INTERVIEW WITH NOAM PIKELNY
Printed in Banjo Newsletter July, 2004
by Jake Schepps

In today’s post-Nickel Creek world, many of us have met hot-pickin’ wunderkind musicians. The musical inspirations and multitude of new learning tools have created an awe-inspiring next generation of bluegrassers. The exciting time of the mid-eighties with the high-caliber musicianship and wide-ranging influences, bands like Strength in Numbers moved acoustic musicians to advance their ideas, bringing tradition and fusing it with ever-far reaching influences.

All this said Noam Pikelny has something special. In a world of many wunderkinds, it takes an extraordinary level of maturity and ingenuity to rise above the tide. At 22 years old, Noam has made a rather noticeable splash into the banjo world. In 2001, he toured nationally and in Europe with the guitarist Slavek Hanzlik playing new-acoustic style music. After banjoist Mark Vann of Leftover Salmon died, Noam was offered the banjo chair in the national touring act, officially beginning October 2002. Shortly after joining Salmon, they recorded “Oh Cracker Where Art Thou?” with the rock band Cracker. Leftover Salmon has toured as a co-billing with the Sam Bush Band. In 2003, he was invited to play a duet “Tweener” set with Béla Fleck on stage at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. He played a spectacular late night set of original acoustic music in Lyons, Colorado after RockyGrass with Matt Flinner, Darol Anger, and others. He was a featured banjo player at the 2003 IBMA banjo workshop. The fall of 2003 included a highly successful double-billed tour called “Under the Influence” with the Del McCoury Band. Most recently Noam recorded a new solo project called “In the Maze” with Matt Flinner, David Grier, Todd Philips, and Gabe Witcher, to be released in late summer on Compass Records.

Greg Cahill was one of Noam’s former teachers and an important influence on his playing. He says this about Noam: “I believe that the basis of Noam's superb musicianship is the fact the he is a great guy who is full of talent as well as respect for other people. He came to my home for some lessons (first with his Dad, then on his bicycle, when he would use one of my banjos), but the vast breadth of his playing today is a result of his perspective - he was always completely focused on what he felt he needed to learn and he studied the styles of many players. I find his playing today awesome and I look to Noam as another innovator on the five-string banjo.”

Noam comes across as the consummate modern banjo player. He has a spectacular right hand, the harmonic sense of a progressive musician, and an endless stream of creative ideas. It is also a thrill to play music with him. In the liner notes of the new Mark O’Connor “Retrospective” album, Mark described a young Bryan Sutton as an “intimidator.” Some young musicians can have that influence just by displaying their impressive musical skill at such a young age. Noam has the power in his playing to have that edge, yet he seems to hear only what is good in other’s playing. He easily puts others at ease, and helps them to play at more of their full potential.

In December 2003, fresh off the “Under the Influence” tour, I sat down with Noam to discuss all things banjo.

How did you hook up with Leftover Salmon?

NP: When I was in college in Champaign, Illinois I was playing in a band called Waffle Hoss with Dan Broder and Ethan James, former members of the Bluegrassholes, which also included 2 members of Yonder Mountain String Band. There was a good connection between Waffle Hoss and Yonder Mountain. They were also good friends with Greg Garrison, who is the current bass player for Leftover Salmon. Salmon came through town to play at the Canopy Club, and I got a call from Ethan saying, “I just talked to the Salmon boys and you are sitting in. Bring your banjo.” I had never met any of them before. I had a big paper to write that night, but I went anyways and had a great time. Mark Vann let me play his Crossfire, and he played his Nechville electric. We played “Shenandoah Breakdown” and “Walls of Time.” Mark and I hit it off and had some great time trading single string licks. That was the first and last time I met Mark.

So they cold-called and offered you the slot?

NP: I was set to finish my last two semesters of music school, and Salmon called because they needed a banjo player for a few gigs. At that time, Tony Furtado, Scott Vestal, and Matt Flinner had been filling the banjo slot. Salmon wasn’t seeing it as an audition, they just needed to get through those shows. But for me I realized this is as close to an audition as I would get for this kind of band, so I learned the material well. Things were as smooth as they could be for the first night with a banjo player. They seemed to know that I could make more of a commitment than Flinner or Furtado since they have very successful solo careers. So after the three gigs, we talked about it. By the time I got on the plane to fly home, it was figured out that I was going join the band. They were real eager to have consistency and return to a band where they knew who was going to be playing. They wanted to start working on new material and moving forward as opposed to worrying about who was going to play banjo each night. At this point I had spent some time in Colorado during the summer, then played these gigs. I was itching to play music professionally. I returned to Champaign, put everything on hold and moved to Colorado.

They sent me 15 CD-R’s of live shows so I could hear anything they could throw at me. When Salmon gets on stage, there’s no telling what you are going to be playing. We try to have a setlist every night, but it gets changed all the time. Some tunes in the setlist might be some things we have not played in over a year. We are lucky to have our bassist Greg Garrison and drummer Jose Martinez because they know all the material and play it well. So Greg said to me, “Make a list of the stuff on these CD’s that you know, but be familiar with all of it.” We adhered mostly to the list for the first couple of nights, but by the third night, Vince Herman (lead singer) had forgotten that I didn’t know every single song.

How would you describe Leftover Salmon?

NP: For those who haven’t seen us, it is definitely not a bluegrass band. Drew Emmit, Vince Herman, and Mark Vann played bluegrass and were in bluegrass bands; but when Salmon came together, it fused a bunch of styles. Then they started to plug in and amplify. They come from a background of loving and understanding bluegrass, but are just as into rock-n-roll, Cajun, and other styles. What they have done is created an on-stage bastardization of all the styles in every tune; you could look at any of the various influences on Salmon and flesh out those roots in every tune. There are certain tunes I have to approach like an electric guitarist, and other tunes I can back up with full-on Scruggs-style.

Essentially the band is trying to present certain textures or colors, and it is all authentic and genuine. But we don’t go on stage and play bluegrass like Ricky Skaggs and Del McCoury. If we play bluegrass, it sounds like rock; if we play something jazzy, it sounds bluegrassy. That turns some people off, but overall the Salmon-thing appeals to so many people. All sorts of people are hearing the banjo play “Shuckin’ the Corn” and digging it. But there are sacrifices. If we play “Shuckin’ the Corn” with drums and keyboards, you lose a lot of the subtlety of acoustic string band music. It is a compromise. The band’s vision is to try to take the essence of various styles of music and make them a whole, make something new. Everyone in the band is aware of those compromises, and everyone comes from different backgrounds. When I am teaching the band a fiddle tune, I am coming from an acoustic background. I am not used to hearing heavy drum fills at the end my solos. But that’s how our drummer hears it. Or playing “Groundspeed,” our keyboardist might play four continuous solos, but to me I think, “That’s not how that is supposed to be played.” But if I start playing blues tunes that he is singing, I probably play stuff just as far from the standard as taking multiple breaks in “Groundspeed.”

How was the transition taking over from Mark Vann??

NP: I am aware of the history of the band, and people will come up to me and say, “You have such big shoes to fill.” There is truth to that, but I am not taking it as a plea to make the band sound as it did six years ago. The band sounds how it does now. It is only the circumstances of the way Mark left. No one told Greg to play like their old bass player, because he quit. The circumstances of me joining are definitely different, but no one has put any pressure on me or made me feel any different. We are just playing music. I didn’t really think of it as, “I am his replacement;” I approached it as, “I am the new banjo player.” I was a big fan of Mark’s playing and quote some of his stuff. Still I never went in there thinking I had to play it like he did. When I was preparing to play with the band, I thought I needed to be aggressive, crazy, and flashy. After a couple of tours I realized I should play the music as I should play it. Many people come up to me and say in some ways I remind them of Mark, but in some ways I don’t. He approached soloing with a lot of elements of rock and country guitar. On tunes that have those possibilities, I do some of that, yet I try to come up with stuff that is melodic and lyrical. I couldn’t handle being told to learn solos note for note, or performing under constant comparison to Mark’s playing. But there are some things that I have learned that Mark did because they are cool ideas.

From seeing Salmon a lot with Mark Vann, he appeared to be free to do whatever he wanted all the time. My guess is that you have total musical freedom.

NP: That is a really fun part, the total freedom. Everyone is on stage first and foremost to have fun, and the audience is there to have a great time, and not because they have certain preconceptions about what particular style of music they might be hearing. This gives everyone a lot of freedom. Which is why Bill McKay probably feels free to take four solos on “Groundspeed." If we play the same song two nights in a row, I could play it one night on acoustic banjo and the next on electric, and no one would even question me. Never has anyone told me what to play. I have received plenty of great constructive feedback from the guys in the band and have learned a lot about improvising and patience.

What do you mean by patience?

NP: Patience in building solos. I remember when I came into the band, I was playing stuff that didn’t have much space. It felt frantic. The guys wouldn’t shy away from saying, “Why don’t you just let what you are playing sit?” encouraging me to relax, to simplify what I am playing. Nobody has ever told me something like, “Don’t play a ‘chicken pickin’’ solo on this song.” In general there is a lot of freedom to do what you want. This can be a blessing and a curse. Everyone has to be on his toes.

For example, if we play a traditional tune and Drew wants to play electric fiddle with a bunch of reverb with four minutes of textures, he can. Yet there are constraints. If I started doing 15-minute banjo intro to “Shuckin’ the Corn,” we would probably have a band meeting. Overall, we try to make things work in the band as best we can. These days we are playing an Irish tune that Slavek Hanzlik wrote called “Sally Noggin.” I brought the tune to the band as something new and different to play. But we are not an Irish band, and I am not an Irish musician. So we try to arrange the tune so everyone has some kind of input and whatever he is doing is in the most appropriate place. I knew going into it that I would not ask Bill to double the melody to an Irish tune on the piano. We approached it looking at how we can extract something that Bill can play over that works in his style, something he can express himself on. So we came up with a vamp, a repetitive thing that Bill can improvise over. Essentially it is making this tune work for Salmon. Our fans are open-minded, and welcome that type of stuff; they would probably not question seeing a Hammond organ take a solo on an Irish tune.

You take some very extended solos on stage. How do you approach them? What goes through your head before or during the solo?

NP: When I started with the band, I tried to have some patterns that I could come to, some kind of harmonic chord change or some lick that I could get to. Eventually I realized every time I would play an open solo on a tune, I was trying to reference something else or thinking back to another great solo. But after playing 25 shows in 4 weeks, I will get stuck in the same habits. In really open tunes or tunes that could have a 3-minute banjo solo, I am now more familiar with the changes and what the possibilities are. Lately I have been trying not to think of what I am going to do until right before I start. Some nights it leads to really great solos, and others it doesn’t work out as well. But my goal is that I have the tools and imagination that every night something different and good comes out.

I try to keep things different but there are certain patterns I fall into. In the tune “Whispering Waters” has a D and C thing, and any of us can play as long as we want. One night on the last tour Rob McCoury was sitting in on that song and I watched him closely. He knew the chord changes and knew exactly what he was capable of, and he played an amazing Scruggs/Crowe style break for about four minutes. I thought it was the best solo on the stage that night. It was right in the pocket, it was creative, and it was confident. There may not have been as many fireworks or as many triplets, and maybe it didn’t go as far out harmonically as a jazzer might take it. But for me, I took it as “Know what you can do.” His technique is so refined that he could play over anything that falls close to what he does, and make it sound good. If it was a jazz tune in 7 with all sorts of altered chords, I couldn’t play over it, and I am not saying that since Rob is confident he could too.

Everyone has their limitations, but you have to think about what tools you have and how to use them. At first I thought I was failing every single time. I’d tell the band, “I don’t know if I should be taking solo on that tune.” I’d hear back, “Are you kidding? That was great!” “But it was just wandering.” “Yeah that’s the point! This tune is about wandering and a discovery type of mission.” People who come to see us appreciate and like that risk, that openness. This is something quite different from traditional bluegrass. I still believe in the strong start, good climax, and a definite ending; but this has opened my mind to what else it can be, letting it be more open.

Do you listen back to shows?

NP: I do. Yet sometimes I feel listening over headphones gets away from the intent of the music. It is really about the live show; and if you listen back on your stereo, it changes it. But I do feel listening back to tapes is very important to get ideas about what worked, where my timing is off, and what I need to practice. Joining Salmon has definitely changed the way I think about music, but it hasn’t changed the reason I like music. I love playing acoustic music for the acousticness of it, for the subtlety. You lose some of that with the whole Salmon experience. Having drums on stage, all the amps, and foam inside my banjo head really changes the sound and feel. When Salmon goes on stage, they want to put on a big rock-n-roll show, so the keyboard is loud on stage, the mandolin, and the drums and even the in-ear monitors are loud. From what I gather from fans, our noise is nothing compared to bands like moe or Robert Randolph, but I guess I will never get used to just hearing a banjo pick-up. It’s a compromise.

What are you playing for an acoustic banjo?

NP: My main banjo is a 2002 Nechville Nextar that I got directly from Tom Nechville. I have a bunch of banjos and keep coming back to this one. Something about the setup on it. It has a tall bridge (just over 3/4”), and where the neck the meets the pot assembly, it raises the strings off the head. This makes a huge difference when playing single-string and soloing. I pick up and try banjos all the time, amazing pre-war Gibsons that have fantastic tone. But once I get past the point of just trying them, and then I try to play a gig on them or play at a jam, I am not able to execute what I hear in my head. I think that has to do with the setup of the Nechvilles, the tall bridge, and the space off the fingerboard. It gives you a bit more sustain on some notes and a real round warm tone. Single string soloing on banjo and getting into that type of improvising requires a lot of shifting. The combination of the wider radiused fingerboard and wide and flat electric guitar-style frets make it a lot easier to slide over the frets.

I think Tom has a great thing going. We travel so much, and his banjos are easy to maintain and adjust. Banjo is such a weird instrument in so many ways. There is such tradition instilled in it. Everyone who picks it up is aware of Earl and J.D.’s legacy, and you need to somehow balance that with expressing themselves. That happens musically with tunes you are writing, your attack, and also the sound of your instrument. I know some folks that could never play my banjo in their traditional bluegrass band. I know folks that say, “When it comes to banjo, there are two words: ‘Gib. Son.’” When I need that extra treble or snap to cut over the band, I’ll play my Gibson. In general, I think people should be more concerned with how their banjo sounds and whether it is comfortable to play rather than how it looks on stage or what their heroes played.

Can you talk about what your practice sessions are like? What you practice and how you approach it?

NP: I get into different practice modes or phases. There are sometimes I will practice specific things, like 2-octave single-string scales. Another aspect of practicing with the metronome off is experimenting with certain rolls or sounds. This might be a certain part of a tune or just ideas, or trying to write something. Also taking a specific form with specific chords and examining options. I think a very important part of improvising is noodling and finding sounds that you like when things are slowed down and the metronome is off and then trying to incorporate those things in time with the tune at full tempo. And then I transcribe a lot of stuff, like learning fiddle tunes note for note.

Are you transcribing banjo stuff?

NP: Sometimes. I used to transcribe mostly banjo stuff. But lately I have transcribed some Matt Flinner and Chris Thile material. That’s been challenging. Some of the stuff mandolin players play is really tough to play note for note. Chris Thile’s “Song for a Young Queen“ is a really interesting tune on banjo. Playing tunes not in G or C and playing them open. That song goes through all sorts of key changes and really opened my mind to as to how to play arpeggios. I’ve transcribed all sorts of stuff from Matt Flinner fiddle tunes to Scott Nygaard tunes to some jazz solos. I think that is important part of practicing. I recommend that to anyone who feels they are in a rut. Transcribe someone’s solo that you think is really cool. Then you will have a handle on some of the concepts or approaches they have and eventually make it yours. I think anything in moderation is important. If I get into scales a lot, I might work on a bluegrass tune just to mix it up.

You seem to have a wealth of creative and fresh ideas. Where do you come up with this stuff? Is it from practicing scales, transcribing, or all of the above?

NP: Listening to people inspires me. At the core, I think you have to have right and left hand freedom and know the fingerboard. When I listen to other people play, mandolinists and guitarists, I try to really absorb and incorporate what they are playing into what I am doing. I may not play the exact same lick, but maybe how they phrase things or rhythmically, or certain chords and harmonic ideas. I started doing that with Béla stuff. I would listen and try to understand his approach to stuff. Not necessarily tab out a break and play it, but see how he approaches a song and approaches soloing. He has certainly opened up the capacity and possibilities of the banjo and how certain things can be played. For a while I got into that mode of his music, seeing how he approaches kick-offs, soloing and fills.

So now I have been trying to do this with other musicians. I listen to as much stuff as I can, and listen on the level of where I’m trying hear what they are doing idea-wise. Then with all those ideas and hearing how things are put together, you can develop enough resources to then put it together into a style or sound. This can start from transcribing note for note or just listening for when soloists are climbing or descending or resting. I definitely have certain “cells” that I go to more often, not licks per se, because they are different each time, but melodic or harmonic areas I go to because I am more comfortable there. There are all sorts of techniques on the banjo now, and it’s a challenge to break down the barriers between techniques, especially trying to incorporate them within a solo. Eventually it moves away from what mode you are playing in and towards the notes and music you are playing. That’s my goal. In some ways I feel I am getting closer to it, but it is a lifelong thing for anybody.

Do you use a computer in your practice time?

NP: I use a computer to record things, to make demos of original tunes, or just to hear myself play. Many things I thought I was playing great, and then I recorded them, listened back, and found problem areas. Now I try to focus on them when I am playing. It is being honest with yourself. It creates a good opportunity to be on the other side and disconnect yourself from your own playing and not be as personal as when you playing it real time. Metronomes and computers are great practice tools, but you have to get out and play with other musicians. Great metronomic time is a wonderful thing, but nobody is robotic. There always has to be room to move with each other. In my opinion the greatest bluegrass bands are not the ones with great robotic time, but the ones that moved with each other. If someone moves a little bit, everyone is right there with them, and it changes the energy. It will always fluctuate some. Though I think metronome practice is important, you can’t rely on it all the time.

How do you compose?

NP: I think most of the tunes I have come up with come out of working on scales or chords or cool tones. I have some tunes that are so focused on the fact that it is being played on the banjo, that if you asked a fiddle player to play it would sound insane because of all the open strings. I know some of the tunes I have written have come out of working on arpeggios, such as in B, then finding open string combinations that sound cool. Other times I have sat down with a guitar and found a chord progression and then tried to hum a melody over them.

You will never write tunes if your practicing routine is only working on stuff that exists or technical material, and then stop there. If you are working on scales or chords, and you hear something cool, you have to be able to stop and capture that, and being patient enough to expand that into a tune. Or have a toolbox available to modify and expand that. I think that’s the key to writing things. Sometimes I find a really cool sound and I don’t know what to do with it, so I will transpose it to all keys to find where it might fit. So I might find something in open G that sounds good but I don’t know where to go with it. All of a sudden in B-flat it becomes obvious where it can go. Some tunes come out and you know immediately how it is going to end. Right now I am working on coming up with new ideas on my original tunes, like a counterpoint line or different chords. I wrote a tune in B, which is nothing revolutionary, but I am playing it in open B and you get all sorts of beautiful sounds with open strings and that can make a tune. What I find inspirational about Matt Flinner’s tunes is they are within the tradition yet offer something new. That is how I tried to write the tunes for my new album. All of them are within some framework of bluegrass; you can hear that it is bluegrass banjo, with something different or new in each tune.

Something I have been finding in my playing is that some of the stuff I practice and play at home I can't pull off on stage or at a jam. I tend to play at a higher level when by myself. Is this something you find? Is this something you have realized and able to work through on the spot thinking “I can play 90% of my practice level?”

NP: I play better in a relaxed environment and when there is no pressure. When I am nervous or intimidated I know things start to suffer, such as technique or timing. What I am learning is that I may never reach a point where I am not nervous, but I can get better at playing with those factors at work. I still know on certain tunes there are parts I can’t execute as well, and I’ll see tunes on the setlist that I don’t want to play because I am not feeling right to play it. I think it is realizing the whole side of nervousness and adrenalin, being able to recognize it, and knowing your limitations in those settings. On stage sometimes, maybe the sound, or I’m nervous, or I can’t hear myself well, I might censor myself and may play it safe—play stuff I know I can execute. I think it is a real common thing that you need to work through. I think warming up beforehand and breathing are key. It can be so intimidating. I can remember being nervous about things I am not nervous about now, and some things I am still nervous about. But I realize I now know the feeling of playing nervous, and now I am getting better at playing nervous. I listen back and it is not as bad as I thought. And now the more I listen back, I feel more confident when playing nervous.

I would imagine playing a duet set with Béla Fleck for 10,000 folks in Telluride would expand your nervousness envelope. Has that helped make other situations less nerve wracking?

NP: That was a real surreal experience to do that just because it was Telluride, and it was Sunday night between Allison Krauss and the Sam Bush Band. There is so much history there and I was really honored to do it. It was only about 15 minutes of playing banjo tunes, but I was really nervous. Here was one of my heroes willing to do that in that environment. It was probably the most nervous I’ve been. But doing that set definitely broke down some of that nervousness, and I know if I was to do it again I’d be a lot better at keeping my cool. I am realizing that everyone in the bluegrass world is so supportive, and it’s not a competition. Nobody goes to Telluride to see who is best. Everyone goes through those feelings, and it is something maybe you can’t avoid but try to reduce it and try to deal with it.

What can you tell me about this upcoming solo project?

NP: I am really excited to play with these guys. (“In the Maze” is slated to be released in late summer 2004, and includes Gabe Witcher, Todd Phillips, David Grier, and Matt Flinner) They have been heroes of mine for a long time. For me it gets me back closer to why I am playing the music. It is more about the music and less about the show. When it comes down to it, I get most turned on by hearing acoustic instruments in a small room.

Is it all original material?

NP: Ten tunes on it, eight of them penned by me. One tune is a waltz by Greg Garrison, and another by an amazing local guitarist named Ross Martin. His tune is one in F#, and when I first heard it I had to learn it. So I am playing it in open G-tuning in F#, and it is such a cool sound. He has been a big influence on my writing. Every tune of his that I hear I recognize how he is exploring a cool sound or harmonic area. A bunch of the tunes on there I would never ask a mandolin player to play tunes note for note, just as you would never ask a mandolin player to play Groundspeed note for note. When they are played on banjo, many of them have a great cascading of notes, but when showing them to others I need to extract the essence of the melody.

Any thoughts on the Colorado music scene?

NP: The whole Boulder/Denver thing is pretty amazing. It is known more for the jamgrass thing because of all the bands on the national circuit, but there are also a lot of really good bluegrass players around here. To me the audience fuels the whole thing. I am convinced that, if Leftover Salmon was trying to do what they are doing out of Chicago or Nashville, they would not have the success they have had. It is a really good community. There are more pickers than anywhere else I have played. It’s a combination of the audience, all the bands, and Planet Bluegrass (promoter of Telluride Bluegrass Festival and RockyGrass). They have drawn lots of people out here. People here appreciate things on the musical fringe. People aren’t as drawn to politeness and reservedness on stage, they appreciate musical risks and like to have fun. There is a good combination of middle class people with families and desk jobs that see live music and buy CD’s, and then there is a huge hippie community that really supports the bands. That combination makes an interesting and fantastic community.

What is in your CD player right now?

NP: Lots of Philips, Grier, and Flinner to get in their heads before the studio, Aaron Copeland “Appalachian Spring,” Bill Frisell & The Intercontinentals, Darrell Scott’s “Theatre of the Unheard,” and Vasen’s “Trio.”