We Are Upstate With Hudson Valley Keyboard Kingpin Marco Benevento

When it comes to creativity and bold experimentation, few can match the imagination and the recorded legacy laid down by keyboard wizard Marco Benevento.

The New Jersey native arrived here in 2011 after establishing himself as a real force on the NYC experimental jazz, psychedelia and jam band scene via his long-running duo with drummer Joe Russo and Russo’s Almost Dead ensemble. By the time he moved to the Hudson Valley, Marco had already established his unique style and virtuoso cred with a handful of critically acclaimed solo albums. These early collections and his work supporting artists like the Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh, Phish’s Trey Anastasio and Mike Gordon, Tortoise’s John McEntire and drummer heavyweight Matt Chamberlain are distinguished by his mastery of a massive battery of keyboards and his use of children’s toys like the popular Speak & Spell that are “circuit bent” to generate unique and often otherworldly sounds.

But Benevento is not only an instrumental master. He is a recording studio owner/engineer and co-founder of the Royal Potato Family record label. Named after a joke told to a musical collaborator by none other than Bob Dylan, Royal Potato releases not only Benevento’s solo work and reissues but also new releases by buzzworthy artists like Superhuman Happiness and Duane Betts. Marco is also a tireless concert curator and promoter who has partnered with Impact Concerts to bring the latest edition of his annual Follow The Arrow Festival to Arrowood Farms on June 29th.

Read on to find out more about his fascinating musical ventures and his everyday life as a husband and father of two, raising a family amongst the Catskill’s natural beauty and its growing community of creators.

INSIDE+OUT Upstate NY: When and why did you move to the Hudson Valley?

Marco Benevento: I’m a big collector of keyboards and audio equipment, a real hoarder of gear. With that alone, we were fast outgrowing our apartment in Brooklyn. I really fell in love with the Hudson Valley when I would come up to play Mountain Jam every summer. I also always knew we weren’t going to raise a family in the city. When our two kids came along, we knew it was time to make a move. We spent three long years looking for a place everywhere, from Beacon to Hudson. When we found this house, it was a eureka moment. It had a pond, plenty of outbuildings for studio space and land for animals. We arrived here in 2011 and have been delighted with both our home and the great community of like-minded creatives we’ve found here.

Like many musicians, you started very young, at age seven. Who were the artists that inspired you to begin playing music and the ones that helped you develop your unique style? And how did you end up veering towards the experimental vein of rock and jazz?

When I was young, I studied piano but was really more drawn to the synthesizer. I got a Korg Polysix, a four-track recorder and a drum machine and I was off in my room recording for hours on end. My parents were very supportive. They helped me expand my palate and equipment by helping me purchase a variety of effects pedals and the like. I would just dim the lights in my room, fire up the lava lamp and improvise. I was in the jazz band in high school and started playing rock classics like The Doors at parties in my teens. As for keyboard inspiration, a friend played a VHS tape of Rick Wakeman doing some crazy solo in his cape with Yes and that certainly made an impression. In 7th grade, I met Joe Russo, who turned me on to Rush. I was also inspired by all the classic rock organ players too – Gregg Allman, Santana etc. – the stuff I would hear on the radio.

You really cut your teeth in the NYC experimental scene and in your 20+ year collaboration with Joe Russo. How did this partnership begin and how do you keep it fresh and progressive?

As I said, I met Joe in the 7th grade but we didn’t start to play together until after I got out of the Berklee College of Music. We got a gig at The Knitting Factory that paid $100, so we decided to do it as a duo just to make more money! We played there together every Wednesday night for a year, with Joe on the drums and me on my Hammond Organ, Leslie speaker and effects. One day, we noticed people taping us, just like the Grateful Dead; then, other notables started showing up to sit in. To grow our audience, we took to the road, playing our way across to California. Eventually, we recorded four albums together: two live and two studio records. We’ve just re-released them on my Royal Potato Family record label.

You’re well known for your experimentation, including building circuit-bent toys and using a plethora of effects on your many keyboards. How did this come about, and how is new technology being integrated into your music? And what are some of the weirdest modifications you’ve made to your instruments?

As we didn’t yet have girlfriends or a future, Joe and I stayed on the road for three years, where we did 300+ shows per annum. In Chicago, a guy named Tom Stephenson showed up with a bunch of circuit-bent toys – these are toys that you rewire to make all sorts of weird and fantastic 8-bit sounds. They have ¼ outputs so you can plug them into amps and create all sorts of crazy effects like delays, distortions, octavers and the like. I especially loved his tricked-out Speak & Spell, as I had one growing up. Tom even music-fied a Staples “Easy” Button. In time, we collaborated on designs and I even built a pedal board that was all circuit-bent toys. A lot of these sounds are featured on my early solo albums, Invisible Baby and Me Not Me.

In your career, you’ve collaborated with some heavyweight players, from Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead and John McEntire of Tortoise to Billy Martin and Trey Anastasio of Phish. What is the secret to a great collaboration?

It’s really exciting to meet someone new who you really admire and then find yourself in the room or on a stage with them working together. You get an imprint from your collaborator, another little level of inspiration. It puts you in another realm and inspires you to do new things. These are the moments that really reroute your life as a musician.

Much of your creativity takes place at your home studio, Fred Short, where you record and engineer not only your own work but projects for other artists. In an area pretty much overrun with recording studios, what is unique about yours and the approach you take to recording and producing other artists?

My studio is pretty much a keyboard museum – with a Steinway piano, Hammond Organ, Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer and all manner of synths and effects. It’s something a musician friend calls “Inspiration Station.” I do a lot of overdubs on other artists’ work from here and also remotely. I just moved to a bigger building on my property, which has a great drum set, guitar and bass amp, a larger mixing board and an old analog 8-track machine from the ‘80s. It’s a big, fun room where I am now working to record full bands.

In 2009, you launched your own record label, Royal Potato Family. What have been some of your favorite projects, and what are the challenges of running a label in the fast-changing music business?

Kevin Calabro and I started this label about 16 years ago. The name came from a joke told to my friend and ofttimes collaborator, drummer Matt Chamberlain, by Bob Dylan himself. It’s really a passion project designed to get great music out there. We’ve done wonderful albums with Superhuman Happiness, Rubblebucket, Duane Betts and Lucas Nelson, to name a few. As I tour so much, Kevin is really the guy in charge these days – dealing with the ups and downs of running a label in today’s challenging environment.

Although you have traveled all around the world performing, you are often playing right here in the Hudson Valley. What are some of your favorite venues to perform and to see other musicians?

Hands down, it’s Catskill Pines in Mt. Tremper, one of my favorite places to play, eat and watch others perform. Owner Jeremy Bernstein has done a great job recently upgrading the music room. And every Wednesday, there’s guitarist Danny Blume’s Catskill Harmony Guild playing. I also hear Peter Shapiro, formerly of Wetlands, is going to be handling booking at he Bearsville Theater, so I look forward to seeing how that will grow. I also like Tubby’s in Kingston and really miss the late, great BSP in Kingston. And, of course, Levon Helm’s place where I recorded my 2023 release, Barn Burner: Live at Levon’s.

Your Follow the Arrow Festival at Arrowood Farm has been one of the true must-see events of the summer for the last few years. On June 29th, you are returning with a new addition. Tell us what we can expect.

I’m really psyched for this year as I’m really going out on a limb. We have the legendary Brazilian band Os Mutantes, the pioneers of Tropicalia. I toured with them recently and found they had the date open on their touring schedule. I’m also psyched about WITCH, a great Zambian rock band and Ghost Funk Orchestra. I discovered the latter through DJ Danger Mouse’s Spotify Jukebox. I’m also psyched to be doing a duet with Mike Gordon, the bassist of Phish. It will be our first duet performance in 17 years since we did a wild set of Benny Goodman covers at NYC’s Tonic.

The Hudson Valley is home to many musicians, both world-famous and young up-and-comers. Who are some of the younger musicians here that you think people should check out?

Well, I’m going to give you really young musicians. First off is Story Littleton. She’s the daughter of professional musicians, Elizabeth Mitchell and Grammy nominee Dan Littleton. I’ve watched her grow up and am amazed at what she is doing with her band, Monogamy. Then there’s Lavon “Lee” Collins, the drummer/singer son of Amy Helm and Jay Collins. I guess he got something from Grandpa Levon! And frankly, I’m blown away by the ensemble at the Woodstock Day School. Owen Komel is a wonderful young guitarist and my daughter Ruby is a pretty great singer, too. She never let us know what she was doing. We have to go to school performances to see how well she is progressing.

What three albums have most inspired you and why?

One that really resonates is Brad Mehldau’s Largo. It’s a real cross between jazz and rock without being fusion. He takes an experimental approach to sound by putting putty on the piano strings, running it through a distortion box and covering tunes like Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android.” At 16, I was hit very hard by The Meters’ Look-Ka-Py-Py. It’s groovy, funky and very cool; deceptively simple and made by all the interlocking parts. Drummer Zigaboo Modeliste blew me away and still does. It’s the album that got me into playing the organ and New Orleans-style funk. Then, in college, it was Miles Davis’ In A Silent Way. The cross between jazz and experimental music with a bit of rock. And, of course, there’s all the great keyboard work of Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul and John McLaughlin’s guitar.

If you could have dinner and a jam session with three other musicians, alive or dead, who would you choose?

My Fed Ex man got to know David Bowie when he lived up here. One day, he called me up and asked if I wanted to meet him at HITS (the horse show in Saugerties) and have lunch with him! I was on tour and said I couldn’t do it—something I still kick myself for. I would also have to add John Lennon and Prince to my dinner/jam sessions, two artists who continue to inspire me.

Here’s the guilty pleasure question… What music, aside from your brand of psychedelia and experimental jazz, would we be most surprised to know that you listen to and love?

Harry Styles. I got into him through my kids. I had a connection and took the whole family to see him at Madison Square Garden and was blown away by his performance and his band, the great female drummer and bassist. Funnily enough, Trey Anastasio of Phish was there too, two rows in front of us with his family.

What are you working on now that you’re most excited about? And is there anything left that you feel you really haven’t done as a musician?

I’m working on an instrumental album that is a tribute to Italian library music and soundtracks from films of the ’60s—’80s by artists like I MARC 4. I listen to the music and then try to write something in that spirit. I have 16 or 17 pieces from which I am going to cull this album.

What is it about the Hudson Valley that makes it unique to live + work here?

I love being surrounded by nature and the mountains.

What impact do you, as an artist, have on your community?

I like to be proactive in helping to get the “bad people” out – the fracking and the overdevelopment. I love playing benefits to help organizations to fight these folks.

What local businesses do you rely on to be successful in your career and just in enjoying life?

I love The Pines, being able to experiment there before an intimate and in-tune audience.

What is missing in the area that you wish we had?

A store where my wife and I can buy things in bulk!

What would be your dream assignment/gig?

To reach global stardom from my little studio on Fred Short Road.

Who or what inspires you personally?

My kids.

Tell us something about yourself that people might be surprised to know.

I have six peacocks for no reason.

What is your favorite non-musical activity?

Tennis and cooking.

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Follow/Connect Marco Benevento via Website | Facebook | Instagram

Contributing writer Sal Cataldi is a musician, writer and former publicist living in Saugerties NY.
Featured photo by Rachel Brennecke @lebonjane | Courtesy of Marco Benevento
Barn Burner album cover by Em Walis
Photos by Emma Delisio @edelishh | Jay Strausser Visuals @jstrausser.visuals | Rachel Brennecke @lebonjane | Sam Watson @samwatson.co

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