Joel Cummins is an American born  musician, and founding member/keyboardist for progressive rock band Umphrey’s McGee. Although the band is part of the jam band scene like the Grateful Dead and widespread Panic, offering non-repeating setlists, gross amounts of  improvisation, two plus sets per night and open audience taping policies, UM experiments with many genres including rock, metal, funk, jazz, blues, electronic, bluegrass, and folk.

Formed in 1997 Umphrey’s McGee [UM] are actually much more influenced musically by progressive rock artists such as Yes, Frank Zappa, Rush, early Genesis, as well as heavy metal bands such as Iron Maiden and Metallica than traditional jam music.

According to internet records, Cummins began studying classical piano more than 25 years ago, and with Brendan Bayliss, Mike Mirro and Ryan Stasik, formed Umphrey’s McGee while attending Notre Dame University. Cummins and Mirro were members of the band Stomper Bob, which split up around the same time as another local band, Tashi Station (which included Bayliss and Stasik).

BR: Hi Joel, thanks for taking time to talk to us today. Everyone at Bozeman Magazine is excited to see you coming back to Montana next month. For those people out there who may not be familiar with your band UM, can you take us back to the beginning. Did you start UM with a different approach to being in a band. After all it is a family, a business and a passion, and quite a balancing act right?

JC: No Doubt, Well you have called on a prescient day because seventeen years ago today was our first show (Jan 21).

So when we started our main goal was to, well we got together for dinner one night and said would you rather play music or get some job and sit behind some desk for thirty years? And we were all kinda like- yeah that sounds like more fun.
So we all kinda committed to working on it and making it a full time thing, that was a big thing right from the get go was that none of us had other full time jobs. Maybe a job here or there for ten to fifteen hours a week, but nothing beyond that so that we could really focus on developing individually, musically, and then as a group. A lot of it just takes time playing together.

When we started I don’t think we had an inkling of what we were doing or how we were going to do it. We just knew we wanted to write songs together and eventually get to the point where we would try and improvise, but that didn’t really happen for about a year and a half because we just weren’t good enough and we would practice trying to jam and it just sounded terrible.

So I think that that is another thing: you have to be willing to put the time in and there is going to be a little bit of time where you are probably ‘not that good yet’. It took us a while before there were people coming to see our shows and it was not just our friends.

As we have grown the way we have operated has certainly changed. In 2001 for instance we went out and did a massive six week tour, and about half way through that tour we were like OMG, what do we do? It was crazy. Now we are in the position where we pretty much go out and play four shows, Wednesday through Saturday and then take three days off. So then everybody who has wives and kids and things like this can go home and spend some time with them and kind of recharge and keep that balance a little better.

I think that is one of the reasons that we are all still good friends in addition to people who want to push each other musically is that we have given each other that space. We understand that you can’t just go out and stay on the road forever.
It is a fun thing, but there is that commitment as far as travel, to be at the point where we are playing for 2,000-10,000 people per night it really feels like all that work has paid dividends. At the same time we realize it has taken a LONG time to get the fan base to even where it is now. It is just something where we were just interested in pushing each other musically and we enjoyed hanging out together so now as we have grown, and our individual families have grown, we are like, wow we are really all counting on each other here so we better make this good.

BR: Great Answer. That leads to something you hit on a minute ago, if things had not worked out the way they did, or if at that dinner everyone wanted desk jobs, where do you think that would have led you? Doing something in music, perhaps teaching or composing?

JC: For me music is definitely the thing that I am best at and the thing that I am most interested in. I am sure I would have figured something out, but it is hard to imagine what it would have been.

In 2002 our original drummer Mike Mirro did leave the band. He told us mid tour that he wanted to get into medicine and become a doctor. So we did really face this exact thing about thirteen years ago. At that moment the rest of us got together and said ‘lets just put our cards on the table. Are you still into this? Is this still what you want to do?’ So the rest of us were still into it and we were lucky enough to find Kris Meyers. I think his addition to the band was really the thing that helped us solidify a more mature sound and pursue a few different directions. He is one of the most versatile drummers out there. He can do the double bass thing or he can play the best pocket R&B grooves that are out there.

So that’s an interesting question. I grew up singing, and have a degree in music theory from Notre Dame so I know a thing or two, but I have no idea what I would have got into.

BR: We have a reader question pertaining to setlists. When UM is choosing songs for a setlist do you pick songs the audience wants to hear or is it more what you want to play for the audience?

JC: That’s a good question. I think more than anything now we have this website database called All Things Umphreys dot com and it has basically everything you can want to know. You can search the database and see how many times we have played a certain song in a certain city, or what we played the last three or four times we were in Missoula for instance. So we will typically go through and really try to keep it fresh and play different things than we have played the last few times we played in a town.

So in general that is what the fans have told us most, to give them different things, and they like that we change it up.

So that goes for song selection and also for how we improvise and even where we improvise in songs. You know sometimes it’s a great surprise for fans when you leave out a section that you never have before. And who knows, maybe it’s only twenty five percent of the audience that realizes that that is happening, but for that twenty five percent of people who have probably seen a handful of shows they may have a little deeper understanding of how we work together, it can be a really exciting thing. We are constantly striving to give our fans something new, whether it’s their fifth show, or their twenty fifth show, or their hundredth show.

We had our friends create this site for us and even fans can go on line and track their own stats for their show history. They have fun with that with the site too, but we use it to build setlists and to make sure we are not doing the same thing twice.

For instance we just did a couple shows in New York City and we listed the last three years of whatever we played in New York and tried to not do things we played multiple times. We also had a list of our top 50 songs played but not seen in New York so we tried to get a bunch of those in.

Now we have kinda created a rotation to where every three to four years you may see these songs pop up again, but in the mean time you are constantly getting new material and material that maybe we hadn’t played in that market. So there is a little bit of a science to it.

We have been invited to play some more electronic music festivals, and you might think we would play a mostly electric based set, but we tend to do more of a rock set list in that setting. Our feeling is that its what these people have been listening to all weekend, lets give them something different and really surprise them.

BR: Cool I will have to check that out and review my stats. Next I wanted to get your thoughts on the Core Four’s (Grateful Dead) 50th anniversary/reunion shows coming to Chicago this July 3, 4, and 5. And also the guests they have chosen to include for the performances: Trey Anastasio, Jeff Chimenti and Bruce Hornsby. Would you care to share your thoughts on this event?

JC: Well I only went to one show. It was the summer of 94. I think I went to the first one that they played at Soldier Field. Unfortunately I overindulged a little bit and kind of ruined that experience for myself.

I definitely think it is cool that they are doing that. There are kind of a lot of worlds coming together here with Bruce Hornsby and Trey coming together with the core four guys to play. I hope it will be a really cool experience and I think it is a great way for them to kind of go out.

It is definitely a cool thing that Trey, and obviously Phish, were tagged after Jerry passed away that they were the next Dead, but they always tried to stray away from that and say that this is their own thing.

I think it is a cool event and obviously growing up in Chicago it is cool that they are doing it there in the middle of the country. While I will not be there at least for some of it, because we are playing some other shows, I might have one of those days off so I might actually try to go to that and check one out. We will see.

BR: Sounds like a plan. So I am wondering if you, or UM, are associated with any particular music charities, and also what to expect in Missoula on March 15?

JC: There are a couple we have been involved with. The People’s Music School in Chicago, that is something where they are just trying to educate kids, and I wouldn’t really call it a charity but the School of Rock is a great mix of adults and kids and showing people how to do things. I really dig that. I think those are both great things.

As for the show in Missoula, I will just say that the Wilma Theatre is one of those really magical, perfectly designed theatres that gives everybody in the audience a great experience. The way it is set up with the open floor and then the seats and the balcony, everybody can see everything that is going on.

With UM a lot of people hear the music and are like okay, but to really experience the music you need to come to a live show because so much of what happens is about the interactions we have on stage as musicians, and just the level of production with the sound and all our light show. If you like Rock and Roll, and dancing and maybe being challenged a little bit with how you think about music, and having a great time at the same time, then you should come see Umphrey’s McGee.