Interview: Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

Published on Thursday 29 July 2010 15:10

THE members of the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble are running around the New York clothing store G-Star like kids in a sweet shop, helping themselves to armfuls of trendy gear.

• Hypnotic Jazz Ensemble: eight brothers plus one drummer, who are all the sons of jazz musician Philip Cohran, which led to a musical upbringing in Chicago. Picture: Complimentary

The label is sponsoring the band and wants the musicians to be kitted out in their clothes at all times. And the boys aren't complaining. "I love their clothes. I'd happily wear them every day, all day and night," says Gabriel Hubert, band name Hudah.

While his seven brothers shop, he takes a break to discuss the band's hectic summer tour schedule which is taking them to Scotland, England, Southern Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium. Following their recent headlining appearance with Gorillaz at Glastonbury, Hypnotic (or HBE as they are otherwise known) are looking forward to making their first appearance at the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival next week. They have recorded a track with Mos Def on the new Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach, and have a gig coming up at Brixton Academy with Wu-Tang. It was all very different just a few years ago.

"We used to perform here a lot," admits Hubert, walking through Washington Square Park in New York, the favoured hang out for generations of hippies, beatniks and struggling artists. "This was a good spot for us. We played right there," he says, indicating an area to the right of the famous archway at the northern edge of the park. "This view here, looking past the arch, reminds me of the scene from the movie I Am Legend. We were here playing when they filmed that scene."

Back then Hypnotic were a bunch of struggling street performers from the south side Chicago with dreams of making it big in New York, making their living from busking and selling CDs. Fast-forward four years and they have collaborated with some of their biggest heroes such as Mos Def and Erykah Badu, they've all got passports - a necessity now they spend half their year touring the globe - and any free time they have is more likely to be spent fielding calls from the international press and taking bookings than playing on the street.

"We were very deliberate about where we played on the street. We'd play where people were shopping and spending money - Union Square, Times Square, Columbus Circle, Bryant Park. That way they were more likely to buy our CD. These places are popular with tourists so it meant we were being heard by people from all over the world who would then go home and tell their friends about us.

"We never called ourselves street performers - we were using the street to market and promote ourselves. If you stick to clubs and get a residency you can spend years playing to the same 100 people night after night. That wasn't for us. We wanted a big, international audience."

The drummer aside, the other eight members of Hypnotic are blood brothers and, though they have different mothers, they all share the same father, celebrated jazz musician Philip Cohran. "There wasn't a time growing up when we weren't surrounded by music. We'd wake up at 6am to the sound of our dad rehearsing before we went to school and there was always music in the house," recalls Hubert.

It was Cohran who encouraged them all to become musicians, handing each of them a brass instrument before they'd even learned to write their names. As kids they all played in his Youth Ensemble. And though music was to provide their path out of the ghetto, they were reluctant students. "As kids we hated it. We had to spend so much of our spare time learning. Our parents always told us we'd thank them one day."

At night the boys would sneak under their bed covers and listen to NWA and Public Enemy. Unbeknown to their dad, they also formed their own group, GWC (Gangsters With a Curfew), which morphed into Wolf Pak (Wolves on the Lookout for Pigs and Klansmen). Hubert recalls, "We used to all hum the same way that we play our horns now, everybody on beat boxes or making harmonies, and we'd pass the mic around and rap."

After school the eight brothers all went their separate ways, occasionally dabbling on the wrong side of the law, before deciding to hit the street to play music together. "We grew up together, learned together, fought together, formed our own gang, so it was natural as adults that that continued and we worked and played together." Combining their jazz roots and their passion for hip hop with pop, indie, soul, funk, blues, world and classical music influences, they began to concentrate on crafting their own unique sound.

Though performing together can lead to a tense working environment, it also means they have developed their own family shorthand over the years. "Our sounds mesh, it's almost innate, the harmonies we can put together. Everyone throws in ideas and if they are good they stay, if they're whack they get thrown out. We're all leaders and we're all highly opinionated. There are times when nothing gets done because no-one can agree on anything. But we've been playing together since we were little kids so when it works, it's amazing.

"There's no room for slackers or divas. And nobody wants to be the weakest link because they know we'll all talk and joke about them. It makes everyone work hard."

As the eldest member of the family in the group and a keen entrepreneur, Hubert is the de facto boss, taking care of bookings, press interviews and touring arrangements. He talks about Hypnotic as a business, something they have to nurture to reap the financial rewards, rather than a purely artistic endeavour. "When I was growing up I always wanted to be cool. I was a bit of a knucklehead," he says. "But the thing that saved me from going down the wrong route, the criminal route, was that I was influenced by entrepreneurs in hip hop, people like Puff Daddy and Master P. They showed me that you don't have to go to college and follow everyone else to be a success. You can put your energies into building up your own empire. I wanted not just to be an entertainer but to run the business, to drive the ship."

The band came up with their name after spending a day playing on the platform of the Chicago subway. A smartly-dressed commuter in a suit had been watching them for hours, missing train after train. Eventually he walked up to them and said, "You guys just hypnotised me." Listening to their mesmerising beats, it's not hard to see what he was getting at.

The audience at a Hypnotic gig are just as likely to be business people, children and retirees as hipsters in their twenties. "We love that we don't have a demographic. We played a gig where there were 80-year-olds jumping up and down at the front."

"We want everyone to hear our music," says Hubert. "We are ambassadors for the hood. We call ourselves superheros. Where we come from, the majority of people don't think about leaving the street they grew up on and here we are travelling all over the world. We want to be role models and inspire other kids to follow their dreams."

• Hypnotic Brass Ensemble play Assembly@Princes Street Gardens on Tuesday, as part of the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival