Bassist and singer-songwriter Karina Rykman was the guest on the latest episode of JamBase partner Osiris Media’s podcast Salute The Songbird With Maggie Rose. Karina chatted with Maggie Rose about her “compulsion” to see The Allman Brothers Band as a teenager in New York City, her eclectic influences including Ween, playing with Marco Benevento, her solo work and more.
Rykman and Rose — who were meeting virtually for the first time — swapped some festival stories to open the discussion before getting into Karina’s background growing up in New York City including her love for The Allman Brothers Band. Rykman spoke about scraping together money to see the rockers’ storied residencies at Manhattan’s Beacon Theatre as a teenager.
“All through high school, I got really obsessed with seeing The Allman Brothers Band cause I grew up like 20 blocks away from the Beacon and my school was five blocks away,” Karina said. “It was just a thing, and I got completely obsessed with it. I had to go every night. It was like a compulsion.”
Rykman said that she went to every concert she could and also revealed a story about how she found the money to attend the shows involving “skimming” a little foreign currency her parents had collected. Karina also talked how she got into music and explained her eclectic tastes which she calls “broad ears” and how jam band fans have some of the “widest ears.”
While Karina has stayed busy as an in-demand musician along with her regular gig as bassist in Marco Benevento’s band, the conversation turned to Rykman’s solo work. The bassist spoke about working in the studio on her solo material from composing and crafting lyrics to post-production. Karina also talked about another favorite band, Ween. Rykman replaced Ween bassist Dave Dreiwitz in Benevento’s trio at Dreiwitz’s behest and Karina detailed how Dave and Marco have both been mentors plus more.
Listen to Karina Rykman on the latest episode of Salute The Songbird With Maggie Rose below:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/karina-rykman/id1541169586?i=1000559411065
