Get ready to embark on a sultry musical journey like no other as we sit down with the incredibly talented Brian Wecht, one-half of the chart-topping comedy music duo Ninja Sex Party. While NSP continues to delight its legion of passionate fans worldwide, Brian is unveiling a captivating new solo project and persona known as Trey Magnifique. Like a siren’s call, Trey Magnifique’s sax work will draw you in. In this exclusive interview, we’ll dive deep into the inspiration behind this exciting endeavor, exploring Brian’s love of jazz music, his admiration for Al Jarreau, and the silky smooth magic he’s conjuring in his latest single “Satin Velvet.” Join us as we unravel the mysteries of Trey Magnifique, the coolest man in the universe, and discover the genius behind the enchanting saxophone melodies.
So Trey Magnifique is your first solo project but you’re no stranger to putting out music. You’re probably best known as Ninja Brian of Ninja Sex Party. How did a theoretical physicist wind up as the co-founder of Ninja Sex Party?
Brian Wecht: I’ve always had a performance background. I’m a musician and a music major. After college, I went to grad school for physics and to blow off some steam, I started doing improv comedy classes. One thing led to another and I just kept doing it. When I moved to New York/New Jersey after I did my doctorate to do a research position at Princeton, I was going into New York to do comedy and I met another guy there who was into comedy and music. It was like a friend of a friend thing. He was like “Hey, do you want to start a band where you’re a ninja?” It was one of those things you say yes to thinking “What could possibly come of this?” and that was my partner in the band, Dan Avidan. And here we are. Next year will be our 15th year.
It makes sense that you have that improv background. There’s always fun, humor, or a tongue-in-cheek quality to the projects you’ve been a part of but the musicianship is always top notch and the songs are always solid. How do you approach that balance?
BW: Between the comedy and the musicianship? That was kind of a mission statement for us going in. Make the music good. We just treat the instrumental music very seriously. If you took the lyrics out, you would think 98% of the instruments were just straight ahead to make the stuff sound great. Most of the humor comes from the lyrics. There are occasionally musical jokes, but I have a pretty low tolerance for those usually. They feel kind of self-indulgent. The Trey Magnifique album is 100% self-indulgent. It’s like the opposite side of that to some extent. At least with Ninja Sex Party, the comedy comes from the lyrics generally speaking, and taking the genres and music very seriously. I think it’s that contrast that makes it fun.
What led to you wanting to go in a smooth jazz direction for this Trey Magnifique project and alter ego?
BW: For many years, my main instrument was sax. All throughout college, I was mainly a sax player. Mostly alto, but did a lot of baritone as well. And I was just kind of missing it. I’ve been a big jazz fan forever. My dad was a big jazz guy. I love jazz. Four or five years ago, I was like “I’ve gotta do more sax stuff.” And I thought, what’s the dumbest saxophone? It’s the soprano. There are a lot of really great soprano players out there. I didn’t know much about the smooth jazz genre which is a bit of a punchline to a lot of people. I started listening to it and it’s the kind of thing where you start listening to it and you really get into it. Even the stuff you think isn’t great, if you get into it, you start to hear things you like. I started finding all these things where I’m like it’s still kind of silly in a way, but these guys are such great players and the production is a very specific thing and really dialled in. And I started to appreciate it for not being a silly thing, but a thing that people really want to do well even if it doesn’t work for everybody. I think for a lot of people doing it, in smooth jazz particularly, a lot of it comes from a really good place.
You gotta respect anyone who is making the thing they want to make. Well, maybe not anyone. For instrumental music, I started to find a lot of stuff I liked about it. I was like, this will inspire the Trey Magnifique thing. Again, it’s taking the production of the music pretty seriously but also celebrating the stuff that’s kind of ridiculous. Even in traditional jazz, I love traditional jazz. Some people doing it take themselves too seriously and some of it is kind of ridiculous. Now, jazz is like nerd music. Think of all the jazz greats. They were just a bunch of nerds. Thundercat. Kamasi Washington. These young guys that are doing jazz. They’re a bunch of dorks in the best way. They love this music and it’s a real intellectual thing. I think we should always be celebrating nerds for anything we do.
For sure, totally! Might we see a Trey Magnifique collaboration with a Chris Botti or Kenny G at some point?
BW: That would be amazing. I’m up for anything. I was raised in a traditional jazz background and I think Kenny G is a good example of this is not a guy to take seriously. I don’t say this with judgment, but he’s not coming at it from an intellectual place. It’s all feeling. It’s all vibe for that guy. That’s very counter to what jazz is currently. Ever since the Coltrane era of the ‘60s, it’s this hyper-intellectual thing. Now I kind of respect anyone who’s just doing it for the vibe and not overthinking it to some extent. I think there’s a point and a counterpoint. I think there are reasons not to like it and there are reasons to like it.
The first single “Satin Velvet” seems to be going over well. Have you gotten great feedback from it? Are you excited to have that song out in the world now?
BW: I am. We wrapped the audio for this a year ago and the video has been sitting done, mastered, and everything for the better part of a year. It’s nice to just have that out. And it’s really gratifying to see it’s hitting exactly the lane I was hoping it would hit. People are listening to it and going “Oh man, this is so great. I love the vibe. This is really awesome.” Taking it 100% seriously, which is one level where I was hoping it would work. There are other people who are like “This is kind of silly in a way” which is another level. It’s kind of ridiculous because of what it is. It seems like it is hitting exactly the different levels I was aiming at. Anyone who listens to it and is like “Man, this is the best thing ever” – I love it! That’s great. And anyone who thinks it’s ridiculous, that’s great too. The feedback that would be hardest to hear, which I haven’t heard with this one yet, would be that it’s a failure and just doesn’t work on any level. I haven’t seen any comments like that. I’m sure they’re there. There are a few people who have given the backhanded compliment, “I don’t like jazz, but I like this.” I think that’s honestly true about a lot of smooth jazz. You can’t become Kenny G, who I think is the highest-selling instrumentalist in the world and jazz is kind of a niche thing these days, without appealing to people who don’t like more traditional forms of jazz. I’m very happy to have it out there.
When you sat down to come up with this project, what was the goal behind the Trey Magnifique look and sound? Were you going for a lounge lizard type of feel?
BW: The name came first, I think. I was trying to think of a ridiculous but not too ridiculous name. For Ninja Sex Party, we did this video where I had to purchase this very cheap white suit. The thing was $100 bucks, shoes included. I tried to rent it and it was so cheap, they were like “We’re not going to rent this to you. You should just buy it.” So I had this white suit just sitting in my closet, I wore it on set once. Then I thought this might work well for this smooth jazz thing. A band we work with, TWRP, was doing a thing where they needed me to play sax so I wore this white suit outfit and it just kind of fit. Like a lot of things I’ve ended up doing, it was sort of a spur-of-the-moment decision. It’s kind of ‘80s, right? This Miami Vice look without the shirt. I just tried it out and it felt good, so I decided to keep doing it. But it’s definitely supposed to be a sort of ‘80s Miami Vice look.
That comes across, for sure. You mentioned TWRP. You worked with Commander Meouch on the forthcoming album Mature Situations. What can listeners expect from the album?
BW: Let me talk about Meouch. Meouch is maybe the best bass player I’ve ever seen. This guy is incredible. I’ve been working for him as a session guy for a while because we tour with TWRP. He also has an interest in smooth jazz and the early ‘80s. I don’t want to speak for him. Maybe my favorite musician of all time is Al Jarreau. I gotta tell you this. This is irrelevant, but I went to this show in LA on Friday night and it was a bunch of old-school session guys, they were all 70 years old and up. The bassist was the bassist from Breaking Away and Jarreau, this guy Abe Laboriel who is one of the best bass players in the world. The guy has been on everything. He’s pretty old now and pretty rickety but my god, can this guy play? I didn’t expect him to be there, he just showed up, I would’ve lost my mind.
What people can expect from the album is, well, Meouch produced it. A lot of it is squarely in that ‘90s smooth jazz vibe, but I tried to mix things up style-wise. There’s a Latin jazz thing modeled on one of my other favorite composers, Esquivel who’s a Mexican band leader from mainly the ‘60s. He did a lot of big cool orchestral pieces. If you don’t know his stuff, he’s well worth listening to. Strings, whistling, humming, all that. I tried to write a few modeled on artists I like. There’s an Al Jarreau-type song, which is the only one that has words on it. That one’s called “You Got Jazz.” That’s probably the most comedic song. Jazz songs about making jazz are a time-honored tradition and kind of ridiculous, but I love them. There’s a specific Al Jarreau song where he put lyrics to Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo a La Turk” and it’s like “melody melody, harmony harmony” and it’s like about making music. I could talk about Al Jarreau forever. There’s like a Spyro Gyra kind of song. There are a few different genres under the smooth jazz umbrella and stuff that’s more like a precursor to modern smooth jazz. Stuff from the ‘70s, ‘80s, George Benson, Grover Washington Jr, Spyro Gyra, Jarreau. Heavily inspired by that kind of sound. Meouch played bass and did the drum programming on the tracks that didn’t have live drums.
That’s something to look forward to. The album is out November 10th, which is exciting. What’s next for you, Brian? Have you got a second single in mind? Maybe a solo Trey Magnifique tour?
BW: We do have a second single coming out on October 13th. That’s one I’m really looking forward to, it’s called “Santa Monica Boulevard.” In the video, I don’t think I’ve said this publicly, it’s me and Australian comedy musician Tom Cardy driving around LA in a car. Tom’s the best. We wrote a song with him for Ninja Sex Party. He came out to do the video and I was like “While you’re in town, how about this smooth jazz thing?” That’s exciting. And I have an album release show planned for November 9th, the day before it comes out at The Moroccan Lounge here in LA. What’s after this? I don’t know. I don’t think I have the budget for this, but I want to do a big band thing with this. One of my heroes is Bob James, a pioneer of smooth jazz stuff and sampled on endless hip-hop records. I love Bob James. He’s playing here in November and I’m going to miss him which is a bummer. You listen to these early Bob James stuff and you’ll recognize all these things that were sampled. I’d love to do a big band thing. Will it happen? I don’t know, but I’m definitely going to keep writing the smooth stuff and see what else I can do. Through Ninja Sex Party, we get to work with all these musicians from all over the world. Australians, Canadians, everybody, etc. I just want to work with people and do something cool and weird.
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