DIY Files Covering Their Bases: B1G T1ME

Cover bands. Say what you will about them, but unlike their more successful and famous counterparts, they’ll always play the hits and won’t be snobby assholes about it. In Covering Their Bases, The A.V. Club asks a cover band to weigh in on a contentious issue regarding their corresponding band. In this edition, frontman Zebulun Barnow of the Tom Waits tribute band B1G T1ME talks to The A.V. Club before playing tonight at Quencher’s about its roots as a Waits-style cover band, his experience with fanboys, and the Blue Man Group.

The A.V. Club: You seem as interested in the concept of embodying the mythology of Tom Waits and his persona as you are with adequately replicating the songs on his records. Does that have anything to do with why the band started off playing classic rock covers in the Waits’ style, rather than performing as a straightforward tribute act?

Zebulun Barnow: It’s relative to that. We thought it’d be interesting to have a sort of fish-out-of-water ethos behind our performance. Pairing Tom Waits’ characters with non-Waits material added another layer of cultural cannibalism. The early shows were our take on the mashup concept, playing popular songs and giving something for a lay audience to hang their hats on, while still creating something purposefully confusing and bending both genres.

AVC: What was the impetus to make the shift from playing covers of ’70s and ’80s hits to becoming a full-fledged tribute act?

ZB: People acknoweldged how esoteric the idea was. We were doing this weird stuff in the back room of a 50-seat bar and were faced with a “come to Jesus moment” when we started thinking about how far we could take the idea without running out of songs that fit that mode.

At least when we started doing the Waits material, we were communicating with a different audience. People who are into Tom Waits are obsessed. They’ll call us sacrilege before seeing our act, and then afterwards acknowledge how it’s paying tribute. It’s an attempt to bring people the same catharsis that a Waits show would bring.

AVC: You’re playing through Franks Wild Years in honor of Waits’ 61st birthday. What has been your experience with the play of the same name? Would you ever consider putting the show together yourself?

ZB: I haven’t heard any bootlegs of the play or anything, but I’ve read some reviews, and it wasn’t that well received. We don’t claim to be a production company, but if someone came to us with the idea, and had a source of funding and all that, we’d probably think about getting involved.

AVC: You’ve played with the Blue Man Group here in Chicago. What role did you play there?

ZB: I’ve been a part of the Blue Man Group’s backing band for 6 years, mostly playing the electric zither and guitar. Other Blue Men and Blue Man Group musicians have sat in with B1G T1ME, and one of our guitarists is an actual Blue Man.

AVC: The spectacle of the Blue Man Group’s live show is integral to how the music effects the audience; have you taken anything away from your experiences there?

ZB: Sometimes, someone will come up with an idea for a B1G T1ME show, and it’ll be too “Blue Man,” and we’ll have to turn it down. But we’ve definitely incorporated elements over the years to force the audience to question the space they occupy and other basic tenants of the Blue Man idiom.

After doing the Blue Man show for six years, and B1G T1ME almost as long, we try to approach our shows as transformative experiences. I would never be so vain as to say that over this period of time, I’m a master of the Blue Man Group’s vocabulary. That’s a great big world those guys occupy; our goal is to maintain their level of quality and professionalism.

AVC: Your website says you play as either a four, five, or six piece that draws from a well of 10 or so performers. Is that just strictly based on availability, or are certain members more proficient at playing different Waits styles?

ZB: It has nothing to do with preferences, it’s more about availability. We’re all in our 30s and mostly working musicians. A few guys have non-music jobs, but B1G T1ME is made up of dudes that have devoted their lives to playing music.

When we started making calls to put the band together, we called two or three people at a time for one instrument to develop a pool of musicians. It’s an interesting dynamic to have four bassists, when it can be anybody there on an average night. Having been in bands my whole life, I wonder what it might have been like having different people in the band on any given night. We’re all grown-ups, so we’re all very positive; there’s no competition or anything like that.

AVC: How would you describe your relationship with Waits’ music as the frontman for this band?

ZB: It’s important to note that the character I play onstage is not Tom Waits; I’ve developed a character named Diamond Reid, who is this sort of ragamuffin/closing time poet/ballroom piano player hybrid, a castoff from the years of Franks Wild Years, Swordfishtrombones, and Bone Machine. He’s got to have elements of all these Tom Waits personas in order to communicate the music in an effective way. Tom Waits is Tom Waits. He has that luxury, I do not. I have to be able to play “Make It Rain” and “Ol’ 55” in one set, sometimes back-to-back, and not seem inconsistent.

As far as where I draw inspiration, I incorporate live recordings and videos of performances while we’re making our own arrangements of the songs. Waits himself is always reinventing himself in a live setting, so there’s not as much pressure to nail it note-for-note.

AVC: You’d mentioned the obsessive nature of Tom Waits fans; have you had any especially memorable run-ins with fans?

ZB: They’re usually pretty pleasant. I’ve heard thirdhand from people things like, “I’m a huge Waits fan, my friends are huge fans, but I couldn’t convince any of them to come. I’m gonna go tell them they were wrong and they missed out.” Once in a while a group of really hardcore Tom Waits fans will come out and have a great time, which is nice to see.

There’s also gonna be those guys who show up in a porkpie hat, dressed like Waits, and in their estimation, you’re committing some heinous crime. You can only do so much to win them over. If they don’t get what we’re doing, I’m not going to try to make them get it after the show.

AVC: Do you have a personal favorite/least favorite Tom Waits era or persona?

ZB: Not really, any more. Sometimes I feel like a human jukebox. People ask me Waits trivia questions, expecting me to know every detail—I might know the answers and I might not.  It’s more about knowing the thread of the character Tom Waits has created. He’s created this compelling story, and is still going after 30 years. I see it as a sort of American Ring Cycle, not to sound anti-semitic. [Laughs.]