Philly’s Coca Leaves & Pearls plays Neil Young’s music. But they’re not your average tribute band.
‘We’re not even trying to replicate the music. We love it, but we’re not trying to create a museum piece of it.’
Philadelphia guitarists Chris Forsyth and Nick Millevoi are no strangers to Neil Young’s often exploratory live shows. When the veteran rocker and the latest incarnation of his longtime band Crazy Horse play Camden’s Freedom Mortgage Pavilion on Sunday, it will mark Millevoi’s fourth Young concert, Forsyth’s seventh. But it will be their first since the pair started playing Young’s music live in their band Coca Leaves & Pearls (the name is borrowed from the lyrics to “Cortez the Killer”). The band follows Millevoi’s two-year stint in Forsyth’s Solar Motel band and was launched simultaneously with their electronics-tinged trio Basic, with percussionist Mikel Patrick Avery.
Forsyth referred to Coca Leaves & Pearls as “a guided tour of the Ditch,” referring to the “Ditch Trilogy” of dark-hued albums that Young released during the mid-’70s: Time Fades Away, On the Beach, and Tonight’s the Night.
With Forsyth on guitar and vocals, Millevoi on lap steel, Florry drummer Joey Sullivan, and bassist Jordan Burgis of Honey Radar, the lineup echoes the short-lived Stray Gators band that backed Young at the outset of that turbulent period. The guitarists met last week at Forsyth’s Kensington venue/rehearsal space Jerry’s On Front to discuss their Neil obsessions.
There are different Neil Youngs — which do you most connect with?
Chris Forsyth: I’m a big Ditch guy, but I love Buffalo Springfield and some of the ‘80s stuff. There’s so much to love, but my heart is definitely in the ‘70s. Even on the wonky records, where [Young] swings for the fences and misses, there are great songs. I saw him on “The Monsanto Years” tour and went in with my arms crossed, but they totally delivered. When you weren’t listening closely to the lyrics, it just sounded like ripping Crazy Horse songs that happened to be about genetically modified ingredients.
Nick Millevoi: The heaviest, most distorted, loudest stuff is what I go to the most. But last year I bought a cassette tape of Landing on Water and that resonated with me. That was the Neil Young album that most resonated with me for like a month. It’s always shifting.
How did your fascination with Neil begin?
NM: When I was around 12, my guitar teacher said, “You like all this grunge stuff? You should like Neil Young.” The first album I bought was Weld, which is a weird first Neil Young album, but I thought the cover was the best — I still think the cover is the best. It’s the loudest record cover. They literally look like they’re being blown away by those giant amps in the background.
CF: My first memory of Neil Young is my eighth-grade teacher in Bayonne, N.J., Ms. DiMassi, teaching us about slavery and the Civil War, and she brought in Decade and played “Southern Man” to the class.
You’ve both seen him live a number of times. Which ones stand out in your memory?
CF: “The Monsanto Years” tour in Camden in 2015. He played for like three and a half hours — four or five songs acoustic, then Promise of the Real came out and he did a few songs on acoustic with the band, and then he switched to the Gretsch, stepping up the intensity little by little. The last hour and a half was just three monster rippers with [his trademark Gibson Les Paul guitar] Old Black. “The Psychedelic Pill” show in 2012 at the Wells Fargo Center is probably one of the greatest concerts I’ve ever seen in my life. My jaw was hanging open. My wife is a casual fan, and she turned to me at one point like, “This is what he does? I had no idea that he plays noise music for rednecks.”
NM: I was very conservative for a long time about seeing him. I didn’t want to see the “bad tours.” He played solo at the Tower Theater in 2018, with multiple pianos, guitars, a pump organ, and things like that on stage. He only played two songs on electric guitar, but he played “Ohio” and it was everything I’ve ever wanted from Neil.
Where did the idea for Coca Leaves & Pearls come from?
NM: In the first year of the pandemic I burned myself out practicing guitar and decided to buy a lap steel. My goal was to play like [Stray Gators lap steel guitarist] Ben Keith.
CF: When they said that you can be in the same room as somebody as long as they’re not out in the world too much, Nick and I started getting together to play with zero agenda. We started picking songs that we liked; we played Meat Puppets songs, some Dylan, and a number of Neil Young songs. Then I got offered a gig opening for a friend’s Grateful Dead cover band, so we decided to try this. Now it’s just too much fun not to do it.
You both play a lot of improvised and experimental music that connects to various degrees with rock, jazz, and other influences. How did you approach Neil’s music with that in mind?
CF: The guiding principle is that we should be a reverent but not imitative Neil Young band. We’re not dressing up in moccasins and Neil Young paraphernalia. We’re not even trying to replicate the music. We love it, but we’re not trying to create a museum piece of it. We go to some other places and we improvise a lot. But Neil Young is also one of my absolute top guitar influences so it’s inescapable in a way.
NM: It’s nice to have an outlet to finally converse with this music, because Neil is among my three or four deepest influences and I’ve tried to conjure that vibe in various projects.
What are you hoping to see at the show on Sunday?
CF: Neil Young has been playing some of the same songs, practically the same sets, for what seems like forever, but the music keeps changing. “Cortez the Killer” in 1977 doesn’t sound like it sounded in 1987 or 1994 or 2009 or presumably if he does it this time. I hope he does it.
NM: Neil is nothing like a jazz player musically speaking, but he’s similar in that as he gets older he seems to be playing less notes. Neil is a guitar player first and foremost. The way he plays guitar traverses weird paths. Whatever bad songs he’s written, he’s so dialed into his sound vocabulary that when he picks up the guitar he always sounds good. I’ve never heard a Neil Young guitar solo that doesn’t have substance.
CF: His guitar playing is so elemental. It’s beyond technique. It’s not very technical, but it’s super personal. When you use equipment that’s a little older and crankier, weird things can happen, and he’s completely about that. He’s got archaic amplifiers, but he’s pushing them to the point of blowing up, and that creates all these sonic possibilities. Other great guitar players of his age just stopped at a certain point, but Neil Young walked out into the wilderness and he just kept on going. He’s an utterly unfiltered, ruthless performer. That’s a pretty rare thing.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse play Freedom Mortgage Pavilion, 1 Harbor Blvd. in Camden, N.J., at 7:30 p.m. on May 12. Tickets at livenation.com.
Coca Leaves & Pearls play Kung Fu Necktie, 1248 N. Front St., with Lower Wolves on Friday, June 14. Tickets at kungfunecktie.com.