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Rusted Root: Diversity key to unique sound |
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Written by Glenn BurnSilver
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Thursday, 05 July 2007 |
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 To the casual listener, Rusted Root comes across as just another jamband. In fact, the term is liberally used these days for any band that doesn’t fit into a neat little category. Sure, Rusted Root jams a little in concert, but nothing like String Cheese Incident or Phish.
Rather, Rusted Root’s sound goes beyond the moniker befitting other jambands. It’s rich and soulful, riding the crest of Michael Glabicki’s deep and expressive voice that is at times supported by Liz Berlin’s luxurious harmonies. Inventive percussion that explores Latin, Caribbean and African syncopation moves the music at a steady tempo and to an often funkier, nontraditional rock beat that also wraps around gospel, R&B, blues, rock — just about anything the band’s outstretched arms can pull in.
 “It’s been one of our biggest strengths having so much diversity as a band,” Berlin explained from her Pittsburgh home. “It comes together in a really unique way. I can’t say exactly how it happens, but it does.”
The band got its start when vocalist-guitarist Glabicki returned from a trip to South America and pulled in Berlin, who plays guitar and sings, and drummer Jim Donovan and bassist Patrick Norman, who met in an African drum ensemble. They immediately got to work “trying to create something we’d never heard before,” as Berlin put it. “When we started I hadn’t heard of any other American groups doing that kind of stuff. It was new to us. It was something we did consciously trying to create something we could never find.”
The strategy worked and the band quickly developed a solid fan base and was signed to a major label.
“It was a music phenomenon that we didn’t expect, but at the same time we didn’t not expect it because that’s what we were trying to do,” Berlin added.
The problem was, not everyone was ready for a rock sound with world influences back then. Their single “Ecstasy” couldn’t find radio-play for “being too Latin,” and yet less than a year later Ricky Martin was everywhere with “Livin’ La Vida Loca.”
“If we’d waited a year, it would have been huge,” Berlin said.
Hindsight being 20-20, Rusted Root did pave the way for other bands blending world influences. If anything, Rusted Root’s last studio album, “Welcome to My Party” (Island) could act as the guidebook for bands looking for ways to blend some unique rhythms and styles within a rock context. There are cooled down acoustic moments such as “Women Got My Money,” while touches of Qwali-like wailing amidst Indian raga rhythms pop up perfectly in the middle of funk tempos of “Artificial Winter.” “Too Much” takes on a hybrid deep-south/Caribbean tempo with tin whistle and Dobro guitar, while “People of My Village” is a funky African techno drum excursion with an INXS-derived guitar line.
Call them what you will: jamband, world groove, hippie roots rock, or whatever, no other band makes music quite like Rusted Root — which is exactly what they wanted all along.
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TO GO TO THE SHOW
Rusted Root
Doors 8 p.m., show 9 p.m.
Saturday, July 7
Aggie Theatre
204 S. College Ave.
482.8300, aggietheatre.com
$35
With Back Door Slam, Prism
www.rustedroot.com
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WHEN DREAMING, DREAM BIG
Rusted Root singer-guitarist Liz Berlin recently completed her solo debut album, a mix of genres ranging from R&B to “sweet girl songs,” Latin to rock. But what of the Bulgarian Women’s Choir?
“That would be my dream,” Berlin said, recounting them as a favorite listen during college. “I actually fantasized about that.”
MORE MUSIC
Rusted Root is working on a new album. Its last was a double CD live set, and Berlin, while not revealing the nature of the new material, said to expect five or six new songs for the Aggie Theatre date.
GLENN BURNSILVER
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