RENNES, France — Stanton Moore wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist, Rich Vogel stared downward expressionless and an interpreter struggled to translate a stupid question into English. Tonight, Galactic is out-of-this-world bored or tired — good money would go on both. Last week, I caught up with jazz-infused, hip-hop ensemble Galactic at the Trans Music Festival in France's Brittany province. Trans is known as one of the most raucous musical events on earth — hell, it's housed in a network of airplane hangers. But for hip-hop journeymen Galactic, it was just a step on their way to Japan.

"This is the ultimate harshest schedule that we've ever had," Galactic bassist Robert Mercurio said in an interview with The Badger Herald following their press conference.

Let's face it, most rap groups don't have to tour this often. But when your loyalty is to your music and your aim to hone an endlessly diverse art rather than sell 10 million records to kids who think Eminem reinvented rap, it's the only way to put food on the table and mics in the studio.

"We try not to mix artisticness with business," Mercurio said when asked whether they've ever considered searching for ways to gain more commercial appeal. "Like, 'Oh! We got a hot chick, this'll make us more popular.' If we really wanted to sell albums, there's a couple different decisions we would have made to get Fergilicious."

Galactic has been confronted with a dilemma that infects the psyche of most genre-bending musicians. The mainstream music authority doesn't want to spend the extra resources promoting or finding programming space for a band that can't fit into a proven marketing template. Where the Black Eyed Peas got fed up with the whole thing and attached themselves to the Fergie brain slug, Galactic seems perfectly content to continue putting out underground bangers, even if it means adding the production of new music to an already packed tour schedule.

"As soon as we're done with this, I'm going to send out an e-mail about something we have to get done for a mix," said drummer Stanton Moore. "We were literally working on the European release of the record on our way over here."

The recent addition of Chali 2na of Jurassic 5 is just the latest foray into new dimensions of music. Their previous part-time partners include a peculiar range of musicians from soul singer Theryl Dlcouet to the Counting Crows. At Trans, Chali 2na didn't upstage or degrade the orchestral funk that has been Galactic's calling card since their debut, Coolin' Off, in 1996. Galactic saxophonist Ben Ellman did more than recite a media-friendly quote when he told the French press they felt Chali 2na was already part of the band — he was telling the truth. Their seamless, but loose performance at Trans likely had most of the drunken French-speaking crowd convinced they had been performing together for decades.

"Dude, who are these guys?" one reveler asked, pulling me uncomfortably close to his stained armpit. "So cool man, so cool, girls dance … I'm going to dance with the girls."

The nature of their specialty — uncensored variety — makes marketing each CD almost like starting from scratch. So they make their money on the road.

"We don't really have the biggest success with record sales," Galactic keyboardist Rich Vogel admitted. "We do have a pretty hardcore fan base that would buy most of whatever we put out for sure. … Our hardcore fan base is always changing too," he added, unconsciously contradicting himself. "We are not tapped into one genre that will just pick up our CD immediately."

Despite their yeoman status throughout American musical genres, Galactic still visibly bristles at one definition: jam band. Vogel was quick to distance the band from a French reporter's suggestion that it is another in a long line of New Orleans-inspired jam bands.

"We don't consider ourselves a jam band," Vogel said matter-of-factly after waiting for a long-winded translation of the question posed in French. "We are a subject in the jam world because we do try to improvise, but [we have] songs." He proceeded to explain that because Galactic tours so frequently, their already broad songs are bound to expand.

Quite simply the difference is that, well, no offense to the jam-heads out there, Galactic just commits more effort than the puzzle-piece style musicianship typical of most jam band fare. Quite simply, they're continually seeking to evolve rather than relax with some weed on a meandering, never-ending tour.

"We became a band playing in New Orleans in clubs," Moore added, anxiously bouncing his leg for a chance to cast off the jam band rumor, even cutting off Ellman to finish his point. "Entertaining a roomful of people in a bar is a lot different than making a record."

Even on the road in the northwestern corner of France, Galactic's evolution continues as the band slowly shifts toward a new genre, adding impromptu elements from their shows to the regular rotation in their already vast library. Despite their well-catalogued success on the hip-hop scene, Galactic hints that their next album will sprout closer to their jazz roots, so to speak.

"It's not like it's a permanent direction; it's maybe just a branch off the trunk of what we do," Robert Mercurio said as I uncomfortably realized that most of the chairs in the press room were bales of green plastic hay. "That's not to say right now we're a hip-hop band. We're a band that's always evolving and branching out, but always retaining our trunk … to keep the metaphor going," Mercurio said to the shoulder-bopping giggles of Rich Vogel. "We're always going back to our trunk, and maybe it's grown a little bit since the last time we've gone back to the trunk." The two musicians exchange hearty congratulations on the tree metaphor, reminding each another to use that one again.

The formula for music stars isn't that much different than for galactic ones. You can be blue and exhaust all your energy in a few years before imploding violently, creating a black hole in that continuum of music. Or you can be orange, steadily making great music for years and offering life-giving inspiration to a new planet of musicians. The "orange" approach to musicianship has priceless intangibles for those willing to put hubris aside and embrace them.

"We try to do what's in our heart and do what makes us the happiest," Mercurio said, betraying a smile on the left side of his face.

As for when we can expect Galactic stateside in Wisconsin, they're really not sure.

"We've had some mixed results in Milwaukee," Mercurio said a bit too politely — he's clearly the media-handler of this bunch. So I told him all the venues are terrible, particularly The Rave and its horrific sound system, acoustics and event staff.

"I'm really glad to hear you say that," Vogel chimed in quickly.

"There's really big ups and downs," Mercurio added, quick to vindicate the Wisconsin crowds for persevering through muffled shows. "All the rooms in The Rave are horrible."

Anyway, they promised to consider shows at the University of Wisconsin's Memorial Union, and playing as many gigs as they do, Galactic is bound to pass through Madison soon enough. But local fans can't be too disappointed if they don't hear what had the French flailing wildly for little more than an hour.

"We're already trying to think ahead, and we don't know if it's gonna be that hop-hop," Mercurio said. "Gotta get back to the trunk.”

Bassey Etim ([email protected]) is a UW senior. He's still jet-lagged, but if Galactic is playing in Japan this very moment, he figures he can write a couple of stories.

Be sure to check out ArtsEtc. tomorrow for Part 2, as Bassey gives a firsthand tour of the insanity that is Trans Musicales.