Amico talks career and upcoming tour

The popular jam band moe. recently began its 20th anniversary tour on Friday, Jan. 22, with two nights at the Roseland Ballroom. On Jan. 27, moe. returned to the Sherman Theater in downtown Stroudsburg. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with the band’s drummer, Vinnie Amico, about the anniversary tour, the history of the band and his return to touring.

Ryan Doyle: Are you guys ready to go on tour?

Vinnie Amico: Getting Ready. Looking forward to it.

RD: Why the name moe.? Why the period at the end?

VA: Story has it that originally, the band’s name was Five Guys Named Moe and then one of the guys quit so there were only four guys so then the ‘Five Guys’ didn’t really apply. They just dropped the Five Guys and called them moe. Then, they wanted to screw with the guys like you, the editors of newspapers and writers and stuff, so it’s small m-o-e period. When you start a sentence with small m-o-e period, it just messes everything up.

RD: An editor’s worst nightmare. Was there a time when you knew this band was going to be able to be around for a long time? Did you anticipate the success that you guys have enjoyed?

VA: No. Believe it or not, for me, I wasn’t even in the band in the very beginning, but I remember this to this day and I don’t know why. I was in Myrtle Beach with my family on vacation, and I had “Headseed” (moe. Album released 1994) and I was listening to it and playing it for my friends. This was the time when moe. was just starting to become a real band and playing for a living. I was playing it for my friends, my brother in law and my wife and I was like, “This is a great original band from Buffalo, and they’re all friends of mine. This is the kind of band I’d like to play in.” They were already starting to make it a little bit. I said that, and I knew it then. I got called to play in the band about two years later. It was like foreshadowing for the future.

RD: That is pretty cool. You guys have been touring for a long time now, and this tour goes down as the official 20th anniversary of the band. Was there ever a time it seemed like it would be tough to keep everyone together and keep things going?

VA: We’re pretty close-knit, but you never know for sure if it is going to keep together. The music industry is so screwed up that you never know, financially, if it’s feasible because people aren’t buying records and CD’s. Everything is going electronic and digital as far as iTunes and all that stuff. You always wonder, ‘When is it going to be it? When are people going to stop liking our music?’ When is Rob [bass player] going to kill me? At the same time, we all really get along and love to get up on stage and play together, and we play really well together.

RD: I understand. Is there anything in particular that fans should look forward to as you continue the 20th anniversary tour, or will you guys just keep doing the same type of thing you always have?

VA: Well, we try to constantly change it up a little bit. We always change up our shows. We are going to be out a lot more this year than we have the last couple of years. We may hit some towns that haven’t seen us in a while. Other than that, we’re not huge planners. Once we get on the road and start playing, someone is going to come up with this grand scheme of what’s going to make this the ‘be all, end all’ of all great tours, and then we’ll start working on it as we go. That’s kind of the way we roll.

RD: I know you spoke earlier about the music business in general and how it’s gotten crazy. Have you seen a lot of changes within the jam band scene since you have been around?

VA: Oh yeah. We’ve been around a long time, so there was no such thing as a ‘jam band scene’ when we started. There was the Grateful Dead (laughs.) And then Phish, The Spin Doctors, Blues Traveler and Widespread came along. They were the first bunch of bands. That was kind of the beginning of it. Then there were bands like moe., Ominous Seapods, Yolk and a few of these what we call “great northern freak” bands, which were right after that 1992 H.O.R.D.E. tour came around. In ‘93 and ‘94 is when all of these other college bands started doing stuff like moe. – the Seapods, Moon Boot Lover – different bands mostly from the northeast. In 1995, ‘Jam Band’ is what they started calling it. That in itself was a big change because it went from a time when there was no label to a time when there was a label.VA: In ‘93 and ‘94 is when all of these other college bands started doing stuff like moe. – the Seapods, Moon Boot Lover – different bands mostly from the northeast. In 1995, ‘Jam Band’ is what they started calling it. That in itself was a big change because it went from a time when there was no label to a time when there was a label. And then they used that label for anybody that they couldn’t “genrefy,” or whatever the word is. If you can’t call it straight ahead rock and roll like the White Stripes, The Strokes, or any of those bands, they get lumped in with the jam bands.

RD: So pretty much any band that has any improvisation?

VA: Well, not even that. For example, some bluegrass bands aren’t huge improvisers, but they’re lumped into the jam bands now because they’re not really straight ahead hardcore bluegrass. If you have a drummer and you’re playing bluegrass, then you’re a jam band (laughs). Or even if you’re jazz but you’re not playing straight up bee-bop, then you’re a jam band. Anything that they can’t put in a little box, they throw into the jam band thing. Unfortunately, the labeling of jam band means no song can be marketed. So that has its positives in that they have a large fan base to draw from. The negative is that you can’t get any commercial success.

RD: That’s true. At least you guys can sell albums, as opposed to singles and stuff, and not be stuck playing your hit single at every show.

VA: Absolutely. Exactly.

RD: I know you’ve played with a lot of legends and I know you’ve been on the road with moe. a lot of your life. I’m sure you have a lot of stories to tell. Do you ever see yourself writing a book or doing something along those lines?

VA: Probably not. I’m not the most creative as far as that’s concerned. I would be more likely to write a math book or something (laughs). I have a lot of stories, but I don’t know if they’d be boring or not. That could change, though. I’m not at the end of my career where I’m in a position to write yet. There may be a day when I do something like that, but it’d have to have a ghost-writer because English wasn’t my strong suit in school. Math was.

RD: How do you tell the difference between a casual fan and a moe.ron? If someone comes up to you and says he’s a big fan, is there a way you can tell this guy is a big fan or someone who might have seen you a couple of times and owns an album or two?

VA: Usually, a moe.ron will say something like, “What were you thinking at this show at this moment,” or something like that. I usually don’t even know or remember something like that. Big fans remember every bit of every show and what we were doing in this jam here and that jam there and this and that. So that is when you know they’re a moe.ron. Plus a lot of the guys you see at so many shows you just know. I mean, if I see this guy at a hundred shows in the front row, I know he’s there. A lot of people come up and say, “Big fan.” And then they say, “I love that song Airplane, or whatever, and they don’t even know the names of the songs.” And then I’m like, “Ok, yeah big fan right (sarcastically).” Not that it’s like bad, but that’s how we know they’re not huge fans, or moe.rons.

RD: I know you guys are known for playing a lot of festivals. What is the difference crowd-wise between playing a festival show and a regular headlining show?

VA: 1,500 people versus 10,000. A lot depends on the festival. [At] moe.down Festival and Summer Camp, we get to do whatever we want. If we’re at Bonnaroo or All Good or some of these bigger festivals, our set is a little bit condensed, so we want to play the songs that are more hard-hitting and more people know. We avoid too much exploration because we might lose some people.

RD: You guys have been to Bonnaroo five times. Are there plans for a sixth this year?

VA: It depends on if we get an offer to play, and it depends on the slot that they want us to play. We’ve done most of them and we’ve played the big named stage twice. We’ve also played the little stage and we’ve played the tents twice. It has to be a good offer first-off, and you know if it’s a good offer money-wise then it’s a yeah. It needs to be a good offer, a good spot, and fit into our schedule. There are a few different factors that are involved. It’s a really well-run, huge festival. Plus it’s all done via managers and all that stuff, so it’s not in our control sometimes.

RD: Last time you played Stroudsburg, you guys closed with “Gimme Shelter,” the Stones song. You had a girl on stage with you named Nadine. Who was she and is there any chance we’ll see her back with you guys at the Sherman this year?

VA: Nadine sang a bunch of stuff on Sticks and Stones. She was a girl background singer on that album. She lives in Jersey, so she wasn’t that far away. We had her come so she could sing a bunch of the stuff that she performed on that album. She’s a pretty cool girl, and she’s a great singer, so I hope we can get her back on some stuff. It’s schedule specific pretty much. But if it fits into the schedule, then for sure.

RD: Awesome. You guys have played a lot of great venues in your career. Other than the Sherman Theater, of course, what is your favorite venue you’ve ever had the chance to perform at?

VA: Probably Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Radio City, or Red Rocks. There are so many that we’ve been to that are historic places. SPAC is the place I grew up watching all my favorite bands, so that was my dream as a kid. When I played there, it was great. Red Rocks is just one of those places and so is Radio City.

RD: What are some of the coolest artists you’ve had a chance to play with in your career?

VA: Bob Weir, of course, because I was a big dead-head growing up. Some of the Allman Brothers guys because they were a big influence as well. Doing shows with Robert Plant was great because he is a legend, and Zeppelin was probably my all-time favorite band. We played with Peter Frampton, and that was really cool. I guess that’s a pretty good start.

RD: Something to be proud of. What does the future hold for the band?

VA: We would like to continue to get bigger. This is our career, so we’d like to retire as our career. We’d like to take over the world and be the biggest band in the world. Continue to make music and be influential to kids and just keep doing what we do. If we can continue to make new fans and keep our old fans, do cool stuff, make good albums, stay true to ourselves and our fans and make it a career that we can retire on, then that is pretty much what I think everyone is into.

RD: Is there a studio album in the works right now?

VA: I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you. I think we have a greatest hits album coming out for 20th anniversary with a bunch of different stuff that people would like to see in the best show.

RD: Appreciate you taking the time. It was good talking to you. Thanks for visiting Stroudsburg.

VA: Absolutely man.