They attract a crowd large enough to fill a field. Ekoostik Hookah is once again preparing for Hookahville, a three day concert where fans camp out and chill to the folksy bluegrass sound for which this band is most acclaimed. The band has on many occasions been compared to bands such as Phish or Grateful Dead. In response to the correlation, keyboardist Dave Katz said, "I don't think we sound much like either one of them. I think the comparisons come from the crowd scene. Not that we're that far removed from that kind of music, it's just that I think we sound like ourselves."
The band's relaxed musical style, which is filled with improvisation and extended jamming, much mimics their general attitude. They have yet to sign, but the band is sedate about the topic. "We wouldn't rule that out, but we're not looking to do that. We like to have control over what we do. By signing in most cases, you lose a lot of control. The only way we'd sign is if we could keep the control over how often and where we'd play," said Katz. Ekoostik Hookah takes most things in stride. Their primary goal for now is to play good music and give the crowd a good time. Even the band's name developed out of fun.
"We were just tossing things around being silly and eventually the name Brass Hookah came up because I had a brass hookah on my mantel. Brass hookah would've been a cool name, but it would've given people the impression we had a horn section. We liked the idea of hookah so we looked up the word acoustic and found out it's meaning was 'utilization of sound waves.' So we spelled it phonetically and that's how we got our name," told Katz.
So regardless of where these guys are, be that in a field or at the bar, they are guaranteed to be having fun and playing good tunes.