Garrett Morris, drummer for Southern California cosmic quartet The Higgs, didn’t choose to cover Pink Floyd’s “Echoes”…it chose him.
Buoyed by the success of his drum cover of Trey Anastasio Band’s “Drifting”eaturing TAB drummer Russ Lawton, Morris is back with another ambitious project: a drum cover of the Pink Floyd epic “Echoes.” And the intrepid percussionist enlisted an all-star crew consisting of Josh Schwartz (Turkuaz), A.J. Hill (Spam Allstars/special guest Vida Blue) and Southern California guitarist Anthony Cullins to help him reimagine the Meddle masterpiece.
“Drifting” saw Morris engaging with his fans like never before. After releasing the video, the drummer was inundated with calls, messages and texts from fans with suggestions for the next project. And so Garrett turned to that age-old process, Democracy, and decided to put it to a vote. But that level of engagement presented a problem, albeit a good one to have: which songs to choose?
Check out his video of “Drifiting” too:
“I thought, ‘how could we streamline the process,’” Morris recalled. “There’s a huge universe of songs out there and I didn’t want a 50-way tie. My last cover was TAB’s ‘Drifting’ and before that Phish’s ‘Sigma Oasis.’ I wanted to incorporate my core audience — which is Phish, Grateful Dead, jammy people — but without necessarily doing another Phish or TAB song. I wanted to do something different. I though costume albums was a great idea. So I started looking at Phish costume records.”
But ironically, the song that was ultimately voted in didn’t have horns at all. “So for the vote, we decided to go with three albums, two songs from each album,” Morris explained. “Phish did Dark Side Of The Moon. But I think it’s been a little over done; I wanted to throw a curveball. Everywhere I looked Meddle kept coming up over and over again. There was like a gravitational pull toward Meddle. I was listening to ‘Echoes’ a bunch at that time, and so I chose ‘Echoes’ and “Fearless” from the album. But having A.J. and Josh on the project, we also wanted Phish costume albums with killer horn sections in the mix like Quadrophenia and Exile on Main St.”
Of course, “Echoes” would ultimately win out. But seeing as it’s a 20-plus-minute song, Morris decided to split it up into two videos (stay tuned for Part II). Morris also found a version of the song without drums, which gave him the chance to reimagine but also pay homage to Nick Mason’s original drum part.
“I did a search for ‘Echoes’ without drums and this video popped up on YouTube,” Morris revealed. “Someone, somehow, removed the drums from it. The other cool thing is I also found a video of just the drums. So I got to listen to just the drum parts and analyze that. I kinda tried to have the same feel as Nick does but I also wanted to include some of my own flair, my own approach to it as well. So it was a little bit of both. But I didn’t want to lose the feel or style that was already in the song.”
The fact there are no horns in the original also gave Hill and Schwartz a blank canvas on which to paint. “This was a unique opportunity and challenge where it was a blank slate in terms of no horns,” Schwartz shared. “Also a very iconic band, I tried to imagine horns that are kinda trippy and often times spacey. But parts of it are also funky. It was fun putting that together with A.J. He put down some awesome parts.
“It just came organically, just listening, “A.J. added. “I had a couple different versions and something would just pop into my head and I’d go through the whole song and by the time I got there, it would morph into something else. Finally, I got the one part after a couple takes, the part I ended up sticking with. I think it’s pretty appropriate, it gives space but also makes a statement and leaves room for the guitar to play over on top.”
That’s where Southern California guitar ace Anthony Cullins comes in. He had the task of playing alongside David Gilmour on the track. But the NAMM mainstay was prepared. “First I thought about what gear I was gonna use for it,” he said. “I listened to the song that we did but also other Gilmour stuff. I listened to his approach musically, what notes he likes to play around a lot. So I played some of the signature licks and riffs if you will and the rest of it is David Gilmour-esque stuff. So I’m not necessarily trying to copy him note for note but thinking ‘how would he have approached it if he did an alternate take.’”
After all the parts were in place — with audio/visual help once again from Goose’s Peter Anspach — the result was a gorgeous new take on a Pink Floyd classic. But the most beautiful aspect of the project was that it truly was a collaborative effort and as Garrett says “It had to to be ‘Echoes,’” because as the song goes:
Strangers passing in the street
By chance, two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me
Stay tuned for “Echoes” Part II from Garrett Morris and company set to premiere on Halloween.
