Dynamic Duo

Posted by Serafima Fedorova in Music

Zickey and the Kondor is a new bluegrass duo with Sam Armstrong-Zickefoose on banjo, and Konor Hunter-Crump on fiddle. Photo by Jessie Leigh

Jackalope Magazine recently interviewed contemporary music majors Sam Armstrong-Zickefoose and Konor Hunter-Crump about their new band, Zickey and the Kondor. The two juniors play progressive folk with some world music and rock influences. Armstrong-Zickefoose plays the banjo, guitar and upright bass, while Hunter-Crump plays the fiddle and the mandolin.

Jackalope Magazine: So I know that both of you were interviewed before as members of the band Laser Cats. Is this a part of that, or is it something entirely different?

Sam Armstrong-Zickefoose: It’s completely different.

Konor Hunter-Crump: Yeah it’s not diet Laser Cats.

SAZ: They’re more of a gypsy-jazz oriented band. What we play is like bluegrass had some sort of accident and suddenly got more complex. This project is more personal. I love Laser Cats and everyone in there, but it’s not the kind of music I see myself playing in the future. This feels like I’m saying something. Most of my compositions come out in this style anyways.

KHC: This is a more accurate representation of our personalities.

SAZ: We’re old time music: We’re both based in roots…

KHC: Steeped in traditions.

JM: What’s the ideal audience then?

KHC: Everybody. Our kind of music is obscure and not what everyone listens to.

SAZ: There’s kind of a bad connotation with bluegrass that it’s this hillbilly sort of music.

KHC: People assume that modern bluegrass will sound like modern country, which has this horrible stereotype of beer and trucks.

SAZ: There’s some country I like, but it isn’t similar to what we do at all.

KHC: Well  it is like old country. Those two sound the same. I think we want to prove or demonstrate the value of old music.

SAZ: But also take it in different directions.

KHC: We like to apply new aesthetics to old time music and vice versa. We mix and match.

SAZ: It’s also nice to finally have a bluegrass-oriented project here. I feel like the genre gets overlooked pretty often.

Konor Hunter-Crump just fiddlin’ around. Photo by Jessie Leigh

JM: Where does the name Zickey and the Kondor come from?

SAZ: Our former chair Steven Paxton—all hail—gave us both those nicknames in class.

JM: If you could work with any musician in the world, who would it be?

KHC: Chris Thile. He’s like my hero of mandolin playing. He’s considered to be the best in the world. He’s innovative and can play any style. He’s just inspiring.

SAZ: For me it would be Bela Fleck. He changed so much about what the banjo and mandolin can do.

JM: How did you two meet?

SAZ: I think it was Americana ensemble.

KHC: Well, then we met through Laser Cats. You needed a fiddle player.

SAZ: I was so nervous.

KHC: You were nervous? I was nervous!

SAZ: You were so good I thought you wouldn’t want to play with us.

JM: What’s it like working together?

KHC: Well I haven’t written any lyrics I like yet, but as far as tunes, I just scramble to a recording device. They mostly happen at three in the morning at the most inopportune time.

SAZ:  I operate differently. Something pops into my head and I steep with it and I keep having little ideas and keep reflecting on them, which is really inefficient. Musically we’re very similar. We have minor disagreements…

KHC: We both like fiddle tunes, and we both like their sound. We usually end up deciding on the same thing. Sam is better at chordal things.

SAZ: I never have to tell Konor what do. It’s usually just like suggestions for which note to try. My tunes tend to be a little safe. I don’t get too adventurous and Konor helps me explore. Konor on the other hand is sometimes a bit…

KHC: Too adventurous.

SAZ: Which wouldn’t be a problem in a big band.

KHC: Yeah, then it doesn’t sound so empty when you’re doing these different parts.

Sam Armstrong-Zickefoose jamming on the banjo. Photo by Jessie Leigh

JM: So right now Zickey and the Kondor is a duet right? Do you think you’ll expand or get new members?

SAZ: That’s a good question.

KHC: Duet stuff is really fun, but it’s hard to get some of the sounds we want.

SAZ: It gets lonely.

KHC: I would like to have a bass player sometime.

JM: Do you guy think you’ll stay in the same bands after you graduate?

SAZ: I want to say yes, but I don’t know where I want to live. Getting four or five people to move to the same part of the country is kind of difficult.

KHC: I think me and Sam will stay connected though.

SAZ: We’re kind of like a package deal.