I first saw Denver-based quintet Squeaky Feet last October, when they brought their improv-heavy blend of prog rock, metal, jazz fusion, and deep, hypnotic grooves to Lark Hall in Albany. I was struck by both their considerable technical chops - three members are Berklee College of Music attendees, and a fourth has a degree in saxophone performance - and their enthusiasm for hurtling full speed into jam deep space.
After an introductory dramatic flourish, the band kicked into a 21-plus-minute version of the anthemic original “Never Break.” The jam that took up the meat of the runtime was exploding with energy, with each band member expanding themes outward until they collectively agreed on a riff to sink their teeth into and push into overdrive. From there, the playing again burst into a new cosmic plateau that surged with momentum and discovery before climbing to a peak. It confirmed a simple fact to me: These guys had the juice.
The rest of the set underscored that delightful feeling that I’d found a diamond in the rough. The glorious, fusion-y hook at the heart of “Tooth and Nail” should delight any Casiopea fan, and the almost half-hour-long “Thread Count” featuring sit-ins from their friends and tourmates in Indiana quartet Dizgo was riveting throughout, filled with spacey pockets and shimmering textures, growing into a dark, muscular beast by the close. They even played the Pokémon battle theme! There was a lot to love! As Squeaky Feet heads out on the road again this month – swinging back through Lark Hall in Albany on April 15 – I knew I had to chat ‘em up for Shakedown Beat to ask the tough questions my readers need answered. Namely, why is Steely Dan so good? Is jamming hard, or easy? What’s up with touring? Guitarist Greg King kindly took time out of his busy schedule to speak with me.
WAMC: I want to start with a very simple thing. For a long time, one of the many annoying things I would text my friends in the jam scene was, why is nobody playing a Steely Dan song for 20 minutes in the 21st Century? They’re just the perfect band for that kind of extrapolation and exploration. And then all of a sudden, I discover Squeaky Feet, a band that fearlessly goes out and lays down some absolutely monster Steely Dan covers. I want to hear it from you. Why is the Dan one of the sources of inspiration you guys are drawing on?
GREG KING: Oh, totally. I mean, yeah, that's a great point and a great question. I mean, I think as musicians, I feel like, ‘jam band’ for us comes after the fact. As musicians, we're all super into fusion and progressive rock and jazz and stuff like that, which obviously Steely Dan is a huge contribution to the fusion-ish pop world, so to say. And I think that that music just lends itself kind of perfectly to the music that we're into, and influences the way we write. So whenever we're talking covers, [Steely Dan] is just a perfect band. We have a horn player in our band – [Brian Keller] doubles on horns and keys – so there's plenty of opportunity to for him to play his sax and keys, plenty of opportunity for the dual guitar thing, and plenty of opportunity to stretch those songs out and really jam and kind of do the jam band thing as well, if that makes sense.
Oh, it absolutely does, Greg. I saw you guys for the first time in October at Lark Hall in Albany. You’re one of two guitarists in the band, and I noticed you provide a lot of the texture and the color of the pair in this very densely packed ensemble. There's a lot going on, and I think that your work in particular is super interesting, because - in a way - it's more subtle. It can be more textural. Can you speak a little bit about what it's like from your perspective, bringing the guitar in with these colors and tones amidst this flurry of a sax and keys player, another guitarist, and a very active bass and drum rhythm duo?
I mean, I guess it varies per show. I think everyone's trying to kind of figure it out almost on a night-to-night basis, just because there's so much improv, where you sit in the mix. And if you hear someone- If I hear [guitarist and vocalist] Colin [Shore] playing something higher up on the fretboard, I want to play something in the lower register, or vice versa. If he's playing something in the lower register, I want to play something higher up, and you're always just trying to listen. If Jimmy [Finnegan], our bassist, is playing a certain baseline, it's listening- Okay, cool, should I be doubling what he's doing? Or should I continue to do chords? If there's a certain kick pattern on the drums, it's, okay, cool, should I listen to that for a second and try to hone in on that? Is he keeping that consistent, or is he kind of playing around? So it's kind of just always listening. And not that I do it great all the time, but sometimes it's, along with everyone else, just trying to fit how you sit in the mix in that particular moment or in that particular jam. And I think the beauty of the improv side of stuff is sometimes, maybe you fall flat on your face and have no idea what you're doing, and other times, stuff seems to ‘work out well.’ And I think that that's just in general, just with roles in the band, I think that that's something that we're always working on, but I do think it's something that everyone's well aware of, and it's kind of something we talked about a lot, at least early on when we were just jamming and rehearsing, just talking about, whether it's in a composed part of a song or you're just improvising- Everyone kind of listen to what's going on around you. So again, if there's a lot of busy stuff, like you're saying, if the bass lines are busy and Colin’s doing something that's a little less ambient and more driven – whether it’s power cords or riff or lead stuff – it's like, okay, cool, what space does that leave me in right now? And a lot of the time, especially with the psychedelic stuff, I think with the keys and me in particular, kind of laying out pads or ambient stuff while still listening to certain things. Like, if I'm doing an ambient pad kind of thing, but I hear someone play a certain chord quality- Okay, cool, how can I add that note in, or something like that.
A quality that Squeaky Feet has that I'm very struck by is this patience and this willingness to develop themes, and as you say, enter out into these improv areas that don't have a net. In the classic approach of jazz, jam bands, whatever, you're going out on a limb and going many minutes into a song and finding new layers and new textures to explore. How do you guys listen to each other when you venture out into those depths? How do you know how to stick with an idea until it catches light? Give us a sense of that, like when you're playing for - You guys have played songs that have gone for over an hour and a half! I'm fascinated by that. Tell us about that.
I think it's very context-dependent. For instance, when we're on the road, headlining places – bars and stuff like that – and have ample time to do whatever, there's definitely a lesser sense of urgency for trying to get to a certain place by a certain time, in a certain fashion, in a certain manner, and there's kind of just this, okay, cool, we can sit in a certain space for a while. And sometimes, if I start playing a certain thing and I'm playing it over and over again, Colin will know to start harmonizing with me and vice versa. We also have talkback mics, which is a huge help for us being able to communicate. And it could be anything from asking our sound guy to adjust our mixes in our in our in-ear monitors, or Jimmy and [drummer] Kevin [D’Angelo] communicating on like, hey, I'm going to start doing this kick pattern, listen and play it with me, or something like that, or counting off into the next song, and making segues and transitions as smoothly as possible. And then the counter to that is sometimes when we're playing an opening set in Denver – like a bigger show or festival set – you only have 45 minutes to an hour tops, usually, for those kind of situations for us to get on stage and make our statement, as opposed to maybe 90 minutes or two hours or two sets or whatever. And those situations tend to be, I guess, a little less exploratory- At least in the sense of what we do. Maybe someone in the crowd might be like, oh, wow, what the hell is this band doing right now? It's crazy! So it's definitely gig-to-gig context dependent. But I'd say for the opening sets and the festivals, it tends to be a little more streamlined. And for the headlining shows, like you said, when we're playing for, like, screw it, let's just play, let's just jam this, the ease of that really helps, and you're not overthinking things. You're not like, okay, we're on this gigantic stage, and we only have an hour. So that kind of helps put everyone at ease to sit in the music for however long we decide to jam. And a lot of times, too, when in the middle of playing a song, we might have another song on the setlist that's coming up where it's like, okay, we're going to go into this song- And sometimes in the talk back mic, Colin or Kevin will be like, do we want to go into the next song, or do we want to just keep jamming? And I would say, more often than not, we're like, this feels good, let's just keep jamming, and we'll scrap a song.
I wanted to ask you about wearing the twin hats of being both a Berklee guy and a jam guy. More and more, some of these barriers between concepts about what a conservatory is all about and what a traditional professional musician is all about, and about the jam band world, which - for a long time - was perceived as this sort of sideshow or a scuzzier aspect of the music scene. You’re part of this emerging trend of some of the most interesting people playing in the jam band scene coming out of this sort of conservative background of a place like Berklee. What's it like to have a foot in both camps? Because you guys are both, like, ‘real musicians’ – capital R, capital M – and also going out there and doing this stuff that maybe isn't being taught in class.
Totally. I mean, that's a really good question, because I think that the jam scene and the more traditional studying, at least jazz, I mean, and composition with the classical stuff – I think that those two worlds go hand in hand, more so than people realize. I'm guilty of it, too, in terms of starting off college and not really giving jam bands the time of day. And I think being a musician and studying in school and really caring about the craft of learning an instrument, when I started discovering jam bands, I started realizing, like, oh, wow, there's some really, really killer musicians in this particular scene. And it's funny that so many people at Berklee, for instance, don't know about these bands that could easily be teaching some of these techniques and songs and stuff in the classroom, but nobody's really aware of it. So it's kind of like, if you know, you know, and someone turns you on if you're lucky enough for someone to kind of turn you on to some of this music, it's a really rich discovery. And I think that the traditional studying of music as well as the jam scene just go hand in hand so well, especially these days. Because you have jazz, which is largely based on improv, and then you have jam bands, which are largely based on improv, and I feel like they go hand in hand perfectly.
So, I want to ask you about your breakthrough moments with jam bands. Your official bio cites bands like Phish and Umphrey’s McGee - certainly, titans of the world of jam in America. Jam band fans – of which I am certainly one – love talking about that show we hit. What were some of those early shows or experiences where you feel like you started to realize this might be something you wanted to explore?
Yeah, totally. I guess my senior, junior year of college, I just started going to see bands. I saw Lettuce, Soulive, Twiddle, Phish, Dopapod, Lotus- And our drummer, Kevin, he had been into jam bands since high school, and he was the one who turned me on to jam bands originally and was showing me stuff and feeding that to me. We were playing in a cover band together, but it was kind of just going to those shows, and it's the classic, just kind of being there in the moment and going to some of these shows and being like, well, this is cool. There's a whole economy around this, and a whole group of people here that you never see out and about walking around Fenway Park or through the halls of Berklee or whatever- And then, you go to a jam band concert and you see 500 people in Grateful Dead and Phish shirts. It was just a completely different experience than going to see the jazz concerts that I was going to in college or even even high school. And I think the band for me, the kind of a-ha moment, was probably Dopapod in like 2013, I think it was, and those are Berklee guys too. So, I think that was for me the big, oh, damn, I should pursue what these guys are doing, because they went to the same college, and are highly educated and fluid in terms of their vocabulary and technique on their instruments, as well as, obviously, the music was just super, super fun, and it was a very cool thing to witness in person. And then with all these bands, you get the crazy light show and the sound’s really cool. You can't really put a stamp on, honestly, any of these bands, genre-wise, right? There's prog, electronic, jazz, funk, fusion, rock, bluegrass, country- It spans pretty much anything any young musician like myself was studying at that time and not even knowing that it existed in all of these bands.
Now I'm wondering also if – not in a cynical way, but just in a professional sense – you look at the jam band world, and there's an economic model for musicians that is unique. There's a preset template for ways you can build an audience and create revenue streams that I think a lot of other musicians might look at with great envy. Is that something that came into your thinking at all in pursuing Squeaky Feet?
Yeah, more so after the fact, once the band had started. Before the band was touring and doing that whole thing – and the Nugs.net and the Bandcamp and the live releases and stuff – I was someone who was listening to all that stuff from all the other bands, having a Nugs subscription, and going on LivePhish and going to all the different Bandcamps and archive.org. It's definitely something that I didn't even really think about, starting the band. It was just something that I was always kind of chasing after for my own enjoyment and my own personal fun. And then, when we started Squeaky Feet, obviously, that's something that we wanted to tap into as the band grew. But you never know when your band's going to start catching on, or when people are going to start wanting to listen to recordings. A huge goal of ours was always to get on Nugs.net, but you can never really project when that's going to happen. And then as those things have happened, as the fan base has grown, and as people have sought out more live shows, it's definitely a cool thing to be on the other end of.
With that in mind, I'm interested in the experience of being - at this point -a fourth-generation jam band, where you're aware that there is this sort of self-mythologizing fan base, and there is this great scrutiny over every decision you make, and every show you play is probably going to get attention and be commented on. When you're heading out into that landscape, are you thinking about, oh, we're in this phase of the band that might get turned into part of the legend of Squeaky Feet? Or are you trying to just sort of let it happen? Does that sort of thinking ever creep in?
I think it has crept in, probably, to all of us, individually, at different times. At least for me personally right now, it's definitely just more of the letting it happen thing. I mean, half the time I don't even know where the gigs are. I know I'm about to go on tour, and I know we're going to be on the road, but at this point, especially if there's a six-week tour coming up, it's kind of like, I know the region of the country I'm driving to in- That's about it. And then all the other dates, I am aware of where they are, but not when they are. And I kind of just let the band take on its own thing and do that. And in terms of the ears on you and all the people listening to your stuff, I think sometimes, for sure, we all talk about it, and we’re always trying to talk about what do we need to do to get bigger. What covers should we do, or how much or how little should we jam, and stuff like that. And I think those are important things for any developing band, or, honestly, any band in general, to keep in mind. But I think at the same time, there is kind of only so much you can do about that stuff. And I do think that the beauty of this scene of music is it's so individualized. And because it's a different set every night, there's a lot that you can kind of let go of when you're playing shows or about to embark on a tour.
Tell us what life is like on the road for Squeaky Feet. What do you guys do day-to-day to stay human in the midst of the wear and tear of trucking around? You guys tend to go out for significant jaunts, you're playing long shows, you're putting the sweat in on stage. How do you keep your sense of self healthy and active while you're out and about?
Yeah, totally. I think it's definitely- Like, you kind of have to seek that out and be aware of it. And I think this past year in particular- I mean, I guess we're only really in April, so we're only a couple months into the year. But I guess over the past 12 months, the end of last year going into this year- You know, we're about to leave for four weeks, and have the rest of the year planned out. So I think the past year, and six to 12 months, everyone's kind of really made a choice to just be as easy-going as possible. And you start to get to know your bandmates on a deeper and more personal level, and understand what might tick someone off and how to communicate with people. And it's always a work in progress, for sure, but I think personally, everyone in the past six months has really kind of made a point to be aware of all those little things. A lot of it is pretty much just downtime in a van, driving however many thousands of miles across the course of a couple weeks. And a lot of it is just taking a nap and sleeping, and then when it's your turn to drive, you drive, play the gig, you just immediately go to the hotel and sleep after, and then wake up first thing the next morning to drive to the next gig. So, definitely not super super flashy or super super fun. You don't really get to see too much of one city for any long particular period of time. And when you do get those moments, it’s cool to have a day off, or two days off in Chicago, or two days off on the beach in Florida. Those tend to be pretty rare, but it is a lot of downtime, and I think it's just a lot of being aware in terms of your bandmates and trying to read the room as best as you can, and just trying to be as respectful to the people around you as well as yourself.
You guys obviously draw heavily on video games as part of your identity, which is delightful. I wanted to know, in your own personal repertoire – like, I'm a child of the 90s, I grew up on Diablo, Half-Life, Age of Empires, Baldur’s Gate – are you a gamer yourself? Is that part of your identity?
Not so much at this phase in my life. For Jimmy and Colin and Kevin, most definitely. But I mean, I grew up obsessed with Zelda and Nintendo- That goes for all five of us. I think growing up, we were all huge into N64 and GameCube and Game Boy and just the whole Nintendo world, as well as- I mean, I was obsessed with Halo 3 growing up. Every once in a while, I'll still do Final Fantasy Online, or do some MMOs and stuff like that. Colin, Jimmy and Kevin are very into video games. Colin and Jimmy are very into Fortnite. And we'll still play other video games too. Kevin is still very into Super Smash Brothers, whatever the newest ones are, but in terms of all of us growing up, yes, most definitely, I could confidently say we were all probably very obsessed with video games growing up. And I do think that that affects our music, because when I was a kid, taking guitar lessons or taking clarinet lessons or whatever and learning music, I was simultaneously playing a lot of Nintendo games and very interested in the music. I would listen to the music in my free time in grade school, in the same way I would listen to Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd or something. So I do think that, because of that – and I can kind of speak for everyone on that level, I do think that everyone growing up also was very into that music – I do think that that's left a lasting impression on us in our adult life and how we write music, perceive music, and the songs we want to cover.
Give me the sort of sky's the limit, best-case scenario for the band. Where do you want to take Squeaky Feet? It seems like you guys have so much energy. The shows are awesome. At this point, I'm trying to catch up on shows as they come out. It seems like you've got a lot of momentum, and the talent is so obvious. Where do you want to take this thing?
Thanks for the kind words on that. I appreciate hearing that. I mean, we obviously just want to take it as far as we can. It's a weird dynamic because we play a very niche kind of music, and it's kind of always asking yourself, like, even within the jam band world, see which bands gain a lot of success and which bands tend to be a little more low-key throughout their career. And usually not by design. If another band doesn't get to a certain point, it's not because they didn't want to. It's just because maybe their music was too niche or something like that. So we're always asking ourselves the same questions, and I think in terms of sky's the limit- I mean, I guess it's to grow this thing to the biggest thing we potentially can. And I'm sure as the band evolves and as we tour more- I mean, I felt a huge shift in our songwriting and compositions over the past year, and I'm sure that will continue to evolve, which I'm sure in some way, shape or form, will alter the evolution of the band and where it goes in terms of popularity or growth.
Do you think you're drawing over any of the prog and metal guys to jam by them loving [2025 release] “Overview Effect” the studio album, and then discovering that [opening track] “Irish Goodbye” is seven times longer on the live version?
Yeah, it's funny you say that- Yeah, definitely. And I honestly thought going into it that the prog guys would be way more critical of us than the jam people. And we found that it's the exact opposite. We find that the prog people that come to our shows are way more stoked on the jam stuff and way more likely to be talking to us or emailing us or messaging us or whatever, doing interviews or whatever, trying to be like, well, cool, we love Haken and Dream Theater and Rush and you guys, so what are other bands in your world that we can check out? And I found that the prog community, in a way, has been way more open to our scene than the jam people to the prog community. I think that the jam scene seems to- They know what they like and dislike. And there's people that love the prog side of jam stuff, and maybe not so much the bluegrass side or the more traditional jam side. And then the people that like the bluegrass stuff might not necessarily want to go to an Umphrey’s concert. Surprisingly, I think that the prog people have seemingly, they're just like, what bands are in your scene, throw anything at me, and I'll start going to shows. Some of the Squeaky Feet fans that I've met that traditionally have never listened to jam bands are like, now I'm going to Phish concerts, or now I'm going to go see Spafford or something like that, or the Disco Biscuits or whatever, which is a super cool thing to see in real time.
Lastly, I like throwing this question to people like you guys - certainly - who are so well versed in fictional realms. If Squeaky Feet could play one fictional venue or fictional location - be it from a video game or a movie - what's a fictional location you'd like to jam in?
Oh, man. Oof, that's a good one. [pause] Oh, man, I'm trying to think of something in Zelda. [pause] Honestly, I'm gonna say – not even Zelda – I'm gonna say Rainbow Road from Mario Kart. I think that would be sick. We cover that song, and I think that would be an absolute trip.
