Nick Cassarino, lead singer and guitarist of the funk and soul quartet the Nth Power, spoke about the band’s latest album “To Be Free.” The group returns to Syracuse to perform at Funk ‘n Waffles Downtown Tuesday night.

The Daily Orange: How would you define your music? 

Nick Cassarino: You know, I had this choir teacher when I was in high school, and she was talking about — she was like, “You need to visualize music as a flowing river that’s above you, all the time, and it’s always flowing. Never gonna stop flowing. And if you can reach up and grab a little piece of that, you know you’re lucky, and you should be grateful for that.” You can relate that to God, to the Spirit, the connection that connects all living things in the world. I believe if there’s a source, a well of love, a source of energy, a source of spirit, and a source of oneness, I’d hope that that’s where we draw our music from. I mean, that’s where we try to reach into and get a glimpse and try to share it.

The D.O.: Could you tell us a little about your latest album “To Be Free“?

N.C.: So, basically what we did is we booked two days at a sound stage in Boston, called The Bridge Sound & Stage. We recorded those nights, and then we had one more night, like a week or two later that we recorded at The Knitting Factory in Brooklyn. We basically used the entire Brooklyn show with the exception of a song from the Boston night. We just wrote a bunch of new material for this record, and we wanted to do it live because we feel that our energy is really transferred to the audience. We can share their energy, they can share ours. And plus, we made “Abundance,” our studio record we released in November 2015, which was like a studio record that we wanted to keep clean; but on this live stuff, we’re stretching out when it’s like a show. So, that was kind of premise behind the record, was to have to show people what we love to do.

The D.O.: What were some of your favorite songs to perform on the album? 

N.C.: Well, there’s only two old songs on the record that are from “Abundance,” everything else is basically a new song, so all the new stuff we had, we had a blast with all that because it was fresh. We’ve been writing it together, and trying to do something new. From all of them what was my favorite? “Freedom” has like storytelling and all, about a situation, and to remind you that all the shackles that are posed on so many people in our country, all over the world, the only place people can really be free is that you free your mind. That’s what we believe anyway. “Truth” is a song about the peoples of the world, and the fact that humanity is our responsibility to nurture together. “Could It Be” on there is about, well it’s a love song, and it’s actually a remix of another older song that we had on the last record. There’s another song called “Joy,” which is just an affirmation of life and joy and a reminder that life is fragile again, we gotta take care of it. There’s things to be happy about, you know, through all the darkness. But yeah, each one had a very specific theme, so I couldn’t necessarily tell you which one is my favorite.

DO: How do you think your Syracuse performance will be? Any expectations?

NC: My expectations are to eat, try waffles of different variety. The last time we played (Funk n’ Waffles), it was a great show, people came out. We really loved it, we’re just hyped to be back in the ‘Cuse. Say wassup to the homies, probably get some barbecue.

Published on October 17, 2016 at 8:45 pm