Ropeadope

"This band has gained a reputation over the last five years for constantly trying to fit twenty pounds of, well, whatever it may be, into a ten-pound bag. I'm completely to blame for this. It's my nature to try to do things that absolutely should not be able to work. And because I'm surrounded by the hardest working, most talented, and most motivated band members I could ever imagine, things almost always defy logic and turn out wonderfully. But this project, I have to confess, was like stuffing significantly more than twenty pounds of whatever it is into our beloved ten-pound receptacle. It was at least a ton. And it was the first time I've ever felt that we might not be able to close the bag.

After kicking out three studio albums, I've been pestered by numerous people in numerous towns about making a live record. My response has always been that I don't like the sound of live records. I was speaking with Sput about it one night on tour and said (in an attempt to be ironic) that the only place I'd want to make a live album is in a recording studio. We looked at each other, and both laughed. I immediately started planning it. 

From the moment this band set foot in Louisiana, just 8 months after Hurricane Katrina stomped on it, we felt a collective sense of homecoming. I've tried to understand how a person can feel so familiar with a place, so in tune with it, when they've never been there before. I can't explain it. And every time I go there, with or without my band (it's been almost 20 times since then), I get the beautiful, strange feeling that it is my home. It's where I'll live later, and most likely where I'll die. I even liked the New Orleans Saints (more commonly called the "Ain'ts" then) as a kid... against my better judgement. It must have been a sign. 

Dockside was, hands down, the ideal place to host this, well, circus. I had so much faith in the studio and my contact there (shout to Eric Heigel) that I booked the session before anyone in the band, myself included, had even seen it. When we pulled up a month beforehand to make sure my intuition was right, there was absolutely no question that the beautiful swampland of Maurice, Louisiana was the perfect match for what we wanted to do. We had lucked out in finding the ideal setting, so now we needed the ideal crowd. I invited 80 of our favorite fans and friends from all across North America to do us the honor of being our live audience. More people than I could have ever anticipated (and almost more than we could accommodate) accepted. I couldn't believe it. We had friends from Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, New York, Arizona, Michigan, and even Quebec (that's right, the one that's 36 hours away) head down to Acadiana to be a part of the experience.

Back to our ten-pound receptacle. I can't explain why, but somehow we fit it all in the bag. 17 musicians, 3 engineers, 65 audience members, 3 film crew, a Louisiana chef, 3 photographers, and one all-but-broken-down bus came together to create one of the most moving and meaningful experiences of my life... live, in real time. From delayed international flights that brought Shaun Martin in hours before the recording with no rehearsal (and prevented Bobby Sparks from making it) to string arrangements being written in the middle of the night in the studio, to a technical situation constantly teetering on the precipice of disaster, to the ensemble never actually having a run-through of the set, logic and probability were defied and the evening unfolded beautifully. The only way I can explain it is that we have wonderful friends. Friends who drove in from all over the continent to be a part of something unique, and perhaps a little bit insane. Friends who scurried around half of Acadiana running errands for us at all hours of the day and night to make sure we had what we needed when we needed it. Friends who love music and will do anything to see it come to life.

Since the inception of Snarky Puppy, we've relied almost entirely on word of mouth as our chief means of evangelism. There are lots of names for it- grass roots, guerilla, ghetto- but I've found that it's the only way to go for us. So if you like what you hear and see inside of this case, and you know people like the ones I described above, help us make more music. Tell your friends."...Michael League, 2010

About the Artist