Who are HEAVy?: A Q&A with the vibrant duo
Since Jazz Money$$
, the piquant full-length debut from Queens, New York duo HEAVy dropped this past fall, songwriter and lead vocalist Nicky Guiland and producer and multi-instrumentalist Casey Benjamin have been owning stages from Brooklyn to Amsterdam. They recently spoke to Hello, Babar via phone about crafting their omnivorous sound and trying to make a million out of 15 cents.
VIBE: How did HEAVy come about. How did you guys meet?
Casey: Me and Nicky went to high school together and from there we went to college together and we had a great working relationship. We always performed together and one day I said, "We got all this great material together that we're writing, we should just put a band together and get some gigs." Just as simple as that. That was how HEAVy was started in 2001.
VIBE: I stumbled upon you after hearing "Unbelievable" off the Gilles Peterson compilation, The BBC Sessions
Nicky: That was around the height of my jazz influence and I'd been listening to a lot of Nancy Wilson and there's a standard called "Guess Who I Saw Today," where she basically paints the picture of a wife that goes out and sees her boyfriend or her husband cheating so I wanted to do that, but the flip side of it. And I wanted to tell somebody, "Your girl has been cheating on you" and that it's crazy, it's hard to believe, yeah, you'd never expect it, but here you have your girl cheating on you.
You were mentioning, Nicky, about "Unbelievable" having come about at the height of your jazz influence and the record right now has got a different vibe to it. How is your sound changing?
Nicky: We're kids. We're eighties babies and this record, a lot of the influence comes from what we were listening to growing up. Aside from the soul or the R&B or the jazz that we listened to, we listened to a lot of pop, because it was there and it was quality, and we listened to a lot of hip hop and rap and house music and I really wanted to showcase that side of myself too, and I know Casey did as well. It's not just about jazz for us, it's about showing all sides of your personality and allowing people to say, "Hey, I like what they do with the live band. I also like what they do when they take it to something that's a little more today." I really, really, really just wanted to show people that we're not just one thing. Nobody is. No person is just one thing. Come on now.
Casey: As an artist you grow. We were a little younger then and we're still young but that was a different part of our coming about. It's just a true evolution. Who knows what the next record is going to sound like.
You have to offer a little insight into your new album title. What does Jazz Money$$ mean?
Nicky: It originated from a crazy dream that I had where basically the dream told me and showed me that the value of music, it's diminishing.
Casey: Jazz Money$$ is just about all the artists that are on the grind and on the hustle doing everything themselves. Where these record labels, they want you to hand in this million dollar project but you have a budget of-
Nicky: You have 15 cents to do it.
Casey: 15 cents to do it and a token.
Nicky: You'd be lucky to get a swipe on the MetroCard.
Casey: Exactly. That's pretty much Jazz Money$$. It doesn't have to be a musician, it can be an artist, an actor, anybody who's on the grind.
Nicky: But cutting corners man.
Do you remember the details of this dream?
Nicky: Yes, I do. It features two of my professors from New School University. In the dream, I had a regular nine to five and one of the professors, I think he did a gig at my place. I don't know what I did for him, but he wanted to show a token of appreciation, so he left an envelope with a note at the security desk and the security guard was like, "Yo, somebody left this for you." So I opened it and it said, "Thank you so much Nicole for all your hard work. I appreciate it." It also had really bad black & white copies-xerox copies, Kinko's copies-of tens and twenties, only one sided and cut up by like a 2 year old. I was really put off by it and I was like, "What the hell is this," and I go to another one of my professors and he put his hand on my shoulders and said, "Aww, baby that's just jazz money." And then he takes me to jazz land where it's almost like Disneyland but the US dollar is worth 200 jazz dollars or like one jazz dollar is like 20 cents. Where everything is really, not janky, but it's a whole 'nother world.
You were mentioning earlier how different facets of your personality are reflected on this album so I'm wondering if you can point out a few songs and talk about how they represent a different element of your musical personalities. I was thinking "Razzmatazz" initially because it's kind of a swaggering song. And then "Sam/Sam's Return" shows a little sense of humor towards the end.
Nicky: I'll take "Razzmatazz." My background is also really, really, really deep in dance. I grew up in dance studios my entire life. My sister is a professional dancer and a lot of this album is influenced by the things she listened to because she's a couple of years older than me but also from being in the studio. "Razzmatazz." I don't even know how it started. I think Casey sent me some demo of something and was like "Yo, I was just messing around one night." I was like, "That's a song. That's a song!" It feels really Fosse, like Bob Fosse-I don't know if folks know he's the creator of "Chicago" and "All That Jazz"-just very Broadway but kind of kitchy and that's exactly what I was going for. It has all these horns and it has this sense of humor with the kazoo and its just a little Burlesque. That's showcasing my dance studio side.
Casey: I'm a big Doobie Brothers and Michael McDonald fan. I like a lot of their writing. A lot of the syncopation of the keyboards in that song is very reminiscent to that sound. As far as the content of the song, "Sam/Sam's Return" is about this girl. She does everything for this guy but she hates the way he's treating her but she still does all these things.
Nicky: I wanted to write that politically incorrect song for that girl-there are millions of us out there-where a guy can do everything wrong to her but she still says by his side and still wants to be with him. And he'll tell her straight up that you're not my girl but she sticks around. Nobody talks about that.
Casey: And basically "Sam's Return" is why you spazzing out for? I already told you that you're not my girl and if you had a problem with it before why didn't you say anything. It's just like a comedic view.
Nicky: It's very real.
You mentioned the Doobie Brothers/Michael McDonald influence. These days Michael McDonald has fallen out of favor with many folks. I'm actually kind of a fan of his too but I feel like it's embarrassing these days to like Michael McDonald?
Casey: Well, I got to say that the newer stuff that Michael McDonald's doing, I'm not really feeling as well. But like the earlier stuff from, "You Belong to Me," "Minute by Minute," the stuff from the late seventies/early eighties, that's the stuff that to me is timeless, you know.
Casey, I was wondering if you could also speak to me about your affinity for the talk box/vocoder and keytar?
Casey: Ever since I saw old videos of Herbie Hancock from the "Rock It" days or even with George Duke with "Brazilian Love Affair" and the Tokyo Tours from the early eighties I was like, "Wow, I have to get one of those." Luckily, I found one and you know the talk box and the vocoder is also from being a fan of Herbie. It's just another texture, another color of showing myself. It's very lyrical. My first instrument is the saxophone, which is a very lyrical instrument. To me, it's just an extension of the saxophone. It's very lyrical and it's harmonic and it's instrumental but it has vocal qualities.
Nicky, who were your vocal influences?
Nicky: They run the gamut. I still listen to a lot of Carmen McRae. I still listen to a lot of Shirley Horn. I listen to Minnie Riperton, Joni Mitchell but for the most part I listen to a lot of emcees and instrumentalists.
Since you mention Minnie Riperton, it makes me think of Stevie Wonder who is just finishing up his first tour in a really long time and I was wondering if you could speak to Minnie's influence, since your song "Wonderlove" is a tribute to her, and also to Stevie's influence, given their association.
Nicky: The funny thing about "Wonderlove" is that I was into Minnie but I wasn't deep, deep, deep at that time. Actually, I fell in love with her after writing "Wonderlove," when everyone would be like, "Do you realize how much this is like this or that." The title came about also because I was into Syreeta and a friend of ours, Tone Wilson, he is another musician and he would always hip me to underground recordings of Stevie and Syreeta and little outtakes that they would do with Minnie. He told me how Stevie's background singers were called Wonderloves, so this song is dedicated to Minnie but it's really dedicated to the sounds of Wonderlove and Charles Stepney and just how Stevie and Charles would use these women with these ethereal high ranges and beautiful voices and I just wanted to write something that would say that I would have been that fourth member.
You also cover The Isley Brothers' "Don't Say Goodnight"" Why did you choose that song?
Casey: The Isley Brothers, that's another great groups with great writers. I always liked the idea of a woman covering a man's song. In some of the old shows we've done Barry White songs, the Rolling Stones. I like that angle of a woman covering a man's song so I thought it would be pretty interesting and "Don't Say Goodnight" is probably one of the sexiest songs ever made. That was just the idea and to put a HEAVy spin on it.
Nowadays, I feel like most people's knowledge of South Side Jamaica Queens is limited to 50 Cent? What else is there to Jamaica, Queens?
Casey: Jamaica, Queens, well there is "Jamaica Funk." Tom Browne and Bernard Wright and Marcus Miller and Lenny White: these are cats that I grew up listening to, I mean when I left high school. When I think of Queens, that's probably the first thing I think of before I think of 'Tip and LL and 50.
Nicky: To me also, Jamaica, Queens-South Jamaica Queens where we're from-it's heavily influenced in our culture, where it's a mixture of different West Indian backgrounds. I remember growing up and going to the mall and seeing Anthony Mason hanging out with Phife Dawg and seeing Sweet Tee and people that were from South Jamaica. People would just be there in the mall. You would see Flava Flav on the ave' or running into Cormega, Noreaga. That's what Queens is. It's not just 50 and it's more than just "Jamaica Funk" and it's not just VP records but it is VP records.
Casey: I like to think that Jamaica Queens is a smaller version of what was happening downtown in the early eighties/late seventies. There was jazz and there was hip hop. It wasn't much rock but the fusion, the idea of the fusion, of both of those musics.
I've only seen you guys once but I caught a little of your performance not too long ago at Pratt Institute. You guys give a lot on stage. I'm wondering how you developed that stage performance and what sort of toll it takes on you afterwards.
Nicky: I'll say this. I'm gonna have to have an endorsement from Advil. "HEAVy endorsed by Aleve and Ice packs." Honestly, it went from wanting to do something, thinking that we're really doing it as big as we possibly can, to tweaking it, to just saying, "Aww, fuck it!"
Casey: This is who we are. You learn so much about yourself over the years. Every day and every time you perform, you get more and more-
Nicky: Comfortable. That's what I was getting to. Just saying, "Fuck it. I'm gonna go out there and do me and just do whatever comes to mind." And I still think that the show is growing.
For those of you in the greater New York City area, HEAVy opens for the Robert Glasper Experiment featuring Q-Tip at the Highline Ballroom tonight.
All photos by Richard Louissaint
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