Ekoostik Hookah at Newport

Popular Columbus jam band coming back to town this weekend

By John Benson

Posted March 10, 2009

Special to Metromix

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(Credit: Christian James)

For nearly two decades, Ekoostik Hookah has been cherished as Ohio’s jam band thanks to its unique blend of roots rock-meets-bar rock musical stylings. Known in part for the popular annual Hookahville festival, which at times has drawn more than 15,000 fans and has included the likes of Willie Nelson, Ratdog featuring Bob Weir, David Crosby, Medeski Martin & Wood, Umphrey’s McGee and dozens of others, the Columbus-based outfit returns home for several shows a year.  

Ekoostik Hookah's next gig in C-bus will be March 14 at Newport Music Hall. Tickets are $20. After the Columbus show, the band will take off for three concerts in Jamaica.

Metromix talked with guitarist-vocalist John Mullins—who helped form the band in the early '90s, left it a few years later and rejoined the outfit earlier this decade—about the group’s live shows, its jam-band label and when the next Hookah CD will be released.

Considering 2007’s “Under Full Sail: It All Comes Together” was the last studio effort, what’s the band’s current set list looking like?
Basically, the last release is a double disc—one is live and one is in the studio—where we recaptured some of the songs from our first album plus some newer stuff as well. So right now our set is all over the place. There is nothing that’s off limits. On a given night sometimes I’ll play more acoustic guitar than electric, or vice versa, and there’s usually like a tone for the evening. We kind of let it flow based on what the audience is receiving well. We don’t have set lists because we never stick to it.

Over the years hookah has earned the label of Ohio’s jam band. What are the pros and cons that come with such a title?
Yeah, it’s something that I don’t know how we ever got to that point. But somehow we did, and it’s definitely cool. We do get some good recognition outside the state too, and we’re always trying to work on that, build that fan base up. But the people here are really good to us, and we have a really loyal crowd that’s really enthusiastic.

So how do you wrap your mindgrapes around the idea that Hookah’s success is basically centered in Ohio?
I think it’s not a drawback being Ohio’s jam band, although I don’t know if we’d agree with the jam band moniker so much. I consider us just basically a rock ’n’ roll band that has extended jams. Our drummer Eric once said that the jam band label really more describes the crowd than the band. And I think that’s accurate. As far as the national picture goes, we did get kudos from like Jambands.com with these polls that come out. We’re usually pretty high in those polls. And we’re trying to expand that by going to Colorado, California, the East Coast and of course we have the Jamaica trip coming up in March. Everybody is pretty excited about that.

Finally, something fans want to be excited about is the idea of a new Hookah CD. Are there any plans to release anything next year?
If I had my way we’d be in the studio all of the time, but not everybody in the band feels the same way about being in the studio. I really enjoy it, some members find it kind of tedious, and it does get tedious and boring. But I don’t mind that so much. There is always mixed ideas of how certain production values should go. It’s kind of challenging when we’re in the studio together, but it’s one of the environments I love and thrive in, so I’d like to see us do something. Chances are anything we put out in 2009 will end up being live and recorded.