A Conversation with Ivan Neville – HuffPost 7.9.14
Mike Ragogna: So, sir, what the heck have you been up to?
Ivan Neville: I’ve bleen doing a little bit of this, a little bit of that, you know. I’m playing with my band Dumpstaphunk and doing other stuff, a few recording sessions here and there. I guess you know I did this video recently with The Young Presidents.
MR: Yes, and you might say it was a very “Time”-ly video, wasn’t it?
IN: [laughs] Yeah, it was called “Time.”
MR: Let’s talk about The Young Presidents. What is the origin of this auspicious gathering?
IN: These guys were friends with a buddy of mine by the name of Rob Fraboni. Rob Fraboni produced their record, and that’s kind of how I got involved. I know Rob, me and Rob have done stuff over the years. He gave me a call initially to come and play on their record, me and some amazing musicians. Anton Fig plays drums on most of it, Blondie Chaplin was on some stuff… Blondie and I have done some stuff together in the past. We both have a connection to The Rolling Stones, which is pretty cool, as does Rob Fabroni. Also Cory Glover from Living Colour, he was involved. Basically, we did a record. A few of us sang songs. Cory sang, Blondie sang, we sang some stuff together, and I sang the lead vocal on the song “Time.” Then they contacted me and said my boy Jonathan McHugh, who is a very dear friend that I’ve known for a long time, he was involved in the making of this video. He had a lot to do with the story line and things of that nature. I got a call that they wanted to do this video in my home town in New Orleans and since I’m singing the song, I could be in it. I’m like, “Absolutely, man.” So he came to New Orleans and we shot some cool stuff in a bunch of cool spots and there you go.
MR: Every time I interview you, there’s always something new that you’re picking up. Did you pick up anything new from this experience that might affect your music creatively?
IN: I’m always trying to pick up and learn stuff. I’ve been doing the music thing for a long time and I want to keep on learning and keep on picking up and gathering up and borrowing and whatnot. From this, I got an appreciation for some of the sights and sounds of my own city. It was kind of cool that they shot footage down here and had me go and do stuff like be around surroundings that I was comfortable with. They wanted me to be a part of it and they made sure that I was comfortable in my surroundings and it was perfect. That’s one major thing I took from it.
MR: What do you think they took from you?
IN: [laughs] I don’t know. Hopefully, I added a little something to it, brought a little something to the table. I’ve got a decent little singing voice, and my charm and my good looks, hopefully that carried me a long way.
MR: [laughs] This is a bit of a new direction for you, so where do you see this leading? Will it open the door to other things?
IN: I have done some live things with the Young Presidents and I probably will do some live things in the future when time permits–there we go with time again–when I’m not doing Dumpstaphunk or various other projects that I may be involved in. But I like those guys–Jake [Hertzog] and Mitch [Kaneff]. They’re good musicians and fortunately for me, I got to participate in some cool songs and the music’s good. That’s always a plus. We do this thing called “music” because we love it and we’re lucky that we get to make a living doing it as well. Everything’s up in the air. You never know what could come of this.
MR: Ivan, how’s your family?
IN: Everybody’s cool. I’ve got two brothers and a sister down here in New Orleans and my dad lives up in New York, everybody’s cool. I’ve got a daughter who lives in California and I’ve got a fairly new son who lives here in New Orleans.
MR: In your opinion, what’s the state of New Orleans these days?
IN: New Orleans is doing well. There’s the devastation that occurred here close to nine years ago, and it will never be forgotten. There’s some loss that we will never recover, but New Orleans, as a city and as a region and as a people is doing business, man. It’s doing great down here. Music’s going on, food’s going on, and as you can see every year, jazz festivals are killing. Mardi Gras is a pretty good time. New Orleans is rolling. We lost some lives down here when Katrina happened. People lost their homes and had to go other places and start lives elsewhere, so we lost them. We lost a lot of communities, some of the neighborhoods. But people get back up. New Orleans is one of the places where the people here are resilient like that, and they keep going. Things are doing great in New Orleans right now. We’re about to get ready for another hurricane season, now. It happens once a year. We’ll see what happens this year. Hopefully nothing too bad will happen down here.
MR: Because of the charm and beauty of New Orleans and its very rich history, there are a lot of kids who dream about making music there. Have a lot of new, young artists been arriving in town lately?
IN: Oh yeah, there’s always a little rush of cats who might move here from different places or maybe they come out here to go to school and they start digging on the music scene and they try to get involved, there’s always some new blood that starts flowing down here. You’ve got our home-grown youngsters who are doing very well, like Trombone Shorty–they’ve been around for a while but I look at them like they’re young. Rebirth Brass band has been around thirty years, but we’re that next generation, we’re not as old as my dad and those guys. Then you’ve got some others that are coming along, you’ve got a couple of groups that have been around for a while and some up and comers, it’s constantly growing around here, the music scene is always evolving, you’ve got a couple of new bands that can show off or a new group of musicians that start playing around, it’s just an ever-evolving thing we’ve got going on here.
MR: What advice do you have for new artists?
IN: Just do it. Do it often and as much as you possibly can, learn as much as you can about the business aspect of music and just keep doing it, man, hone your craft. Do your thing.
MR: What about Ivan Neville? What would you tell Ivan Neville right now? What’s he supposed to be doing?
IN: [laughs] Keep doing it. Keep honing your craft, Ivan. Keep singing, keep praciticing, keep listening. Keep listening. Keep learning.
MR: All right, so what does the future hold for Ivan?
IN: Oh, I’ve got stuff going on. Dumpstaphunk’s continuing to spread the funk–that’s my main group I’ve got going on now with my little cousin Ian Neville, Tony Hall, Nick Daniels III, and we’re just continuing to do what we do. We’re probably going to be doing some new music very soon, to put out another studio record. We’ve got some live stuff that we’ll be looking at in the near future and there’s some other side stuff that I’ve got going on. We’ll just see what happens.
MR: Nice. Is there anything else to mention that we didn’t talk about yet?
IN: I can’t think of anything off the top of my head but if I think of something I’ll call you back. [laughs]
MR: You’ve got it! You’re awesome. Thanks.
IN: Thanks, man.
Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne