“An explosion of energy”
Kristin Hersh, Giant Sand and The Dream Syndicate join forces to celebrate Fire Records’ 40th anniversary
IF you can judge a group of musicians’ enthusiasm for a project by how easy it is to corral them together on Zoom across multiple time zones, the upcoming one-off set by newly formed supergroup The Giant Syndicate should be a blast. A handful of emails, a polite reminder, a couple of last-minute text messages and there they all are – Kristin Hersh, a minute later Steve Wynn and, eventually but serenely, Howe
Gelb – all eager to talk about playing Fire’s 40th birthday bash at Earth in Hackney on April 27 as part of an all-day music marathon hosted by Stewart Lee. “It will be an expulsion and explosion of energy, as we all have such history with each other and are all getting ancient,” says Gelb.
“We will do our own sets and then we’ll play together for the finale,” explains Hersh, who will be performing with a cellist as she did on her last solo tour. “The happy accident is nice in musicians’ hands… that’s the best chaos we can possibly control. Howe and I have played together many times but there is no comfort zone there. As you walk on stage, he mutters something vague about doing a standard, then he’ll do a Giant Sand instrumental you don’t know, and then a Sinatra song you also don’t know. But it all works out.”
Gelb and Wynn will be performing with the current iterations of Giant Sand and The Dream Syndicate respectively. The pair have known each other since 1986, when The Dream Syndicate performed with Giant Sand at Roskilde festival as a late substitute for The Cult. Gelb and Hersh go way back too – “like family, we raised our kids together,” says Hersh – while Gelb is even old friends with Stewart Lee. “He used to show up at our shows in the ’90s,” recalls Gelb. “I didn’t know who he was, but eventually he cornered me and told me he was trying to work out how much we made up on the fly, as he wanted to utilise that methodology in his stand-up.”
Wynn is a recent addition to the Fire roster, and it was partly the presence of Gelb and Hersh that persuaded him to join the label. “I like these long sprawling shows with lots of performers as it gives more possibilities of combinations, more random elements,” he says. “And we have some really great random elements in the lineup that could catch fire, no pun intended.”
Keeping the trio on topic is not easy as they share memories and discuss the difficulties that come from being a musician in the modern age. One of the reasons Hersh joined Fire, she says, was they made it so much easier for her to focus on making music rather than delivering “product”. As Gelb muses about the challenge of having an ageing audience, Wynn admits he has considered offering vitamins on the merch stand and ending the show with a callisthenics class to ensure his fans stay in shape.
Perhaps that’s something Fire might consider at Earth. But Wynn speaks for all three when he says how much he’s looking forward to the event. “We’ll be well-rehearsed for the random to happen,” he promises. “One of the reasons I joined Fire, you want to be on a roster where you feel comfortable but also challenged. Anything that sticks around for 40 years needs to be celebrated, and that includes all of ourselves.”
The Giant Syndicate play 40 Years Of Fire at Earth, London, on April 27; tickets via eatyourownears.com
“We will be wellrehearsed for the random to happen” STEVE WYNN