music

Eric Krasno Band Joins The Major Rager

 
 

Eric Krasno Band will join The Flaming Lips, People of the Sun (by Moon Taxi) and Stop Light Observations for the 4th Annual The Major Rager in Augusta, Georgia on Thursday, April 6. Early bird tickets will be available this Friday, January 27 at 10am ET. 

Win Tickets to See Eric Krasno Band in Charleston, SC

This Winter Eric Krasno Band will be heading back on the road with The Marcus King Band for 10 East Coast shows. We've got a pair of tickets to the January 31 show that can be yours. All you have to do is fill out the form below and you'll be entered to win.

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“It’s Kind of a Journey”: A Fairfield Mirror Conversation with Eric Krasno

via The Fairfield Mirror

For Grammy award winning musician and producer Eric Krasno, vocals have never been the forte of his musical brilliance. With over 20 years invested in the art, Krasno has finally taken the microphone and broken new ground with his newest solo record, “Blood From A Stone.”

“I had never learned or taken a lesson or done any official singing,” said Krasno. “I have done it for fun and written a ton of songs but I had never been a lead singer in a band.”

In preparation for this new feat, Krasno enlisted the help of the Rustic Overtones’ Dave Gutter for a storytelling arc that managed to balance the darker and lighter fringes of musicianship. “I had kind of had been putting concepts together and I kind of had an idea of what the record would be but when he [Gutter] and I got together, is where that concept took shape.”

“It’s kind of a journey,” added Krasno.

Each lyrical composition is complimented with R&B-influenced hooks and melodies that emphasize the bluesy upbringing of Krasno. “Jezebel” and “Please Ya” evoke passion through the means of lost love and desperation while “Unconditional Love” and “Natalie” harken a past that fills Krasno with the soul to provide his music with a tenacious backbone.

Krasno even enlisted the help of Tedeschi Trucks Band guitar virtuoso Derek Trucks on “Curse Lifter,” which dances with the spirit of blues as Trucks blisters his way through the tune. Blues seems to be a recurring theme for Krasno in “Blood From A Stone” as he attempts to bring his prime musician influence back to the forefront.

“I always came up listening to psychedelic blues rock and all that stuff and it always kind of seeped into my other projects,” said Krasno. “But with this album, I really wanted to show those roots.”

This exploration of roots led Krasno heading down to New Orleans with his crew and a couple of drones to film the music video for “Waiting on Your Love,” which blends the scenic atmosphere of the rustic Big Easy with psychedelic tinges that play with the visual senses of the viewer.

“It was a cool exploration in taking color and matching it to music while getting super psychedelic all the while” said Krasno.

This journey will be taken on the road in the Northeast until July 15 to showcase Krasno’s newest effort while blending in a variety of material that spans his whole career. Krasno chose the Northeast because of his roots in New England, born in Connecticut and residing in New York City.

“There’s a lot of different places to play and musicians that are close enough and like in one weekend, you can play Vermont, Boston, Albany, Connecticut and New York City,” said Krasno about playing in the Northeast. “You can get around easy as a touring musician whereas the West Coast, you got to make huge, huge drives to make it city to city.”

After the summer sun fades away and his touring ventures with both his solo band and Soulive come to a close, Krasno will head back into the studio to resume producing records for various artists such as Son Little, The Motet and Allen Stone, a career that has earned him two Grammy wins. Krasno has previously produced records for prominent musicians such as Dave Matthews Band, Norah Jones and even Justin Timberlake.

“Well, I now start to plan out my time so that in the winter, I can try to go somewhere warm to produce a record and during the summer, I like to tour because it’s the festival season and all of that going on,” said Krasno.

Krasno also plans to pursue a new Soulive album, which is aimed to release some time in 2017.

This sort of chaotic balancing act has been a focus for Krasno as he attempts to establish himself and budding musicians in order to preserve the legacy of music that has been left to him. Krasno even toys with the notion of getting into music education.

“I go through different waves of excitement. Right now, I’m really excited about music. There are a lot of new artists that I really love,” said Krasno. “The hard part is navigating to find the good stuff.”

A Huffington Post Conversation with Eric Krasno

Mike Ragogna: Eric, you’re mostly known as a Grammy-award winning artist who produces, composes and plays innovative guitar. However, your new album Blood From A Stone features your vocals for the first time. How do you think you did? Which vocals are you most proud of?

Eric Krasno: I really love how the vocals turned out. My main goal was to deliver the songs with as much honesty and conviction as I could. I think the vocals on “When The Day Comes” were my strongest. I recorded this one toward the end of the album process after I’d been working on my singing a bit more. I’m no Stevie Wonder, but I think we put together some great vocal performances. I’m excited to record the next album now and get even deeper into the vocal side of my work.

MR: Was this collection of songs created specifically for this album or are any of them songs you and co-writer David Gutter stockpiled from other writing adventures?

EK: Most of the time we were just recording and writing without an exact purpose. Sometimes after the song was done we’d say, “This one would be great for Susan [Tedeschi] or imagine Aaron Neville singing this!” In certain cases that actually happened. We’d also have moments like, “Oh yeah, this one is for your record [EK]” 

MR: How do you and David write together?

EK: It’s slightly different every time. Sometimes I send him an instrumental with a melody, maybe with a hook idea and he’ll write verse ideas and send it back. If we’re in the same place we’ll sit with a guitar and play each other ideas until something sticks. 

MR: What was the recording process like? 

EK: The recording process was fun because we really thought we were just doing writing sessions. There was no pressure. We set up a studio where the Rustic Overtones [Gutter and Ryan Zoidis’ former band] are based up in Maine and brought in a bunch of gear. I contributed some guitars, amps and mics, while Ryan pieced together a tape machine and basically built a studio for this session. Chris St. Hilaire and Stu Mahan from The London Souls came up and helped out putting down the initial tracks. It was great because we were writing the songs and recording at the same time. The band would be putting down parts, while Dave was writing a bridge in the other room. It was like we were in a little song factory for those few days. We came out of that sessions with maybe a dozen songs and the tracks sounded killer. I have to say that Ryan Zoidis and Jon Roods, also in Rustic Overtones, did a great job recording everything. We used minimal gear, but it was done right and that is mostly what you hear on the record.

MR: Do you feel there is a conceptual theme linking the material on Blood From A Stone?

EK: Both Dave and I were going through break ups when the album was being written so a lot of the material came out of that and relationships gone wrong—“Please Ya,” “Waiting On Your Love,” “Torture,” “Jezebel,” “When The Day Comes”… Some were also written in the rise from the ashes so to speak—“On The Rise,” “Unconditional Love”. Musically, my guitar also plays a thematic role throughout, there’s always a guitar solo or melody coming at some point in every song. 

MR: Did you bring in any techniques or things you learned from working with other artists?

EK: Definitely. I learn a ton from every album I work on. I try to absorb as much as I can every time I work with a new artist. I’ve been very lucky to work with some great ones.

MR: What do you think of today’s popular music?

JamBase Exclusive Premiere: Eric Krasno Shares New Solo Album ‘Blood From A Stone’

Next week, Soulive and Lettuce guitarist Eric Krasno will issue a new solo album Blood From A Stone through his Feel Music Group/Round Hill label. In advance of its official release next Friday, July 8, JamBase is pleased to exclusively premiere the entire 10-song album.

Krasno employed a number of special guests who appear throughout the record, including Tedeschi Trucks Band guitarist Derek Trucks and vocalist Alecia Chakour, some of his Soulive and Lettuce band mates and The London Souls. It’s the first material of Krasno’s to feature not only his guitar, but also his singing voice.

“This new record is a side of my music that many people haven’t heard, especially the vocals,” Krasno said. “Most of the album was recorded in Maine with my co-writer Dave Gutter, Jon Roods (both from Rustic Overtones) and Ryan Zoidis from Lettuce. We set up a studio in their barn/rehearsal space and just started recording. What we thought were going to be demos became the actual album. That the relaxed environment helped the creative flow and enabled us to push each other to new places. I’m really looking forward to getting out on the road with the new band and playing these songs for everyone.”

The Eric Krasno Band featuring keyboardist DeShawn Alexander, bassist Alex Chakour, backing vocalist Mary Corso, drummer Eric Kalb and rhythm guitarist Danny Mayer will make their debut with a run of shows in Colorado beginning tomorrow at the “Fiyo on The Mountain” event with Dumpstaphunk at Mishawaka Amphitheatre in Bellvue. A number of additional Eric Krasno Band shows are planned throughout upcoming months.