Review Fix chats with Phat Phunktion’s frontman/co-producer Tim Whalen, and saxophonist/co-producer Al Falaschi, who discuss their new album, Live at the High Noon.
Review Fix: How did the band get together?
Tim Whalen: We were just a bunch of college students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison looking to do something different from the jazz music we been playing and studying so intensely. Al and I, as well as everybody else in the band, had a deep love for old school r&b and funk, especially Tower of Power, The JB’s, and Earth, Wind and Fire. The band came together through very informal after-hours rehearsal sessions at the School of Music. I think we all realized that we had a love for this kind of music, and it all came together very naturally.
Al Falaschi: Tim and I met in 1992 at The Summer Music Clinic in Madison, WI while trying out for a music scholarship. During the clinic for the variety show, we formed a makeshift band and had so much fun doing it, that we made a vow to each other to start a band like “Tower of Power†or “Earth Wind and Fire†when we got to college. A couple years later, we fulfilled that promise and put Phat Phunktion together to compete in a “Battle of the Bands” competition. One gig grew into two, two into four, four into now over 20 years of making music together all across the country and Japan.
Review Fix: What makes your brand of music special?
Whalen: Well, I think having a horn section will always make a band a little extra special. In terms of our music, I think we’ve found a way to create our own sound in a genre that can prove difficult to do so.
Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?
Whalen: This has changed over the years, and it’s constantly evolving, but at this point Al and I definitely have a process that works for us. An idea can come from many different places. Many times the seed of a song will start with either Al or I coming in with a simple groove, maybe a drum pattern, maybe a bassline, and even sometimes a big chunk of a song. It’s a lot of trial and error, but sometimes it all comes very quickly. I think our backgrounds in music complement each other very well. I have a strong sense of harmony, and how song structure and arrangements can be put together, and Al has an incredible sense of melody, and those things can really create some good stuff when put together. Most of the time, we come up with the music first. We put together the rhythm section parts, then we start thinking about melodic ideas and lyric ideas, and once all of that is pretty well set, we began talking about how to construct the horn section to complement what’s going on. In the old days, we wrote way too many notes for the horns. Now, we really try to make sure the horns are playing a more complementary role in the songs, and aren’t too overbearing over everything else. That makes it all the more powerful when they do take over.
Falaschi: Our creative process can vary per song. In our earlier years, Tim and I could write complete or near complete songs and bring them into rehearsal, where they may get tweaked slightly. In our later years, Tim and I started to do most of our writing collaboratively. Tim has an amazing strength with harmony. As a pianist, he lives in this world. My strength lies mostly in melody. As a saxophonist, I can only play one note at a time, so I spend most of my time in that mental space. The combination has resulted in songs that have rich and complex chord changes, while still maintaining catchy and beautiful melodies. Lyrics have evolved the same way. Sometimes they’re based on personal life experiences and are written by just one of us. Other times, we’ll talk about a concept, or current event, and work through lyrics that mean something to us. In almost all cases though, we start with the music first, and then add lyrics later. We are firm believers that the music itself needs to be able to move you, or your ass, regardless of the words that spout.
Review Fix: What makes ‘Live at the High Noon’ special?
Whalen: 20 years is a long time to be in a band. It’s the culmination of a lot of hard work, and we have a lifetime bond as brothers and sister that is unlike any other anywhere. The gig it’s special because it’s just another stop on our journey, and we have no intention of stopping, and we’re doing it on our own terms. It wasn’t even supposed to be an album! haha. It was recorded for our own archive, but since the gig went so well, we decided it should be put out to the world.
Falaschi: Someone, who is in their early 40s, recently mentioned to me that the influence of bands like Tower of Power, and Earth, Wind, and Fire are obvious. No one has to work too hard to draw those lines. But they were natively a child of the 90’s music scene, before learning about those bands in their more adult years. Natively, this person initially drew lines of influence with bands like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and Dave Matthews Band. For years I guess I had felt this as well but had never verbalized it. Once it was verbalized, I realized that our music can span generations very quickly.
Review Fix: What’s the standout song? How was it written?
Whalen: For me, the standout is “Knockin’ em Down.” It’s super funky, the horn parts came together really well, and I love the breakdown section in the middle.
Falaschi: My favorite song on the album is also “Knockin’ em Down.” I love it for all of its separate parts that come together. I love how it builds from the simple guitar/vocal intro….all the way into crazy syncopated funky rhythms that the band nails with great precision. In the middle, during the breakdown, when the horns come in….that horn line can melt paint off the walls. As for writing, it was one of Tim’s original ideas that he brought to the table and said what do you think of this. I loved it and we collaborated on it until the point where it needed lyrics. We got to this point after writing a lot of other music, and we were both blocked. So we called in backup. We have a great singer/songwriter/drummer friend in New York by the name of Moses Patrou. We sent Mo the track and asked him if he was interested in putting some lyrics to the song. It had that greasy low down feel to it that needed some Moses flavor on it. What he sent us back really resonated with us.
Review Fix: You won an Oscar for your work on the song “Al Otro Lado del RÃo,†by Uruguayan singer Jorge Drexler. What did you contribute and how did the opportunity come about?
Whalen: Well, I didn’t actually win the Oscar. I want to be careful with this because the only people that actually can win an Oscar are the songwriters. It’s not like a Grammy where everyone involved gets the actual award. The Oscars are a little different that way. With that said, my involvement in it was helping orchestrate the string parts for the song. Jorge was visiting Madison, WI in the summer of 2003, and he got a call from his manager to write a song for this movie. He’s very good friends with my dear friend Leo Sidran, who was also living in Madison at the time. They recorded the song in Leo’s living room and home studio in Madison. They wanted to add some strings to it, so Jorge gave me a recording of him singing ideas for strings over the bed track. I flushed out what he was singing and wrote it out the score, and then put together the parts for the string musicians for the session.
Review Fix: How do you want your music to affect people?
Whalen: We just want people to enjoy it, and want it to feel good.
Falaschi: I hope that the first time someone hears it, they think to themselves “Damn, these dudes are on fire!†….and then I hope it brings them joy and causes a bunch of head-nodding as they drive down the highway. That is when I’m in my happy place, so I hope we can do that to other people.
Review Fix: What are the goals for 2017 and beyond?
Whalen: Right now, Al and I are writing new songs as we speak. We’re just going to keep trying to write the best music we can, and play selected shows when possible. We’re using the Donald Fagen/Walter Becker model for our band at this point. It’s a recording project, with some special gigs and tours thrown in once in a while when we feel like playing. We’re really hoping to get to Europe semi-regularly at some point, so we’ll see where it all goes!
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