Stuart Bogie is one of the busiest people in the music business today. He’s a producer/composer, and studied music at the Interlochen Arts Academy and the University of Michigan.
Bogie has either recorded or performed with TV On The Radio, Gomez, Burning Spear, Medeski, Martin and Wood, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sway Machinery, Wu-Tang Clan and The Roots to name a few. He’s also a member of Volney Litmus, Anitbalas and Superhuman Happiness, but his main gig is with Afrobeat super-group Antibalas.
While playing with each of these groups Bogie moves seamlessly between instruments playing the clarinet, bass harmonica, tenor and alto saxophones, keyboards and electric bass. Bogie maintains a relentless tour schedule and is a must see whoever he’s playing with.
Antibalas (Stuart is in the red shirt on the left side)
R&G: How many different instruments do you play?
Stuart: Comfortably – maybe five or six. It’s easy to get along between woodwinds, so if you play the tenor, then you can get along on the alto and the bari sax. If you play clarinet, you can get along on the bass clarinet, and the flute comes in there.
R&G: Is Antibalas on hiatus?
Stuart: Yeah, Antibalas is taking a break right now. We did a couple gigs last year and the beginning of this year.
R&G: Antibalas is your primary band, correct?
Stuart: Yeah, I’d say that’s my main thing. That and Superhuman Happiness and The Sway Machinery. I’ve put a lot of time into that too.
R&G: Going back to Antibalas – when I saw you guys play for the first time, it was in the Washington Mutual tent at Austin City Limits. Can you tell me about what you guys felt and were thinking before that show and during?
Stuart: We’ve always wrestled with the issue of corporate sponsorship; it seems like our lives are corporate sponsored. You can get a free pair of shoes if you let the shoe company have a banner at your merchant thing, or you can use your band to support this cause or that cause. There are always issues of endorsing and how it happens; we always wrestle with it. It seemed poetic and ironic in several different playful ways that the tent that we were under – I guess metaphorically and literally – was run by a company that was collapsing and has now been bought out, and eaten by another. I don’t know what that changes for anybody. All of it’s just interesting. I wish I could be more poetic about it.
R&G: You contributed to several songs on last year’s TV On The Radio album, Dear Science. Are you going to join them at Coachella?
Stuart: I think I’m going to play with them. That’s my plan, but I’m not sure of anything until I’m there.
R&G: Do you just wait for their call?
Stuart: We’ve talked about it and I’ve got the date in my calendar, but I’m never sure if a date is certain or not – never. People cancel all the time, and the last person to find out is a sideman. With TV on the Radio, even though I’ve done some arranging for them and put in some creative energy, I’m just a sideman.
R&G: But even as a sideman, you played the entire Dear Science tour with them.
Stuart: I did the U.S. I didn’t do Europe or Australia.
