Kyle Hollingsworth, best known as the keyboardist for the legendary jam band String Cheese Incident, brings his solo project, Kyle Hollingsworth Band, to the Charleston Pour House this Thursday, April 3rd, with support from Sam Fribush Organ Trio.
The musician is also a avid brewer, and loves finding ways to connect the dots between the two. When we spoke, he was midway through the annual Brewski Tour, which took him through the mountains of Colorado to combine his passions.
“There are points in my life I can drink a lager, for sure,” he says. “But for the most part, I am just a craft beer guy.”
Now, just over a month before String Cheese Incident embarks on their summer tour, Kyle makes a Southeast weekend run with new music in tow. His new album, All We Are, is planned for release this fall.
“Carnival,” the latest single, is a funky number from this record, and is inspired by the collaborativ chaos of the “six-headed beast” that is the String Cheese Incident.
“When you play with String Cheese, everybody has the right to say anything they want, which
is great,” Kyle explains. “But a lot of times you say, Well, that’s not exactly how I envision my song going, but at that point it’s already part of the creative process with the band, so you have to let it go.”
With the solo project, Kyle has the final say, and the songs come mostly from his own artistic vision.
“It’s certainly collaborative in the sense that I work with my band to get the grooves and everything,” he continues. “But a lot of times the final say comes to me, which is in some ways refreshing, and in some ways frustrating, because I wish someone would be like, No, this sucks.“
Still, improvisation reigns supreme, and the Kyle Hollingsworth Band certainly brings that.
“Very similar in the sense that I push my musicians to improvise as much as possible,” Kyle explains. “You definitely play the songs, but just like String Cheese, the song will go into another
song or there’s a big jam in the middle that we’re creating every night differently.”
As an audience member, seeing an improvisational band is to be part of the experience. The band feeds off the crowd energy and the show becomes a conversation between the band and the audience.
“You hit it on the head there,” Kyle says. “It’s definitely a cooperative or interactive experience. We played Atlanta like last weekend and we walked on stage and the energy was insane. People were ready to go. We were like, Okay, this is very different.”
Kyle explains how the crowd energy makes the show better, because the musicians feel more confident.
“It makes you feel like you can take more risk and with more reward without feeling like if you make a mistake, people are going to be upset with you,” Kyle says. “It’s very important to have the energy in the crowd.”
Kyle has been in the game for a long time, with String Cheese Incident celebrating their 30th anniversary in 2024. He explains how the biggest difference in his approach today is the level of confidence he brings to the stage.
“I went to school for improvisation, jazz, piano,” he says. “So I was ready to improvise, but even in jazz there’s a bit of a form. When I left college, I was stuck in a form and getting on the road with String Cheese opened me up and actually became the second part of my education.”
The first education was learning how to play the instrument, and the second one was doing it on the road in front of thousands of people.
“Just being ready to rock whenever you can and getting into space,” he says. “When I went out to play in college, I was like, Oh God, what are people thinking? At some point, I was like, Let it all go, bro. And just play.”
String Cheese has gone from playing small clubs, to larger venues, and of course, headlining events like Electric Forest and Hulaween. Kyle says that their approach to the stage is mostly the same regardless of the environment – just show up ready to play and see what comes out.
Hulaween specifically featured a very special set in 2024, when String Cheese teamed up with Bobby Weir of the Grateful Dead for the Bobby Weir Incident. The set took place just two days after the death of Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh.
“Bobby was supposed to meet us literally the day after Phil Lesh passed,” Kyle recalls.
They wondered whether the show would go on. But Bobby was ready to go.
“He called us and said, What are you talking about? This is exactly the best way to celebrate Phil’s life, is to play music. Let’s all get together and play music.“
They played a full set of Grateful Dead songs, and closed with Phil Lesh’s “Box of Rain.”
“And it was just magical. We had the whole audience singing with us, and everybody got teary,” he says. “It was definitely one of those moments, and it was a blessing to have that experience with
Bobby on stage.”
Watch the Bobby Weir Incident performance of “Box of Rain” at Hulaween 2024 below.