Scott Metzger of the LaMP trio, which is headed to Icehouse in Minneapolis next Wednesday, chatted with Jam in the Stream editor Javier Serna recently, riffing on how this instrumental band came to be, several Minneapolis-related topics including Prince and JT Bates, and what this band of experienced musicians seeks to create in their live performances.
LaMP is a side project that improbably formed in 2018, bringing together keyboardist Ray Paczkowski, drummer Russ Lawton of Trey Anastasio Band and Metzger, one of two guitarists in JRAD.
Not even a fire drill in the middle of their first show on a cold December night prevented this trio from coalescing into a formidable psychedelic act that now plays to sold-out rooms.
“Russ, Ray and I had crossed paths for years, like backstage at festivals, but we sort of had a rapport from crossing paths and just hanging around,” he recalled of what led to the band’s formation. “We had been saying for a few years, we’ve got to play some time. But musicians say that kind of stuff to each other all of the time, and it maybe works out 20 percent of the time.”
In 2018, the three musicians ended up with the same booking agent, Pat May of Crossover Touring, who, as Metzger put it, “kind of put his foot down. He said, ‘Look, I have all three of your guys’ schedules and I know you have this month off. … Look, I am booking you guys a night at Nectar’s.’”
All three pointed out that they didn’t have any material to play, but May insisted that they would figure it out.
“Pat sort of knew it was going to work,” Metzger said, noting that the storied, now-closed venue allowed the trio in early that day to work out a rehearsal, flushing out some tunes, playing some songs from each of their projects (including his project WOLF and Lawton and Paczkowski’s Soule Monde) and adding in some covers. He didn’t know how well received the show would be.
“But I quickly realized that when you play in Vermont with Russ and Ray, it’s like playing with the mayor, you know?” Metzger said, alluding to their work with Trey Anastasio, frontman of Vermont’s most beloved jamband, Phish. “These guys are celebrities up there, and the place was absolutely packed.”
A fire alarm during the show forced everybody out into the cold December air, and Metzger had only a sweatshirt on, hoping it would be quick, but he recalled it taking a half hour — which would have sent other crowds home.
Nobody left, he said.
“The place was still totally packed,” he said. “I feel like everyone there was sort of having this ‘Aha’ moment all at once where it was like, ‘Oh, this is not going to be just a one-off jam session. This is something different.’ And I think that was very apparent to everybody in the room, including us.”
It sure didn’t hurt that all three of these musicians were already quite experienced in the improvisational rock world, or that Lawton and Paczkowski had years of chemistry already built in from their time with TAB.
“They have that thing that musicians get from playing together for thousands of hours, you know, and you can’t fake it,” he said. “It’s a level of communication. It is either there or not. If something is starting to get squirrely up there, or there’s a sort of question as to where things should be headed, those two can just glance at one another. … I’ve always seen my role in the band is to kind of highlight the thing that Russ and Ray have without getting in the way and trying to hopefully contribute something that maybe pushes that in a slightly different direction that they wouldn’t, if it was just the two of them — but that I can bring a new idea and contribute in a way that doesn’t obscure the sort of X factor they have naturally with one another.”
Listening to each other is so important.
“It’s the number one thing a musician’s got to be able to do, and I feel like sometimes musicians get so wrapped up in playing their instrument that they are not even aware of what it sounds like in the room anymore,” he said.
I wondered if listening was any more important in the context of an instrumental trio.
“I don’t think so,” he said, noting that it’s important for everybody, including the crowd, regardless of genre.
“If you’re not participating as a listener, too, then what’s the point?” he said.
He noted that LaMP crowds tend to be excellent listeners, and very attentive.
“Some nights we are playing two hours and change, if we are really feeling it, and the crowds are amazing because we are not giving them any lyrical hooks,” he said. “I am so proud of the people that come to LaMP because they really do come to listen. We can get super quiet in there, and you can hear what is going on out (in the crowd), and they are not talking.”
Scott Metzger’s musical origins were in punk and jazz but fate brought him together with his JRAD bandmates at Wetlands Preserve. PHOTO BY ANDREW BLACKSTEIN; COURTESY OF ROYAL POTATO FAMILY
He compared it to JRAD crowds, which he said were also amazing, though fans tend to come to party for JRAD on top of being much larger crowds, in general.
“The LaMP thing a little bit different,” he said. “And it feels like as soon as we start playing, everybody’s like, OK, we’re listening now, and that’s why we’re here. And I love that.”
There is a place the band tries to get to, an almost unspoken place.
“It’s kind of baked in,” he said, not really talked about amongst musicians. “Once you get around people where we’re of a certain level, it’s just sort of understood, like that’s what it is you’re going for.”
And once they get to that place, “it’s when everybody sort of either spoken or unspoken decides, you know, everybody is looking at each other while you’re playing, you’re saying, this is the shit, and it’s like, you look over at Russ, and he’s doing his thing, and he looks back at you, and you can tell. He’s thinking, this is the shit, too. And we all kind of agree that this is what we’re trying to get to, and we’re doing it. And then it becomes let’s just stay in this for as long as possible without overthinking it and then fucking it up.”
So, yeah, LaMP, which just put out their second album, One Of Us, is adept at getting to that place. Listen to the album here at your streaming service of choice.
And it may have not been a given that they would form, or get to this place, but they are here now, and thankfully, lovers of psychedelic instrumentals have found them and supported them, allowing them to keep on.
“There have been bands that I have been in that I loved, and I thought this is going to be it, this is what’s going to move the needle, but just no one’s ever going to hear it. No one cared,” he said. “But with LaMP, that has been a lovely surprise.”
The band recorded their first LP, self-titled, and released it in 2020, but the pandemic caused a break until 2022, four years after their first gig.
“We had no idea if anybody was going to come to see it, or would care or anything,” he said.
But three or so years later, they are having success touring, selling out rooms on the West Coast.
Metzger was well aware of the Icehouse and Minneapolis jazz drummer JT Bates, who books shows for the independent music venue, recalling Bates’ former residency, Fat Kid Wednesdays with jazz musicians Adam Linz and Mike Lewis.
“JT is a super grown-up musician,” he said. “I keep an eye on where these guys are playing and I really respect JT.”
He also noted his love for our beloved Prince and said he’d seen the late Minneapolis genius perform more than anyone.
Metzger himself never set out to be involved in the jam scene, loving punk and then jazz, earlier in his life.
But in the 90s, he ended up playing at the famous Wetlands Preserve club in NYC, where he first met his JRAD bandmates Joe Russo, Marco Benevento and Tom Hamilton.
“We’ve been card-carrying members of the jam scene ever since,” he said.
LaMP plays its first gig in Minneapolis at Icehouse next Wednesday. Get tickets here.
They kick off the next leg of their tour on Friday at Hi-Fi in Indianapolis, with gigs in Peoria, Ill., Madison, Wis., Des Moines, Iowa, and Chicago’s Garcia’s, before a pair of shows in Portland, Maine on March 27 and 28 and then a pair of shows in Washington, D.C., on April 9 and 10. Head here for the band’s tour page.