This is part of our monthly series of interviews with musicians who perform in the Berkshires.
Brian Kantor is a Berkshire-based drummer who plays with a number of local bands, including Billy Keane and The Waking Dream, Vaguely Pagan, and Sound For. Earlier in his career and before the pandemic, he played and recorded with bands such as the Fruit Bats, Vetiver, Nina Persson (of The Cardigans), and Morricone Youth. He also founded and runs The Soundry Music Studio in South Egremont, which provides drum, guitar, piano, bass, and vocal lessons.
Brian has a unique upcoming show, Bronco Bullfrog & Mod Dance Party, at Race Brook Lodge on Saturday, February 10. I had the opportunity to catch up over Zoom with Brian to learn more about this upcoming show, his music career, and upcoming plans. I hope you’ll enjoy our conversation, which has been lightly edited for clarity.
You’ve got a very interesting show coming up on February 10 at Race Brook Lodge, playing with a new band, the Jerks. Can you tell us about the show and what kind of music the Jerks will be playing?
Let me let me back up a little bit. I’m an obsessive collector of records and music – I listen to all kinds of styles. I’m always trying to find ways to put together different bands, using the same musicians but doing different styles or paying tribute to different sounds that I love. One thing that I’ve always really enjoyed is dance parties that are based around garage rock and mod music from the 60s. I think it’s an overlooked kind of great dance music. People tend to think of it as just rock and roll, but I think it lends itself really well to uninhibited dancing.
In the back of my mind, I had this idea that I wanted to cover a bunch of these great, obscure – and some more well-known – underground groups from the 60s and stage a dance party. The barn at Race Brook Lodge is a perfect space for this kind of thing. So I called up some buddies and put the band together.
Sam Lisabeth is on guitar – he also teaches at my music school, The Soundry. He and I have been searching for a way to play together. Quinn Murphy will be on bass. I met him through some friends associated with a recording studio in Ancram called Triangle House. Jim Krewson will be on rhythm guitar and vocals. He and I have played together a bunch through the years, doing a bunch of different things, and I’ve always been impressed. Jim and Seth Travins, a storied figure in the Berkshire music scene, had a band called Chops and Sauerkraut. They did rock and roll that was really fun and spirited. I always wanted to pull Jim in this direction – he’s most well-known for his bluegrass playing.
I understand there’s a viewing of the film Bronco Bullfrog before the band plays.
Yes, it’s a film that I was introduced to through Jeff Palfini, who runs the Boondocks Film Society. It’s this great timepiece of that era – a great Cockney portrait of youths of that time and the rebellion that was happening in England around the music scene. A lot of the music that we’ll be playing was kind of central to that. So I feel like it’s a pretty good pairing. We will provide an hour and a half or so of high-octane music – it should be a sweaty good time.
There will be a lot of dancing then?
I hope so. Yeah, that’s the goal.
I know a lot of our readers love to find good places to go dance. So we’ll try to direct them to the show.
I appreciate that. I hope this show encourages all those dancing folks to come and just let it out.
You’re also the drummer with a band that plays with Billy Keane called The Waking Dream, along with Miles Lally and David Tanklefsky. Are you playing with other bands right now besides The Waking Dream?
Yes, there are a few others. I’ve got a regular band, Vaguely Pagan, which also features Miles on bass, along with Wes Buckley, who’s a good friend of mine. We have a residency at the Lion’s Den on the third Saturday of every month. We play in other places, but The Lion’s Den is a more regular thing. Then, we have a spontaneous avant-garde group called Sound For. We chose that name because it is “sound for” wherever we’re playing. We did a gig at the Clark, so that gig was “Sound For The Clark.”
You adapt the music you play based on the venue?
Yes, we just kind of get set up and don’t really have a plan. Sometimes we’ll have some prompts or ideas going in. But it tends to be a very in-the-moment kind of stream of consciousness, and it can be very abrasive at times, or it can be really beautiful – it really runs the gamut.
We started meeting up during the pandemic at my studio in South Egremont on Monday nights because we were really missing music, and there was nothing to prepare for at that time. So we just started to dip a toe into the free jazz avant-garde realm. And none of us had done too much of that in the past. And it became this great release – it was a highlight during that dark time. And so we decided to carry that on. We’ve got one album out and another one coming. It’s a more limited genre, so we don’t play that often, but when the opportunity arises, it’s a fun thing to do.
Are both Vaguely Pagan and Sound For made up of you, Miles, and Wes?
Yes, Vaguely Pagan is a trio. Sound For has a rotating fourth chair that we keep open to bring a different input in so that changes from time to time. We’ve got something in the works at Familiar Trees bookstore in Great Barrington for the spring.
Going back to you playing with Billy Keane in The Waking Dream – he seems to be having some great success with the new album, and I understand he’s back in the studio recording some more. What’s it like being a part of a band that seems to be at an inflection point in terms of taking off?
It’s exciting. Playing with Billy has been really refreshing. I’ve done a lot of work where I’ve been called in to support a high-quality songwriter. Usually, songwriters have very strong opinions of how their music should be treated. And Billy is no exception – he definitely has strong opinions about how his music should go. But I think we’ve all developed this kind of trust and faith in each other, so he really gives Miles and me a lot of leeway and a lot of say on the arrangements. I have more agency in this project than I have in other similar projects.
And we’re looking to the future in more of a way of “what are we going to achieve musically” and less so of “what are we going to achieve in the market.” Our vision is to treat these songs with care and respect but also have a lot of freedom, letting each gig develop in its own unique way. I think that is what’s really been speaking to the crowds.
Billy’s crowds are really refreshing in that they’re very earnest. And Billy’s music is very earnest. He’s very intelligent; he’s got a lot to say, and he says it in such a way that is simple but very powerful. And it’s not cynical. I find a lot of writers can be very cynical in their approach, even if they’re intelligent and have a lot to say. Billy is a very straight shooter. And his audiences tend to be of a similar ilk. It’s fun to play for people who are really letting it in rather than watching the band with a little bit of a crooked eye. It’s been exciting from top to bottom, and the hang is great. And playing with that crew is really refreshing – it’s great.
You also used to play with the Fruitbats, Vetiver, Nina Persson (of The Cardigans), and Morricone Youth. How long ago was it that you played with these bands, and what were some of the highlights from that phase of your music career?
There are so many highlights, and I feel really lucky to have had the opportunities that I’ve had.
Playing with the Fruit Bats was my longest-running and main gig for a while, right up until the pandemic came along. And that kind of changed realities for everyone. Eric [Eric D. Johnson], the leader, was living in LA. I was in the Berkshires; he had two different keyboard players, one in Brooklyn and one in Richmond, Virginia. His bass player was coming from Seattle, and his guitar player was in LA. Flying all these musicians in just wasn’t working anymore at that time. So it forced him to go a little more local with his approach. It came at a good time because I had been traveling and touring a lot for many years. But I am sad to not play with that crew anymore. We played Red Rocks, which is an incredible amphitheater. It was a bucket list gig for me. We opened for My Morning Jacket. It was really a great time.
Touring and recording with Nina Persson is a highlight of my career. Growing up in the 90s, I listened to The Cardigans’ big record, First Band on the Moon, quite a bit – it made a big impression on me and struck me in so many ways. If you want to hear me go deep on that album, I did two episodes on the podcast “Before the Stream” with a friend of mine in which we talked about that whole album for over two hours. Having been such a big fan of hers and then being offered the opportunity to record with her and tour Sweden with her, where she is a legit superstar – I don’t take that for granted – it was a special time for me.
Same with Vetiver. That is some of the great folk Renaissance music – that full freak folk rock era that we’re still kind of at the tail end of it – it started with Vetiver and Devendra Banhart. It was an honor to be on that gig. And that was kind of the arc of it: I was playing with Vetiver. I met Eric from Fruit Bats because we were touring together. Eric and I hit it off really well. He was tagged to produce Nina’s record. And he called me to do that. And then I started recording with Eric and I did his solo record. And I’m on a couple of the Fruit Bats records and did four or five years of touring with them.
You’ve also worked on several film soundtracks, including God’s Pocket, The Other Shore, and Paper Man. How did you find that experience, and have you done any of that work lately?
It was thrilling. It’s been a while since I’ve done any film scoring. Although I’m still a part of the band Morricone Youth, who you mentioned earlier, and we have done music for classic cult films when we feel the score could use an update. We do the original Mad Max and Night of the Living Dead. We set up in front of the screen and then play to the film in the theater. Every Halloween, we’re out doing Night of the Living Dead, which is fun. We’ve done some original scoring for new films as well.
Moving on to a different phase of your life, you founded and currently teach music at The Soundry in South Egremont. Your Soundry Bio states, “Critical listening is at the center of Brian’s musical teachings.” Can you tell us a little about The Soundry and your teaching approach?
I feel my job, especially with younger folks, is to inspire them. I’m 47, and I’ve been teaching since I was 18. I’ve been a drum teacher for quite a long time. Early on, I didn’t know what I was doing when I first started. I knew how to play, and I followed this lineage of a very strict approach: “Here are some beats; you got to practice your rudiments.” It didn’t feel like my students were leaving inspired to do these things.
If you go in for a guitar lesson, after a half hour, you could leave playing the riff for “Smoke on the Water” or something like that – it’s instant gratification. With drumming, it’s very primal, and it’s rhythmic. You don’t get to play these melodies that are more accessible to the human ear. I try to bring music into the lessons and talk about listening. I try to be really light, and I don’t harp as much on practice as I once did. I find the commitment to the lesson and just being there and having a really good time with music is often enough to set that spark. And then, once the spark is there, then I can really start to dive in and push a little harder.
I just want people to be exposed to music. Schools are doing less of it. And when they do it, it’s not as specialized. And I don’t think it’s as fun, honestly. People might get mad at me for this, but I don’t understand why the first exposure to music is the recorder. There aren’t many outlets for playing the recorder.
We are tapping into the local community and getting more and more families through the studio. The feedback has been great. The rest of my staff are not only fantastic musicians, but they’re really sensitive educators. Sam Lisabeth is one of them. We’ve got another Sam, Sam McGarrity, who is a fantastic guitar player, and his students love him. I’ve got another teacher, Michael Siktberg, who focuses on our younger students. They have a fun time – he brings puppets.
We try to bridge the gap between what I think the School of Rock does really well in the inspiration department but perhaps is a little lacking in the fundamentals and the other end of the spectrum – your Suzuki method and programs like that, which are very strict and very regimented. I want to be somewhere in the middle where it’s about inspiration, but it’s also about learning good technique and how to become a musician who understands how to play and also understands some of the realities of what it means to be a working musician.
I also understand you are on the board at Dewey Hall. How did you get involved there?
I live across the street. My earliest experience with Dewey Hall was playing there with the Lucky 5 before I moved to the Berkshires – maybe in 2014. And then I had another gig there where I backed up Wanda Houston right around when I moved to the area in 2015. And I love the room. I befriended Beth Carlson, who is the President of the Board. And I think somewhere along the way, she kind of got the bug in my ear to try to join the board and help them with the mission there.
What drew you to the Berkshires, and what may makes the music scene here so special?
What drew me here were the folks in the Lucky 5 before the band existed. We had a band called Lauren Ambrose and The Leisure Class, fronted by [the actress and musician] Lauren Ambrose, who is a local. We were doing this really exciting traditional jazz stuff. The Lucky 5 formed out of that, and I was still coming up to rehearse and play with them. And I distinctly remember a drive back to the city where my wife and I were about halfway home, and we were like, “Why are we going back? It seems like we are so much happier when we’re in the Berkshires.” That was the moment when the seed was planted. And then we got a rent increase notice in the mail, so we decided: let’s not renew; let’s move to the Berkshires.
What I feel makes the music scene so special is that for such a rural place, there is such a high quality of musicians over a broad spectrum of styles. I wouldn’t say the pool is as deep as what you experience in a city. When I was in New York, it was almost impossible to know all the musicians, but you’ve got Andy Wrba, Don Mikkelsen, Luke Franco, Matt Downing, Kip Beacco, Billy Keane, Wanda Houston – these are all world-class talents just kind of nestled here in the Berkshires. So I feel it’s a unique place with a lot going on. I hope that the venues can stay afloat to keep it as vibrant as it can be. You know, it’s a tricky time for all of us.
Can you tell us about how you first got into making music?
It all comes back to my parents, my dad especially. He was an excellent rock and roll Hammond B3 player. He remained active playing music throughout his whole life until he passed away. He was always listening to music, and my mom was a great fan of music, too. There was always music in our home. Maybe there’s genetics at play. My environment as a child growing up was that there was always a record spinning. I remember very early, my Dad’s turntable was a little higher than my vision, but he had a great old Pioneer turntable that had ridges on the side, and the strobe would shine on them so that you could see that it was rotating at the proper rpm. And I would listen to the music and just watch that pattern kind of swirl. Maybe it was Pioneer’s indoctrination system [Brian laughs]. That was some kind of secret message that was being pumped into my ears and eyes, but I watched it spin and listened to all those great sounds for hours and hours.
My Dad was a great fan of The Beatles, The Police, and Jethro Tull. So I listened to very adventurous and interesting music. It wasn’t just the popular stuff, which we also listened to. But there was definitely more to sink into and more to listen to than I think a lot of people are exposed to at a young age. I wasn’t listening to children’s music; I was listening to the great stuff that they loved. So, I think it deeply implanted a passion for it that has not gone away. And then, along the way, I had great teachers and mentors. I was involved in my high school music program to a great degree. It was a good program. So I felt very supported, kind of across the board, at home, at school, and in my lessons. I felt like I was given a lot to succeed with.
Besides the upcoming show at Race Brook Lodge, what else do you have planned for the coming months?
There’s a cool thing that we just booked but has not been announced yet, called “The World’s Greatest Sing-along of all Time Guaranteed.” Hannah Bracken, who works at Egremont Barn and runs the open mic night there, and Nick Keene, co-owner of the Barn, have put together a band to do a sing-along of a bunch of cool covers at Egremont Barn. There’ll be big printouts of the lyrics, and the audience will be encouraged to chime in. That will be on March 21. The band will be Steve Ide, Rob Putnam, Miles Lally, myself, and, of course, Hannah and Nick.
Other than that, Vaguely Pagan is at the Lion’s Den on February 17, and there are definitely some shows with Billy Keane coming up; some are out of town, but one is at Egremont Barn on March 9.
You can learn more about Brian and his studio at https://www.soundrystudio.com. You can follow him on Instagram and listen to a Spotify playlist of songs he has performed with bands such as Fruit Bats, Billy Keane, Morricone Youth, and others.