When Chris Weber reached out to me about the Seattle Rock Lottery, I knew I’d of it, but really had no idea what it was. He explained that the latest performance is slated for Feb. 7^th at The Crocodile as a benefit for The Creative Advantage. The R.L. would also feature, among many other artists waiting to see which band they’d find themselves in, Adra Boo (Fly Moon Royalty) on vocals, Kelton Sears (Kithkin) on bass, Andrew Joslyn (Passenger String Quartet) on violin, Terri Moeller (The Walkabouts) on drums, and Nikolay Grachev (Juliana & PAVA) on the Russian Hurdy-Gurdy. Some of our favorites! As a result, I had to ask him One Super Important Question.

Jake Uitti: How are these shows put together? How are the players selected? How often are these shows?

Chris Weber: This is the 7th Seattle Rock Lottery, it is meant to be annual but doesn’t always work out that way for various reasons. (Consolidated Works 2004, Neumos 2006, Neumos 2007, Neumos 2008, The Crocodile 2013, The Crocodile 2014, The Crocodile 2015).

I started this event in Denton, TX in 1997 and then brought it to Brooklyn and Seattle. Denton just had their 13th and Brooklyn is on it’s 5th Rock Lottery event. Past participants are listed on our Facebook page.

The participants are selected and booked by me and my co-producer, Kathy Lindenmayer, with suggestions from alumni, fans of the festival and other members of the music community. Our goal is to showcase a microcosm of the Seattle areas music community by selecting diverse musicians (genre, age, instrumentation, ethnicity, skill level, gender, etc…) The challenge for these musicians is to try and go beyond their personal and musical differences and work together to create a unified group project that still contains the personal styles of each of the participants.

The morning of the event all 25 musicians arrive at the venue, are fed breakfast and mingle. At 10am the selection process begins. The names of the 5 primary drummers are put into the hat and drawn out one at a time, their bands will perform in the order the names are drawn. After that the remaining 20 names are placed in the hat, and the drummers take turns pulling out the names that will join their band. They then pose for band photos for the evenings program.

The five new bands are then released to practice at different locations. They spend the morning writing songs and getting to know each other. At 2pm they return to the venue for lunch and their band names are due at this time. After lunch they go back to their practice spaces and finish creating three to five songs (with a one cover-song limit). They load back into the club at 9pm and the show begins promptly at 10pm when the new bands perform what they have created in front of a waiting audience.

Each year the proceeds benefit a different local charity (this year The Creative Advantage) and the organizers and participants are unpaid volunteers. This is a scene building exercise, bringing divers musicians and audiences together.