The Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — Rusted Root lead singer Michael Glabicki sets the bar high for audience reaction to his band’s free concert in Steamboat Springs:

“I think they’ll experience one of the best musical experiences that they’ve ever experienced,” he said in a phone interview from Rusted Root’s native Pittsburgh.

Going into its 18th year and with three of six original band members, Rusted Root goes into the studio this month for the first time in more than five years. At the band’s Thursday performance for the Bud Light Rocks the ‘Boat series, Rusted Root will perform 14 new songs that should be out on record in the summer.

Best known for combining Afro-beat and South American rhythms with a jammed-out format — a blend that ignites misguided dancing worldwide — Rusted Root is, at its core, an acoustic folk group with some international and soul influences.

It’s a hard description to nail down, especially for Glabicki. He spoke with 4 Points about how Rusted Root’s music has evolved over the years.

4 POINTS: What does Rusted Root sound like, in a very short sentence?

MICHAEL GLABICKI: I would call it acoustic soul music with aggressive dance rhythms.

4 POINTS: What makes dance rhythms aggressive?

MG: I just made that up.

4 POINTS: OK, well what do you mean by “acoustic soul”?

MG: That people feel a soulfulness in the music and they’re able to find themselves in it and bring whatever they want to bring to it.

4 POINTS: In the almost 20 years Rusted Root has been around, do you feel that basic sound has changed at all?

MG: I think we’ve definitely branched off into many different doorways of music. You know, we’ve really just brought in different rock avenues and different songwriting forums, just allowing it to be as introspective as it is and community-oriented.

4 POINTS: What are you trying to get across when you write a Rusted Root song?

MG: I normally don’t try to get anything across. I just try to let it be real and be honest.

Any time I try to go for something, I always end up screwing it up.

Really, songwriting is a path — it’s a process for me. So yeah, when I end up writing, it ends up sort of coming out of life as opposed to me sitting down to write about life.

4 POINTS: So you’d rather let it come to you than try to force it?

MG: I kind of liken it to dreams a lot of the time, how dreams can be prophetic.

Sometimes, you know when a song comes it’s like you just had a dream and you don’t really know what that dream was about. And sometimes you do know exactly what they’re about. But it’s kind of that sort of process.