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We’re excited to be speaking today with acclaimed psychedelic funk band extraordinaire, The Heard Eye; greetings and salutations, gang! Before we dive into the Q&A mosh-pit, could you introduce yourselves to our ever-inquisitive readers?
Hello, thanks for the opportunity to talk to your readers. We are Paul Schneider on vocals, trumpet, guitar, and songwriting, and Hannes De Kassian on guitar. Famed drummer Atma Anur, long-time friend and creative partner of Paul, was also crucially involved in the album’s process. Alas, he lives in Europe, so playing live is a bit problematic… But we are playing live now, and the process of putting that live band together led us to meet our current keyboardist/harmony vocalist, Chris Studer.
Major kudos and accolades on the release of Funkalypse! Paul, can you talk a little about how this phenomenal new LP came about?
Wow, “phenomenal”, that’s high praise, thanks so much! Basically, Hannes and I met in the summer of 2018 and began playing gigs, jazz standards by Miles and Coltrane and Wayne Shorter, vocal standards by Sinatra, Tony Bennet, stuff like that, and funky jazz classics like Lee Morgan’s Sidewinder and Freddie Hubbard’s Backlash, as well as funk by artists like Maceo Parker and R n B classics by the likes of Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett. Then Covid hit, and gigs vaporized. Atma and I re-connected online after having been out of touch for years after he had moved to Europe. He asked me if I had been writing any songs, said he’d love to do some drum tracks. So I bought a DAWS and sent him some scratch tracks, Do Whatchu Be and Bahia Amor were the first two. He sent back killer drum tracks, I asked Hannes if he’d be interested in working on these songs, even though it wasn’t jazz, and the process began. That was in the Fall of 2020. We did a session at the famed Prairie Sun studios in Sonoma County, (RIP, Prairie Sun) in the big studio there, all socially distanced, me and Hannes and a keyboardist named Justis Jones, and a sax player named Brendan Buss came in after and did his parts alone. But I had to do the vocals very hurriedly and they weren’t good, I didn’t like the mixes that came out of it, and then I ran out of money, and realized I was going to have to try and do it all on my DAWS, which I was only beginning to learn how to use. We did use most of the basic tracks from those sessions, but I redid my vocals much later.
Who was the producer on this album and what did the collaboration between producer and artists look like while in the studio recording the new songs?
Hmmm…. if I take that question literally, what did it “look like”, as in, a visual, all I can say is that if you actually saw where I did most of the recording on this, what it “looked like”, you’d be in shock. Basically a storage room in an industrial building, maybe 8 x 10, that I rented so I would have a place to practice my trumpet since I couldn’t practice in the apartment I moved to after I lost my job and my landlady decided to sell the house I was living in and evicted me. And this was during Covid still, 2021! So before I was actually evicted, I hurriedly knocked out demos of Boomerang, Say It With the Night, and Free Everybody, while I had a place to do it, still in the baby steps phase of learning how to use the DAWS. I sent the stems to Atma, and then dealt with my situation. I did keep some of my own tracks from those sessions, especially the vocal tracks from Say It With the Night and the flute sounding keyboard riff on Boomerang, all the trumpet parts and my guitar basic tracks for all 3 of those songs, and the vocal rideout for Free Everybody. There’s a certain quality to the tracks that I like, maybe out of pure wistfulness, but also, the idea of them being captured under such adverse circumstances seems like pure Art to me. I was in a bubble for a few days, as long as I was working on those songs, I didn’t have to face up to the looming reality that was bearing down on me. But I landed on my feet, got a new job in a different town and since I had to move anyway, I pulled up stakes and relocated. Found this little practice space, put all my music stuff in there, put some foam chunks on the walls, set up my DAWS, bought a better computer and a better vocal mic and got to work. Maybe I’ll send you a photo of the “studio”, it’s hilarious, actually.
So, the production process became, I would send scratch tracks of songs to Atma as I wrote them, and he would lay down drum tracks, and send them back to me. I would then record my vocals and trumpet parts and guitar parts, Hannes would come down and record his guitar parts, we’d be in that little room wearing our N-95 masks, sometimes with a third guy, Miguel Molina Jr, great recording engineer, helped me out a LOT. I then sent stems to Justis Jones on keyboards and various bass players and sax players who had their own DAWS and they’d send them back to me. I would send the .wav files to Atma, and he mixed the songs as they were completed. He would send me progress mixes, I would make suggestions and offer feedback on the mixes, and eventually we’d arrive at a mix we both agreed on as the final mix. So, there really wasn’t a Producer in the traditional sense of, you know, George Martin in the control room and the lads out in the tracking room, doing whatever he said. But Atma assembled and mixed the album, and lined up a couple of the bass players, including his friend Stu Hamm on one of the tracks, and he deserves Producer credit, for sure. Maybe I’m the Executive Producer?
We’re tremendous admirers of the tune “Do Whatchu Be” which is off of the new album! What’s the VH1-Behind the Music origin story on this gem of a ditty?
Thank you, I’m glad you enjoy that song. It’s basically along the lines of, you know, Shakespeare, To thine own self be true. Free Yourself, Be Yourself. The literal Behind the Music story is, I was in a mental and spiritual space where I was wondering whether I wanted to keep trying to be a musician anymore, the lack of success or even recognition, the frustration and feelings of failure were wearing me out. And I went out to Limantour Beach in West Marin and dropped some acid and asked the Universe. And ya know, it got pretty gnarly, thats what the lyrics in the bridge are about, the rough ride portion of the psychedelic experience. But the clarity did arrive, and what I heard from the Universe was that it doesn’t matter if the world offers me acclaim, that’s not the reason to play. I realized that playing music, being a musician, is what I am, it’s what I do, its who I am. And ya gotta be who you are, you gotta do whatchu be.
In your humble opinion what differentiates Funkalypse from the other releases on the 2024 music scene?
Well, being humble, I’m going to leave that up to you guys. Maybe you can tell your readers, what differentiates Funkalypse from the other releases on the 2024 music scene?
Can fans look forward to catching The Heard Eye on the touring/performing circuit in the near future?
That would be great! We really need a manager or at least a champion booking agent. If anyone reads this and can fill that role, please contact us! Barring that, we have a steady gig at a club in Petaluma, CA called the Big Easy. We play there the third Thursday of every month, and we’ve got a few other things coming up. Friday, August 9, we’re playing as part of a Summer Concert series at Hood Mountain in Santa Rosa, CA. www.fridaysatthehood.com. It’s a benefit for Play It Forward Foundation, providing music instruction for youth in the area. Beyond that, we’re trying to get booked at venues in SF and Oakland, but it’s tough. Since Hannes and I only assembled a band to start playing gigs once the album was finished last Summer of 2023, we’re still basically a brand new, completely unknown band as far as these clubs are concerned and they really won’t give us the time of day. Hopefully, articles like this one can help us get some publicity here in our area, and that can help us get booked. We’d love to do some touring, we’d REALLY like to do SXSW, but that takes a lot planning and some financing. Hopefully that can all materialize.
The Heard Eye began back in the summer of 2018. Were you involved with previous music projects? Were they similar in sound to The Heard Eye?
Both Hannes and I have both been involved in previous projects, sure, of course. Hannes played with professional touring productions of musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar and also had his own quartet playing modern jazz in NYC for years before moving to California with his girlfriend, who is from here. I played in various bands over the years, everything from punk rock to classic jazz, and some of those bands had funky elements to them, for sure. But I have to correct you, the Heard Eye didn’t really start until Atma and I re-connected and he asked me if I had any new songs I wanted to work on with him. Hannes and I did meet and start playing together in 2018, but we weren’t playing stuff anything like the songs on this album. Well, maybe the Maceo stuff….
A question for each of you: Who inspires you musically-speaking?
Hannes: My guitar teacher, Harry Pepl. Pat Metheny, John McLaughlin, Joe Pass, John Scofield, Wes Montgomery, John Abercrombie, Toninho Horta, Scott Henderson, Allan Holdsworth. As far as rock goes, Jeff Beck, Ritchie Blackmore, and of course, Jimi Hendrix.
Paul: I guess it depends on how you define inspiration, whether its from a distance, like listening to a famous artist, or personal, being inspired directly. I have to say that Atma Anur and Hannes De Kassian have been very inspiring for me, as they are the ones who have most encouraged me, supported me and shown belief in me. Without those two guys, I would be nowhere. And yet, they’ve never met! As far as inspiration from listening to bands and artists, all the great British Invasion bands, and Jimi Hendrix, for sure. Discovering Miles Davis was huge, Kind of Blue was a revelation for me, and his two great quintets and of course his electric period. Punk rock was for sure inspirational, in terms of writing about topical issues and such. Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, Clifford Brown. Wynton Marsalis, wow, incredible, who else can play Principal Trumpet in any symphony orchestra in the world AND mop the floor with the competition at any jazz club anywhere anytime? Total unicorn, that guy. As far as vocalists go, there’s so many cats I admire and listen to. People often tell me they think I sound like this guy or that guy. Believe me, I’m not trying to deliberately sound like anyone, I’m just trying not to suck, trying to do the best I can with the voice I have.
Paul, Sonoma and Marin Counties in California’s North Bay Area is considered the stomping grounds of The Heard Eye. How do those particular roots inform the sound and the energy of the band?
Well, this area, especially those two counties, is forever in the shadow of the Grateful Dead. For sure their spirit of improvisation and “space jams” is a direction I’m hoping to incorporate into what we’re doing, it fits with our jazz background. I’m envisioning a mash-up of that approach combined with Miles Davis Bitches Brew/In A Silent Way period. We’ll get there, we just need more time to play and stretch out and grow. Right now we’re still focusing on tight songs and arrangements, but we’ll get there. 3rd sets will hopefully always be our showcase for that side of what we do, right now 3rd sets are mostly acid jazz versions of jazz classics, eventually it will be original compositions in that vein. We’re playing some of Hannes compositions now, too, and they are very much in a funky jazzy direction. But getting back to your question, I think the larger Bay Area is also super influential in what we do, bands like Sly and the Family Stone and Santana very much filtered into our sound. Growing up around here, that was just in the air.
Any dream collaborators you’d like to work with in The Heard Eye?
Hannes: Our next new drummer!
Paul: Yeah, we went through 6 drummers in our first seven gigs, not even Spinal Tap had to do that! We get good ones, but they’re in demand and aren’t always available, or they just decide they have too much going on already, so I have a pool of guys I call, and even then it’s not always possible. We need a manager to book us in Europe so we can play with Atma, he’s the real drummer in this band. As far as your question goes, I dunno, maybe a sax player, Branford Marsalis maybe? But I really like working with the guys we have on board now. In the process of putting together the live band, we met our current keyboardist, Chris Studer, and he is a fantastic harmony vocalist as well. Really, I just want to keep collaborating with Hannes and Chris and see what can develop, given an opportunity. It would be great to have a dedicated rhythm section who really get it and want to be fully on board, but if we have to keep doing it with free agents by committee, that’s what we’ll do. If we could get over to Europe and play with Atma, that would be the best. But I can’t count on that. Really, the only thing I can count on is Hannes and Chris. And Atma for drum tracks via Internet. We have about 20 new songs in process right now. Playing live will work itself out. Somehow.
Thanks for spending some time with us today! Where can fans go to find out more about The Heard Eye and stay in touch with you?
They can check out our Website, www.theheardeye.com, they can follow us on Facebook or Instagram, and they can search for us on Spotify, Pandora, Deezer, Tidal, and other streaming services, as well as our You Tube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO8l1qJb-tg
Really, the best way to support us is to go to iTunes or BandCamp and download the album. Funkalypse – Album by The Heard Eye – Apple Music Funkalypse | the Heard Eye | The Heard Eye (bandcamp.com)
