The Fire
by Hilary RAWK!
www.myspace.com/rawkmagazine
rawkmagazine@yahoo.com
Greg Hirte is a classically trained violinist and actor turned rocker. He started out playing the violin at the age of four, studied acting at the (Jeremy) Piven Theater workshop. He skipped college and moved to Hells Kitchen in New York after high school where he acted and played in a rock band.
Lured back to Chicago by a music project a few years ago, Greg has been involved in a range of different bands since his return—ranging from Cajun, rock and roll, electronic, classical, punk rock, and more. He stopped by to chat with me after a day-long studio session working on the upcoming secret-ish Flashbulb album.
So I found your website with that Zydecco band Mojo and the Bayou Gypsies . . . how are you involved in that project?
I play with them all the time—we’re actually going to Germany in July to play a showcase. It’s a Zydecco band.
What’s that?
Zydecco is Cajun, creole, blues and rock kinda fused together. It really came up in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. It’s like Cajun, creole music but like electric bass, drum kit, tempos pumped up—it’s like old, house, dance party . . . it kinda came out of that whole Swamp Pop thing. I guess like in the 50s rock was kinda blues, kinda country, and it was the southern version of that from down in the bayou—down in the swamp. So it was like the creole, Cajun blues with the twangy guitar. This band is a fun band. The leader of the band—Mojo is his name—he’s a force to be reconed with. It’s a real show. He’s up on stage, and he’s telling stories about being down on the bayou.
And you’re in the circus punk marching band, Mucca pazza.
Yeah, there are 25 musicians and 3 cheerleaders, and then we’ve got like 5 or 6 alternate musicians. It’s funny, I’m doing all of these projects and slowly going broke doing them.
You’re involved in so many projects . . . name the ones you’re in at the moment.
Let’s see . . .there’s Mucca Pazza, Mojo & the Bayou Gypsies, Can.Ky.Ree, Psycha the Clown (Kiku Collins). . .I just started playing with the Golden Horseranch Square Dance band.. . It just is what it is. They do square dances. They’re a square dance band. This woman, Annie Hall is like a fifth generation caller. This summer, we’re gonna teach square dancing in Millenium Park. Oh, Soundframe. It’s a rock band. It’s the bass player and the drummer from the zydeco band.
What do you listen to?
For me, I like sound. And a lot of music is sound. I never listen to the lyrics of songs.
I don’t really listen to music, but I’ve got rhythms and tones in my head all the time. What I do when I play or I improvise music is . . .I’m really easily stimulated. I love color and I love shapes and . . . you could hand me a flashlight when I was a kid, and I’d be amused for hours. So shape and color and tone and sound for me are all interrelated. I think in terms of music and tone. Like it being dark out has a different feel to it—like the thickness of the air—and different colors have different tones.
I think everybody’s moved by music. Your heart beat is a rhythm. You’re accustomed to hearing beats, and it’s known that different affect the body. Drums were used to bring people to war because there was something stimulating about the beat of the drums. It moves you. That’s what music is.
What’s the difference between the violin and the fiddle?
Do you want the demonstration? It’s the same thing, it’s just what you’re playing. It’s just the technique. (He pulls out his violin and plays two pieces—one foot-stompin,’ country tune, and one achingly beautiful classical song).
I still haven’t found the right sound I’m looking for with this violin. The thing about the violin is that it can sound very much like a human voice. It’s very mournful, soulful, the tone can be like an animal or a human voice.
How do you find the right one?
You just have to keep looking. They all sound a little different—depending upon what kind of bow you’re using on them. A violin that’s been played a lot—like if you took a violin and locked it in a closet for 10 years and you took it out it would sound different than if you’d been playing it all those years.
The wood –the resonance in the wood—a brand new violin will generally not sound that good, and you play on it for a few weeks, and you can already hear the difference. You break them in, and they continue breaking in over the course of their lifetime.
I had the pleasure of playing on a (Andrea) Amati violin and a Stradivarius violin—Amati was the one who actually trained Stradivarius. And I got to play them both, and out of the two my favorite was the Amati, which wasn’t even worth half of what the Stradivarius is. I liked the tone—it had a deeper, more growly tone.
That instrument had been locked away for like 200 years and hadn’t been played, and the more they’re played the more they open up. The Stradivarius was a lot smoother—it was like listening to a sweet cream. The Amadi was more robust.
Do you feel like the violin adapts to you?
You feel that way. You feel like the violin is a very temperamental thing . . . like it’s a jealous girlfriend. What it comes down to is you have to be very precise with it because it’s such a small thing—the intervals and the strings—you have to be very specific. Violinists joke about if you play another violin yours will get jealous. It’s like cheating.
You go to play yours again, and you won’t be able to play it for the next couple of days. You have to get used to it again, you have to coax it, you have to apologize and say it’s okay, tell it that you didn’t enjoy playing the other violin, and it’s your favorite, don’t worry, you’ll never get rid of it. That’s just one of those things that violinists talk about . . . about it being alive and having a personality.
You are intimately involved with the violin. I mean, you’re holding it up to your cheek. You’re listening to the wood.
You’re on the new Flashbulb album that’s coming out in September?
Yeah. I don’t even know what it’s called. I laid down some songs for three different tracks this week. Some of it’s really dark. I don’t even know what the overall tone of it’s gonna be. It’s like sometimes the mood of it goes with the weather.
Benn (Jordan) will be in a mood, and . . .it’s real dark and strong. There’s a little bit of an edge to it—there’s some toughness to it. I think, more than the last album (Flexing Habitual). One of the tracks that I did, he had the drum beat to it and some basic chords. I can’t predict what it’s going to sound like.
If the sun stays out, and the weather stays nice, that song could go anywhere. Because I love the opening—I love just the tone of it. It’s like a jungle beat. I really like it. He put a compilation together or something, and he was surprised at how happy it sounded.
That’s the thing that I love about his music. He’s just making music, and it’s the how he feels, and it’s the mood that he’s in, and most of it’s not preplanned.
WEBSITES
www.myspace.com/muccapazza
www.myspace.com/bennjordan
www.myspace.com/cankyree
www.redhotmojo.com
www.myspace.com/soundframetheband
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