Known primarily for their unique and sometimes extravagant live performances, the String Cheese Incident has had some hang-ups with their studio work in the past. Though they had plenty of new material to play on stage over the years, 2014’s Song in my Head was their first new release in almost a decade. Hey Reverb released an interview with bassist Keith Moseley in which he talks about their recent breakthrough in the studio and plans to have a new album out by 2016.
He credits Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads with really pushing them over a hump with SIMH. “He had just enough of a hands on approach to really fine tune the songs without trying to make us something we weren’t,” Moseley says. “It came together quickly and I think it just left us all feeling like we were looking forward to getting back into the studio sooner rather than later and doing this again. Just the creative outlet that the studio offers is different than playing a live shows. It’s a chance to experiment with the songs, try them in different ways and groom the material in a way that doesn’t happen in a rehearsal.”
When asked what previously made them apprehensive about hitting the studio, he explains that “on the couple of studio albums prior to this we struggled with trying to reinterpret our songs in the studio differently than we played them live. Some of that was due to collusion from the different producers who had ideas of how the band should sound. While the experimentation was interesting, it left us feeling like we made this studio album but when we play them live, the studio version doesn’t jive with how we played them live.”
And as for future plans? “Even right now we’re talking about some time on the calendar to get some writing and recording done earlier next year and later next year in hopes that we’ll have some music to put out by 2016.”
Rejoice, Cheese fans!