Graffiti Rock Challenge. February 1990. On comes this oddly named, hastily assembled band, Rusted Root.
It was just a four-piece, so it didn’t have all the rhythmic action going on that it would soon acquire, but it sure was different for Pittsburgh and there was an undeniable chemistry between charismatic 19-year-old frontman Michael Glabicki and sidekick Liz Berlin.
The band didn’t win. That honor went to a fine little band called Illuminatus, but Rusted Root made a big impression, and later that year, it won best new artist at the televised In Pittsburgh Music Awards, where Mr. Glabicki accepted, saying, “We’d like to thank our fans and followers for being open in spirit, because without that, we could have no ritual.”
And that’s what set Rusted Root apart. The shows were ritual, a celebration of a neo-hippie community, not unlike what people got from a Grateful Dead show. When “When I Woke” was released in 1994, Rusted Root became the first band out of Pittsburgh with a multiplatinum album, and the band was a touring juggernaut throughout the ’90s.
The first break in the chain happened when Jenn Wertz made an emotional departure after the memorable Three Rivers Stadium gig opening for the Dead in 1995. Over the next few years, the band’s two follow-up albums didn’t have the same impact, and with the members starting to have families they were feeling some burnout from the road. Root called it quits in 1999, but then reunited a year later to rally funds to save The Midwife Center.
By 2004, the band’s strong rhythmic core of drummer Jim Donovan and percussionist Jim DiSpirito had left, and the party hasn’t been quite the same since then.
But nothing keeps a band going quite like a big signature song and while “Send Me on My Way” only went to No. 72 in 1995, the jubilant single has been featured in more than a dozen movies and TV shows, none better than its placements in “Matilda” and “Ice Age.”
The song has helped keep the band on the road, through a number of personnel changes. Up until last summer, Root maintained its long-running core of Mr. Glabicki, Ms. Berlin and bassist Patrick Norman. Last summer, Mr. Norman abruptly left Root during the tour and he’s now playing in The Borstal Boys, a new Pittsburgh “supergroup” of sorts.
Ms. Berlin, who is mum on this situation, is also estranged from the band, and remains busy as the co-owner of Mr. Smalls and working her own side projects.
Because Mr. Glabicki won’t call it Rusted Root as the sole member, for the first time in almost a decade, the band won’t be presiding over its annual ritual at the Allegheny County Music Festival.
Instead, he brings Uprooted, a new band he’s formed with drummer Zil Fessler and guitarist Dirk Miller (who have been touring members of Rusted Root), plus bassist Bobby Schneck Jr. (formerly of the Devon Allman Band), singer-keyboardist Daisie Ghost-Flower and singer-guitarist Emily Victoria. They hope to have a single out in a few months and an album out by spring.
Last week, the frontman talked to us from Nebraska, where he was on a duo tour with Mr. Miller.
So, I was waiting for the annual announcement of Rusted Root doing the Allegheny County Music Festival, and it just wasn’t coming. So, what is happening with Rusted Root?
I don’t know, man. I have no idea. It’s all up in the air right now. We’re on a hiatus since the beginning of the year.
Is that something you talked about? How did you end up on hiatus?
It’s just like, there’s so much that’s changed in the industry and in our band at the time. There’s just a lot that needs to be worked out. So, we decided to just take a break until we can all calm down and figure it out.
You had always done some solo stuff on the side.
Yeah, right now, I’m working on my first solo record, studio album, and the Uprooted band is going to be my recording band, too. When Uprooted plays, we do about three-quarters re-envisioned Rusted Root material and then I do about a quarter of the new material I’m working on in the studio.
So, how did you find these people?
Mostly on Facebook and YouTube. Bobby Schneck, he played with Devon Allman. When we were touring with Devon Allman, he came on and played bass with us in soundcheck and it sounded really good. Zil, we auditioned drummers last year, that’s how we found him. The girls’ vocals I was just looking around on YouTube, searching for a certain sound. I came across them and contacted them. Daisie is from Harrisburg and Emily is from New York City. She kind of kicked my ass in the studio. I was excited that it sounded so good but kind of [miffed] that she kicked my ass with it. I worked on this guitar part for days, and it’s in a D-minor tuning that nobody plays in, and I auditioned her, and just to try it out, I had her play this guitar part in D minor and as soon as she figured it out, when she laid it down, it totally kicked my part right out of the recording. She’s only 21 and she’s totally phenomenal.
So, you guys are spread out in different cities. Does that work out?
Yeah, It’s working out well enough that we can pretty much get up on stage, and I don’t have to expect anything. I can just kind of play with them, and it’s inspired and it’s different every night, so it’s not like I want to rehearse them and get it so tight that we know what we’re doing. It’s working well enough that I can go up and not know what’s going to happen and it’s surprising and it makes me laugh and smile, and that translates to the audience.
Rusted Root was kind of well-oiled machine, so there’s a different feel to this.
Yeah, definitely. It’s more improvisational and I would say it’s more groove oriented. I would say with Rusted Root, it would more organically slip in and out of grooves. We fall into more a group groove feel.
How many gigs have you played?
Maybe like five or six and they’ve gone really good and we’ve gotten a great response, especially on the new material. We went out and played Denver, which was a little scary because we’re pretty big out there, but people loved it so, I’m not nervous about it anymore, really. More excited about it.
I can remember talking to you years and years ago and you were talking about a solo record.
I have been talking about it. What normally would happen is I would start to write material, and then it would get to the point where Rusted Root needed a new record, and then I would have to steal from my solo stuff and put it into the Rusted Root. We’re not sure if Rusted Root is going to happen or not. It might be done, so it’s helping me really focus on the solo thing.
Would you say it’s different in nature than what you wrote for Rusted Root?
Yeah, it’s like Rusted Root where it runs the gamut of a lot of different sounds and landscapes, but I would say part of the record is very brutally personal relationship-type stuff, and just trying to be really honest about where I was at the time. We have a single coming out in the next few months called “Heartache” and it’s just a personal song about almost breaking up with my girlfriend at the time and sort of finding my back to her. It’s a really personal song, but it worked, because now she’s my wife. [They got married a month ago.]
Congrats! People always say when they get away from a band situation they’re able to write in a more personal way.
I think it would have been hard for Rusted Root to relate to it because there's always been more of a collective feel to it. When I was writing for Rusted Root, I would always try to envision myself speaking as a group, and I think the people in Rusted Root would always feel like the song was their own. So, when I would come in with a really personal song, it would be like “What’s this? This doesn’t make sense.” And, too, as a songwriter and leader of Rusted Root, I would try to envision first where Rusted Root was at the time and where it should go, so you kind of write along that path and it’s hard to fit yourself into that because eventually you grow away from that. So, right now, I feel like it’s easier to breathe right now.
So, are you saying you feel a little bit of distance from the Rusted Root material, a lot of which was written when you were in your early 20s?
Yeah, there’s been moments on stage when I’m like, “What am I doing?” Like, “I don’t know what this is.” But, then, luckily, I’m fortunate enough that the music was so open-ended and wasn’t written about a certain time in my life. It was sort of like this collection of images and it was more tonal than it was lyrical. “Send Me on My Way” had “moobahdesee, moobahdeyah,” which aren’t even words, so now I can just sort of like adapt the tone to where I’m at now. It’s more ritualistic at this point for the audience and for myself, and improvising in it and opening it up, there’s a lot more in it to find.
Do you ever think if it hadn’t been for that song, my life would be different? It’s like the gift that keeps giving.
Yeah, it really is. And it happened so fast. I guess that happens with a lot of people who have a big hit, they write it in like five minutes.
Do you remember where you were when you wrote it?
Yeah, I was in the Bitner Building in the Strip District. We had like this little office space and I would go in during the day and write the music and the band would show up at night and we would arrange it. I was in there one day and the light started pouring in and I got this really happy feeling and the song popped out in like five minutes. Pretty special moment. Not to be overly dramatic, but I felt like there was something else in the room with me when I was writing and we were kind of laughing about it together. I think that’s why it was very joyous.
Did the band like it right away?
Yeah. Oh yeah. It was all giggles. Everybody was giggling and coming up with their parts and Jenn and John [Buynak] were singing “on the way” part, being really silly about it and giggling and laughing. Literally, the arrangement came together right away too, and then we played it the next night at Metropol and I think that night someone came up and said, “That’s your hit,” and I was like, “OK, whatever.”
So, how do you feel about rolling out Uprooted in Pittsburgh? Are you nervous?
Yeah, it’s a little nerve-wracking just because my family is there and a lot of old friends, so I’ll have to go back in the dressing room and just talk in the mirror a little bit to myself and say, “OK, this is not happening.” All that stuff you bring in that comes along with your family, stuff that you never get away from, I have to talk myself out of before I go on stage. Other than that, it’s a lot of fun. And it’s great for that reason, because there are family and friends. I would say it’s the happiest gig of my year. Just so many smiles and people are having such a good time, and it’s such a great cause, so tangible.
Are you concerned about people not accepting the fact that it’s not Rusted Root?
The only thing I would be nervous about would be the lack of being able to communicate what’s happening, and people not understanding what’s happening. I’m hoping that they read this article and understand what’s going on and settle down by then. Our first gig was in Rochester and it was the same thing where Rusted Root had played the Lilac Festival up there every year and it’s become a tradition. It had gotten some bad press from the start, ’cause no one understood it all, and once I started doing some press, people started to understand it, and we had pretty much the same crowd, and they loved it and people came up and we’re giving me support in the end and saying, “This looks and sounds like progress to me, and if this is what you’re gonna do, we’ll follow you.” I didn’t realize it, but I kind of needed it because this whole thing has been extremely emotional for me because Rusted Root is like my childhood friends, so we got this adult thing going on, but I still have kid feelings about it.
Scott Mervis: smervis@post-gazette.com.
UPROOTED
With: The Living Street, Starship Mantis and Meeting of Important People.
Where: Allegheny County Music Festival at Hartwood Acres.
When: Opening acts at 5 p.m. Sunday; Uprooted at 8 p.m.
Admission: A $20 per car donation is requested to benefit children and youth served by Allegheny County Department of Human Services through the Allegheny County Music Festival Fund.
First Published: August 28, 2018, 12:36 p.m.
