Did last year’s departure of founding member Ryan Vanderhoof [to join a Buddhist community] come as a surprise, and has it affected what material you can perform live?
When it happened it was surprising, but at the same time you could see, looking back, that he had not been totally happy with touring, and he’d gotten more unhappy on the road, wanting to tour less and less as we went on. Being on the road takes up all your energy; it’s your whole life. Ryan really loved us and loved playing music, but I don’t think he wanted it to be his whole life. But on the flip side, every few months we would make a new discovery in the music and he would be re-inspired, so it was a back and forth in that sense.
In a way it was frustrating for us; we wanted him to at least tour [Love Is Simple], and then we’d move on. But in a way it was great because it jump-started the process of change for ourselves. As crazy as it was in August trying to scramble to figure out what to do, it also became a very fertile experience for us, and a lot of great things—great friendships and great music—have come out of it. And I think now we’re on this path toward a whole different thing.
We’ve taken the Ryan songs out of the repertoire, which feels strange. I remember we were playing our last show with Ryan—at [New York’s] Bowery Ballroom in June or July—and I remember playing “Running, Returning” and thinking that we’d played that song so many times and taken it for granted thinking it would just go on forever, and realizing it was the last time we’d be playing that song.
Do you feel comfortable performing as a three-piece yet?
It’s different. We’ve kind of been dividing our time recently between being fleshed out as a bigger band—with some of our friends from different bands—and as a three-piece. So we’re kind of developing both simultaneously, depending on who’s available and how the schedules work. It’s been cool because some songs are getting developed simultaneously in different arrangements and kind of opening our eyes and ears to new possibilities with our songwriting. But [bassist] Miles [Seaton], [drummer] Dana [Janssen] and I had been playing as a three-piece even before Ryan was in the group, years ago, and we just have so much history that there’s a spontaneity … we can move dynamically and so much more quickly, and there’s more timbral and subtle sonic variation that we’re able to achieve.
Given the way you guys improvise—and that you even include the occasional Grateful Dead song in your set list—are you surprised jam fans haven’t embraced Akron/Family the way the Pitchfork scene has?
Recently, like over the last year, we’ve kind of opened the doors a little bit to the jam thing. Musically we haven’t really changed that much; we still do what we do. But we’re gonna do the High Sierra festival this summer, which is traditionally a hippie festival, so we’re trying to play a few more of those events. And last time we were in California a guy from the JamBase website came out and wrote a thing on us, so a few of those people have knocked on our door, and we’ve been open to it.
What happened was, because of the label that we’re on and the circle that we started in, some people in that Pitchfork world are really open to us. But there’s a handful of people in that world that are like, “Oh, those guys are just a bunch of hippies.” The same way if we were in the jam world, some people would be into it and some people would be like, “Oh, that’s too weird.” But for us, it’s less about being part of a particular scene and just about being open to as many people as possible. The great thing about our music is that, although it’s maybe a little bit of an acquired taste in some ways, a lot of people come out, and whether they’re old or young and whether they’re a hippie or an indie rocker, they’re able to appreciate the energy and the music.
With Don Cavalli, Las Vegas Club*, Mother McKenzie. April 20, 10 p.m., $7. Bunkhouse, 384-4536.