It's easy to forget that living in a city with a strong musical tradition is a blessing not everyone shares. Robert Mercurio, bassist of the New Orleans-based band Galactic, has been lucky enough to live in two such cities throughout his life. Growing up in Chevy Chase in the early '80s, Mercurio was exposed to the D.C. punk scene at a young age and was later introduced to our town's homegrown genre, go-go."I used to go see punk rock shows where the 9:30 Club is," he said. "It used to be called the WUST Radio Hall, and I used to see punk rock shows when I was 13. It was not a good part of town [then]; my parents never really knew I was going down there."
In 1990, Mercurio and future Galactic guitarist Jeffrey Raines moved to New Orleans to attend separate colleges. The two become enthralled with the local music culture and formed Galactic under its influence. The group's sound is a hodgepodge of brazen brass-funk, murky jazz and high-energy hip-hop.
Mercurio said the band's February release, "Ya-Ka-May," was an attempt to reflect the different musical movements happening within the city. The album is a sort of who's-who of the New Orleans music scene, and features an array of talent from local legends like Irma Thomas to up-and-comers like Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews.
"This album ["Ya-Ka-May"] was more like us trying to connect the dots between what's going on in New Orleans ... and how we hopefully all live together even though it's all kind of different," Mercurio said. "It was a uniquely New Orleans-focused album, as opposed to our other albums, which are New Orleans-focused just because we're from there."
Prior to their 9:30 Club gig on Aug. 6, Mercurio spoke to Express about New Orleans culture and the band's recent foray into the video-game industry.
» EXPRESS: There are a bunch of guest appearances on "Ya-Ka-May." Was there anyone in particular you were excited about working with?
» MERCURIO: Working with Allen Toussaint. I've known him for years, and he's such a musical legend, not only to New Orleans, but to the whole country. ... To have somebody like him co-write two songs was amazing. Also, Irma Thomas. I've heard her for years and never in my life thought that I'd actually perform with her and to have her come into the studio; it was amazing. And then, myself, I got turned onto a lot of new music in doing this process too. I got a lot deeper into the "bounce" music [a New Orleans based-genre of rap characterized by fast beats and chants] and bounce scene in New Orleans, and met and collaborated with people like Big Freedia and Katey Red and Sissy Nobby. It wasn't as big of a treat as maybe Allen Toussaint or Irma Thomas, only because I've known of those people for a long time, but it was equally as amazing to have them in the studio. They're going to be legends.
» EXPRESS: Is bounce more tucked away in the community?
» MERCURIO: To me, it's similar to go-go in a way. It's something that comes out of the neighborhood and it hasn't really surfaced beyond the city itself. ... It's similar to the go-go thing, not that they sound similar, but they both have a beat when you hear it you're like, "Okay, that's a go-go beat." And when you hear a bounce beat, you're like, "That's a bounce beat." It's kind of interesting to me that I come from two cities that kind of have this kind of music, and I forgot that that's not the case in every city.
» EXPRESS: I'm sure you guys get a lot of questions about Hurricane Katrina, but how has the city changed since musically?
» MERCURIO: We lost some people, for sure. People moved out of town and never moved back and that's kind of the biggest loss to the scene. The scene has grown back to what it once was, but it kind of has new faces involved with it. It's amazing to see. I thought five years ago when Katrina happened, I thought, "Oh god, is the city ever going to be like it was, and how could it?" It's amazing. The make-up of the city has really moved back and the culture and, I got to say, it's really strong and the city has a lot of love for it now. I think in a weird way, sometimes you don't really know what you've [got] until you almost lost it.
» EXPRESS: I heard you guys were writing some music for a video game.
» MERCURIO: Yeah, we still are. We were doing it up yesterday. I can't give you the name, but it's a PlayStation game.
» EXPRESS: So it's a major release?
» MERCURIO: It's a pretty big game. It's a sequel to a previous game that sold over a million copies. It's been really fun. We're about a third of the way done with the music and it's been really fun to take our heads and see how far we can stretch it. We don't have to be Galactic. We can kind of create whatever we want. Like today, we were writing some stuff for a string section.
» EXPRESS: How has it been writing the score to a video game versus an album?
» MERCURIO: In general, it's just more of a mood-setting as opposed to songwriting. They still want melodies and they want grooves and stuff like that, but it doesn't have to be as strict as a song structure normally is.
» 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW; with Lionize; Fri., Aug. 6, 8 p.m., $25.
Written by Express contributor Topher Forhecz
Photo courtesy Epitaph Records
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