Its hard to say exactly what kind of music Papadosio creates.Anthony Thogmartin (vocals), Mike Healy (drums), Rob McConnel (bass) and brothers Billy and Sam Brouse (keyboard/synthesizer), have all come together to create a unique melding of elemental instrumentation and other-worldy electronics.The culmination of this is a kind of transcending, complex sound that mirrors the clear artistry and spirituality that the band was formed upon.The Cynic spoke to Mike Healy before their show at Higher Ground on Feb. 9 to talk about doing ayahuasca in the Amazon, the current state of the world and Papadosios future.Vermont Cynic (VC): How did you come together as a band?Mike Healy (MH): Well weve been playing crunchy tunes together for about seven years coming up in April. Four of us originally all met in Athens, Ohio; some of us went to Ohio University and some of us just lived there.Theres a weekly open jam that we all used to go to every Tuesday night, a kind of improve jam with all musicians in town. I guess everyone just kind of stuck out a little bit, and then we all just got together and started rocking out. We started out with some regional, local college town stuff and then we just kind of have spun out from there.Billy Brouses little brother Sam Brouse joined. He was up at Skidmore in New York and dropped out his senior year and joined the band because that was what he always wanted to do incredible addition.VC: Do they have that family telepathy going when you guys are all jamming together?MH: Yeah, sometimes they do its kind of interesting. I mean they both learned how to play a very long time ago. Sam was studying a lot of music theory and got really skilled at the piano. And Billy was more organic, learning to feel it out, learning to play alongside synthesizers.So its really different. They mesh together super well and trade different sounds. Theyre really fun to play with; its just so great.VC: When you see a show theres this mix of electronic and pure instrumental sounds. How do you guys make this work?MH: Its an interesting concept on stage. I actually have electronic drums also and those are run all the way across the stage in between the amps to Anthonys computer. So when I drop loops and sequences with my electronic drums, Anthony also drops different things on his computer, and he plays the keyboard as well.Were all locked in together, all locked up in time, so we synch up perfectly; its not this big sloppy mess. We had been playing a lot of songs that we were trying to pull off without playing like a quick track and it was really sloppy and terrible sounding. So we kind of graduated to try and be more professional.VC: So its like youre DJing yourselves while youre playing.MH: Oh definitely. Thats kind of like our shtick. Meshing the two elements of electronic music and organic sound into one organism is kind of how weve always gone about doing it. We make it all sound really cohesive and unique together.VC: So with your new album T.E.T.I.O.S [To End the Illusion of Separation], the focus seems to be on unity. Can you tell me a little about that and the creative process that went towards this?MH: The album came out in October and we had been working on it for over two years in our home studio in Asheville. You know how sometimes you randomly meet people and connections just kind of happen without you even really realizing? The album was kind of like that.We just had so much material over the years, creating a lot of new songs. We started two winters ago and we worked on it for like a month, recorded some songs, went on tour for the entire spring. Then we got back from that spring and we started recording againand then a month later one of our computers got rained on so we had to record again and then we went on tour.So its like being gone for 200 days a year; its kind of hard to get back to our studio and lay tracks down. Whenever we had like a month or two weeks off, we get down to the studio and just lay tracks down as much as we can before we get back on the road.Also through those two years we went to Peru and studied with a shaman in the Amazon. Did a lot of plant medicine, learning a lot about ourselves, a lot about the world, a lot about our mission, a lot about our path. You can hear that on the album too: there was a song with a shaman we studied with so we have a kind of response song that we wrote called Madre De Dios in reference to the area of the Amazon that we were in.There are also so many different styles of music on that album. Thats one thing that makes Papadosio stand out from a lot of other bands – we cant decide what kind of music we like. We like a little bit of everything. From rock to soul to jazz to funk and all sorts of different stuff mixed in throughout. No song on the album sounds just like any of the other ones. Thats definitely one thing that kind of bores the hell out of me with other bands is when all of their songs sounds the same. Thats something weve always strived really hard not to do.We also teamed up with 20 different artists we met all around the country, that have now become our good friends. We sent a song out to each individual artist, to choose a piece from their already existing portfolio that resonated with the song on the album. Its definitely like a really cool collaborative whole package that we worked on.Yeah the whole message is unity – to end the illusion of separation of people just not realizing how much we really all are the same living organism. Were all the same things working together trying to make things right in this world. Learning how to understand people, breaking down barriers and boundaries, and just trying to bring people together. Trying to get people to wake the fuck up in all honesty.This earth, its really justdwindling away. We go get our Starbucks coffee and chill on our couchwhich Im doing right now but its like, its so hard to get people to wake up and realize whats going on. With some of the messages on the album theres definitely a political innuendo, talking about a lot of bullshit in the world that we cant really control cause its way above us. We want to get people to wake up to whats actually happening in the world and why are we so blind.We just really want people to open their eyes to what is happening. Environmental messages, world messages, owning up to the potential. We could be the most amazing planet of all time. This place could be so dope everywhere if we just like, get together and make it happen. We need to start thinking about each other instead of just ourselves. Get rid of this really macho-masculine-egotistical world we live in. We need to listen to the eminent energy of Mother Earth. Its what were supposed to do. Its kind of our path.VC: I know you guys really incorporate art into your music, like the live artists at your festival Rootwire. Can you tell me a little about that?MH: With Rootwire, I mean its been a process that only started a couple of years ago. We have all these amazing friends from all around the country who want to create an awesome space with us on the grounds. They have just awesome art installations, bring in their beautiful art work and set up art galleries.There are platforms by the main stage for live painting and collaborations. Were trying to show that like cool we can play music, awesome but anyone can play music. So many artists get left in the dust and dont get to shine. You know its like different things bring different media.There are amazing artists who dont make a dollar and then theres that modern art where theres a big red square with a little box in it selling for a million dollars. A lot of psychedelic, spiritual visionary art gets left in the dust. I feel like a lot of the time people are like, oh its hippy-dippy-stupid-super-psychedelic and they just write it off as not meaningful. But theres some next level art going on right now in the world. There are a lot of really powerful messages in a lot of these pieces.A favorite artist of ours, for example, is Amanda Sage. We use a lot of her art work in our live show all the time. She just has so many different pieces and they all tell a different story. Some of them go really intrinsically with a lot of our songs.With Rootwire its really just inviting so many of our amazing friends weve met and trying to show people that its not our festival. I mean its our vision, a lot of our creation, and I mean we do headline it every year. We tour the country to create this fan base. But with Rootwire its your festival; its everyones festival. You come here, you create, you bring a paintbrush, bring some paper- bring whatever you want, just express yourself to the fullest. Try and focus on connecting with people, being creative. Sharing like a productive, positive kind of festival environment. Not this disgusting drug abusing scene that were all apart of.Were trying to wake people up like hey, that stuffs fun if you do it in a smart way, but lets like try to come out of this festival remembering something. So many people come out of festivals like yo dude I dont even know what happened, I was so fucked up. Thats exactly what we dont want. We try to create a different experience for people where its a transformational environment, more focused on creativity and expression.VC: Last time I saw you guys you played with Dopapod. You guys have such great chemistry.MH: Oh yeah theyre our favorite.VC: How did you guys meet each other?MH: We met them at Bear Creek [Festival] two years ago. They were set up in the lots playing in the freaking cold. And we were like, what the hell why dont these guys have their own stage, theyre like the best ones at the whole festival. It kind of started from there, and ever since we just became best friends.We definitely see the two of us playing many shows the rest of our lives together. Try and take this thing to the next level. We really love improving with them too, doing sit-ins. On new years we did some Beatles songs together from Sgt. Pepper. Theyre just really awesome to work with, hang out with and party down with.Its refreshing meeting people you play with that you get along with and really like. A lot of bands they just let the ego get to their heads so early and it becomes ample from an early age. And then its kind of hard to hang out with some people. I mean everyone has a little bit of an ego, but thats something our band particularly is trying to get rid of because weve been treated like crap over the years as the opener.As a young band people dont treat you with respect and you receive the short end of the stick all the time. Weve really learned that that is not the way to go. Weve been treated like crap and we dont ever really want to treat any bands like crap either. We try to make sure they have a great time whenever theyre with us. And recently we opened up a 3-day run for Umphreys Mcgee and they were awesome. They were super nice guys. I mean theyve been doing it for a long time and I wouldnt have been surprised if they were short and annoyed and couldnt care less, but they really liked us.VC: Just going back to what you were saying before about Peru, how long were you there studying with the shaman?MH: We were there for two weeks and we did a bunch of plant medicine ceremonies, ayahuasca in particular, and it was definitely one of the craziest experiences of my life. Pretty wild. I dont know if you know a lot about ayahuasca, but a lot of people believe it reaches a spiritual realm. I talked to a lot of dead relatives, and people from the past came to me in my vision. It was definitely really, really powerful.A lot of people say it connects you directly with Mother Nature its pretty wild. She talked to me, its hard to explain but its been used for over ten thousand years so theres definitely something really important there. And you know, you have to respect things that have been happening in the world longer then our bullshit medical systems that are all about corporate money and greed.Like taking actual plant medicine is really wild. A lot of people dont realize how intelligent plants really are. One thing that our masculine society really turns away from is being in touch with our surroundings.Being in the heart of the jungle in the Amazon on ayahuasca, it was just like a reset on our brains. A lot of it was kind of letting go of technology and these distractions. Just trying to be at peace in your mind. Just let the medicine take control of the experience. And I wouldnt say its funits definitely like psychedelic warrior formative boot camp in a sense.Its a really big cleansing process too. Not only do you have these visions and experiences on ayahuasca, it just cleanses out all these toxins and gross things in your body. I mean I have really bad asthma and after one of my experiencesoh my goodness I could breathe. So well. It was insane.Then there was a lot of people getting off heroin and a lot of cancer patients go down there and get therapy, to try and cleanse their bodies, get all this crap out. Plant medicines know how to clean your body. Im definitely a true believer in it. I definitely want to go back to Peru, see whats there for me. See what Mother Natures been trying to tell me.VC: Where do you see your music heading next?MH: I think were going to continue getting much more polished, tighter. Compared to the older albums, we now have so much more knowledge and experience playing with each other. Things kind of come together easier now, especially in the rehearsal studio. We can come up with a quick idea and pick up on each other and create music pretty quickly, you know like learning new parts to a prewritten song.Its an interesting thing were apart of. Like were kind of stuck in this jam band festival scene, which is a beautiful thing, but we also cannot wait to get out of it and into a more mainstream popular world. Were trying to get a lot of international touring in a couple years. We already have a date set but we have been sending off our albums to Japan, Australia, South America, just like to every continent were sending out our stuff.I mean we dont want to change our music ever, we just want to play to everyone. To expand. I mean its hard to say what music trends are going to be like. You have that stupid dubstep thing, and I mean its cool for a lot of people and there are some artists that are really good. I dont know if its going to stick around forever.I feel like we might enter a renaissance of, I dont want to say pop, but like indie-folk-electronica. I mean whats amazing to me are the bands – like the fleet foxes are a huge influence of ours and theyre not around anymore, broke up a year ago. We love that kind of music. Were absolutely huge Radiohead fans.I mean were not trying to create a sound like anything but ourselves, but Im sure you can hear where were coming from with all of these influences. Were just trying to expand and learn and create original sounding music thats danceable and that gets people singing along.