Chattanooga Times Free Press entertainment reporter Casey Phillips spoke with John Crozman, executive producer of the dance show “Barrage,” about keeping things fresh, what he looks for during auditions and where his grandfather kept his fiddle.
CP: Reading through the “Barrage” playbill, your listing says you’re known for stretching the limits of what’s “traditional.” How is that reflected in your work with “Barrage”?
JC: (Laughs.) Everything, to be honest. There is a team of four of us who created “Barrage,” with myself as the head of that team, I guess, because I’m oldest. We formed “Barrage” about 14 years ago based on a decade of experience before that. All that means is that I’m a violin player as well – imagine that, forming a violin group – and I grew up in both a classic violin and fiddle world back when that wasn’t such a usual thing.
These days, that’s changed a lot. The boundaries between music have gone. You’ve got Mark O’Connor, a fiddle player, playing classical music, and Yo-Yo Ma playing popular music. There are all kinds of cool things happening now, but that was not the case 15 years ago.
The other thing we did was incorporated choreography into violin or fiddle playing on stage. It’s very dynamic, high-energy show. We took it up a notch on the entertainment scope. I think that’s what that’s referring to. I like to push the boundaries of what people think about when they come to see something hopefully surprise them in a good way by the time they leave the building.
That’s been the experience with “Barrage.” If you haven’t seen “Barrage” before, you’re not exactly sure what you’re going to see on stage. It’s hard to describe; it’s hard to write about. It’s not like anything anyone has seen. If you’ve seen an Irish dance show, you can say, “Oh, ‘Spirit of the Dance’ is coming, and it’s kind of like ‘Riverdance,'” and you know kind of what you’re going to see. The problem is, there’s no group like “Barrage,” so you can’t really reference. We push the limits on all boundaries.
CP: When you say you grew up in both the violin and fiddle worlds, do you mean Cape Breton style fiddling?
JC: Yeah, exactly. My grandfather lived in the Maritimes of Canada and was from Scotland. He wasn’t a great fiddle player, but he could play a few tunes. He hung his fiddle above the stove, literally. As I was growing up playing violin in school, of course, I had to learn some fiddle tunes, too, because that’s what he knew. I wanted to play fiddle with my grandfather.
I got hooked on the whole scene and sort of had a duel life as I achieved my classical goals. I went to university and played with the highest levels of the classical world, and I was also out gigging four nights a week, doing everything from country and rock to pop, playing not only violin but bass and guitar.
I had these two lives, and what I really did was put them together after I got through with all my schooling and got out in the professional world. I combined those two worlds, and that’s sort of what “Barrage” has evolved out of.
I found people with very similar thinking to me. My other colleagues, similarly, grew up in the same bent. We really got together to form this unique concept. It’s a fusion of all worlds. We try to keep it so the show is uniform. Every tune is different. It’s like, “If you don’t like this tune, hang on, the next one you may like.”
CP: What feedback have you gotten from professionals from those two respective worlds? How do professional classical players and fiddle players respond to your show bridging those two approaches?
JC: Well, we get good feedback from all worlds, thankfully. We’re not asking people to copy what we do, so that helps a lot. I think everyone appreciates the skill. Classical people appreciate how difficult our charts are, meaning how high a level of musicians we have. And the fiddle world appreciates our use of style, the reels and jigs and gypsy tunes and everything in between. We pull from all different cultures. I certainly think we get positive feedback from all sectors.
A person who plays bluegrass will certainly not want to emulate “Barrage” because we have one bluegrass tune in our whole set. It’s more that people appreciate what we’re doing and trying to do well.
But we’re not trying to be purists either. That’s very important. We take our own twist on every style of music. You don’t find many groups with five fiddle players leading it, so every style of music we tackle has a unique “Barrage” quality to it, as we say. We bring our own unique ensemble and ideas to it. It makes it fresh. It’s familiar but different.
CP: What can you tell me about the new show, “Animado”?
JC: We’re coming to Chattanooga because we’re interfacing with a wonderful school. This is something we do 30 times a year in America. We give some music out to high school students and incorporate them into our show. What we’re bringing is a flavor of “Animado,” which means “lively” in Spanish. It encapsulates a wide variety of music. There’s a Spanish flavor in there but also Eastern Europe and a good dose of American styles. It’s a variety show, but it’s high energy. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its slow moments as well, but it’s basically a high-energy, vibrant, world/ethnic mash up of styles. It’s a fun show.
CP: In particular, how does “Animado” differ from other shows you’ve performed in previous years?
JC: It’s a newish show; it’s half new. Every time we put on a show, we always have to play the favorites. “Mountain Spring,” for instance, is one we’ve been playing since our inception. Every time we go to take it out, everyone comes to our show and complains.
We have half a show of new material. We focused a lot more on Spanish and Old World styles. The reason is we were doing a lot of touring in Central America. We have a little more Spanish influence and a little more European because we’ve been touring more in Europe. There’s a little bit more Eastern European, Russian, gypsy, that kind of thing.
The show has more emphasized those styles as opposed to more traditional hoe downs. Our previous show, “High Strung,” was more Americana focusing on North American-influenced styles.
This show we bring more world hits into it, a little bit more things from afar. The idea definitely was influenced by the region we were doing. We wanted to bring that flavor to this show. The colors in the set are more vibrant, more Latin-influenced. We’re not a Latin show, but we’re influenced in the warmer tones and a little bit more free stylings that are found in that music.
CP: Given how organic the show’s approach has been, stylistically, and the demands of performing while executing this choreography, what do you look for in candidates during auditions?
JC: What we’re looking for is, first of all, you have to be young because you have to be athletic. We’re not looking for 40-year-olds. Our average age of our cast is 25. These are young professionals, people just out of school and staring their careers, basically.
We’re also looking for people with great chops. You have to be able to play your instrument really well. We’re also looking for that indescribable gut feel. It’s a passion, that you want to get on stage and play. You need to have a high endurance. You need to want to get out like a race horse and play.
“Barrage” is a job, but we don’t like to think of it that way. We like to think of it that it’s exciting to go out every night and bring a new freshness to the show. We’re looking for people who are built for the stage, who really just want to play music.
If you find that person with the right skill, the rest of it is trainable. So we can say, “Oh, you haven’t played much gypsy music? No problem.” That’s something we can work with an artist to learn, if they have the ability and the passion.
What we really want is a cast where, when you’re sitting in the audience, you’re having as much fun as they are because you’re looking up at them going, “Boy, they really enjoy playing.” That’s mostly what we’re looking for in the quality of people. We find that, when you find that, you have success with artists.
CP: Does that approach work? Do you see audiences reacting?
JC: Absolutely. It’s infectious. I’ve been to lots of shows like everybody has where you sit there and you can tell the artist is going through the motions. It’s not that they’re hating it up there, but they look tired and need a break. You don’t feel that great about that when you feel that feeling. It’s OK, and the quality is good, but somehow it doesn’t make you full of passion and excitement.
When you go see an artist who looks like they’re on fire, where every breath they take and thing they do is impassioned. If it looks like they’re doing it for the first time, it’s exciting, no matter what genre of music you’re talking about. That’s what we’re going for. We want people to think that we’re out there for the first time and that this is a very exciting day for us. That’s what you find when you come to a “Barrage” show, and it is infectious. The audience gets caught up in it, and that’s better for everyone.
CP: How long have you been performing “Animado”?
JC: This is coming into the end of our second full year and the start of the third.
CP: When will you switch it up?
JC: Probably the end of this year, we’ll change. It goes in a cycle. It’s hard to know exactly because we played in 17 countries this year. The thing is, when you go to a new country, everything (in the show) is new for them. In America, we tour every year, so you don’t want to keep touring the same show. We change shows every two or three years.
CP: “Barrage” is fast closing in on its 15th anniversary. How does that feel, as you’re approaching that milestone?
JC: Well, it feels like I’m getting old. (Laughs.) No, it feels great. After we got through 10 years, there was a maturity. There’s a confidence that comes from coming up on 15 years. We’re not concerned about whether people are going to like what we do. We’ve been in every audience situation you can think of in over 20 countries around the world. It’s great to go on stage and know that people are going to like what you do.
I guess it’s always trying to keep it fresh when you get as long in the tooth as we are. That’s something we try really hard to do, but with the young players, it’s easy to be inspired. That’s why turn over is so important for us. Members tend to stay 3-5 years – some stay longer.
New people are great on the tour bus. We might be seeing Paris for the 30th or 40th time, but they’re seeing it for the first time, and that’s infectious as well. If you ever go somewhere new that hasn’t been there, it’s more exciting than going with people who say, “Been there, done that.”
I think that the fact that our people toured all over and keep eternally young keeps us, as creators, willing to try new stuff and keep it fresh and to go with the musical trends out there in certain countries. We try to incorporate that wave into what we do. It’s always exciting, but there’s a confidence that comes with age that we’re here for the long term, for as long as we want to do this. That’s very comfortable.
CP: As long as you want to do this? “Riverdance” ended its tenure just a few months ago, how long do you see “Barrage” continuing?
JC: No, we don’t have an end in sight. Thankfully, we’re all healthy and all in good spirits. We’re not that old yet, as creators. We certainly have no intention of packing it in any time soon. How long? Who knows? But we’re happy to keep going out there as long as there’s a market, which there seems to be every year. We were on the road for 40 weeks a year, and that keeps you pretty busy, but it’s good.
CP: With all the styles you’ve incorporated, are there any styles you haven’t managed to weave into the show that you would like to, eventually?
JC: It’s not so much that we have a style we’re dying to do. A lot of it has to do with our personalities, meaning we build our music around the talent we have in our group. You won’t see us doing a rap song because … we’re a bunch of white guys, you know what I mean? But that may change down the road. One exciting new thing is that one of our new violin players this year plays the bagpipes. We’ve incorporated that into a couple of numbers in a very innovative way. We take these special skills we have and do it. It’s not so much what styles we want to do; we look at what we have to work with and what people’s strengths are and build a show based around that.
CP: Sounds like you have to be as on your toes as your musicians.
JC: Oh, absolutely. For sure. It’s not so much difficult. It’s challenging when people change and you’ve got new influences, but that’s also what makes it exciting. You kind of thrive on it after a while. Some people that might drive crazy, but actually, we like change.
It’s not radical change. To the outsider, change is a lot slower than it is to us. We’re always thinking a couple of years ahead and working on ideas. You changeover at a reasonable pace, on stage. We’re always very careful to make sure we plan our material before we go out to make sure things are ready. We’ve been doing this a long time. Our process works. We always try and do it better. That’s all you can hope for.
CP: What is your plan for “Barrage” as you look ahead?
JC: We’re starting to think about our new show we’ll launch next year, so that’s exciting. We hope in the next month to finalize the direction we’ll go in. That’s an exciting thing for us. We’re always experimenting with instrumentation to see if we need to change it up a little bit.
We used to have a percussionist, but we don’t anymore. We’re always thinking about what kind of structure we’ll need. When you start a new show, do you want to stay the same as you are or just add some new music or change your instrumentation? There are always questions. We’re just starting that process now.
Definitely, we’ll always be looking at adding a new twist to things or something slightly different so people come back to our show in a few years time and it will be the same, familiar “Barrage” only with a few new things. That’s what we hope for.
We don’t want to radically change and do a 180 and come back and have us all playing harmonicas or something. But at the same time, we don’t want to come back in a few years and say, “Well, that was the same show I saw last time.”
And we don’t want to play the same show, either. We get tired of it too. We don’t just change the show for the audience’s sake. We change it because we would be bored to death playing the same show for 14 years.
You’re always evolving it, but I think most artists are. I don’t think we’re any different in that regard. You want to stay true to who you are, as a concept, but bring a freshness to each project each time you go out there.
CP: Change seems to define “Barrage.” How long can you stand something remaining the same before you feel the need to change it? A few months? A year?
JC: No, overall, it’s two years. But that being said, you’re always introducing new pieces. The reason we are is because we’re going to different areas of the world. Every territory we go to, we try to incorporate 2-4 new pieces that’s audiences in that country will know.
Sometimes, it’s based on their local tradition, meaning a folk song tradition. Sometimes, it’s based on a pop song that happens to be familiar in their territory but not in Canada or America. For instance, in Holland, where we’re touring right now, there’s a piece that’s a very popular Dutch tune we sing in Dutch. We sing the chorus in Dutch. We actually sing in four or five languages on stage right now. We sing in Dutch, French, Latin and Spanish. We actually sing verses in those languages.
We try to incorporate, when we go to a territory, something unique. I call that change. If someone were to call me up right now and say we’re going to Estonia, the first thing I would do is try to get the locals to say what pieces are popular in Estonia. Then, we would choose, from that list, something we think fits “Barrage.” We do that all the time.
As far as our core repertoire, we still have songs we played 14 years ago. Those don’t change.
I think it’s a combination of not change and change. We change just enough that every time you see us, we’re slightly different, but we’re not change so much that you’re like, “That’s completely different from last time we saw you guys.” It’s more like we evolve. It’s a natural progression, like cars do. We like to slowly evolve.
CP: Do you have anything special planned for the Chattanooga show?
JC: It’s our second visit to this location. We’re hoping to take it up a notch from the last time, now that we know the people. We’re hoping to do some more creative things together. We have a new Nashville boy in our group, so he’s coming along with a little bit of Tennessee attitude. That’s certainly going to be a hit with the locals. We have a good lineup and we’re in solid shape. It should be a fun show.
CP: What format will the show take?
JC: It is part of the educational series, but we don’t change our show because it’s educational. What it means is that the people we’re working with will join us for a couple of numbers in the second half of the show.
It’s not a different show in that it’s watered down or anything. It’s the same show you would see in a professional theater in Nashville, but we’re coming to the locals to interface with them. It’s like a mini-residency.
What we do is put that on stage with us. That’s the thrill of it all. That also makes it very exciting. I can’t tell you right now what we’ll be playing for those two numbers. That’s what makes it interesting and fun. The audience is in for a treat. It’s usually the highlight of the show.
E-mail Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfreepress.com