Galactic Funk

Imagine being caught up in one of the world’s biggest disasters and then imagine risking your life to retrieve something from that disaster. That’s precisely what New Orleans funk band Galactic did. Braving the early aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, in order to grab a disc drive full of material needed to complete their latest project, one of the band members blagged their way through security and victory soon followed in the shape of their wildly anticipated funk/hip-hop collaborated seventh release, ‘From The Corner To The Block’. In the UK for a brief spell, the five-piece instrumental crew, alongside Jurassic 5 member Chali 2NA – who appears on their new CD, are touring a few of the musical hot spots that England has to offer. Will Lavin caught up with Charli and the funky bunch whilst on tour in Exeter. Speaking on their new album and what it’s like to work with so many hip-hoppers, guitarist Jeff Raines drops knowledge with Charli 2NA by his side.

Gigwise: So how are you guys doing?
Jeff: “We’re doing great. I mean after working long and hard on this album it has gotten our names in to places that perhaps it wouldn’t have done before. It’s opened doors that we’ve been trying to open for a while now. And we’ve being doing a lot of shows internationally in places that we’ve always wanted to do. We pretty much travel for a living. We love going to new places.”
Charli: “I can’t complain either. I’m feeling good and life is good. I’m just enjoying the ride.”

Gigwise: Knowing that Charli loves the UK, how are Galactic finding it?
Jeff: “We love England actually. I went to the American School in London so I’ve spent a lot of time here before the music. I have great memories of the city and love coming back. As a band we’ve been here a few times. I think this is the fourth time we’ve played the Jazz Café over the past ten years.”

Gigwise: So where have you guys come from? What’s the 411 on Galactic?
Jeff: “We all kinda met in New Orleans. We were all college students doing something to do with music. Rob and I were trying to start a funk band and it seemed to be going nowhere quickly until we hooked up with Stanton and Rich. All of a sudden we had the makings of a pretty cool band. So we all got outta college and put a record out and started touring the United States in a brass roots fashion. We weren’t trying to get on the radio we just wanted to play shows and slowly build a fan base by actually driving around America.”

Gigwise: How would you best describe your music?
Jeff: “We set out to be a funk band originally. In essence it’s definitely a funk band’s music. Coming to one of our shows we hope that people forget their problems and have fun for an hour.”

Gigwise: Your new album is out now. What’s the story with it?
Jeff: “Some of the inspiration for this album came from an English group actually – The Brand New Heavies. They did an album in the late eighties called “Heavy Rhyme Experience: Vol.1”. It was a compilation with a bunch of rappers. We’ve always loved that record and thought that Galactic could work with a bunch of emcees. So when it came time for us to do this project we were throwing all these ideas around and that was the one that really stuck with everyone. We thought that maybe this was the right time to go out and do it. And because we’ve toured so much we’ve gotten to know some really first class rappers in the U.S. We thought that all the stars were aligned and it was time for us to do his project. It’s been an absolute pleasure to work with all the artists included on the project, especially Charli 2NA.”
Charli: “Ha ha. Yeah it’s been an absolute pleasure working with Galactic also.

Gigwise: Charli, you’ve featured on a few cross genre projects, including Linkin Park’s Reanimation. What inspired you to get involved in this one?
Charli: “Well I think that Galactic’s music breaks boundaries. I met their manager at the photo shoot for the J5 “Power In Numbers” album. Shortly thereafter I was introduced to them and I just loved what they did musically. I love traveling and meeting new people, and Galactic are good people. They’re down to earth just like me.”

Gigwise: So where did the title “From The Corner To The Block” come from?
Jeff: “It loosely comes from a book by a New Orleans author. Each chapter was about a famous corner in New Orleans. So we took that basic idea and were trying to figure out how to make a collaborative album. We needed something to tell the various emcees. We wanted to give them something specific but very broad to work with. We just wanted there to be some kind of unifying element to the album but nothing that would inhibit their creativity.”