By ERIC SCHELKOPF
After first forming in 1966, legendary UK band Soft Machine continues to explore new musical horizons, as evident on its latest album, “Other Doors.”
The band will perform at 8 p.m. Oct. 24 at Reggies, 2105 S. State St., Chicago. Also on the bill is Chicago band Marbin.
Tickets are $40, available at ticketweb.com.
I had the chance to talk to Soft Machine longtime guitarist John Etheridge about the new album and upcoming show.
Q – Great talking to you again. We last spoke in 2018 about the band's latest album at the time, "Hidden Details."
In June, the band released the album "Other Doors." Do you think you are opening other doors with your latest album?
Yeah, yeah, I hope we're opening other doors. I think "Other Doors" is a really good title for anything that is connected with a project like Soft Machine. With the Soft Machine, you're not necessarily going through the main door.
You're going through some side doors, you're going through a door in the roof, you're going through a door up in the underground passage. Soft Machine is the conjunction of what you might call mainstream music making with a kind of what you might call obliqueness.
Now, we're not completely oblique and we're not completely mainstream. It's the two things.
That's why "Other Doors" is a good title I think. The title of this album does mean something to me.
It's a very special band. When you put on your Soft Machine hat, as it were, you have a feeling about music making.
Q – You joined Soft Machine in 1975. What did you try to bring to the band when you first joined and what do you think you're bringing to the band these days?
Initially, my job was to promote the album "Bundles," which featured guitarist Allan Holdsworth, and play something following what he had done. He left the band suddenly.
It was very keyboard heavy, so that all I ever played were solos. And then when we reformed in 2004, my contribution was much more fundamental.
The reformation was comprised of Elton Dean, Hugh Hopper, John Marshall and myself. There were no keyboards.
And that was very, very special for Soft Machine to not have keyboards. It gave me a huge amount of freedom, harmonically, to play all sorts of things.
Over the years that we've been reformed, I've developed I would say a much more kind of creative style in the band. Because we're not keyboard based any more, it will sound original, it will sound new.
We do some of the old tunes and they don't sound anything like they did, which is good. That's very important.
If we play the old music, it's because we can bring something of ourselves to it. Otherwise I wouldn't be interested.
I'm not interested in being a tribute band at all. We're not a tribute to ourselves because we're playing 50 percent new music.
It really is a creative enterprise and I'm really proud of it and I enjoy it a lot.
Q – You talked about the band still being creative. Is that why you've stayed with the band for so long?
Yes. I played with French violinist Stéphane Grappelli for a long time.
And that was brilliant. That finished in the early '80s.
For about 20 years, I was running my own groups, being the leader. One of the beautiful things about Soft Machine is that it's a melding of people together.
If you mention to me the guitar players, for instance, that you really enjoyed, they'll be people who somehow connected to something that connects to you when you listen. There are loads of players throughout my life I've enjoyed.
You have to be humble. Anybody who's any good is humble.
Because they know it's a delicate and beautiful thing that's sort of fragile. It's something to be thankful for if things are going well.
Q –What would you like people to get out of your music?
The point of playing music is that you've got to create in the room a kind of circle of energy so that the people in the room are taken on a journey somewhere.
If somebody is listening to music, they want to receive some indication that it's going to take them on a journey.
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