Soul Circus covers the best of Motown

Come join Review Design Director Daniel G. Romano as he touches the hearts and souls of a few members of Soul Circus. See how he brightens the horizons of musical journalism by asking the questions that really matter.

Daniel G. Romano: Well then, I would guess I should start this interview by asking what your names are and what your favorite pickup line is. Begin!

Michael Reavey: My name is Mike and a pickup line that has worked. You're drinking at a party and a girl... Oh yeah, you ask her name and she says Christie, and if they're a classy babe at all, you tell them I have a policy that any girl named Christie I meet, I have to give a kiss to them. It worked.

Ezra Weiss: My name is Ez Wiess and my pickup line is "I like every bone in your body, especially mine."

Zack Hickman: My name is Zack Hickman and my favorite pickup line is "Is that your natural hair color? Wanna prove it?" Alright???

Brooke Randolph: Wait, I don't get it.

ZH: We'll explain it later.

BR: My name is Brooke and I advise all women reading this paper not to go out with anybody who uses any of these lines, including band members. I don't have a favorite pickup line. I've never really had to use one.

EW: Brooke doesn't need any pickup line after a gig.

MR: What ever...

EW: You haven't gotten any men after a gig?

BR: No! I haven't even gotten a phone call.

EW: Jeez! I'm the keyboard player and even I'm doing okay.

DGR: I've only seen you guys once, and that was at Keep a few weeks back, but for the sake of our readers that have not had a chance to hear you guys, what are all about?

BR: We're a Motown cover band and...

MR: And the Monkees. (Laughs)

BR: ...and some times we throw a little funk in too, but basically we do covers of music that was writen for the Motown label in the 60's. We do a lot of Stevie Wonder covers, we do some Marvin Gaye , Martha and the Vandellas and Gladys Knight and the Pips. Zach, Ez and Mike do the arrangements. It's hard work for them.

ZH: Mainly Motown label stuff, funk and soul.

EW: A little bit of Stacks.

DGR: How did you all come together to form Soul Circus?

ZH: This orginally started as a project known as Scratch N' Sniff, and I hope this gets printed because I'm very bitter about this, Scratch N' Sniff was the name of the ensemble until we began to perform live...

BR: And actually had to establish a reputation.

ZH: I'm still very bitter. It orginally started as an excuse for Ez, Brooke and I to get together and get real drunk. And to play electric bass and keyboards in dorm rooms. Then we decided to get the horns, guys that can read and folks that can read and play. People that we can put the charts in front of them once and then have an hour and half gig.

BR: Well actually our band started because I was a little nervous about the whole thing, I've never done anything like this before. We were putting it off, and kept putting it off, then all of a sudden Zach, one day, says "Ahh, we got a gig, I guess you got to get your shit together, because you're going to be performing in a week."

EW: Serously, it was like "okay I guess I better go arrange some charts." The next day we had four charts. I did two and Zach did two, and we were both a little tired and cranky at rehearsal. You know you never arrange when it is convenient to arrange, you arrange the day before rehearsal. They sound good.

BR: They sound amazing! For the most part.

EW: Now a lot of people in the band I think have felt a little discouraged by how well this band has been recieved, because we have been very well recieved. We play a lot of other music, that we spend a lot more time on and gets much much less attention.

MR: I'm not discouraged.

EW: No, Mike is encouraged. Mike's gonna run a wedding band when he grows up, but for the rest of us...

MR: What he is trying to say is for those that are more artistically inclined.

EW: No I'm not more artistically inclined. I love this shit, but Mike admit that you spen more time on your other band then you do on this one.

MR: Yeah, I do.

DGR: But since the Package no other band has been as well received as you guys.

BR: Marcie.

MR: Marcie and the Go-Bots.

ZH: I think it feels good.

MR: The music, though, people have heard it over and over again. It's something that people can very easily related to. It's the whole bass and drums that makes people want to dance, and when you're drinking at a party, that's what people want to do. That makes us marketable.

BR: People like jazz bands. People like Motown. People like singers. They like a group whose set is well organized and sounds good. We have all of that. We combine all the stuff that people enjoy at parties and have fun with. We definitely have fun, and I think that has a lot to do with it. I like being there and watching the people respond.

MR: The horns dance! And Brooke wears sexy dresses.

EW: People like seeing a band that kind of thought about it a little.

DGR: How do you feel about the fact that you are a predominantly white band playing a form of music that is widely considered an African American form of expression.

MR: I was in a band this summer, a Motown band in Cleveland, and I think that real character of the music that comes out as African American is in the vocals, and I think that Brooke does a great job of replicating that. But in that band the only people that where consistently African American were the two singers, everybody else was white, and this was an excellent band.

ZH: The band that Mike is talking about it called the Motion. Of course that is an issue that looks us in the face all the time, have you ever seen the movie The Commitments? That's us.

MR: The same is true for jazz though as well. A lot of white people play it.

ZH: I think the music is about soul. It's in the name, it's soul music and whether you are black or white if you have some soul and can play the charts and can internalize it and make your emotions come out when you play, that's what it's about.

BR: I never thought about it, I've never gave it a thought.

DGR: Okay on a lighter note, if each of you had to choose one word to describe the band, and that word had to begin with one of these three letters: "S", "R", "U." What would it be?

Kelly Roberge: Radical!

BR: What does ubiquitous mean?

ZH: It means everywhere at the same time. Like Moby Dick.

BR: That's my word then.

ZH: I think that my word would have to be simply SOUL.

BR: Yeah.

MR: Real Good.

BR: Real Good.

MR: Real Good. Soul Good!

BR:Soul Good?

MR: Soul Good?

DGR: Good. Okay what are your future plans, do you guys have any up-coming gigs?

ZH: We are playing this Saturday, Dec. 4, at Talcott and we are playing TGIF on Dec. 10. And then we will hit again next month.

EW: Then it's on to Broadway.