“We’ve been taking it easy in the first months of the year, but now that it’s spring, we’re ready to hit the road and play for our fans,” Glabicki said in a telephone interview.
One of those live events will be the Wanee Festival, founded in 2005 by rock-n-roll legends the Allman Brothers Band. This will be the second time the band has performed at the festival. This year Rusted Root will be joining the likes of Robert Plant, Widespread Panic, The Steve Miller Band, Ween and of course the Allman Brothers. This year it will take place on April 14 - 16 in Live Oak, Florida.
“It’s going to be a magical and musical night with those guys,” Glabicki said.
Wanee Festival goers camp out for four days at the Spirit of the Suwanee Music Park in Live Oak, Florida and listen to the bands play on multiple stages. For Glabicki, the festival is grassroots music at its core.
“The band’s music fits in at that festival. The audience is close to the earth’s energy and we can make magic there,” Glabicki said. “It’s the perfect environment for us. There’s a very musical crowd there, a real passionate sound.”
That passion is important to not only the success of the festival, but to how well the band plays live. Glabicki said Rusted Root not only feeds of the crowd’s energy, but also the energy created by the other bands in the lineup.
“You know what you’re getting when you walk on stage. You know the energy. It’s a clear energy at that point. We feed off it. When you travel and people show up to a show you don’t know where everyone’s energy is. But when you’re at an event like this you know where it is. You walk on stage and you’re riding a wave,” Glabicki said.
Rusted Root is known for their live shows, so the fans are incredibly important to the band. Glabicki said they go out each night and try to give the fans a great experience.
“They’re fantastic, they are Rusted Root, we are Rusted Root together,” he said.
In addition to playing signature pieces, which blends music from multiple traditions, Rusted Root will also be trying out their new funky sound.
“It’s kind of anything goes. It’s groove oriented with a lot of funk grooves,” he said. “We’ve been trying it out in some of our live shows and so far the fans really seem to like it.” Glabicki said the band has enjoyed experimenting with music over the course of their career. And that experimentation translates comes alive on stage.
“Our music is very visual. On stage we create this three-dimensional image of color and shape. When we brought in electric guitars I could see the sound get wider and wrap around the audience,” he said. “Our new drummer has a gospel background, which brings an uplifting energy to the band and audience and supports them emotionally and energetically.”
In addition to the band’s new sound, one of Rusted Root’s most popular songs, “Send Me on My Way” is gaining a bit of a revival with its current use in a series of commercials by Enterprise Rent-A-Car. The song has also been featured on a number of movie soundtracks. Glabicki said when the song was first released in 1995, the thought of licensing out the song would have never crossed his mind. However, now, he said as long as the song is not misinterpreted he believes it is good advertising for the band. Plus, he admitted it makes good financial sense.
“It’s money falling from the sky for us,” Glabicki said. The band will soon head back to the studio to work on a new album, featuring the new funk direction. Even though that sound is a bit of a departure for the band, Glabicki said the music is still grounded in who Rusted Root has become through the years. “There’s a broader understanding of who the band is, which give us more leeway to expand and be creative. It’s been great to learn that.”
For those interested in the band’s new music, Glabicki said they will offer some music on the band’s site. He said the band is also experimenting with Web concerts on sites like Stageit.com. “That’s been a great experience. People can write in requests and talk with us. It’s just really intimate and people enjoy that intimacy.”
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