For several years now the Band of Humans have been recognized as one of the most popular and talented groups in Connecticut. They blend a diverse musical background in to their own unique style and sound. Their members include Louise Muller who is a classically trained violinst but is equally adept at bluegrass and rock and roll. There’s Wayne Gasiorek who is a jazz influenced drummer and a graduate of the Berklee College of music. Their bassist is Robert Stanley who, as good fortune has it, owns the Hokus Pocus Studios in Woodstock, CT. Mike Barrette is an electric guitarist who’s style ranges anywhere from jazz to hard rock to Chet Atkins. And finally there is Darin Keech, the charismatic and intelligent frontman who’s songwriting talents have been influenced by such acts as the Beatles, The Dead, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan.
This is an important and exciting time for the Band of Humans. An original screenplay called “The Common Itch,” written by Darin Keech, will open at the Donald Oat Theater in Norwich, Connecticut the weekend of February 22nd, 23rd, and 24th. Who better than Darin himself to tell us all about it. This phone interview took place on Saturday afternoon, the 5th of January.
BH - Darin, when did you first come up with the idea to write a play?
DK – “The idea came from telling my son stories on the way to school. He always says ‘daddy tell me a story’ every morning. So I started this story about this character Jude, so named because I’m a major Beatles fan. And I was considering re-releasing our CD ‘Alive’ as a concept disc, the way it was originally intended. So I started telling him the story and just trying to figure out how all the songs would work and how they might make sense to people.”
BH – So the play evolved from this concept CD?
DK – “Basically what we’re doing is performing a concept CD. But the CD we have released now is not in concept form. It was intended to be but that idea was canned at the last moment and we decided to put our most marketable songs forward. I really wish I had followed through with the concept idea. We recorded that CD back in 1997 and a lot of that stuff was created in the studio. But now we’ve been performing them for over four years and it’s really grown to be a lot more expressive and much stronger. We’ve sold over 1,500 copies of it and we’re ready to manufacture more because now we have a studio. Our new bassist Robert Stanley is the owner of Hokus Pocus Studios in Woodstock so all of our recordings will be free. So we’re going to re-record the CD in concept form. The play is going to happen first but we will release the concept disc that will basically follow the storyline of the play.”
BH – Would you describe the play as a musical?
DK – “Well, it’s a musical because the band is going to be on stage. There are two stages, the band is on the back stage and the actors and dancers are forward. The band is doing most of the singing, some of the actors are doing some singing but for the most part it’s Band of Humans music. There’s dialog during and in between song and dance. I originally conceived this as a Band of Humans concert supported by actors and dance. And the director sees it as a play supported by Band of Humans music. So we’re jumping back and forth between the two perspectives but the result is very interesting because we all agree that this is something that hasn’t been done before and it’s really working. It’s coming along very nicely and the people I’m working with are fantastic.”
BH – You mentioned that this involves dance and well as acting?
DK – “We have a dance outfit from Bolton called the Golden Harp Dance Company and they’re going to be involved in the play. We’re very excited about that. They’re rangy but they specialize in Irish music and there’s a couple of fiddle tunes that they’re going to be performing on. And the two actors that I’d like to mention are Danny Telgarsky who is from Norwich and Tracy Tremblay from New York who recently moved to the Killingly area. She’s excited to be involved with a local original production. And Stephen Thompson is the director, I’d like to mention him as well.”
BH – How did you go about hiring people?
DK – “What I did first was I told the theater what I was doing and I booked the theater so I was committed at that point. That was a year ago. And once I had the booking I sat down and really put the play together and came up with a first draft. I called the Eugene O’Neill Theater and really exposed my ignorance about this stuff. A really cool local person who is involved with local playwriters named Kato McNickle read the script and gave me lots of pointers. She came to my house and we went over it in detail. So I wrote a second script and she critiqued that one as well. I knew I had something that was pretty good and at that point I started interviewing directors until I came across Stephen Thompson. He and I then got together to make sure we were on the same page. So anyway I had finished off this big room in my house over the garage and that’s our rehearsal space. We recently started auditions and now it’s almost fully cast. The auditions are going really good.”
BH – O.K. Darin, tell me about ‘The Common Itch’ and this character Jude.
DK – “Jude, of course, is the main character and the play starts the night before his graduation from college. Jude is a very interesting person because his upbringing was just extraordinary, much different from the average person. In 2nd grade his mother died and his father grabbed Jude, sold the house, bought a sailboat, and they cruised around the world for the next ten years or until Jude was old enough to go to college. Those four college years were his first real experiences with mainstream structure. Up until that point the world was his society, his home, his education. And his father was this free spirited gypsy type of guy who didn’t have much money but somehow was able to get whatever he needed sort of serendipitously, and Jude was fascinated by that. While he’s in college he comes across this avant-garde book by this girl named DKB. He’s fascinated by this book because she’s a girl who basically dropped out of college and toured the country and wrote this book. It’s not a best seller or anything but he’s fascinated by it because she describes this serendipitous type of thing his father had.”
BH – Where did you get the name DKB?
DK – “It means deepest kind of beautiful, taken from a song on the ‘Alive’ disc.”
BH – Tell me more about Jude.
DK – “So it’s the night before graduation and he’s not sure weather he wants to do what all the rest of his friends are doing or buy a sailboat to fix up and write books like this girl DKB, who is his sort of mentor. It’s a timely play because there’s an issue where his girlfriend, who he’s been seeing for four years, is very wealthy. She’s from the east and she wears a veil, not over her face but over her head. And she’s struggling weather to keep it on or take it off. She doesn’t want to disgrace her family and Jude wants her to go with him with this boat but there’s no way her father would support this type of lifestyle. It would disgrace her family. So she ends up leaving after graduation. Jude’s father had died the year before when he was mysteriously lost at sea. So Jude finds himself, after graduation, without his girlfriend, without parents, and all his friends are gone. He’s completely alone and he’s got a huge student loan to pay. He wants to buy a boat but he gets overwhelmed with his obligations and he finds that he’s clueless when it comes to financial responsibility. Basically the story kicks in when his girl comes back and he gets married. It’s almost like a marriage between two cultures, the east and the west. But it’s very unfulfilling and there are some things that happen that causes a big breakup scene. Jude finds himself out on the road with no money whatsoever and he has to have faith and courage. It’s a journey that takes the audience on a wild ride. It’s a really fun, enjoyable, philosophical ride that we’re having a lot of fun with, the actors, myself, the band creating this story. That’s where I want to leave it right now.”
BH – Are there any parallels between you and Jude?
DK – “Well I guess so, we write what we know best. With Jude and the sailing thing, I cruised trans-Atlantic back in 1992 on a schooner called Nina. And I traveled around Europe playing my guitar all over the place. So I sort of relate to and have a little experience with that sort of gypsy lifestyle and the sailing aspect of things. So I tied that in. But for the most part Jude is his own man and it’s just this fun and interesting story which I think the audience will find very entertaining and timely.”
BH – How do you feel about the music and arts scene in this part of Connecticut?
DK – “Well you know I’m actually from the quiet corner of the state of Connecticut, the top northeast corner. And I’m amazed at the talent, especially in that area. There are some great folk musicians like Howard Burson and Sally Rogers from that area. A great blues band called Blue Steel, who are friends of mine, are up there. There’s just a horde of musicians. You go to an open mike in that area and they’ll blow you away. But in regards to an original music scene it’s very disappointing because there really isn’t a market for it in this area, which is too bad. So these great musicians are cutting CD’s like J.P. Jones or whoever, and selling a handful here and there. And I think we’re able to play in bars so much because we do cover a lot of material. We’re so eclectic between the high energy fiddle tunes and the Beatles, Grateful Dead, and Neil Young covers that we do. We do some blues too along with mixing in our own material so we’re able to play out in the bars a lot. But to me I really need to get on with the next level. I think we need to do better just for inspiration sake. We need to get out and start playing folk festivals and I think we can book this play in the theaters all over New England because it’s basically about a band and we can perform at the Iron Horse in Northampton and other places like that.”
BH – So this need for inspiration is what led you to write this play?
DK – “I just feel I have ideas I need to express and would want them to be recognized. It’s not like I’m attempting to make it big in the music scene and this is a big ambitious push. I just do it because I enjoy it and I feel that I need to do it, that’s all. You know there’s some things in the play that are philosophical and we would hope are a refreshing look at or a different perspective of reality possibly. But reality is not just for religious leaders, scientists, and politicians. The artist has a say in it too.”