Nth Depth with Nick Cassarino
By: @312mrg
Proof that the harder you work, the more you will be rewarded -- the Nth Power been busting ass for the better part of three years together, after forming at Jazz Fest in 2012 and immediately clicking.
The 4 N’s -- Nigel Hall (keys), Nikki Glaspie (drums), Nate Edgar (bass) and Nick Cassarino (guitar) -- knew something was up. Jazz Fest birthed them, but Bear Creek 2014 exposed them. In one of those performances that acts a point of demarcation for a band, the Nth Power became one of those acts that suddenly was drawing interest from fans and musicians alike.
New York and New Orleans each had a hand in crafting of a unique blend of soul, jazz, R&B, funk, world, reggae and gospel that separates the Nth. Their roots are in all of those areas, and their sound is deep, different and genuine. It’s mature, caring, healing, and they convey love, compassion and, yes, power in the studio, but more importantly in their live performance. And we're just now starting to see this evolve.
A season into the release of their first full length album, Abundance, Nigel Hall's handprints in the band's soul, but has since parted ways, leaving a trench for the remaining members, with Cassarino gravitating to fill the biggest vacancies. Adding percussionist Weedie Braimah, a 100 plus generation witch doctor of rhythm has lent an extra dimension to the band’s already deep bench. This rhythm section may have no rival. Courtney Smith replaced Hall in his role, but has already helped navigate the ship along a refined course.
The Barn caught up with Nick Cassarino in the midst of pre-tour rehearsals with the intent of talking Abundance, but our conversation bent towards more personal reflection and roots, life on the road, and his path to the present. Catch them at Martyrs' on Saturday March 12th with Jonathan Scales for a Silver Wrapper party.
There are so many funk, rock, and psychedelic bands in the jam world, but soul is underrepresented. In my short time getting to know the Nth Power, it’s the genre that you guys do via this really unique approach and with a very deep and rich blend of sound, with so much heart.
Aw man, thanks a lot bro, that’s great to hear.
So you guys formed in 2012 at Jazz Fest, and in the span of 4 years you’ve already gone through a significant lineup change with the departure of Nigel Hall. Nigel’s involvement, and the role he played within the Nth Power, the legacy he left, the seeds he helped plant... That departure really seemed to open a door sonically, but also from a leadership perspective, there were some big shoes to fill…
Yeah, absolutely, there was that space. I was doing a bunch of the writing and the singing anyways, so I just needed to find a way to try to get into a little more of that space. Musically...emotionally...spiritually.
As far as having some big shoes to fill, I don’t necessarily want to fill them, because the whole view and scope of things really changed for us. When somebody that powerful leaves a group, it leaves a lot of room in a group for A LOT of things to change. There’s a lot more space to fill than just musically, it’s energetically...that’s something I was definitely aware of and tried to step into…
So the 3 remaining “N’s”, (drummer Nikki Glaspie, bassist Nate Edgar and Nick Cassarino) are the 3-headed monster determining the focus and direction of the band?
Yeah, and we’re the three that live in New York as well. So we’re the three that get together for writing sessions, and send stuff out to Weedie and Courtney. But as far as the day to day stuff, it’s mostly me, Nikki and Nate. Weedie is in New Orleans and Courtney is in St. Louis.
So you guys are in three different spots, and trying to introduce new ideas and prepare for the road, how do you do that? Soundcloud or something? I’ve always wondered how bands bridge those gaps?
Yeah, so for our rehearsal, we were working on some new stuff for the tour yesterday, me, Nikki and Nate, and I took my laptop and recorded it on Garage Band, I really love tech, but it’s nothing fancy, and I split that up, and took those recordings and used one of those large file transfer programs and emailed them to Courtney and Weedie. They’ll check them out before the tour, we’ll talk about it, and then run through it at soundcheck. And that’s it! It’s really about the process more than the technology and finding one that works for you…
You guys did some shows in January/February around New York, these tribute shows with lots of special guests. You did a Mardi Gras gig, a reggae/dub gig, and an R&B/Soul night. Were those extensions of Nikki, Nate and yours respectively, kind of having you guys own creatively how each of those nights went?
Definitely, we had a few more, we had one that was rock where we all just wanted to rock, and then the second was hip hop, and we had my own hip hop band, the Lifted Crew, come in for that. We got them back together for that, the R&B was kind of mine and Nikki’s vibe. The reggae was totally all Nate, and the last one was Mardi Gras, where we brought in Tony Hall from Dumpstaphunk, Tony was killin’!
I’m a big proponent of things happening at the right time, the right place with the right people for the right reasons, and you just needing to be open to it. Any musician who can make a living out of muic has to have some stars align -- a connection that bends an ear, someone that gives you “that” gig, or trusts you enough. Your path from Vermont to NYC through the church and Gospel, jazz, punk, hip hop and R&B has presented a number of significant influences and those that helped you make it today. Can you give me a little bit of that history and who some of those people were?
Yeah, I guess 2008 I moved to New York. I had just started to dive in and decided to begin taking more opportunities and show up at more opportunities, even if I didn’t like it. If I liked it I would show up again, and if I didn’t I wouldn’t do it again. So moving to New York was huge!
And that was genres or gigs or musicians?
Yeah, 100%. Any. All of those. I was doing a lot of jazz, a lot of free jazz, I was doing a lot of gospel. Then I realized through playing a lot of weddings in and around New York that I have to get more into the R&B and funk stuff, so I started doing a lot of classes for kids, like infants and 4 year olds.
So I had to play a bunch of kids songs, which opened my eyes up to a bunch of writing, and learning a bunch of these songs, like even “You Are My Sunshine”, how beautiful of writing and of a song that is. And then I was doing a bunch of classes for autistic kids for a few years when I first moved to the city, and that really opened up my eyes to everyday, seeing the impact of music and the healing power of music on people.
The ability or challenge of finding a way to communicate with children had to be really rewarding, and I’m sure having that vessel of music as your method had to be inspiring. So when did things really start speeding up after you got to New York?
Let’s see... I had been doing little tours, nothing major or more than a few weeks at a time with little bands around New York, like I was playing with this hip hop band, the Lifted Crew, we were doing some tours around the country, like we were backing up Big Daddy Kane, and things were going pretty good with that…
Hold on, I had heard that and I don’t want to glaze over that, because being a child of the 80s and 90s and growing up on that early hip hop and rap era, that is awesome! I loved Slick Rick, Doug E. Fresh and the Big Daddy! How did that happen?
Yeah, that dude... him and Slick Rick, those dudes are just lessons and pleasures to be around. So what had happened was, I was playing with the Lifted Crew around the city since around 2009, they had been around a little bit before that, and we had this reputation around the city as a live hip hop act with horns and singers and rappers, and we had a broad product.
So we had this production company we were working with, and there was this thing where Slick Rick was coming to town and he lived in New York, but he wanted a live band and we got recommended to him. So we did a rehearsal for a gig, and I think he came to the last 20 minutes of it. And it was cool. We did a couple of gigs. But I didn’t get to hang or talk with Slick Rick as much as Big Daddy Kane, but he was super mellow, super cool, always G’d out...I mean he was THAT dude...Ricky D bro!
The Ruler!
The Ruler! Straight Up! Slick Rick the Ruler indeed!
Yeah and that kind of was short lived with him, but then what happened was Big Daddy Kane was coming back to town and there was a falling out between him and his west coast band and he was asking his New York people for some help with setting him up. In some cross promotional thing between him and Slick Rick, we were recommended to him for something at BB King’s in Time Square, and we got to do that and he loved it.
And he was like, I want to record an album, I got this record I want to do called the Las Supper, so our band recorded with him for like a week, and went on tour with him, that was so deep man! And that was actually my first bus tour! We were on the bus with fuckin’ Kane bro! Big Daddy Kane man! It was so hip!
Gold chain?
Oh yeah! Well Kane didn’t really rock the gold as much. But Slick Rick is fully chained out! He must do neck exercises!
That’s really cool to me that you have this other element that not a lot of other people have, and that’s the birth of hip hop and the mainstream rap we know today. You’ve got a really cool 80s and 90s pop culture timeless connection that influences you more than anyone of us are probably aware, and you rode a bus, did an album and played with some of the pioneers!
Ha, yeah, right! After that album with Kane, we did some national tours, and at that point the seeds had been planted for the Nth Power. We did our first gig at Jazz Fest in New Orleans for our friend Jen (Hartswick). And it just took over. We all realized it was something we all needed to do. Basically, at that time it was a changing of the guard.
So for the Nth Power and yourself, that one real big catalyst was Jen?
100%. In those early New York days when I was hopping around and doing these little week to week tours and shows, she was the one I was touring with the most, or doing the most gigs with...Jen has always been a big sister to me and a huge influence for sure.
My parents always played music, so it was always around me and it was great to have their support when I was starting. I had a couple of teachers in Burlington, Vermont like James Harvey, who was a legendary genius and composer. I mean he was a junkie and his teeth fell out so he couldn’t play trombone by the time I met him, but he was a phenomenal trombonist, and a phenomenal keyboardist, and I played drums in his band in Vermont, and it was just the baddest jazz shit going on...it was really something, really high caliber. Then I had another teacher, Dave Grippo…
The Truth!
Yeah man...The Truth Grippo! He was my high school music teacher, that was the shit having him at such an early age... a blessing! And he even left during a time, I think my senior year, around 2003, for the first major Trey band solo tour. I can’t remember if he had done tours before that with Trey solo, but this was the first tour that Jen was a part of the ensemble, but Grippo was in charge of the horn section and he left around that time.
You’re obviously blessed with the people and teachers you've encountered. If that was 2003, and then to be in NY five years later, and then eight years later to be four years deep with a rising band with it’s own sound...but you’ve had to have some struggles along the way?
Biggest struggles? Alcohol and drugs for sure man. And struggles with just learning how to live life man. It’s hard! Learning how to get out of my own way. There’ve definitely been a lot of lessons in my own career. Struggles in trusting God. Struggles in faith, that everything is gonna work out. And like you said, that everything happens for a reason and at a specific time that it’s supposed to happen, not before.
Without tilting the conversation into a religious direction, faith and praise are parts of the band's fabric. So hearing those sorts of struggles you have, regardless if it’s drugs, or alcohol or depression... anyone committing to being a musician as a career kind of puts themselves on a collision course for struggles. Based lifestyle you live, always being on the road -- it’s easier to be disconnected from families and that structure that can keep you grounded. This band has to be your family away from family and help your core?
That’s for damn sure! We all come from different spiritual backgrounds. But definitely everyone is aware of it; it’s definitely a part of our lives.
For me, when we’re on the road, I’m still learning how to get a (religious) practice...because at this point we are still carrying our own gear. We’re still setting it all up. We’re still driving ourselves. So there’s not a lot of downtime...in the 5 hours or whatever you got during the day, you’re going to want to sleep. So I’m trying to figure out with those parameters how to get a good practice, because you need day to day, a daily practice.
For me, religion is man made, spirituality is not...and I’m just someone who’s trying to figure it out. How to really let the spirit use me in a way that’s greater than I could use myself for the greater good of humanity and the world..
And that struggle never ends...
You’ve got some Chicago roots with Van Ghost and Michael Berg as well?
Yeah we go back, Michael Berg is my brother!
And you’re playing Martyrs', a Silver Wrapper [Berg's promotion company] gig, which is such a great intimate and kind vibed venue...even though you’ve done some larger rooms the last few times through...
Yeah, we’ve been through Chicago 4 or 5 times. We’ve been a support act, and we’ve headlined, but especially the support gigs, we felt the venues may have been a little big for us and the headliner. And we’re at a point, where, we need to sell this shit out. The venue, the material, the record...rather than having a half full club, we want the energy of a sold out club, so we’ll go a little smaller right now. Man, we want some pop sensibility, and we want to do it right.
Watch the Nth Power perform “Only Love” at Schuba’s in 2013 above or their Chicago City Winery show from 2014 (part 1) (part 2) courtesy of TheFunkItBlog.
