Interplaytime

Montreal’s Erik Hove talks about two
projects close to his sax-shaped heart

ACTION AND REACTION: Erik Hove

by SCOTT C

Saxophonist Erik Hove has been grinding away in preparation for the release of the debut LP by his band Soundclash, which includes DJ P-Love, bassist Fraser Hollins and drummer Martin Auguste, dropping this week on Effendi Records. However, he’s also been preparing for a Jazz fest show with his Erik Hove Trio, featuring Thom Gossage on drums and Miles Perkin on bass. The Mirror caught up with Hove at his home in Montreal.

Mirror: Describe the two primary pockets of productivity that you have very nicely carved out for yourself.

Erik Hove: Well, there’s Soundclash, the band I have with Paolo “P-Love” Kapunan on turntables, which is my own modern jazz compositions accompanied by his scratching. It kind of stemmed from a desire to fuse my own jazz background with hip hop. I’ve always been a huge hip hop head, so I wanted to do something that fused the two. Turntablism is the element most based in sort of instrumental performance, plus it was a reaction to all the great turntablists I’d seen during the ’90s, impressed and inspired by their virtuosity and their ability to construct a personal sound just by scratching. Guys like Q-bert and Roc Raida always had a high level of musicianship that stayed with me.

M: There seemed to be a lot of bands that featured a DJ for a while there.

EH: Yeah. I guess Soundclash was kind of a reaction to other bands that were using a DJ, but not really in a very creative way. It was just sticking a DJ onto whatever music they were already doing, and I wanted to create a band where the DJ was more written into the music with more interplay, where the sound of the band would stem from the various sounds that the DJ could produce.

M: Apart from the obvious, what’s the difference between Soundclash and the Erik Hove Trio?

EH: The trio is really based on the group interplay between bass, drums and sax. It’s much more free and open-ended, plus both the drummer and the bass player contribute compositions, so even though it’s my band and I’m the bandleader, they are also bandleaders at the end of the day.

M: As an active member of Montreal’s jazz community, how important is having a Jazz fest gig for you?

EH: Before I ever moved to Montreal, I was aware of the Jazz Festival, knowing full well it featured some of the biggest names in jazz history and jazz today, and I’m proud to be a part of that, but on the other hand, I just played l’Off Festival and was struck by the strong sense of community. There was a much stronger connect with the local scene and great bands checking each other out.

M: Is it true you could have your hand cut off for speaking unfavourably about Jazz fest?

EH: No, they just withhold any future gigs you might have had with them (laughs). I think l’Off was created in reaction to certain prominent Montreal jazz musicians just never getting gigs at Jazz fest. It was never an antagonistic thing, but they directly pointed out the lack of Montreal representation in the Jazz Festival.

Erik Hove Trio at Upstairs on
Sunday, July 6, 8:30 p.m., $12.50