Worldwide travelers Bet Williams and John Hodian, known for their musical projects the Bet Williams Band, Epiphany Project and Naghash Ensemble, return to Steel City Coffeehouse in Phoenixville with their new project Epiphany 3. It is their only appearance in the Philadelphia area.
Although Bet and John have appeared at Steel City numerous times, it will be the first time that they incorporate the music from all three of their musical projects into one concert. It will also be the first time at Steel City that their son Jack Hodian, age 13, will perform with them on drums and percussion.
“The beautiful thing about these gigs that I love so much… is you’re kind of getting three bands for the price of one,” said Bet in a phone interview with John and Jack in Los Angeles after arriving there to begin their tour. “We’re playing Bet Williams Band stuff, we’re playing Epiphany Project stuff and we’re playing stuff from the Naghash Ensemble. Yet it all works. It doesn’t seem too disjointed when we do it, I don’t think.”
This is such a rare and special opportunity that Steel City is opening their doors on May 23rd – a Tuesday night – to host the trio.
Bet and John have been performing music together for over 20 years. Bet, a singer, songwriter and acoustic guitarist – an extraordinarily talented vocalist with a 4-octave range – began performing and recording her original music in the early ’90s. It was a melange of folk, rock, blues and pop, some of it humorous and quirky, some of it poignant and intense.
Enter classically trained pianist/composer/conductor John Hodian. When he and Bet began to collaborate he had been primarily working on composing film and television scores. Soon the two began their musical collaboration with the ethereal world music-inspired Epiphany Project. Before long the two got married and they’ve since travelled the globe making beautiful music together.
After living in Berlin, Germany for several years, and a year in California, Bet, John and Jack moved to Yerevan, Armenia. John, of Armenian descent, has been working with the Naghash Ensemble there.
“Basically (the ensemble) got busier and busier,” said John, who had just arrived in Los Angeles to join his wife and son after a tour with Naghash Ensemble in Germany. “This year we’re going to Greece and Lithuania and everywhere. Instead of flying back and forth all the time, it just made a lot more sense living there.”
So, you may wonder, how young Jack Hodian is adapting to living internationally, nearly constant touring and now performing with his parents.
Jack has actually been on tour with his parents since he was a baby. And he began performing with them at age 10, in what they called the Family Circus Band, the predecessor to Epiphany 3.
The quiet and humble Jack said that moving around (is) “hard, but you kind of get used to it. It’s not necessarily a bad thing either to always be switching where you live.”
And as for performing with his parents he said “I love it,” acknowledges that he has “an okay sense of rhythm,” and added that though it can be exhausting playing multiple shows in a row while travelling without a day off, “It’s worth it.”
John explained that Jack went from being a travelling companion to joining the band while on a tour in Germany.
“He was going to play one or two songs. We said ‘all right’ and ‘if you feel like playing on the other ones, play on those too.’ He ended up playing (both sets) for us.”
John and Bet had always played with the highest caliber musicians and Jack grew up hearing all the songs. But adding their self-taught son to the band at such a young age could be considered a stretch, especially to play some of their more complex material.
“It’s all about feel. His feel is impeccable,” said John. “(His) feel is just really good and really comfortable. I can say this now because we’re not living in Germany anymore, but most of the time that we were living in Germany, we were trying to find a German drummer to work with. It didn’t matter how professional they were. Nobody had a good feel.”
Bet added: “I think musically as a family, you just kind of know what’s going on. We do a lot of improvising and I think especially between John and Jack, they just grew together. They know what the other is going to do and they really improvise very naturally together.”
Another thing that makes this tour special is that it will be the trio’s first time presenting material from the latest Epiphany Project CD, “The Poet and the Revolution” (Epiphany Records, 2016), in the U.S. Concertgoers will have the opportunity to purchase CDs that have not yet been released in the U.S.
As for returning to Steel City, John said: “We kind of still feel like this is our home town. We haven’t been there in a long time. I don’t know when we’ll be back so it is a good chance for people to hear (us). So we’re really looking forward to this show more than any of them, I think.”
