Photo credit: Danny Work
The Koch-Marshall Trio
Milwaukee guitarist Greg Koch is an established presence in the creative world—as a musician, brand ambassador for instrument manufacturers and forward-thinking solo artist. And yet even with all those accomplishments under his belt he’s surprised by the recent success of his latest effort Toby Arrives, an organ-trio album that feels like a drive through the genre’s best historical moments while also modernizing the music’s best trademarks.
With the help of the freshly out-of-hiatus, Minneapolis-based Hammond B3 wizard Toby Marshall and Koch’s son Dylan, the trio’s forever locked-in-the-pocket timekeeper, the group manages to fuse and re-spin all of that music’s classic, vintage attributes into something uniquely accessible.
The Mascot Label Group was so confident in Toby Arrives that they chose it to be the first release on its new imprint The Players Club, and also submitted the record for Grammy consideration. “We’re nominated...to be nominated for a Grammy,” Koch says jokingly. They’ll find out if they made the cut on Wednesday, Dec. 5.
Ahead of their show at Shank Hall on Saturday, Dec. 1, Koch spoke to the Shepherd about the group.
The material on Toby Arrives could either be slickly arranged or spontaneously composed. Would this band ever evolve into a two-set and/or three-hour experience?
What’s on the internet so far is deceiving, as those were special cases—40 minutes here, 60 there. When we do a club gig, like at Shank Hall, we’ll do two sets. The other night we made a setlist, and then just called audibles all night. We’d like to stay as all-original as possible, and let that speak for itself, since playing covers feels like force-feeding unless we’re revamping them.
As inimitable as the group is, do you fear being pigeonholed?
Even though this band hasn’t played venues or festivals that are jam-oriented, we are totally a jam band. By the same token, non-musicians seem to get it more than musicians. They’re the first to tell me it’s groovy, and having that big, archaic-device presence of the Hammond organ breeds curiosity. People just respond to it. And with the lack of vocals… Vocals can be really polarizing if they don’t like the sound of your voice, especially with roots-oriented music. With the organ roaring and playing all the bass parts, on top of Dylan pounding away like an old-school, young-and-hungry [John] Bonham, it gets loud. In fact, at Nashville NAMM someone had to go to the bathroom and vomit because of it.
Are there are extra-musical influences that have infiltrated your lexicon?
It’s all being reflected in what I’m doing. I find humor in everything, even the impending ecological debacle that’s in our future, because even if we’re doomed we’ve still gotta laugh. That’s what’s great about the instrumental aspect of this: There can be all kinds of elements, both in the subtle and not-so-subtle titles of songs (ex: “Sin Repent Repeat”; “Enter the Rats”), and just the improvisation and intensity of the tunes can be reflective of things without polarizing people by locking a particular attitude in stone.
What are your main goals for 2019?
I have an acoustic record coming out soon, hopefully before Christmas—a fun “first” for me. I’ve been doing more acoustic stuff in general, and for a lot of the clinics I’ve done over the years, I typically tell stories and then play. This trio often plays for listening rooms, so I see the talk-play-talk element getting fleshed-out more going forward.
I’m really satisfied with this trio, though. It’s the perfect template for what I do, so adding anything to it could dilute the power of it. I’m not really thinking about another aggregation at this point.
The Koch-Marshall Trio will perform at Shank Hall on Saturday, Dec. 1, at 8 p.m.
