Joel Cummins
Venice Beach, CA
Umphrey’s McGee
umphreys.com
How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place?
I started playing piano at the age of 8 when my parents told me I had to pick an instrument and practice 30 minutes a day. Umphrey’s McGee started in late 1997 and we haven’t looked back since. I started with sight reading, mainly focused on classical music, but also did some ragtime, blues & contemporary stuff early on. Bruce Hornsby’s “Harbor Lights” was the 1st song I listened to and tried to transcribe by ear. I gradually worked harder and harder on ear training, and then got a degree in Music Theory with a concerntation in piano performance from the University of Notre Dame in 1998.
Who have been some of your major musical influences, past or present?
My biggest musical influences early in life were my piano teacher, Kathi Best, and my choir directors, Robert A. Boyd, Connie Lyda & Donald Doig. They showed me the power of music both as an individual performer and as a collaborative singer. Since then, I’ve discovered the brilliance of Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock, Bill Frisell, Joshua Redman, Willie Weeks, Donny Hathaway, Stevie Wonder, Chuck Leavell, Robert Glasper, Brad Mehldau & so many more. I’m just as big of a fan of music as I am a performer, and what a great time to be alive as we find ourselves immersed in more music than has ever been out there before.
What drew you to using pedals initially? Have you been using them throughout your playing career? How have pedals helped to shape your sound, or influence the style that you’ve created?
Pedals can achieve lots of different goals with altering sounds. For the keys, I’m often looking for interesting delays & reverbs. But it’s not limited to that as I’ve used distortion pedals, phasers & ring modulators on my Fender Rhodes as well. I think the biggest part of having pedals for me with Umphrey’s McGee is that I can make something sound like it’s otherworldly or simply add a bed of texture underneath what the guitarists are playing.
What’s your current setup look like? Take us through your pedal rig (feel free to include amps and instruments as well if you’d like):
I used a handful of different pedals on most of the keyboards I use in a live setting. I have 3 MoogerFooger MF-104 delay pedals that I use on a MiniMoog Voyager, Fender Rhodes & an A/B I have for a Sequential Prophet & Mellotron m4000d. I really dig the MoogerFoogers because they have a nice analog-y sounding delay along with some LFO options to detune the echoes as they decay. By maxing out the speed of the LFO you can also create some really chaotic sounds as well. For the MiniMoog voyager, I also have a tuner in the chain. This is for two reasons…. As Moogs warm up their tuning can change slightly, so you obviously want to have the instrument in tune. Second, I can bend notes more easily and know exactly when I’m approaching a note & how close I am to it. Having some flexibility with detuning notes & creating tension that way can really aid the overall direction improvisation or composition is going. For my Roland V Piano, I have a stereo TC Electronic Flashback pedal. It is a fantastic reverse delay that I use often, in addition to some nice stereo ping-pong options that sound huge when heard through a big stereo PA.
Finally, I have a couple other pedals on my Rhodes, a modified Keeley Boss Distortion that splits the original signal so you get ½ distortion ½ clean tone. It really helps preserve the low end of the Rhodes bass once the distortion is on. I also have a phaser on the Rhodes when I really want to turn on the ‘70’s vibe.
Favorite type of pedal (drive, delay, fuzz, etc. – more than one answer is always acceptable!):
As you might guess from my rig, the MoogerFooger Delay has always been a favorite of mine for it’s analog brilliance, the way it warms up a keyboard tone & for it’s extra features that make it the delay pedal you want.
You’re stranded on a desert island – which three (3) of the following do you want to have?
Instruments: Acoustic piano (I’ll assume this comes with tuning tools)
Amps: Don’t need an amp for piano – can we mute the ocean for a minute?
Pedals: MoogerFooger Analog Delay, Donald Fagen’s phaser
What’s up next for you/your band(s)?
Umphrey’s McGee has an October run with shows in St. Louis & a festival in Florida called Hulaween. They’re all multi-night stands, which is exciting in that we get to set up shop and dive a little deeper with our song choices for the shows. We’ve also just put our New Year’s Eve run on sale, we’re returning for 3 nights in Chicago at the Riviera Theater & the Aragon Ballroom. It’s been 6 years since we’ve done NYE in Chicago. Finally, we’ve just started releasing singles from our album of mashups we created called “Zonkey.” The first single is a mashup of Radiohead, Beck & Phil Collins. The mashups have been something we’ve been creating for years now so we figured why not get in the studio and try to really nail them. Often live there are so many parts & vocals to cover that we just can’t do it all. With unlimited tracks, every part we want in there is finally there. We’ll be releasing a single every week until ZONKEY comes out on 11/11.
The Klon hype: Love it or Hate it?
Kind of indifferent to it. I love vintage-y sounding pedals, but this appears to be more of a guitar player thing than keyboardist thing.
Thanks so much to Joel for taking the time to answer some questions! Make sure to go check out umphreys.com, and check their tour page to see when they’re headed to a town near you! Cheers!
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