Respect your Kansas City Elders

Editor’s note: The City Wire interview with Steve Phillips, a member of The Elders, was conducted by Peter Lewis. Photos courtesy of www.eldersmusic.com.

The Elders are an innovative and high-energy Celtic rock band from Kansas City, Mo., and are scheduled to play in Fort Smith April 9 as part of the Second Street Live concert series.

The band is comprised of five American musicians from a variety of musical backgrounds and an effusive Irishman from County Wicklow, Ian Byrne. They recently released their fifth studio album, “Gael Day.” Their place as both a genre buster and cultural uniter was long ago cemented in the public consciousness. Proof of both can be seen in their “Live at the Gem” performance that has been aired across the nation on PBS affiliates.

Their performance April 9 at the Fort Smith Events Center (12 N. 11th St., in downtown Fort Smith) is the final concert of the season for the Second Street Live music series. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the show will commence at 7:30 p.m. A full bar is available to patrons throughout the show. Tickets can be purchased for $45 at the door. Student tickets are available for $25 for students under 21 with valid ID.

Peter Lewis: Can we begin with you telling the readers, in your own words, who The Elders are?

Steve Phillips: I can tell you what we started out doing. All of us have been in many bands over the years. You know we’re all in our late 40s early 50s, so we’ve been around the block a few times. And you know, we’ve played in every type of band, from blues to country to bluegrass, rock n roll, pop, whatever. We’ve played in just about every style of band. I used to play bluegrass many years ago. So that’s kinda where some of the Celtic music influences came from, for me. Who we are now? … You know when we started this band out we kinda thought it’d be something fun to do on the weekends. But it’s kinda developed into where we are now. We’re one of the premiere Celtic rock bands in America. Maybe not up there with Flogging Molly or Dropkick Murphy’s, they’re kind of in a league above us. Of course it helps to have the good fortune to be in a movie like Gaelic Storm was. No such luck yet. But on the festival circuit we’re one of the top headliners.

So you really didn’t begin with any specific goal beyond having fun and it just morphed into something more than that?

SP: Yeah, it has. And once you get a little taste of something you want more, you know? We went from wanting to do something fun on the weekends to world domination. That’s the part we’re working on now, world domination.

Have you struggled with the change from just “having fun” to “wow, this is really successful and not what we expected.” Has there been any issues with that?

SP: Not really. I would say really nothing we do is a struggle other than trying to find a balance between family life and work. That’s probably one of the hardest things to do because we all own businesses. We work through the week, and then maybe Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday—particularly through the spring, summer, and fall–we’re gone just about every weekend. Trying to strike that balance is a little bit difficult, but on the other hand I’ve done it the other way. I played in a band called The Rainmakers, we traveled extensively. Sometimes we’d be out for two or three months at a time. That’s really hard on your family. So, I much prefer the way we do it now even though it’s a balancing act. But our family’s are very supportive, especially when we get to bring home a paycheck. It’s the little things in life, like money, you know?

I’m curious how exactly the band is perceived in Ireland. Is there a following for this Celtic music or Irish rock in Ireland itself or is it sort of an American phenomenon?

SP: I would say for the most part it’s an American phenomenon. Although in Europe they sort of have the same thing, they love Irish bands. It probably started out with the Pogues. They toured over there quite a bit. But, we’re just now starting to get a little recognition. We’ve had a few reviews of some of our records in German and French online magazines. We’re just scratching the surface over there. For the most part, to answer your question, I would say Ireland … you know, they don’t care. They love country music and the same kind of crappy pop that we have over here. But Irish music is not … that’s like taking sand to the beach, they don’t give a shit about it.

It’s what Grandpa listens to probably for most of the kids?

SP: You know, we’re not very traditional at all. The comments we get from Irish fans, they think we sound very Americana. They think we sound Cajun, or some type of Bluegrass, country. Their perception of what we do, it doesn’t sound Irish to them at all. It’s very Americana. You know, we’ll take that. We’re not really trying to sound Irish, per se. We’re trying, in a way, to stay in a certain vein yet we’re allowing our influences individually to affect how we write and how we approach the material. And what comes out is something, I would think, is different than anything else out there, even different than what’s out there in our genre. Because I don’t think anyone is writing quite like we do.

I might be regressing here a little bit but I’m interested in what you said about the Irish fans thinking you sound very Americana. The Irish experience has been very well documented throughout the years. And obviously there was a mass number of immigrants absorbed into the fabric of our country that had huge influences on roots music like Bluegrass in different forms. It’s almost like you guys are fusing a chain of sorts. I find it very interesting that they hear the American aspects of the music as opposed to the Irish and here people tend to attach more to the Irish aspect than the Americana aspect of it.

SP: Yep, it’s all perspective.

I’ve been listening to your songs. In the past there was once a great literary tradition in song, tales passed along, stories being told. It seems that that aspect of songwriting has largely been fading away over the last decade. Your band seems to embrace that literary tradition of story telling in song. How does it feel to carry on that torch?

SP: I think you hit the nail on the head. I think that that is one of things that always appealed to us about the tradition of Irish music. It’s generally story telling and that did carry over in some of the folk songs and bluegrass songs because they are singing about their tradition. Many times in Ireland there wasn’t necessarily a very literate population so passing stories down (through music) was how they carried them on. I love that about Irish music. We’re aware of that and we try to foster that as much as possible.

If I’m not mistaken, it is five Americans in the band and there is one Irishman that handles the lead vocals, correct?

SP: Yes.

I’m curious how you all got connected.

SP: The key guys who founded the band, that would be Brent, Norm, and myself, we kind of knew each other through various bands over the years. We always admired each other’s playing. It was one of those things that was just an opportunity for us. None of us were really doing anything at the time. Brent and Norm pretty much had the concept for doing the Irish music, so when they asked me, it was something I felt I could do. I used to play (bluegrass) with a guy named Wayne Hampton Miller, who was Irish. We would throw in all these old Irish folk songs right in there with the bluegrass. Of course they all sound the same, or at least came from the same place so it wasn’t much of a stretch for me to jump into that. How we met up with Ian, the singer, was just happenstance. His daughter happened to play soccer with Brent’s daughter. The mothers got to chatting one time about what their husbands do. At the time, our original lead singer had to leave because his wife was getting transferred, so we just invited Ian over to sit in, be a guest vocalist or guest drummer — he was the drummer at the time too — so when he came over, we just started chatting. He’s a real charming guy, real funny, handsome, full of energy so we all hit it off really well. It was within about an hour we knew we found our guy. And that’s kind of when the biggest change occurred. When the band changed from something fun to do on the weekend to being a band we could really be a contender in this genre. We got a real live Irish guy who could sing Irish music that added some legitimacy to it.

So do you feel like you were lacking in “street cred” so to speak, prior to him joining the band?

SP: I suppose that probably would come across to some people that way. At the time, we didn’t care. It wasn’t really anything we were planning on taking much further than playing on the weekends. But when you start to think, “okay we’re going to move into a bigger league now,” then you start thinking about the credibility. So, it kind of came about at the right time. This was on our second record when he came in. So we weren’t all that far along. This latest release that was released on St. Patrick’s Day was our fifth CD and our seventh CD total. We have two live ones.

And that’s “Gael Day,” the name of the latest CD?

SP: Yeah. There is one thing I would like to mention about that name. Gael basically means anything Irish or Celtic. Ian came up with this idea. Specifically though, Gael Day was the name they used to call the day when the British landlords would come around and collect the rent. So it’s kind of a play on that, and it works on different levels. It’s like paying your dues.

Do you guys spend your spring through fall times on the road, then hole up in the studio on your weekends in the winter? Is that how it generally operates?

SP: Generally, we have a Tuesday night musician’s club. We either write or we practice. Sometimes we just get together to figure out strategy. It’s just a Tuesday night Music club thing. The weekends, if we’re not out playing then we’re spending it with our families. That’s one reason this record took so long to record. It probably took us a year and a half or more.

So you had a big CD release party for the record on St. Patty’s day?

SP: It was actually the Saturday before St. Patty’s Day. We played what’s called “the Elders hoot.” We’ve been doing this for about seven years now. We just have a big party, have an opening band, Irish dancers … We chose that night as our CD release.

Do you have any long term goals for the band besides world domination?

SP: (laughs) I would say that the only long term goal is to hang in as long as we can. Which, is kind of counter intuitive. Mainly because the music business for the most part is a youth-dominated media. You don’t see many very old bands. The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, there are some exceptions out there doing it. But once you’re past your 40s, most people hang it up by then. I think one of the beauties of naming ourselves the Elders, which we didn’t think about back then, it doesn’t really matter how old we are, we can play into our 60s and it won’t matter because we are “The Elders.” So, to me, I just want to be able to continue doing it for as long as I can. As long as I’m still being productive and as long as I’m having fun. To me, if you’re not having fun — and this has always been our philosophy — if you’re not having fun, then why do it? And as long as I’m enjoying it, I want to keep doing it.

Well, that’s all I got but before I let you go, what’s your favorite Irish movie of all time?

SP: Boy, um that’s tough. Waking Ned Devine.