"Music to fill your Soul that keeps your Soles moving!"
The funk in the world is alive and well. It has passed on from George Clinton and James Brown to bands like Fort Knox Five. The D.C. band is not only composed of musicians, in the classical sense, but also DJs, in the classical sense. As a result, they create an eclectic brand of Funk laced with electro stylings that fits almost any dance floor. Their timeless groove and chemistry might be due to the fact that you can play six degrees of separation with its members and all of the key players of D.C's vibrant indie scene. Once they finally combined forces to start "making funky tunes and rocking dance floors worldwide," the citizens of earth were in for a fantastic ride...Buckle up!
FK5 (Fort Knox Five) started out as a four man group: Steve Raskin, Jon Horvath, Rob Myers, and Sid Barcelona. They picked Fort Knox Five for a name since their studio was called Fort Knox and the number five had been prominently featured in many music groups over the number four (Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Jurassic 5, Jackson 5, MC5). Growing up, they came from diverse musical backgrounds. JonH was caught up in classic Hip-Hop and 80s Reggae. Rob was the Metalhead who would "convert his knowledge of Iron Maiden guitar solos into a Wes Montgomery fascination." Steve and Sid were into art school Punk (The Cure, The Style Council) and then moved onto chopping up samples once club music hit in the 90s.
They each found their way into various bands that would eventually link them to each other. Steve and Rob played together in high school bands and then formed Alternative-Punk-Funk band Citizen Atom with Sid at college. Then Steve joined Edsel and Raskal while Rob picked up the sitar and joined International Velvet as well as the legendary trip-hop group Thievery Corporation ("That's him on 'Lebanese Blonde.'"). While Steve worked on an album with Edsel in the UK, he caught the "Dance Music bug" at the Cream nightclub and decided to start Thunderball with Sid, focusing on Drum and Bass. Rob eventually came on board. As Thunderball started to evolve into more dance friendly funk, they realized a new chapter had begun and JonH, who had worked with DJ Dan and Raskal in the past, was the perfect missing piece. After a winding maze of experimentation and collaboration, Fort Knox Five was born.
While there was no first official meeting to decide on the sound of FK5, since they had all become familiar with each other to a certain extent, they did have a mutual agreement that they could create something special by focusing on this one project. The first song was repurposed from Thunderball and they were off ("The Brazilian Hipster"). When they brought JonH in as a DJ, they found it more challenging to play with an "unwavering beat" as opposed to integrating turntables into a live band. JonH's experience on tour with Gwen Stefani and the Black Eyed Peas not only gave him experience on big stages across the country but also confidence in the new sound he was developing with FK5:
"Gwen and her crew encouraged Jon to play the eclectic style Fort Knox Five has become synonymous with, incorporating funky music from all genres and generations which the crowd loved."
As genres become less and less important for music consumers, FK5 lives in a world of their own where genres are more colors on a palette to be mixed with each other:
"At the root of it all is Funk! It’s about the blending of genres and styles of Electronic music, incorporating Hip-Hop, Reggae, Soul, Breaks with a little bit of everything in between."
It's this free thinking mentality that allowed them to work with a music pioneer like Afrika Bambaataa.
"Our friend had a record store in D.C. called DJ Hut and he called us up one day saying that Bambaataa was down there and we should come down. So Jon went down there and gave him a bunch of our tunes. Within an hour he had listened to the songs we had given him and on the spot asked us to produce tracks for his album Dark Matter Moving at the Speed of Light."
As a production force, they have somewhat defined roles. The group picks from the many sketches of basslines and drums that Steve is constantly coming up with. Then Rob adds guitars and all sorts of live instruments. Then the rest of the group fills in the blanks with synths and samples. The experimentation continues as they try on various tempos and styles. They keep the focus on the music first, which is largely composed of live instrumentation:
"It's important for us that the songs hold up as instrumentals. Having said that, once the track has shape we then look for a good collaborator that will compliment the song and become the fifth element of Fort Knox Five."
Tragically this past year the group lost founding member JonH (Rest In Phunk). The impact was huge but the group knows that Jon would want them to keep it rolling and in his absence Steve, alongside friend and collaborator, Jason "Qdup" Brown will be filling those gigantic shoes left behind the decks.
We see FK5 as a most admirable group of artists, not just for their forward thinking music, but also because of what they represent. While they're not a political group, they do have a message in their music: do the right thing and treat each other the right way. They hosted the Funk 4 Peace Ball in 2009 to celebrate MLK Jr. Day as well as President Barack Obama's second inauguration. The video of "Funk 4 Peace" has strong imagery regarding the state of the global affairs, something that's currently on everybody's mind. If only more artists used their influence to push for a better world instead of asking what we think of their newest selfie...
Their last album, Pressurize The Cabin, is now undergoing the remix treatment and will feature a who’s who of modern funky Electronica. When we asked them about goals that they'd still like to achieve, they simply replied, "The goal is still the same: make something unmistakably amazing."
We wish you the best of luck is this endeavor, and are excited to boogie down as a result.
Last Call
1. What is your favorite movie of all time?Since this is a music site, The Big Lebowski and Monty Python’s The Life of Brian are gonna have to take a back seat while Spinal Tap takes the wheel.
2. As a young DJ, who was the one DJ you looked up to?DJ Dan, Simply Jeff, Scott Henry, Charles Feelgood
3. As a DJ, what's your biggest pet peeve?Ridiculous and inappropriate requests.
4. What is your current set up at home?DJ set up includes 2 Technic turntables, two Pioneer CDJ’s, Serato SL4, and a Rane Empath Mixer. Our production set up at the studio is rather simple. We use multiple DAW’s. Everything is finalized in Pro Tools but we tend to sketch and experiment with Ableton Live and Logic. The superstar hardware of our production is the UAD Apollo and the amazing UAD software emulations of classic hardware like the LA-2A and every other high end studio gear that we could never afford! And we can’t live without our Genelec Monitors and Sub Bass which we have been mixing on for over 10 years!
5. What's your favorite record of all time?Impossible to name just one… Hunky Dory, Dark Side of the Moon, Revolver, Rumors, etc.
Keep up with Fort Knox Five on their Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, and Twitter.
Bryan Hahn can't stop grooving to this music. He's on Twitter: @notupstate.