Kurt Rosenwinkel & Tim Motzer talk to Guitar Moderne about Bandit65

When modern guitarist and 1K Recordings mogul, Tim Motzer gets together with modern jazz guitar legend Kurt Rosenwinkel and drummer Gintas Janusonis to perform as Bandit65, there is no written music, no songs, no plan. The three musicians jump off a cliff and create music from nothing as they fall. Except that they don’t fall. Working without a safety net, they float gently on currents of magical music, composed in the moment. Tim and Kurt were kind enough to talk to Guitar Moderne about their process and gear.

How did you meet Kurt and decide to do this?

Tim: We met in Zurich, Switzerland in 2008 while I was on tour with poet Ursula Rucker. As I was going through the crowd to the dressing room Kurt stopped me to tell me he dug what I was doing, and we had a bit of a hang afterwards. I suggested that we play sometime, and Kurt agreed. About a year later we improvised at my studio in Philadelphia and there was instant chemistry. Eventually we went into a recording studio in Brooklyn and recorded six hours of improvisations. The best of that session came out much later in 2014 as our debut album, Bandit65, on 1k Recordings. We didn’t discuss direction at all, we just played. Later on, we decided to improvise all of our live shows. We made that what we do— exploring the unknown, finding new forms and music. As for our band name, Kurt suggested Bandit65. The Peavey Bandit 65 was his first guitar amplifier, and in fact, many beginning guitarists used the Bandit 65. We just thought it was a great idea and it stuck.

Kurt: Yeah when I heard those guys I was really impressed by how they played so great as Ursula’s band. Tim was such a powerful player with a wonderful imagination and amazing sonic palette, and Gintas doing some heavy lifting on the drums and also talking care of the shape of the songs. We hung a bit then and as Tim said we jammed at Tim’s over the holidays. It was instant chemistry and we had a great time. We did the same thing in the studio and also it was such a cool connection and it was amazing the areas we found musically that I have never experienced before. We’ve never thought to play any songs because the music was just flowing out of us fully formed.

Read the rest of the article here:
https://www.guitarmoderne.com/artists/spotlight-kurt-rosenwinkel-and-tim-mozter-a-k-a-bandit65