String Cheese Incident
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Extra Cheese, Please
Phone Interview by Kelly Ladd!
Keith Mosely – Bass
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| HardRock.com: Whenever I eat String Cheese I pull it off and eat it strand by strand. Is there any specific technique that you use when you eat String Cheese? |
| Keith: You know, I don't eat it. But my kid eats a lot of it. And she just bites it. She's not a peeler. She just bites it right off. (laughs) |
| HardRock.com: Back in February I went up to Colorado and went snowboarding for the first time. I fell a lot and actually I hurt my bum pretty bad. Since you and the rest of the band are really into skiing, I'm sure you and a few of your band mates must have a personal story of a mishap on the slopes. |
| Keith: Well, we just finished doing some filming with Warren Miller, ski film people, who are making a movie on the band right now actually. They were out and skied with us last month in March in Colorado in Vail and Crested Butte and Telluride. One interesting thing was we played on the ski hill in Telluride and all the band skied. We rode the lift up and then skied right down followed by hundreds of fans and skied right up to the stage on the mountain. We skied and then jumped right up and played a concert, which was the first time we played an outdoor concert on the ski hill. That was an event. That was a lot of fun. |
| HardRock.com: That's cool. That's really cool. You call your fans that help promote your shows "Pirates." How did that name come about? |
| Keith: You know, I don't really know how that name came out. You know the Pirate network has been the fans that help flyer, poster and spread the word about shows. We used them recently to help coordinate a lot of the clean up after the shows. We passed out trash bags at the shows and the fans are voluntarily helping to clean up the venue and the parking lots, which has been great. Often times we come into a city and leave the venue better than when we came in. That's the type of impact that we want to have. A positive one. |
| HardRock.com: You're next international Incident [show] will be in Japan. And that is going to be so awesome. What sights do you want to see most in Japan? Are you going to have any time for sightseeing? |
| Keith: Well, this is going to be a quick trip. We're doing the Fuji Rock Festival right at the end of the summer tour and we'll probably only be able to do the festival. We may not spend a lot of time sightseeing this time. You know, we look forward to getting into Japan for a long time. I think I'm excited to see Mt. Fuji. I'm excited to hopefully ride the bullet train. I've never been there at all. I think only one of us in the band has been over there. I'm looking forward to the cultural experience. I am hoping to get some real good sushi. It should be a lot of fun for us. |
| HardRock.com: When you have international Incidents [shows], fans are encouraged to make the trek with you. How many fans usually make the journey? |
| Keith: Well, let's see, the last time when we went to Costa Rica we took about a thousand fans with us. |
| HardRock.com: Wow, that's awesome! That's a cool following. |
| Keith: It really is. And obviously not everyone is able to make those types of trips but those sort of fans that can make the trip…they are all so special, memorable experiences. The show in Hawaii in February, which is not officially out of the country but it's the same kind of thing…we had probably close to a thousand fans who came over and vacationed in Hawaii with us. And see the band play right next to the water. It was a real special experience. |
| HardRock.com: Do you spend a lot of time with the fans while you're over there or is it in and out, like it will be for Japan? |
| Keith: Well, when we were in Hawaii most of us stayed about two weeks. Yeah, we definitely did a lot of hanging out. Good times. And we ran into a lot of fans. |
| HardRock.com: The "Gouda Causes" branch of your String Cheese enterprise positively impacts the communities you visit, like you were saying. You do everything from food drives at your shows to giving donations to homeless shelters. Although all of these are great causes, which causes do you, on a personal level, feel the most for? |
| Keith: Well, that's a tough question, because I think we all, everyone in the band, share a lot of attachment to the outdoors. That is where we draw a lot of our inspiration and a lot of our song writing ideas comes from time spent outside. I think a lot of us have a common appreciation for skiing, mountain biking and hiking. So as you can expect, we are all pretty interested in environmental causes. A couple of us in the band are parents now, so that kind of changes things for you. You have a kid and you start looking for a lot of the other issues concerning kids. I think we've been hesitant to jump on any political issues and single-minded causes. But it would probably be safe to say, we're pretty much a pretty liberal-leaning group of folks and are interested in anything from the environmental causes to human rights, hunger, homelessness, all that good stuff. |
| HardRock.com: You were talking about the outdoors. Do you go camping a lot? Do you ever go camping as a band? |
| Keith: Well, camping as a band these days is like festivals. When we do festivals and we're there for multiple days, we'll definitely do some camping. For Billy's 40th birthday party, he had a campout, when we were off tour. That kind of thing. That's about the extent of it. In the early days we did a lot more camping as a band because we couldn't afford hotel rooms. We'd drive out to the gig, find a place to stay, sleep in the van. Or if it was warm enough, we'd pitch a tent or two and sleep on the ground. You know it hasn't been that long. We're not too far from our roots.
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| HardRock.com: Have you ever had the opportunity to tour with a band the way many of your fans tour with you? |
| Keith: Well, interestingly enough, no. I never really did the touring thing. I know certainly, we've seen some shows. Some of us in the band have seen quite a few Dead shows. A couple of the guys may have gone on limited stretches. But none of us were really into the touring like a lot of the fans are now. We certainly appreciate what they do. It makes a huge difference to see familiar faces night after night in the front row. People that you know are there because they love the band. Because of those same familiar faces, I think the band often feels like "Hey, we gotta do something different tonight." We got to make it special. |
| HardRock.com: You guys are all about having a good time. While on the long interstate highways, and you see the same grass lands rolling out forever, how does your band keep the good times going? What do you do to pass the time away? |
| Keith: Well, typically, we drive at night. You wake up in the next city, the next day. But you know, we got a basketball on the road. We try to shoot some hoops when we can. A couple of us have bikes out and try to do some of that. You know, when we're on the road, it's a whole lot of work. People don't realize that all the hours of the day get eaten up by interviews and sound checks and radio plays and stuff like that. But we definitely enjoy each other's company still. |
| HardRock.com: On what items do you always request "extra cheese, please"? |
| Keith: Well, we're kind of health nuts. We try to stay healthy on the road. |
| HardRock.com: Are you guys vegans? |
| Keith: A couple of guys in the crew are vegans. We got some vegetarians with us. Although, most of us in the band are suckers for a good meal. A good steak or a bar-b-que or something like that. When we're down south, we'll eat the bar-b-que. When we're on the coast, we try to eat the seafood. We love to eat well when we can. We do whatever is regionally popular. |
| HardRock.com: Imagine you had a crystal ball to look through. What does the future hold for your band? |
| Keith: Probably more of the same. Continued growth. Continued experimentation. We're going to be heading back to the studio this fall for another studio CD. You know, I think we are all pretty thankful to be where we are now. We've worked hard and seen a lot of growth in the band. Hopefully, we'll have a lot more of that to come. |
