INTERVIEW: This band knows a thing or two about The Band
Photo: The Weight Band will bring their rock music to the Brooklyn Bowl. Photo courtesy of Michael Bram / Provided by Michael J. Media Group with permission.
The Weight Band, under the expert direction of Jim Weider, succeeds at two very different musical goals. First, they honor the legacy of The Band and the Levon Helm Band, which Weider was a member of for many years. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, they take that American rock sound down different pathways, becoming their own creative monster and breaking from that dreaded title of being only a “covers” group.
Put simply, they are original and nostalgic.
Weider, responsible for guitar, mandolin and vocals, replaced Robbie Robertson in The Band and played with the group from 1985 to 2000, according to his official biography. He wrote songs and performed on three of The Band’s albums, including Jericho, High on the Hog and Jubilation. He is the creative heartbeat behind The Weight Band, which plays Feb. 21 at the Brooklyn Bowl in Brooklyn, New York, and Feb. 22 at the Newton Theatre in Newton, New Jersey.
“We’re always adding new tunes,” Weider said in a recent phone interview.
Weider spoke to Hollywood Soapbox after being newly returned from Jamaica. When he arrived back in the States, he found his studio had been flooded out, but somehow he was still in a good mood, excited about the prospects of bringing more of the group’s music around the country.
When catching a performance of The Weight Band — so-called because of The Band’s enduring hit song, “The Weight” — audience members will likely hear tunes from the group’s well-received inaugural album, 2018’s World Gone Mad.
“We’ll be doing our classic Band songs that we always do and a bunch of tunes off the new album,” Weider said. “The one thing great about playing the Brooklyn Bowl is all these young people come out, and they were influenced by their parents apparently to come out and hear those songs that their parents played them when they were little kids. So that’s really exciting for us to have a bunch of young people really grooving to the music. Then, of course, you see the older folks that come out that are our stout fans, but it’s nice to see the young folks and the music being carried on. That’s kind of the whole meaning I’m still doing this, is to keep that music alive.”
Truth be told, Weider never had plans to carry on the torch of The Band or the Levon Helm Band. After Helm died in April of 2012, he was devastated and thought that the music would only live on in recordings and memories. Then he got a phone call from Jimmy Vivino, music director for the Conan late-night show on TBS.
“He said, ‘Hey Jim, let’s do this with Garth Hudson from The Band. Let’s go out and do some songs from The Band,’” Weider remembers the conversation going. “He was the guy that got me into it, and we went out and did a few shows, like several theaters. And it went so well.”
Vivino went back to his TV duties and his many other musical projects, ditto for Hudson, another member of The Band who frequently performs with his wife. This left Weider with an idea to take the energy from these first few shows and keep it burning in the hearts of the fans.
“So I put it together,” he said. “A friend of mine who runs a theater said, ‘Why don’t you do a show here.’ So I put it together, and we did it and it was successful. I saw the demand and how much people really wanted to hear these songs again. If Garth’ll do it, why don’t I do it? So we started doing it, and it started growing. I’ve been doing this for almost eight years now since after Levon died in April of 2012.”
From those early days, Weider knew he wanted to move beyond the covers and eventually cut a new album, and he saw his dream fully realized a few years later with World Gone Mad.
Today’s group consists of Michael Bram on drums and vocals, who also plays for Jason Mraz; Brian Mitchell on keyboards and vocals, who is also a member of Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramble Band; Matt Zeiner on keyboards and vocals, who used to play with Dickey Betts; and Albert Rogers on bass and vocals, who has played with a great number of musicians over his career.
They are a talented bunch whose raw power can be felt on World Gone Mad. “It was fun,” Weider said about the album. “In between touring, we would go into the studio and cut three or four tracks. … I tried to do everything on that record live in the studio. I’d set up the amps and the vocals and try to get live tracks on everything, so it had that feel. That’s The Band and how I always recorded with them. We tried to get it as live as possible and then just go back and take it again until you get it the old-school-method way where you’re not building everything from scratch.”
He added: “I wanted to have all the songs to have a continuity, so they would fit right in with a ‘Don’t Do It’ or a ‘King Harvest.’ So we could play the old classic tunes and put the new stuff in. It would be shocking. There would be a flow to it, and I think we accomplished that.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Weight Band, featuring Jim Weider, will play Feb. 21 at the Brooklyn Bowl in Brooklyn, New York, and Feb. 22 at the Newton Theatre in Newton, New Jersey. Click here for more information and tickets.
