Bill Murray not joking with Blood Brothers: ‘This band is made up of all-stars’

by George Varga

Bill Murray, a late-blooming lead singer in a bluesy classic-rock band called Blood Brothers? The veteran film star and former mainstay on TV’s “Saturday Night Live” belting out the vocals on songs by The Kinks, Stephen Stills, Paul Butterfield and more?

No, this is not a shelved “SNL” skit featuring Murray’s popular “Nick The Lounge Singer” character lampooning Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” Wilson Pickett’s “In The Midnight Hour” and The Dave Clark Five’s “Catch Us If You Can.”

Blood Brothers is — with one famous exception — a polished group of seasoned music professionals. Its newest member just happens to be a long-acclaimed actor whose role in the 2003 film “Lost in Translation” earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination.

“This band is made up of all-stars,” said Murray, who performs Thursday with the nine-man Blood Brothers at The Sound in Del Mar. It’s one of three California dates on the group’s national tour.

“Each of them brings a different energy, which makes me really have to dig in,” the avocational singer continued. “I enjoy the challenge each night and am thankful they keep it coming!”

The all-stars Murray is referring to are headed by ace guitarists Mike Zito and Albert Castiglia, who co-founded Blood Brothers in 2022. Both sing and lead their own bands. Between them, the two have won 14 national Blues Music Awards.

Zito is also a mainstay in the band Royal Southern Brotherhood. Its lineup teams him with Neville Brothers’ co-founder Cyril Neville and guitarist Devon Allman, the son of the late Allman Brothers Band co-founder Gregg Allman.

Castiglia counts such blues heavyweights as Junior Wells and Pinetop Perkins among his many past employers. He and Zito are longtime collaborators who, for their current tour with Murray and Blood Brothers, are joined by Canned Heat guitarist Jimmy Vivino, best known for his lengthy tenure in the house band on TV’s “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.”

“If you can’t engage with the crowd, what’s the point?” Vivino said. “Watching Bill get off on stage is a perfect example of that. His charisma and his ability to connect is an amazing thing to behold and I think Junior (Wells) would’ve loved seeing this show.”

And what draws Murray to the classic and lesser-known songs he performs with Blood Brothers?

“Lyrics,” he replied. “And the music with them adds that much more.”

Bill Murray greets the audience while performing with the band Bill Murray & His Blood Brothers at Chicago's Thalia Hall on Jan. 3, 2025, (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune) — Bill Murray greets the audience while performing with the band Bill Murray & His Blood Brothers at Chicago’s Thalia Hall on Jan. 3, 2025, (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

Caddyshack golf tournament

Murray’s pairing with Blood Brothers was largely a matter of happenstance.

Last year, his younger brother, John, invited the band to perform in Florida at The Murray Brothers’ Caddyshack Golf Tournament. The event is named after “Caddyshack,” the 1980 hit film comedy that features Bill Murray as a colorfully unhinged golf-course groundskeeper.

The famed actor joined Blood Brothers for part of the band’s tournament set. It included some songs by The Rascals, one of Murray’s favorite groups. A very good time was had by all. Afterwards, Zito suggested Murray join the group and he readily agreed.

Their first performance as Bill Murray & His Blood Brothers took place this January in Chicago, where Murray got his start in comedy as a member of the Second City troupe. He had first tried his hand at singing in the 1960s as a teenager in an Illinois rock cover band called The Dutch Masters.

Like Vermeer’s long-lost painting, “The Concert,” Murray’s foray into rock quickly evaporated.

But his love for music continued unabated, be it crooning his proudly schmaltzy versions of the “Star Wars” film theme on “SNL” as “Nick The Lounge Singer” or singing a warbly but earnest version of Roxy Music’s “More Than This” in a key scene in “Lost in Translation,” in which Murray co-starred with Scarlett Johanssen.

More recently, he teamed in 2017 with acclaimed cellist Jan Vogler, violinist Mira Wang and pianist Vanessa Perez. Their joint “New Worlds” tour and album featured the actor-cum-vocalist singing favorites by George & Ira Gershwin and Stephen Foster, and reciting poems and prose by Walt Whitman, Mark Twaind an others.

Today, having Murray’s name on the marquee is clearly the biggest drawing point for audiences at concerts by what is billed as Bill Murray & His Blood Brothers. But the famed actor happily shares the spotlight and lead vocal duties with the band’s other members while he alternates between singing and playing cowbell, congas and tambourine.

Offstage, Murray, 75, is determined to not command an undue amount of attention. So determined, in fact, that he only agrees to discuss the nine-man Blood Brothers if the interviews also include Zito, Castiglia and Vivino.

As a result of that stipulation — and the fact Murray only returned Oct. 3 from a trip to Ireland — this is the first interview the four Blood Brothers have done so far, according to the band’s publicist.

To add another layer of intrigue, this joint interview had to be conducted by email. Even so, the four band members played off each other’s answers in real time Monday night as they wrote their replies in a Google Word document.

Murray kept most of his responses brief. He also declined to answer nearly half of the questions. But he appeared to enjoy the sometimes humorous interactions with his fellow Blood Brothers. The interview has been edited to space and clarity.

The band Blood Brothers was formed in 2022, two years before Bill Murray sat in with the group at a golf tournament he was co-hosting. He happily accepted a subsequent invitation to join the band. (Courtesy Devious Planet)

Q: Where are each of you today?

Mike: St. Louis, my home. Taking care of kids and working on tunes.

Bill: Just flew home from Ireland. Now watching the Cubs game in New York.

Albert: I’m at home in Palm Bay, FL, watching “Monday Night Football.”

Jimmy: I’m in L.A. I just got back from a two-week European tour with Canned Heat. Twelve hours later, I found myself at the Fonda Theatre here with Conan (O’Brien) and Bill Burr for a podcast taping of “Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend.”

Q: Albert, what are the biggest musical and life lessons you learned from working with Junior Wells? And have you thought about having Bill sing Junior’s “Messin’ With The Kid” with the Blood Brothers?

Albert: I learned a lot from Junior, but I think the biggest lesson I learned was the importance of being vulnerable on stage and connecting with your audiences. If you can’t engage with the crowd, what’s the point? Watching Bill get off onstage is a perfect example of that. His charisma and his ability to connect is an amazing thing to behold and I think Junior would’ve loved seeing this show.

As far as Bill doing “Messing With The Kid,” I’m all for it! It’s up to him, though, and I think it’s important for him to find himself, musically, and do songs he’s comfortable with. That, to me, is the important thing. Bill’s given us an amazing gift and adventure in the last year and a half. And because of that, we as a band want him to do what makes him feel good. Him being comfortable on stage and doing material that makes his toes tingle is what makes this work.

Q: Mike, you’ve done albums for Germany’s Ruf Records. Why do you think Europeans have such reverence for blues and other American roots-music styles?

Mike: I think because it comes from a different place, America, they have this idea of how special it really is. They understand the circumstances that had to take place to create this American music. Whereas, it’s just such a part of our culture here, we don’t really recognize its importance as much.

Q: Jimmy, of all the many music greats who played on “The Tonight Show” during your tenure, who did you most enjoy collaborating with and why?

Jimmy: The obvious is B.B. King, then Al Green, and Isaac Hayes. Bonnie Raitt was always there when anything great was happening. Bonnie was the lynchpin for anything great in blues that was happening on TV.

Q: Bill, how did you rate yourself and your early band the Dutch Masters, and did the band’s repertoire include any of the songs you now do with Blood Brothers (such as, perhaps, “Tired of Waiting” by The Kinks, “Catch Us If You Can” by The Dave Clark Five or “Like a Rolling Stone”)?” If so, which ones?

Bill: (no response)

Q: Albert, Mike and Jimmy, did you likewise grow up playing some or most of the songs Blood Brothers now perform with Bill and what songs by other artists do you hope to add to the repertoire for this or future tours? Can you or Bill envision him singing “Going Up The Country,” “Let’s Work Together,” or other songs that, I’m guessing, Jimmy does with Canned Heat?

Mike: We always are coming up with new material for Bill; you just have to sweet talk him into doing them.

Albert: Yeah, definitely. However, Bill’s got this knack for digging up some real cool deep tracks that I hadn’t even been aware of. I’d much rather him bring songs to the table because, most of the time, they’re great ideas. He keeps teasing (doing) “Walk Away Renee” by The Left Banke and “Dear Mr. Fantasy.” I hope we can do those.

Jimmy: (We play) some Blood Brothers’ songs. We have a lot of other artists’ songs; I can’t give ‘em away before the show — a good mix of originals and songs people know, which are not softballs.

When performing wtth the band Blood Brothers, Bill Murray alternates between singing lead vocals and playing percussion. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

Q: Might a Blood Brothers’ album with Bill be in the offing?

Mike: Bill and I have had conversations about writing songs and recording songs, for sure. I think if we don’t do that at some point, we will have missed an amazing opportunity to capture all of this energy.

Jimmy: Anything and everything is possible.

Bill: Something is in the works …

Albert: I’m in!

Q: Have all of you ever golfed together in a foursome? Who won? Who has the lowest and highest handicap?

Mike: No, I cannot golf.

Bill: They should stick to making music.

Albert: I haven’t played in years. I sucked then and I suck now. Greenpeace and PETA are on my case for all the wildlife I’ve killed on all the golf courses of this great nation.

Jimmy: I don’t golf, I don’t hunt, I don’t fish, and I don’t camp. We saw what happened in the woods on “The Sopranos.”

Q: When Ringo was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he offered some sage advice to musicians (which I’ll paraphrase here): “If you are in a van with a band and you fart, own up to it.” What mode of transportation is Blood Brothers using for your current tour, and what would you add to Ringo’s sage advice?

Mike: Don’t fart.

Bill: I’m usually the one driving…

Albert: Confucius says: “Better Out Than In!” I always own up to cutting the cheese. It’s the other three always denying while they’re supplying! We’re doing a lot of flying on this run. God help the other passengers with the gas-house gang. They might bring back the mask mandate back after we get done stinking up the planes!

Jimmy: After everyone would naturally blame Albert, the real culprit would ultimately ‘fess up.

Q: Is it a fool’s errand to tell jokes to Bill, or is he receptive?

Mike: I tell Bill jokes all the time, and I make sure they’re not funny. He loves that. I also repeat his lines from movies he’s made. That’s when he starts rolling his eyes.

Albert: Mike, he rolls his eyes at your jokes, too.