INTERVIEW: John ‘Papa’ Gros sets the river ablaze on new solo album

If fans of John “Papa” Gros thought the decision to disband his successful funk group, Papa Grows Funk, would lead to an early retirement, they were wrong. The pianist-keyboardist-organist has stayed busy these past few years, playing concerts around the United States, showcasing legendary gigs in his native New Orleans, and now cutting his second solo album, River’s on Fire.

He’s as busy as ever.

Gros (pronounced “grow”) will bring his funky playing to The Hall at MP in Brooklyn Friday, Jan. 27. The CEG and Nolafunk show is billed as “Mardi Gras Madness II” and features Scott Metzger and Yellowcake on the bill.

“Well, as Papa Grows Funk disbanded, that was the better part of 13 years for me, I was able to just kind of exhale with that whole moving on to the next phase in my life and just focus on what I wanted to do in music,” Gros said recently in a phone interview. “I didn’t really know what that was until I started doing it, and I started working on tunes and started the writing process. I just kind of reached back to my formative years, through high school and college, and just kind of came up with what was important about music to me, and I just let that be the guide for all the songwriting on the record. And so it’s a real good sample of all kinds of different pieces of what I like about music and where I come from, assembled on one record. It’s something I wasn’t really able to do with Papa Grows Funk because [that] was a very specific type of project, so this was kind of an open canvas. All I had to do was be who I am.”

For River’s on Fire, Gros accomplished all the writing at the studio in his house, and then he headed to Dockside Studio in Maurice, Louisiana, for some solitude and to be free of distractions. He spent several days there with his fellow musicians and focused on the songs. “I absolutely love recording,” he said. “When you’re recording, you’re able to flesh out ideas, try different things, push yourself in a creative way. … When you’re in the writing process, the recording process, you’re really trying to come up with the raw material, the raw sounds and really create and capture a specific moment in time.”

He didn’t try all of the songs out on the road. Instead he had the luxury of working on demos and arrangements at home while he simultaneously put together a band. Before heading to Dockside, he rehearsed for a couple of weeks in preparation for the recording. The finished product includes such tunes as “Crazy,” “Her Love Can’t Be Denied,” “Sugar and Ice” and “Same Old Same.”

He said the recording process is composing, while the concert experience is decomposing, a chance for him to go deeper and explore different musical avenues. The band for the road includes Chris Adkins on guitar, Graham Robinson on bass and Eric Bolivar on drums. Gros, of course, will be sitting at the keys/piano.

“After the record was recorded, we had to figure out how to actually play it live, so we did a lot of rehearsing, I’d say, about a year ago, nine months ago,” he said. “Now we just kind of brush up, but we’re actually doing some rehearsals for this specific tour because it’s Mardi Gras season. We’re adding Mardi Gras tunes to the set because that’s what you do when it’s Mardi Gras season.”

The setlist will mostly feature River’s on Fire and Mardi Gras songs, but fans should expect a few selections from the Papa Grows Funk era and Gros’s first solo album, 2004’s Days End. “It’s fun playing, and the songs are evolving,” he said. “We’re exploring the personalities of each of the songs, which is great because on River’s a Fire, every song is a little different.”

The life of a NOLA musician is one of musical diversity and geographic variety. Gros will sit in with other musicians in his hometown on one day, head up to the Northeast the next day or try some new music out in his studio. He has a lot of freedom, but the musician said he has officially hit middle age. So he can’t take advantage of all the opportunities. However, at this stage, he’s excited to get on the road and meet old friends.

“Where I’m at in my career, I’m really looking forward to traveling, and getting back on the road, and visiting all these friends that we made from our Papa Grows Funk days, and trying to introduce them to my new music and find new fans who are being introduced to my music,” he said. “I’m excited about that, and pretty much everything is exciting about it.”

From a young age, Gros was fascinated by the piano. His father, a professional musician, played the piano, so there was always one available in the house. He took part in school band while in elementary school and continued with piano lessons in middle school. Eventually the rock ‘n’ roll bug hit him hard, and he started playing with bands in high school. His musical interests only broadened when he attended Loyola University and immersed himself in New Orleans culture and the local jazz scene.

His career brought him to the Hammond B3 organ, an instrument he mastered while playing in Papa Grows Funk. For this solo album and the upcoming tour, he’ll be at the piano more often than not, which he said should be a welcome difference for his longtime fans who know him primarily at the Hammond.

Despite the joy at a new album and new tour, River’s on Fire is a bittersweet project for Gros. The album was inspired by the New Orleans legend, Allen Toussaint, who died in 2015. Toussaint actually died when Gros was recording the new album. It was a reflective time in Gros’ life, losing both a friend and musical collaborator.

“In every single song, there is something very specific that reminds me of Allen, something that he taught me, something that was in one of his songs, could be something in a conversation that we had had,” Gros said. “There’s something in every single song that is Allen, and for me it’s very specific. I think you’d have to be really a student of his work and see if you can find it, but for me he is so involved and wrapped in this recording process. And one of the other things about the recording session, we … started on a Sunday and worked to the following Friday evening. He had passed away the Tuesday of that session, so in the process of recording the record, he was at the forefront of my mind and all of us really because he was so influential to all of us in the studio. Most of us in the studio at the time had worked with him in some capacity at some point, so we were all sharing stories, sharing songs, ideas that he had in the songs.”

Looking back on this second solo effort, Gros can safely say that he accomplished his musical goals, and the songs continue to showcase his personal brand of musicality to fans.

“When ideas came to me, I would record them,” he said. “I would write them down and flesh them out. Once I got some basic song structures, I was really able to take the song structure and figure out what’s my story, what story is the song telling, and then really go from that point and dig deep into my background, my family history, my upbringing, my friends, the city I live in, the people I surround myself with. What are the stories buried in there, and how can I relate that to all the songs. And I was able to really find a way to do that musically, lyrically, arrangement wise, all of it. And to really wrap it all up, my daughter painted the CD cover, and that’s nice. It wrapped the whole CD up [to] have her lend her talents to the whole thing. It really is me. That’s the simplest way. It really represents who I am today.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

John “Papa” Gros will play The Hall at MP in Brooklyn Friday, Jan. 27. Click here for more information and tickets. Click here for more information on Gros. Click here for Hollywood Soapbox’s previous interview with Gros.