Richard Cagle & the Voodoo Choir A chat with Richard Cagle of Richard Cagle & the Voodoo Choir. Leicester Bangs: Richard, tell us a little about yourself, and your band Richard: Here in Texas, I'm better known as a Producer, Manager. I love to find new talent and help develop their careers. I have produced records for Joe "King" Carrasco, Carolyn Wonderland, and deadhorse, to name a few. I'm currently managing Pasadena Napalm Division, a kinda heavy project, which is made up with the lead singer Kurt Brecht from DRI and three members of deadhorse. As far as the Voodoo Choir goes, I'm blessed to be surrounded by such great players, who believe in the project and pour their hearts into it. With so many folks in the choir, you never know who might be in the line-up on any given night. But the core band is Lee Martin, Frank Salas, Calvin Hall, and Mike Conde. What great players! LB: How did you start out making music? Richard: I grew up in the small town of Dumas, in the northern panhandle of Texas. Me and Joe "King" Carrasco started our first band togerther when we were in the 7th grade(12 years old). LB: Who did you grow up listening to and how do they influence what you’re doing now? Richard: The "Blues Rock" of the British Invasion of the 60's was the biggest influence. Having lived all my life in the USA, I never heard blues until the Brits repackaged it and sent it back to us. Still love it! But remember I'm from Texas and we have our own way of feeling and playing the blues and Johnny Winter, ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Delbert McClinton are just a few of my down home influences. You live and breath em here in Texas! LB: Tell us about your latest release. Richard: The vision/concept for this album came to me several years ago. I knew I wanted to produce a Blues album, but instead of putting together a band, writing the songs, rehearsing and then recording, I wanted to do it all at once. I wanted it to be a true Zen moment. So, I invited some of the best musicians in Houston to join me in this adventure. The simple concept for each session is; four of us walk into our garage studio without knowing what we're going to play. "Not caring about yesterday or what's going to happen tomorrow. It's just about what happens this moment". In most of the sessions, the players had never met each other, much less ever played together. We wrote the song right then, and turned on the recorder to capture the results. Streaming our parts is the best way to describe it. Each of the songs on this album took an average of two and a half hours to write and record. After the initial songs were written and recorded, I brought in Rick Thompson to play keys on all of them, Gary Sapone played Harmonica on two of the tunes, James Hoover replaced my bass on Uptown/Downtown, and Gideon Cheshire helped me fine tune the lyrics. I'm proud of the outcome of this project and I hope you enjoy it as much as we did creating it. The Blues is all about feeling, and on this project, we all poured our hearts into it. LB: Do you get out and play your music live, and if so, what can an audience expect at one of your shows? Richard: Yes, we play out, but not as often as I'd like. The shows are very high energy. You just can't sit there, it makes you want to dance... I'm hoping for an European Tour sometime in the near future... LB: What aspects of playing and recording music do you most enjoy? Richard: Writing and creating songs is the most rewarding... recording is fun if you don't over burden yourself and try to be perfect... it should be more about feeling instead of just playing the note in the right space... playing out live is so great to see, feel and respond back to the audience. When people are up dancing, you can't help but feel excited... LB: Where can people find (and buy) your music? Richard: You can find our album "Texas Voodoo Blues" at CD Baby. Also our website, MySpace and the Montrose Records site (links below). www.richardcagle.net www.myspace.com/texasvoodooblues www.montroserecords.net