Who is Nat Funk?

Nat Funk was born in 1971 right here in the great state of New York. Christened "Angelo Bellezza", no one suspected he would one day be reborn as "Natural P. Funk." Here is a short interview with the man himself.

Q: Where did the name "Nat Funk" come from?

Nat: A Song by James Brown called "Make It Funky." Around 1992 I had a copy of a copy of a James Brown cassette tape. Towards the end of "Make It Funky" Mr. Brown just starts rattling off names of different kinds of soul-food. But the first thing he says, or so I thought, is "Nat Funk!" I figured it was some particular dialect of the funk. Like "Natural Funk", or something. You know, like they weren't even trying to be funky, but they couldn't help it. The band was just naturally that funky.

Q: When did you realize he doesn't say "Nat Funk" and what does he actually say?

Nat: When I finally got the CD version it became readily apparent that he's actually saying, "Neck Bones" and not "Nat Funk." [SAMPLE] The CD fidelity is a lot better. In fact, the fidelity is so good that it actually revealed limitations of the original source tapes. Nevertheless, I wasn't about to change my name to "Neck Bones."

Q: Should people call you "Nat" or "Angelo?"

Angelo: I go by either. You'll know when it's Nat Funk, and when I'm just normal Angelo. No human can be Nat Funk 24/7. Seven maybe, but definitely not twenty-four.

Q: When did you first start playing the bass guitar?

Nat: 1985 or '86. I wanted to be Gene Simmons. Until I found out about Black Sabbath. Then I wanted to be Geezer Butler. And who didn't?

Q: KISS and Black Sabbath aren't exactly funky.

Nat: No. I was into Heavy Metal for a long time. But after watching "The Blues Brothers" like 600 times I decided to expand my horizons. From the music in that movie you can get anywhere. Soul, Blues, Funk, Northern Soul, Country and Western, even Jazz. I pretty much explored every artist on the soundtrack and their mothers. Literally their mothers, in some cases.

Q: Well, you're getting a little funkier. Still not "Nat Funk", but you're getting warmer.

Nat: In the early 1990's I started getting into wah-wah guitar and my dad said it sounded like "Shaft Music." I said, "What's that?" He was like, "You never saw any Shaft movies?" I thought he was referring to some kind of homosexual 70's porn movies. He meant the detective films. My bad. After that, I rented every Blaxploitation film known to man, and even some that were unknown. Superfly, Dolemite, Foxy Brown, Super Soul Brother. A couple were actually pretty close to what I had originally thought "Shaft Movies" were. The music in those films is great. I try to mix hard rock from the 70's with funk from the 70's.

       Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta get off my heals and on my wheels. I'll be sure and see you at the next show.