Andy Jones (Circus of Wolves)- Unique Little Family of Songs (May 2021)

Issue Thirteen- May 2021:

By Mercedes Barreto

Circus Of Wolves is a seven-piece band from New York’s mid- Hudson Valley. The musicians have played together in various configurations for over 10 years. The band’s first album ‘Collective Pulse’ was released on My Blue Dolphin Records in 2018. ‘Collective Pulse’ acknowledges the unique collaboration of the musicians and the blending of their musical influences. Songwriter Andy Jones talks of the ‘strong, sinewy folk-rock spine’ to the band’s original music. ‘You can hear elements of Jazz, Soul, Latin, and Brazilian rhythms accents infusing that spine. The slower songs employ jazzy blues shades and colors.’

What are some new achievements for The Circus of Wolves in 2021?

“Obviously, COVID disrupted our plans for 2020 and that disruption has spilled over into 2021. We were due to open for The Airplane Family & Friends – a band featuring various ex-members of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship, up in Clifton Park near Albany last March when the lockdown occurred. That would have been a good gig for us. There were plans for us to come back on stage to augment the band on some select Airplane songs. Like every other band, we’ve had to figure out how to keep ‘Circus Of Wolves’ alive and growing. We shifted our focus to collaborating and writing new material. We recorded demos of nine new songs written during COVID at Applehead Studios in Woodstock this past November. The studio is a huge space, so we were able to socialize at a distance and ensure everyone felt safe. It was quite challenging and a novel experience to sing for 5 hours through a mask!

Now, we’re developing these songs further and some will probably appear on our next album, a project we’ve been talking about for a year and a half. These COVID songs are like a unique little family. The common theme is about what we’ve all lost in our lives and our daily routines since the start of the pandemic. One of the songs is ‘Level Of Grace’ – it’s a plea to everyone to take care of each other in these challenging times, to exercise some grace and humanity. It also calls out to frontline workers as incredible role models who we should be thankful for and whose selflessness we should try to emulate. In the run-up to the pandemic, we’d been working on a lot of new songs for a follow-up to ‘Collective Pulse’. We’d been playing some of these songs in our live sets for some time. ‘Carrying Water Through The Trees’ is a song about human kindness. ‘Honest Fire’ is a song about looking beyond the pre-conceived notions we have about people who look different from us. ‘Is There Anything Better Than Love?” is a musing about love and the stars – something the Greek philosophers might have tackled. These three songs in particular always generated a great audience reaction. So now we’re planning our next steps in terms of recording and upcoming gigs.

We also have a new bass player, Steve Wooley on board along with the regular gang! Circus Of Wolves features Leesah Stiles on lead vocals, Harvey Boyer on keyboards and harmony vocals, Ruperto Ifil on drums and percussion, Will Smith on flute and saxophone, Steve Wooley on bass guitar, Andy Jones on rhythm guitar and vocals together with frequent collaborator, Peter Martin on percussion.”

How has Covid played a role, impacting the daily routine of the group and their performances? If so, how and in what way?

“We’ve found ways to stay closely in touch with one another through songwriting collaborations, but being apart has been very frustrating. We’ve all developed our own coping mechanisms. Leesah has been with her family in Florida for most of the past year. She is an incredibly versatile singer and very resourceful. She performs her own outdoor show every Wednesday evening for her community. It also gets posted on Facebook.

Harvey is a music teacher and director of bands at his local high school, so he is perhaps in the best position of all of us. He is a wonderful multi-instrumentalist: he posted a beautifully intricate original horn piece on Facebook in the middle of the pandemic. It’s multi-tracked and frankly, mesmerizing! Harvey will also be featured as a soloist with the ensemble Ars Choralis in a virtual performance of Faure’s ‘Requiem’ this June. I’ve taken to performing on a couple of ZOOM open mics each week for the last 14 months, to maintain my performing chops. The open mics provide a forum to play new original material and get a reaction. It’s also very gratifying to get a positive reaction to the songs we’ve released on ‘Collective Pulse’, those songs are available on streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music.

In addition, I’ve been able to play some classic songs that have influenced my own writing over the years at these weekly gatherings. But, I can’t wait until the band is performing live again in front of a vaccinated audience. Meanwhile, we’ve got other songwriting collaborations in the works. Ruperto and I have been working on a song that covers a lot of territory from the tragic death of George Floyd to ‘Black Lives Matter’ to the general escalation in institutionalized violence against minorities and dissenting voices. We feel we have to say something. We want to say something relevant for the times and the culture.”

How would you describe the rise and growth of musical status for the band in a sentence? Why is it depicted this way?

“Slow and steady! Hopefully, this should win the race! We played our first gig in December 2018 after releasing our first album ‘Collective Pulse’. We were careful about what gigs we played in 2019. We played the Rosendale Street Festival which was great! We played some gigs around the Woodstock area. Then our good friend Slick Aguilar of Jefferson Starship fame joined us on lead guitar for two gigs in December 2019. One at The Colony in Woodstock and one at The Falcon in New Marlborough. We needed gigs like these to give us some notoriety! So, we’re building our reputation slowly. Those audiences who’ve seen us perform seem to really enjoy the music – and we’ve had plenty of people get up and dance!”

If the band could play for any two people in the world, who are those people you would play for, when, where, and why?
“Wow! This is a tough question. Off the bat, it’s easier to describe the type of person we’d like to play for, than think of a name! Ideally, one would have to be highly influential in the world of music and have a big social following along with the power to be an advocate for us with music fans, the media, promoters, and venue owners.

The other person could be someone unexpected – a regular person who is a tastemaker in their own large social group. I’d hope we could appeal to their sense of taste and that they would feel genuinely compelled to spread the word about us to all of their followers. We’d have to perform at the top of our game, which means a tight, energized performance and the right song choices. So relevant, topical while reflecting universal themes anyone can relate to. In my head, I can hear us playing ‘Moral Compass’ ‘Just Like An Addiction’, ‘So Tempting’ and ‘Warm Rain Bossa Nova’ from the first album. You know – society changing, addictive love, not giving in to the loss of love. I’d pick the new songs I mentioned earlier: ‘Carrying Water Through The Trees’’, ‘Honest Fire’ and ‘Is There Anything Better Than Love?’ If you put me on the spot, I’d say Paul McCartney because of his openness and generosity towards other musicians. I might pick my sister-in-law in the UK. She’s no-nonsense but if she likes something she’ll scream it from the rooftops.

Where? Could be anywhere. Obviously, we’d be ready to perform on a tropical island with beautiful white sands and swaying palm trees during the evening’s golden hour. And with a great sound system!”