Editor’s note: Christian Detres is a main contributor to RVA Magazine.
The Roll Up is a pretty simple idea, and Christian Detres, the man behind it, explains it best.
“It’s just invite four musicians to the studio, get them fucking stoned, have a nice conversation, give them instruments, hit record, see what happens.”
The pilot for the show brings together heavy hitters James Guile of Teen Mortgage, Robert Granata of Baby Delgado, Dusty Ray Simmons, drummer for Chris Jacobs, and Gideon Kupka of Destructo Disk for a psych/stoner rock jam session.
They played together for a solid hour, but only about 11 minutes of music made it into the episode, and the two songs that made the cut happened to be the last two they played.
“That stands to reason, because the more they got together, the more they jammed, the more they kind of fell into rhythm and knew where likely changes were going to happen, which was really fucking awesome to see.”
A lot of that came from behind the kit.
“Dusty Ray Simmons on the drums, I mean, he is a beast,” Christian said. “I’ve seen him play in funk settings and jazz settings, but to feel him just go full on John Bonham, just full on Led Zeppelin, and just play whatever the fuck he wanted to play, and kind of lead the rest of the band forward.”
I asked what he learned from shooting the pilot.
“Stand back, let it happen. Really, I think the best thing, and shit, I was tired, so I didn’t want to overmanage anything. But the less you manage in this situation, the better. All we had to do was get our camera people to know where their best angles were, be able to find their marks, have their settings for focal lengths and all that kind of shit, so they could just capture whatever was happening.”
And what happens if the whole thing falls apart?
“The story in each episode is the story of making or not making the music,” Christian explained.
If it crashed and burned?
“We just edit it as a comedy,” he replied, laughing.
From a Studio Hang to an Actual Show
Christian is an accomplished producer and writer, both for this magazine and plenty of others over the years. We’ve worked on so many projects together that I’ve honestly lost count.
He brought up one of those projects from back in 2021, when we were at Power Station Studios in New York. Christian was producing Euphoria, a film by director Julian Rosefeldt, and I was there shooting behind-the-scenes photos.
“We had five different drummers, incredible jazz drummers like Yissy García, Peter Erskine. These are like titans of jazz drumming, but they never played together. Like, they played on the same stage, one’s opening up for the other one or whatever. But they never played all together, and they certainly never played together just coming up with shit together, like in the moment. And it was beautiful to see.”
Watching musicians of that caliber figure things out together in real time stuck with him.
When Christian sent the pilot to John Martin, publisher of Creem Magazine, Martin loved it, but asked how the show would keep from sounding the same every episode if it kept bringing in rock musicians. The answer comes straight out of jazz.
“We’re not going to get the same jazz song out of four or five different jazz musicians sitting in with each other,” he said. “Find another group. They’re not going to be just like the last one. It’s typical of jazz for jazz musicians to just pop up on stage and do this. The concept itself is reminiscent of those old days where, like, Miles Davis is playing a show, and then, I’m not saying this ever happened, I don’t know, Paul Bley or somebody would come up and play with him out of the blue. That’s something you do in jazz.”
“So this experiment was kind of treating all the other genres of music as if it were jazz. And so far, I’m having a lot of fun with the concept, but I’m also really surprised at just how well it came together. I was hoping for something good.”
Then, more recently, Christian was writing a series of articles about the Cannabis Cup for this magazine when John Morand, owner of Richmond’s Sound of Music Studios, reached out.
“John Morand, the owner of Sound of Music Studios, hit me up after reading the first few articles and was like, ‘Hey, I want to do one of those. Come and do one of those with me.’ And I was like, ‘Fuck yeah, I will.'”
“What would be more fun is if we invited some other musicians, and we smoked the weed, did all the rating and figuring out what it was like and what it tasted like and all that shit, but then get these people really stoned and put them on the studio floor and just let them play.”
They invited Ian Marburger of Roughsod and Soraya Teschner or as Richmond music fans know her, IONNA, into the studio.
“We were so surprised at the results that we got. We were so surprised that John and I kind of just kept the dialogue going. We watched this happen, and we’re like, ‘This is a show. This is actually a show. People would watch this.'”
And from there, The Roll Up started taking shape.
Christian brought in Alex Bond, a cinematographer he’d worked with previously, to help develop the show. But getting the concept together was one thing. Finding the right musicians was another.
“Casting was an issue. Trying to find people who smoke weed still. You know, competent, really good musicians that still smoke weed. It’s harder than you might think. And then those that want to smoke weed on camera? A little harder than you might think.”
“That was fine, actually, because weeding that out was good for me. I really wanted the show to be as casual and natural, and people having a good time and not being self-conscious about anything.”
For Christian, the point was to capture the feeling of musicians getting together, meeting new people, and having a session in the studio.
Yes, There’s Weed
We should talk about the weed. The show is called The Roll Up, after all. The name is a double entendre, and the logo is literally a joint. At one point during our conversation, as a joke, I asked a question I figured nobody had ever thought to ask him.
“Do you enjoy weed?”
He laughed.
“No one’s ever asked me that.”
We were sitting at Bamboo Cafe, having drinks, which led us into a conversation about how differently society treats alcohol and cannabis.
He described his relationship with it as being similar to someone who enjoys a glass of wine. He’s not necessarily interested in smoking all night. He just likes getting a little high and enjoying himself.
“One of the goals of this was also to destigmatize it as well, because, I mean, look, we’re sitting right here at Bamboo, and we’ve got whiskey. We’re all drinking. How many hundreds of thousands of people die every year from alcohol-related things, whether that’s alcoholism, cirrhosis, or car accidents, whatever the case may be?”
“The social normalization of it is important to, I think, all of us on the crew, but we don’t want to push it. We’re not trying to shove that down anyone’s throat. It’s just, hey, this is what happens when you get loose, get high, and get creative.”
A Different Kind of Music Discovery
“Really, The Roll Up is kind of like a music discovery show, but it has its roots in things like KEXP and Tiny Desk. The difference is, instead of having bands show up and play their latest hits or whatever their big songs are, and maybe do it in a stripped-down live version, we’re trying to gear ourselves to the immediacy of creativity and display what winging it looks like with people you’ve never met before, or at least people you’ve never played with before.”
Richmond has no shortage of talented musicians, but they don’t always get the opportunity to play together. That’s part of what makes The Roll Up fun.
“I think the hook to it is also the moment of meeting each other. Some of these people were strangers. Perfect strangers. That was the point. Now, it doesn’t have to be that they’re perfect strangers, but I would rather it be that they’d never actually played or performed together before.”
“As it moves forward, we’re going to start having bigger names that are going to be on each episode. But I still, on every episode, always want to have, like, a young buck, somebody coming up, somebody extremely talented that’s going to knock their socks off, and give that person an opportunity to play with, be on a track with, one of their heroes or someone that’s influenced them. That’s the aspiration.”
“I’ve had a long career that’s been adjacent to music. I’ve met a lot of people. I know a lot of musicians. I’ve made a lot of music videos. I know a lot of record labels, I know a lot of managers, all that kind of stuff.”
“So this is the opportunity for you to…” I started.
“Calling in favors. You kidding me?”
I also brought up the possibility that something bigger could come out of these sessions. Maybe some of these musicians hit it off and end up forming a band.
The Roll Up Is Also a Band
Funny we should be talking about that, because The Roll Up isn’t just the name of the show. It’s also the name of the band.
Sort of.
“I’m building a Spotify profile under the band The Roll Up. So the concept is that every single episode is those people in the studio acting as the band The Roll Up. Like, that’s the name of the band.”
“A concept within a concept,” I said with a knowing nod.
“It’s a concept within a concept,” Christian laughed.
“We’ll be releasing the tracks on Spotify, Apple Music, and all that kind of stuff. And for anyone wondering about monetization, we have equal deals for every artist that comes in. It’s not like, I would love to just own the music outright, and I do have an ownership stake in it. But everybody that plays gets an equal ownership in the track.”
He continued, “Who knows? Maybe someone comes up with something that’s fucking banging, and it gets really popular, and then all of a sudden there’s money coming in from it. I would feel like a jackass if I didn’t share that.”
“A $4 payoff from Spotify out of 43 million hits,” I joked.
“No, you never know. Listen, money gets made in this industry in some of the most unlikely ways, and I think if there’s any constant to the music industry, it’s surprising itself when you least expect it. Something changes, something just pushes things forward in a certain way.”
You can listen to that HERE.
The Creative Hang
“It’s very rare for me to be able to sit down with anybody and hang out anymore,” I said. “So it gives me…”
“That fly-on-the-wall stuff,” Christian jumped in.
“Yeah,” I said. “And having hung out with you a lot, that could have been a Tuesday night. That’s important because you’re actually selling not only the talent of these people, but kind of who you are as a vibe.”
“I’m excited about it,” he said. “It does feel more like me. It really feels more intimate to the things that I like, how I like to spend my time, or what I think is fun. Really, that’s what it comes down to.”
“And you’re letting everybody in,” I said.
“Of course. Why not? The same way, like you were talking about having late-night parties at my house, sitting on my couch, and there’s like eight people just enjoying each other’s company and fucking talking about stuff. That happens a million other places. People fucking love that. Nobody’s like, ‘Oh my God, my friends came over and I had to talk to them for three hours,’ you know, and laugh and have a good time.”
“I mean, that’s all this is. Just people getting together, laughing, having a good time, and playing some music. Actually playing with instruments.”
“That happens everywhere, all the time,” I said. “But people are not in on it.”
“It’s a window into what is usually a very intimate environment,” Christian said. “The creative…”
“That creative hang,” I said.
Before we wrapped up, I had one final question.
“Well, I can’t play an instrument, but can I come smoke a joint and scat?”
“We’re talking about the music, right?” Christian replied. “Because you can leave your dirty habits at home, my friend.”
Fair enough.
Anyway, watch The Roll Up.
Christian has ten episodes planned for the first season with different musicians and ideas for where the show could go. It’s a fun idea from a good friend and collaborator who’s been part of the Richmond community for a long time. I am stoked to see where it goes.
And if you want to get involved, reach out HERE.
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