ceramics have been my main focuses.
Hill News: Where do you guys see yourself in five years?
Lanzilotta: I try to avoid having goals.
Gibbs: It’s a bad move really.
Lanzilotta: That’s like half joking.
Swink: I feel like the only certain thing is that I’ll be making music.
Sorensen: Right now we’re inspired to work on our record, and we don’t know when it’ll be done, but we’re not going to stress about it.
Adams: Five years ago Spotify wasn’t really a thing, that was just kind of becoming a thing. For example, when I was in school I was studying music business, but there was nothing about streaming services. To set really tangible goals feels almost a little out of place sometimes. The focus just kind of turns inward onto our own music, and just making sure we get it right, and that we are putting something out that we feel proud of collectively.
Hill News: Anything else you want to tell St. Lawrence students?
Gibbs: We are a very, very serious band, and we do not mess around with half-ass playing, half ass shows, or any sort of tomfoolery of any sort.
Adams: No kerfuffling.
Sorensen: Java was super fun. We’ll definitely come back.
Gibbs: Could you also add to Jack Dolan that we’re sorry we didn’t go have brunch at his house, and thank you very much for inviting us. We really wanted to, but we couldn’t.
B.o.B. was unable to hold a full interview with The Hill News, but wanted to thank everyone for coming out to Fall Fest.
