“We’re just a cover band, when you get down to it,” Pascarell says. “That’s all.”
Others are more effusive, including those who ought to be authorities on Pink Floyd. Bob Ezrin, who co-produced Floyd’s epic The Wall, thinks they’re great. Roger Waters’s sax-man Norbert Stachel has even joined them on stage.
All of the kind words are nice, Pascarell says, but he doesn’t get too absorbed when people gush over The Machine, even when it comes from authorities like Ezrin.
“If I take what they say too seriously, then I’ll have to take it just as seriously when someone says something crappy about my band,” Pascarell jokes.
For the most part, it’s been more of the former than the latter. Spin Magazine has said they “sound exactly like Pink Floyd,” The Village Voice called them “dead on.” The Machine has ridden that wave of success to the top of the tribute band world. They’ve toured in Europe. They’ve released DVDs. But neither Pascarell nor any of his bandmates, Todd Cohen, Ryan Ball and Scott Chasolen, intended any of this when the first set out roughly 20 years ago.
“We were just doing original music. Some of us were in school, some of us had jobs,” says Pascarell, who first got into Floyd when his “really cool older brother” took him to see the band live in New Jersey in 1974. “Whenever we covered Pink Floyd, people seemed to react different.”
Eventually the band started covering more and more Floyd tunes, playing one set of originals then closing with a set of covers. That’s when an agent approached them and told them if they played all Pink Floyd tunes he could get them booked.
“Pretty soon we were quitting our jobs and buying trucks,” Pascarell recalls.
Today, Pascarell says they know enough of Floyd’s catalog to play three consecutive shows and never repeat a tune. Mixing those songs with a bit of their own interpretation, the New York-based Machine has sold out shows at venues across the country, including The State Theatre in Falls Church, where the band plays Saturday, June 2.
“What we’re most proud of is when people see the band, they get a real musical experience, not just copying the music or using someone else’s music as an excuse to improvise,” Pascarell says.
“People go out of their way to come and see us play. There are people that have seen us something like 100 times. We take this seriously. We really want to make this memorable for them and keep them coming back.”
One memorable event ought to come July 7 in Detroit when the band will perform the entire Dark Side of the Moon album with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. In the meantime, Pascarell is looking forward to the show at the State, a venue he lists among his favorites to play.
“Every crowd feels different, but I really like the crowd there,” he says. “They’re really free and not afraid to show that. And I really like the sound there. That always helps.”
• Tickets for Saturday, June 2 at The State Theatre are $15 in advance and $18 at the door. Doors open at 7 p.m. For more on The Machine, visit www.themachinelive.com.