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Is this the first time you’ ve performed at the Mohegan Sun Cabaret Theatre?
Kevin: We’ ve been there are a bunch of times. It ' s a really good room. I have good memories playing there, and I ' m sure we ' re gonna have a great time. It ' s a nice part of the world to be in.
Michael, how about you?
Michael: It’ s a nice room, and one of the great benefits of having a busy touring schedule is that the band gets really tight, and you gain more confidence in the fact that you can remember all the words and all the chords and everything you have to do. It sort of liberates you to go to a higher plane. It ' s really fun to play together when we are in the thick of it.
What can we expect from your show this time around? I ' d love to give our readers a taste of what to anticipate.
Kevin: It ' s the two of us, and then we ' ve got a four-piece band behind us, and it ' s original music. As you know, we ' ve been at it for a really long time and have a ton of records.
Thirty years and 12 studio albums, right?
Kevin: Yeah. We have maybe one song in our set that ' s from the first record, but a lot of stuff is from the most recent one. We ' re really a songwriter’ s band. We don ' t do a lot of covers, but we have a pretty wide range of sound— from super quiet, intimate stuff, to more rocking music. Between the six of us, there’ s a lot of instruments on stage. Between Michael ' s playing cello, autoharp, guitar, and ukulele, we have a lot going on.
Michael: I want to add that I play the tambourine on one song.
Kevin: You do play tambourine. We ' ve lost track of how many instruments he plays in the course of a show.
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[ Kevin holds his own on any given performance, too, usually playing the guitar, mandolin, harmonica, percussions, and a whole lot of vocals.]
Is there a favorite type of venue?
Michael: The summer shows where you ' re in a shed or a covered area but still outside are a much more intimate setting. An enclosed venue has its own sonic personality, and that can really make playing kind of difficult, whereas if you ' re outside, it ' s not really bouncing off anything. So, the people who come to see us, if they ' re outside, they ' re a little looser, and it ' s always fun if they get up and dance by the end of our show. It’ s also great when they listen to the more intimate songs and get that part of it. We ' ve played some great venues this summer. Almost every night, it ' s really been a great experience.
Kevin: It ' s funny. If I ' m going to be completely honest with my answer to that question, the best kind of gigs are the ones that have the most people. I’ ve heard people say,“ Well, I really like to be in an intimate space,” but that’ s kind of a luxurious statement to say that intimacy is something that you’ re reaching for. I think the most fun is the place that has the most people.
Michael: In April, we played at the Stagecoach Festival [ in Indio, California ], and I think there were 10,000 people there. Also, we did the Bourbon Festival in Kentucky last year, and again, tons of people. The only trouble with the festival is you have a very short window. Normally, our set is an hour and a half, so it ' s a real different kind of a show. But, as Kevin said, it’ s a lot of fun.
When you ' re playing at the Mohegan Sun on September 13, will it be towards the middle of your tour?
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Michael: No, we’ re sort of always on tour and never on tour.
Kevin: Yeah, it’ s kind of vague. [ Laughs ]
Where are you going tomorrow?
Kevin: Down in Dewey Beach, Delaware, at a bar where we’ ve played many, many times. It ' s got a roof, but it doesn ' t have walls. Dewey Beach is a Northeast beachside party town.
That sounds like fun.
Michael: The set doesn ' t start till 11. For us old guys, that’ s pretty late, but it will be fun. We have our violin player with us [ Brian Fitzgerald ], who makes the set really fun because he jumps around, he makes great faces and plays amazing electric violin.
Who are the other band members you’ re touring with?
Kevin: Paul Guzzone is our bass player. Frank Vilardi is our drummer. Both of them have been with us pretty much since the first record. We have an amazing guitar player named Tim Quick. He ' s from Pennsylvania, but he ' s been living in Nashville for the last few years. A young woman named Mare [ Robinson ], who sings backup vocals, plays keys, and is a really great recent addition to the band. She really builds out the sound.
Michael: One of the things I love about her style is that she kind of stays out, keyboard-wise, at the right moment. So, with the keys, we can get bigger, but we also can be smaller. She has an alto voice, which is really good because I’ m the baritone, Kevin ' s halfway in-between, our bass player is a low tenor, and the other guitar player is a high tenor. Mare kind of solidifies the blend.
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What is it about playing live that thrills you?
Michael: One of the differences in terms of my brother and I is that my brother tends to be a very, very natural performer. For me, it ' s something I had to learn how to do. The fact that I am doing it puts a challenge on me that I like to meet. There’ s a lot of technical guitar stuff that I have to do, and cello, and a bunch of other instruments, and if I ' m able to do those successfully, I feel a lot of pride in my musicianship. But I ' m not really eating up the limelight. The reason I ' m there is to sort of stay in my lane as a musician.
Kevin, how about you?
Kevin: I’ m the opposite. I just stand there and wait for adulation. [ Laughs ] No, really, I agree that it is a challenge to get through a show, to remember all the lyrics, to remember the changes, to play our songs— they’ re not simple songs. They may not sound like jazz, but they ' re not like all three-chord tunes. They’ re pretty complex. They have a lot of lyrics. I started out as a stage actor, and the thing that ' s so great about doing live theater or playing live in front of people is that it ' s never the same. That’ s one special experience that you ' re sharing with that group of people, just for that night. There ' s a lot that comes with that, including a responsibility to deliver. You can be in a bad mood or have the flu, or whatever it is, but you gotta deliver for that audience. That ' s the night that they came. That ' s the night they bought a ticket. There ' s been plenty of Wednesday matinees of a show that just got trashed by The New York Times. I ' m talking about the theater side of things. I’ ve gone,
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Fall 2025 BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE // 9 |