An interview with the Hot 8 Brass Band before their Bristol show
Posted on: 24 Apr 2017Sam Mason-Jones grabs a word with Bennie Pete, founder and father of the Hot 8 Brass Band, to talk about the immensely popular New Orleans collective ahead of their main stage slot at this year's Grillstock Festival.
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The Hot 8 Brass Band are all about the good time.
“We make feel-good music,” declares founding father and sousaphone-player Bennie Pete (pictured, below), before going on to inextricably root his band’s sound in its hometown. “It’s traditional New Orleans music but it works in so many different ways: it works for parties, wedding receptions, even jazz funerals. It’s just happy music that keeps the spirit of New Orleans alive and well.”
It was in New Orleans that the Hot 8 came into being, all the way back in 1996. Immediately prior to this, Bennie’s contemporary cohort of musicians - known then as Looney Toones - had begun to gradually graduate from high school (“Going to college, getting married and growing up,” as he puts it), leaving the band on the cusp of collapse. Fortunately, he was able to tender a merger with their peers, The High Steppers, thus producing a group recognisable as the current line-up.
As I said, the Hot 8 Brass Band are all about the good time. But they are notable, too, for their endurance of bad ones.
It is perhaps their collective overexposure to the bitter that proffers a more acute appreciation of the better, and an increased inclination to enjoy the going when it is good. Since those nascent days in the mid-‘90s, the collective has faced more than their fair share of tribulations, with their predicaments apparently acting as a miniature of those which have plagued New Orleans in that time.
Later in 1996, 17-year-old trumpet player Jacob Johnson was found dead in his home, having been tied up and executed with a shot to the head, while drummer Dinneral Shavers was killed by a misplaced bullet in 2006. Two years before this, trombone player Joseph Williams was shot dead by police under extremely contentious circumstances, with local news sources reporting that several eye-witnesses had suggested that he was fired upon while unarmed and with his hands in the air.
Sandwiched between the latter of these tragedies was one which would spell much larger implications for both the band and their hometown.
A lot of people lost everything
“Katrina was a scary thing, man,” Bennie remembers, with audible notes of lament in his voice. “It was tragic; a lot of people lost everything. A lot of people lost their lives. A lot of musicians lost their homes, instruments, everything.”
Bennie returned to New Orleans from his refuge of Atlanta as soon as he was allowed to do so, and immediately began to reassemble the Hot 8, who had themselves evacuated out of harm’s way and scattered to the corners of America. Recognising the restorative potential of their music, they started playing impromptu free gigs to survivors at evacuation shelters and in public places, where they found the response to be staggering.
“As a group we just fought it out, but in the midst of all that tragedy we were exposed to the power of what we were doing and the power of music generally,” Bennie explains. “We were continuing that culture of brass band music, representing both the city and our cause. For us to be able to get together and revise our whole lifestyle to help other people who were going through what we were going through, and lift their spirits, was something special. All through the power of music.”
“Katrina opened us up and exposed us to that hands-on, as we had to live through it ourselves,” he goes on. “We were of service to our city. It was that which helped us realise the power of our song.”
Katrina opened up the Hot 8 and exposed them in another way too. The band’s local notoriety in the months after the hurricane hit led to their inclusion in Spike Lee’s widely-circulated documentary When The Levees Broke, which, in turn, propelled them to international prominence. In the decade since the film aired in 2006, the band toured extensively all over the world, gathering acclaim for their powerful performances, with their brassy reimagining of tracks like ‘Sexual Healing’ and ‘Ghost Town’ rendering them favourites of DJs and crowds alike.
Bennie readily relishes the delicious prospects offered by this opportunity: “To have the chance to spread our sound from state to state, let alone all the way out to other countries, is a dream come true. It’s been a big accomplishment for us as a group. Once we had matured and set out to do it, getting to see it done is a blessing.”
“The more and more exposure we have to different crowds and different audiences, the more and more we enjoy sharing our music,” he continues. “It is an unbelievable experience to be in these environments with the band. The audience is a big part of that also; we need an audience to do what we’re doing, even people who have never heard it; for us to see them on the spot and experiencing it is a life-changing experience for us.”
Though his music has taken him across borders and over oceans, Bennie continues to place importance on the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ over the ‘where’. “To be honest, the opportunity to be in the band is the important thing, no matter where we are,” its founder admits. “It’s a magical blessing to be in front of an audience, and to see the morale that we can project onto them. The environment changes with us and it gets the people going.”
“This is everything that we work for, which includes countless days and nights of rehearsing for these moments, so every time we get a call to go perform everybody is overjoyed. We can’t wait to get to that stage no matter where we at. It’s about just reaching people, reaching people and plugging them into the experience that we create through our music.”
Though Bennie isn’t always overly concerned about where the Hot 8 are at, he is sure to never lose sight of where they came from. “New Orleans is our home and it is a warm place; everyone has warm hearts,” he fondly intones. “This is a city where everyone is greeting each other, speaking to each other. Everyone shares in New Orleans. From music to food, to spirits; for the most part, even if we’re going through trials and tribulations, we still have a good heart and soul. Music is a big part of helping all that happen.”
And, in true New Orleanian style, Bennie vows to keep on sharing his music and the good times wherever he goes.
His next forecast stopover in Bristol will see him and his band at home in the midst of his city’s prime exports, when they perform at Grillstock, a celebration of ‘meat, music and mayhem’.
The sousaphonist is certainly not averse to a festival (“What we do is a festive thing, so they make sense,” he says); nor is he averse to barbecue. “You only have to look at the image of the band and see that we’ve all had our fair share of barbecue in our time, especially down in New Orleans,” he quips. “So we’re gonna fit right in.”
“Who knows, we might even bring our own utensils.”
Catch The Hot 8 Brass Band, either on stage or over a pit, at Grillstock Festival across the weekend of the 1st-2nd July. Get your hands on tickets here.
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An ardent Geordie minus the accent, Sam seemingly strove to get as far away from the Toon as possible, as soon as university beckoned. Three undergraduate years at UoB were more than ample time for Bristol (as it inevitably does) to get under his skin, and so here he remains: reporting, as Assistant Editor, on the cultural happenings which so infatuated him with the city. Catch him at sam@365bristol.com.
