photo: Paul Citone

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Guitarist Al Schnier and bassist Rob Derhak reflect on an emotional few years, their enduring jamband’s bond and the roots of their first studio album in five years, Circle of Giants.

At Ease with the Process

AL SCHNIER: The writing process for Circle of Giants was a little different than it typically would be. Rob and I wrote a lot of this stuff at a time when we were both doing a lot of virtual house parties during the pandemic. We both went through this pretty industrious period while we were home, writing a lot of songs and, oddly, playing a lot of music during that time. And it ended up being great. He and I stayed in touch a lot through that whole time not only for personal reasons, but also because of the music. And we shared a lot of this stuff with one another.

For many years now, we have written the songs on our own and then brought them into the band to be developed. This time, it was a little bit different because the songs were much more developed when we brought them to the band since we had the opportunity to do that on our own—and we did not have the opportunity to get together with everybody else to fully realize them, to finish the arrangements and include everybody else’s voice in these things. Yet still, I found that once we incorporated everybody else into it, the songs still changed. Everything always takes a shift. I may think I know what I want to hear from the other guys in the band, and sometimes I’m right, but more often than not, they usually have a better idea. And when they lend their own voice to it, it always makes it better. That’s part of the process, and that’s always been one of our strengths. So we went through a lot of that in the last year or two, working on stuff on the road, rearranging things, trying out different ideas.

We are in such a good space—and have been for many years—about everybody being really at peace with the way we write. Nobody feels precious about their ideas. There was never a time when anybody was jerky about it and we’ve always gotten along pretty well. But, sometimes, when it’s your song, it can be challenging. Or, if you tell somebody their part sucks, it can be a delicate situation. But, these days, everybody is just so at ease with the process. It’s like, “Fuck it. If you want to throw in the bridge as a waltz instead of whatever it is now, then let’s do it.” Everybody’s been so cooperative, and our workflow has been great for quite a while now. Adding [keyboardist] Nate Wilson into the mix [in 2023] made it even easier somehow.

The familiarity is certainly a part of it, but it is also about the maturity that comes from knowing it’s not a big deal and that this is not the hill I want to die on. As I said before, more often than not, the idea someone else has is probably better than yours. So we’ve gotten to the point where we’re OK to accept someone else’s ideas. Nobody’s really precious about their songs or their parts. It makes working together so much easier.

ROB DERHAK: “Ups and Downs,” the song we put up first, I wrote as an experiment where somebody basically paid me to write a song for their wife. It was during the pandemic, and I was trying to figure out some way to still get out, play music and express myself creatively. And I needed to make a living. I was like, “I’ll write songs for people.” I’d write about the subject they’d like, but it’s still my song. So “Ups and Downs” was written for a particular person’s wife, but I drew from my own experiences to make that happen.

It was a new way to immerse myself in the experience. At first, I was sitting there with a guitar in my hand—staring at a computer screen with a piece of paper—saying to myself, “I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do here.” So I said to this guy: “Just give me a bunch of stuff that you think of when you think of your wife.” He gave me a backstory of their life together. And it was just written in a very informal way. He was like, “We’ve had our ups and downs,” and I said, “That’s where I’m going to start.” I was able to take a couple of things from that, some of my own experiences and write from the heart.

Another song on the album, “Back Country,” is a collaboration between Nate and myself. Nate came up with the music and I came up with the words, and we brought that to the band as a whole song about a year ago. And then there are also a few older tunes that Nate had already written. We had played them in our side-project BlueStar Radiation, so Nate, myself and [drummer Vinnie Amico] already had those down and we brought them to the band.

Everything Goes Down Live

AS: For this album, we went back to Tank Recording Studio in Burlington, Vt., to work with Ben Collette, who’s the same engineer who did our previous record, [2020’s This Is Not, We Are]. We had such a good experience working with Ben and working in that studio. It was by far the easiest record we’ve ever made and one of my favorite recording experiences I’ve ever had. Ben is a sweetheart, he’s an incredible engineer and he makes the process so easy for us. The space is incredible and everything about it is great. And it’s just one of those things where I might have an idea and, by the time I’ve gone downstairs, Ben has already done it. The main recording room itself is a giant live room with barn siding—it was a barn of sorts that was in an old building that’s in the city. So it’s a unique structure. It sounds amazing in there, and we can set up and play live as a band, which is what we do. Everything goes down live, and we’ve got most of the song recorded when we’re done. It allows us the freedom to just be loose and just be a band.

So we wanted to go back to that same space because it’s such a great work environment and really conducive to getting the job done. But some stuff was different: We had matured. This time we knew what we were getting into, we knew what the process was and we thought that we could move through it pretty quickly. And we did.

Most of the songs evolved as we played them. There were a few songs that were brand new and that we had not played live—and some that we still have not played at this point. Then, there’s a song of mine on the record, “Living Again,” that we first played 20 years ago. It never made the cut for a record, and it also didn’t really stay in rotation. So we just shelved it. Every now and then, it would rear its head, and we’d try it out again and tweak the arrangement a little bit.

As we’ve been playing it the last few years, we’ve simplified the arrangement, and it’s felt really good. It’s been in pretty steady rotation for the last couple of years and Rob was the one who came up with the idea. He thought that it would f it really well in the context of all these other songs and that it was the missing link for these songs. Meanwhile, there’s a song of Rob’s on there that I don’t think anybody has heard. So it really runs the gamut but they all fit somehow.

RD: I’ve been saying that we should record “Living Again” for a long time. We recorded our newer version, which is really pretty cool. It’s almost got a Pink Floyd or Flaming Lips vibe to it. The whole album is interesting. If you drew a Venn diagram with moe. in the middle, one circle would be prog rock, one would be psychedelic and one would be some sort of jam/Americana circle. But the whole album is crossing all those things. That’s what it sounds like to me.

One of the most recent ones that were recorded for the album we did in my barn in Freeport, Maine, not in Vermont. It’s called “Giants.” We’d already settled on the name Circle of Giants for the record and Nate’s like, “I’ve got a song called ‘Giants.’ We listened to it, and it totally fit. It was great. So we sat down, learned it and put it on the album. I’m not sure we’ve even played it live yet. We also recorded a song called “Beautiful Mess” in Maine, and then we did “Bear Song,” which is not on the album. We’re not sure what we’re going to do with it yet, but maybe we’ll release it as a 7” record or something.

The title [Circle of Giants] is a reference to my son that I lost recently. It was a very tragic, sad situation where I lost my son to suicide—my oldest son. He had this personality where everybody in the band knew and loved him. All of our friends knew him. He was one of those guys who would call you every single day to see if you’re OK. He would call my friends to see how they’re doing—and I didn’t even know it. He was always checking in on people. He was also a very big personality and a very big person. He was like a weightlifter—6’2— and obsessed with Vikings, DND, Tolkien and Lord of the Rings. He had been writing his own stuff for years and he had this whole lore that he was working on that had to do with giants. It just came to me in a dream. I woke up and I was like, ‘Circle of Giants is the name of the album.’ It was the first thing I thought of when I woke up and I told the guys in the band and everyone was like, “Absolutely.” They all immediately jumped on board.

A Great Fit

AS: Having Nate in the band has been great, particularly in the studio. When it came to the harmonies—and checking ourselves on all of that stuff— normally it’s just me, Rob and [guitarist Chuck Garvey]. We have a pretty good ear for that stuff and a pretty good knowledge of what we’re doing. But to bring in somebody who’s got a Master’s Degree in that and to have a fourth voice in all of this was great. He also came in with all these harmonic and tonal ideas that we may not have come up with. It has taken what we already have and elevated it. And it’s been amazing. He’s a great dude. I love hanging out with him. It feels like he’s been in the band since the beginning—maybe that’s because we’ve known each other for over 25 years. When we’re sitting around and telling these stories about Gathering of the Vibes or whatever, Nate will be like, “I was there.” And then we’ll realize that we actually hung out together that night. It’s a great fit.

RD: It was pretty seamless [adding Wilson]. He’s very musical in every way, and I’m a lot more lyrical when it comes to writing. He recognized that it makes for a good partnership. I’ve written some of the music too, but he’s a little more complex with the writing. I think you’ll see more partnership stuff coming out of the two of us.

Nate was close to being in the band back in 2017. He had gotten in touch with me and said, “We work well together, I love playing with you guys, blah, blah, blah. Why not take me on to be in the band?” He was doing a lot of other stuff at the time, but I thought that he wasn’t interested in touring anymore. I think that he got kind of burnt out on that. So I said to him: “I didn’t think that was something that you were interested in doing anymore.” But he was totally into it, so I brought it to the band. We had a big discussion about what it was going to mean to have another member, and it got to a point where we were like, “Let’s do it. Let’s have him be in the band.” And then, probably two weeks later, I got hit with my cancer diagnosis.

So I told Nate: “This is bad timing, but it’s not going to happen because we’re not doing anything.” Then, after we started getting back out on the road and getting our feet wet again after COVID and the spaced-out shows, Chuck ended up having a stroke. We were just like, “What the fuck? We had talked about Nate before. Let’s see if he’s interested now. And instead of just trying to replace Chuck, let’s get Suke to play guitar and Nate to play keys. It’ll be a slightly different thing, and we’ll see how that goes.” [Schleigho’s Michael “Suke” Cerulo subbed for Garvey while he recovered from his stroke and relearned how to speak and play his instrument.] Then, Chuck came back, Nate stayed and that’s basically how it all came about.

A Determined, Inspiring Person

AS: I’m blown away [by Garvey’s recovery from his 2021 stroke.] We played some Monkeys shows a few weeks ago—it was the second night and we were playing “Rebubula.” [moe. occasionally make underplay appearances as Monkeys on Ecstasy.] Sometimes I can’t believe the firepower that he brings to this stuff. It’s like old Chuck, and he’s just gonna burn the house down. It’s fucking amazing to watch. Forget about all the shit that he’s been through, he’s playing at this next level sometimes, and it just blows me away. It’s great to be a part of it, and I love watching it.

RD: He’s very determined. He’s an inspiring person. It’s really hard to believe, given the severity of the stroke that he had and the amount of time before he was able to get help. That’s when you start to lose a lot of it. He had to get airlifted, and they weren’t able to get him the medical attention he needed right away, so the stroke really affected him. To see how far he has come is just unbelievable. I’ve seen other people with strokes who are just not in that good of shape and will never be.

Before every show, he sits down with the setlist and works on every single thing so he can remember how to do it. He works on his muscle memory because he loses it every day. So he sits there before soundcheck, during soundcheck and then in a room by himself before the show and spends an hour or more going through all the songs—stuff that he’s been playing for 20-plus years that wasn’t an issue before. But he has to reteach himself every single time how to do it.

Happy Hour Heroes

RD: We’re rolling our album out with the 35th anniversary tour, and that’s starting with our album release party at Woodstock, N.Y.’s Bearsville Theater in January. But I don’t have an official date for our first show as moe. Chuck and I played our first gig together, before we were moe., at a Halloween party in college [in 1989.] It was us and our friend Ray Schwartz, who ended up being the first drummer for moe. But we didn’t have any of the songs—it was all cover tunes. The first time Al played with us was at another Halloween party in Buffalo, but we were already moe. by that point. He was supposed to play congas for us because we had a second guitarist already—he just really wanted to be in the band. But that guitarist couldn’t make it, so Al played some guitar and had his congas set up. In some ways, that is the first show, so it is a little blurry and we are just celebrating 2025 as our 35th anniversary.

We try to pull from every era all the time. We try not to get stuck on one thing. I always wonder what it would be like to just go out and play the new album or the new music and then move on to the next thing, like how some bands do it. It seems really interesting to try to do something like that, but I don’t think we could ever get away with it at this point.

AS: It’s amazing when I think about the fact that we are celebrating 35 years. Right now, we’re focused on getting the record out and doing this first leg of the tour. But we’ve got other stuff planned for the summer and then the end of the year. I want to enjoy it. I feel so grateful to be with these guys and to have done this for 35 years. I still can’t believe it when I say that we’re doing this 35 years later. I never would have believed it 35 years ago—or even 30 years ago. It’s incredible.

I attribute it to these guys, to our crew, to all of that. If not for them, if not for having one another, we wouldn’t still be doing this. That’s the thing that allows us to persist. Otherwise, a lot of this wouldn’t be bearable. We’ve been through so much shit, but these guys have made it sustainable. I’m forever grateful that I’m doing this with these particular people.

During the pandemic, we started doing these virtual happy hours on Fridays. It was just the band and crew at first. Then, we started incorporating some of our old crew and other friends and the group grew. It’d be one of those things where it would start at happy hour and, oftentimes, still be going at midnight. People would come and go from this thing, and it would keep going. It just speaks to how much we love each other and how much we missed each other.

Maybe we are creatures of comfort, but we really like each other. Even on days off on the road, we all hang out with each other. At 8 or 9 p.m., everybody’s hanging out on the bus, having beers and listening to music.