This is part of our ongoing series on musicians who perform in The Berkshires.
Osei Essed and Simon Kafka will be performing on Friday, December 15, at Race Brook Lodge in Sheffield. Osei and Simon initially joined forces in the Big Hands Rhythm and Blues Band, which has been described as a band that “captures the authentic spirit of Chess Records’ legends like Howlin’ Wolf and John Lee Hooker, combined uncannily with the unbridled energy of bands like The Sonics and MC5.”
Osei and Simon are now working on a new duo project and will be playing some of their new music during their upcoming performance. This week, I had the opportunity to catch up over Zoom with the two of them to learn more about their music, the new collaboration, and their plans for 2024. I hope you enjoy our conversation, which has been lightly edited for clarity.
It’s my understanding that the two of you started making music together with the Big Hands Rhythm and Blues Band. Is that correct?
Simon Kafka: I was just getting off of another job. And I really wanted to do something – a project like this. But I lacked the singer that I needed, and somebody connected me to Osei. So we founded the band together.
Next Friday’s performance at Race Brooke Lodge is billed as the two of you, Osei and Simon, and not as the Big Hands Rhythm and Blues Band. Can you tell our audience what they might expect from this performance? Will you be playing material from Big Hands, or will you be mixing in material from your other bands like The Woes, which Osei played with, or from Simon’s solo work?
Osei Essed: There’s going to be a combination – it’s going to be a bunch of different kinds of music. It’ll certainly include some music that we wrote for Big Hands and The Woes, as well as some music that Big Hands has covered and performed over the years. But Simon and I have a really exciting project that came about as a result of a Big Hands tour in Eastern Europe earlier this year – just the two of us. We ended up playing some shows in Switzerland together, which included some new material as well as adapting some of the Big Hands material to the duo setting. When returning to the US, we sat down together and we felt that maybe we’ve got something here and decided to write a new slate of material. So we have tons of new songs, some of which we had a chance to record this past Monday here in Brooklyn. We’re working on a record of sorts as part of that project, which is as yet unnamed, but currently billed as Simon Kafka and Osei Essed.
How would you characterize the music – will it have the feel of Big Hands, or will it be different?
Simon: I think it’s different. Big Hands, at its core, was five people with a power drummer. It’s loud and raucous, and it’s for people to dance to and kind of go crazy to. The duo project, just by its nature, is a lot more intimate. It’s less raucous and less ear-splitting. But I would say that the core of it is the same.
I heard Osei discussing the tour on The Other 22 Hours podcast – you mentioned going to both Moldova and Switzerland. Can you tell us a little bit about how that tour came about and how you received there?
Osei: Simon has a relationship with a person who does a lot of booking for the State Department, and the Big Hands portion of the tour came about through that relationship. It was the band’s second time playing in Moldova, although it was my first time being able to be there with the band. The Switzerland part of the tour came about as a result of me reaching out to some contacts from my days of booking my own shows in the US. I reached out to some of the folks I’d known who had moved to Switzerland, and then they connected to some other folks. People seemed to have a really good time at all of the shows. Every night we felt not only appreciated but also very, very welcomed.
How many gigs were in that tour?
Osei: I think it was seven.
I understand that Big Hands put out two albums, Thoughts and Prayers in 2018 and a self-titled album in 2017. It sounds like the two of you have plans to do something else. Will that be as Big Hands? Can you tell us a little bit about this project that has emerged out of the international tour?
Simon: Because our Switzerland duo tour was so successful and creatively enriching, we were both feeling really inspired to keep it going with the two of us. Osei and I have been doing a series of duo concerts in New York, which we will be doing for you in The Berkshires. We’ve been getting together, writing, making stuff, developing it, and sending each other voice memos back and forth and things like that. We just did a day in the studio the other day, and we’re developing our own thing, just the two of us.
Okay, and that’ll just be billed as Simon Kafka and Osei Essed and not as Big Hands?
Osei: Yes, until we come up with an actual name for it. But we kind of wanted to hear what it would sound like, recorded, before making a decision as to what we would name it. Even though it’s the two of us, and even though we’ve played together a lot over the last six or so years, it’s a bit of a departure from other things we’ve done. And at the same time, it also encapsulates so much of what inspires us. So having it be all of those things at once, a name has a lot of weight. Before we give a name to this project, we want to really consider it. When we were first starting Big Hands, Simon and I didn’t know one another at all. It took a lot of trust for us to figure out how to be in a band together and write songs together from scratch with just an introduction by commonly held trusted friends. So after having built that up, we’re now in this place where we do know each other, and we do respect each other, and we very much want to know what the other person has to offer in every situation. So now we have to confront these recordings and come up with a name together.
Simon: Yeah, necessity is the mother of invention.
Do you have a timetable for when this album will be out or when the project will be ready to be unveiled?
Osei: I think early 2024.
We’ll be excited to hear about that and would love to make sure that folks here in the Berkshires know about the album once it’s released.
I have a couple of questions for each of you individually.
Osei, you are an accomplished composer who has written music for a number of (33 according to IMDB) very successful movies and series, including Crater (Disney+), Unveiled: Surviving La Luz Del Mundo (HBO), The Lincoln Project (Showtime), and Amend: Fight for America. How do you like to divide your time between composing scores vs. getting out and playing with either of your bands?
Osei: I came to film composition from songwriting and from performing. There were years spent in buses, in the backs of vans, and sleeping on floors. And that’s how I came to music. I’ve always played live music, and I think the first year or so of scoring consistently, I was lucky enough to start Big Hands with Simon and still play with The Woes, which meant that I was playing twice or more a month, and scoring every day. Playing live at that point provided an outlet and another way to think about music while I was busy developing a more cinematic ear. This past year, there’s been a writer’s strike, which has affected us all industry-wide. But it did also offer the opportunity to spend more time writing songs – and it’s been very fruitful. We got to do a little tour, we got to sit down and write songs, and we were able to get off the ground a monthly series that we’ve been doing here in New York City. Sometimes it gets to be that you can’t do much more than what you’re doing, so during the breaths, it’s really important to go back to the well and find the things that make us whole as individuals and as artists. Live music is very much a part of what I need to stay whole, inspired, and happy.
Do you envision you’ll keep doing both things?
Osei: Yes. 100 Percent.
Are there any other projects that you’re working on besides the one with Simon?
Osei: I’m working on a synth-based songwriting project as well, which is mostly using synths from the 70s and 80s. It’s with my friend Eyal Marcovici, who I’ve been making music with on and off for maybe 30 years. So that’s a really exciting, fun thing to be able to do as well.
Simon, I understand you toured extensively with Elle King and Duncan Sheik, have created several solo albums, and have played in over 20 Broadway musicals. How do you like to divide your time between these various projects?
Simon: It’s tough. Every single day, when I wake up, I’m like, “Alright, I want to do X, Y, and Z.” I just try to get everything in as best as I can. As someone who’s self-employed, I can make choices. Sometimes I just need to do the things that I must do. Other times, I try to do the things that are creatively fulfilling. I try as best as I can to find a balance.
Can you share anything about the projects you have coming up?
Simon: I’m still releasing my own music. And as a side person, I’m working with some really great people. I play guitar for a very popular children’s personality named Ms. Rachel. She’s doing really well, with over 3 billion streams on YouTube. I’m playing a little boy’s Make-A-Wish event tomorrow, and that’s really cool. And there’s a New York-based British artist named Coyle Girelli that I just did my third album with – playing guitar and keys. We toured together and play around New York. I just made a new record with him. We recorded three acoustic versions of songs in the studio the other day, which I’m really excited about. So those two things, and my music with Osei, are my favorite things right now. And who knows what the future holds, you know?
Regarding the project that you’re currently working on together, how do you two work together? What is your process?
Simon: Osei does about 98% of the lyrics.
Osei: I think it’s one of those things where if we were to divide it in terms of percentages, who knows what kind of numbers you end up with, but that’s not how music and collaboration work. I think it’s fair to say that when you’re having a true collaborative experience or relationship, the number one thing that’s required is being absolutely open. So as long as we can look at our egos and take them out of our heads and put them into a corner until we’re out of the workspace, I think it’s always an equal effort.
Simon: Something that happens very frequently is that we sit down, and we’re just having a conversation and noodling on an instrument, and then something catches one of our ears, or something really interesting happens. And then one of us is like, “Oh, we should turn this into something.” And then it develops. The vibe and the idea are there, and then it just kind of writes itself over time.
So do you typically start with the music and then layer in the lyrics?
Osei: Yeah, usually.
It sounds like you get together in person to do a lot of that work but then are also collaborating virtually in between times.
Osei: We use absolutely everything that we have at our disposal. We have our iPhones, and we both have rigs at our house that are set up for recording. We might call each other – whatever we can get, we take it.
Is there anything else that I did not ask that you’d like to share with our readers?
Osei: I’m really excited to come up to Race Brook Lodge. I’ve been in the Berkshires once, some moons ago, for a week-long Thanksgiving, which was absolutely wonderful, and I had the chance to do some hiking and exploring. Now we have this good friend up there – Alex Harvey [Race Brook’s Artistic Programmer] – and I’m very excited to see this new place that he’s been working on and this new community that he’s been building and hopefully, become a part of it.
Yes, he’s really drawing some really creative and diverse acts.
Osei: He himself is a creative force. So it’s no wonder.
You can learn more about Osei Essed at oseiessed.com. You can follow Simon Kafka on Instagram. You can find music from Big Hands Rhythm and Blues Band on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon.