K-Floor Hits the Ground Running

K-Floor Hits The Ground Running

by Benjy Eisen

The last time K-Floor played in the Harrisburg area it was at the Broad Street Market for an audience of about ten. All that means is that a lot of people missed out. While as many as 300 other bands were showcasing in the area that weekend for The Millenium Music Conference, K-Floor wasn’t here to showcase. They were here to play. Those 10 in attendance were either incredibly lucky or else incredibly smart, either way, they found themselves witnesses to what was probably the most mindblowing music of the entire conference.Their extremely danceable Philly-style rock draws as much from jazz as it does from blues; organist Justin DiFebbo’s heady Hammond B-3 entangles itself around guitarist Nick Schnebelen’s frenetic phrasing, while an intelligent rhythm section works the groove. The resulting music is as rewarding as it is immediate. It is sophisticated, compelling and entirely entertaining. And on May 26, it is coming back to Harrisburg … twice. K-Floor will play a free outdoor show at Kunkel Plaza as part of Harrisburg’s 34th Annual Patriot-News Artsfest at 5:00 p.m. That night, K-Floor will cut across the river to Camp Hill for a show at Gullifty’s. Local jam veterans Stone Jug open.

MODE Weekly recently spoke with K-Floor bassist Liev as the band prepared to embark on a string of live dates, starting with a Preakness Party in Baltimore and ending a day after the Harrisburg shows at Penn’s Landing in their hometown of Philadelphia.

MODE Weekly: How would you describe K-Floor?
Liev: I would say that the best sort of way to describe it would be just sort of a rock band with influences from early Led Zeppelin to Medeski Martin and Wood to jazz fusion like Return To Forever.
The record we have now has a lot of blues on it but the stuff we’re getting ready to do is totally different. I would say we’re a rock band with blues and jazz influences.

MODE: What sort of ‘stuff’ are you “getting ready to do?”
Liev: We’re in the studio now cutting tracks for the next album and it’s really going to be a hybrid of all the different styles of music we’re into, everything from hip hop and reggae to straight up blues ballads to rock fusion.

MODE: Let’s talk about your approach to live shows. Do you approach it as more of a “performance” or as more of a “show?”
Liev: I would say we approach it as both. Our take to being on stage is to give people their money’s worth. It seems like for a while there for a lot of bands it became cool to not perform, just kind of stand there and act angry or whatever the deal was. I’m more in the vein of the James Brown kind of thing, just get out there and work your ass off and give 150 percent to the audience and then you’re bound to get a response from them.
The approach to the live show is we have sections of the songs we do pretty much the same way every time and then we have sections where we give everyone a chance to stretch out on. It’s kind of like a jazz standard — we play the head of the song, and then beyond the head it’s more open to interpretation. If one person starts moving in a direction that’s cool, then everyone will move in on it and then we all know the set part to come back to.

MODE: Would you say you’re more of a live band or more of a studio band?
Liev: I would say both. I think we love playing in the studio just as much as playing for an audience. The studio is cool in that you can really strive for perfection and get that note just right. The live aspect of it is cool because it’s immediate, it’s here and gone, so we love to do both. I would hope to be one of those bands that are able to make really great records and then be able to go out and play really good shows to support them.

MODE: If somebody has never heard of K-Floor, and they’re thinking of going to a show, how would you sell them on it?
Liev: I would say come see something you’re not going to see very much anymore. You’re going to see an original band that puts on a hell of a show.