I just got off the phone with Manhattan Transfer songbird Cheryl Bentyne, a Northwest native (born and raised in Mt. Vernon), who talked about the group’s new member, Trist Curless, about coping with the death last year of founder Tim Hauser, and about their May 30 show at the Admiral Theatre.

“We’re kind of starting over,” Bentyne said during a phone conversation from her Los Angeles home. “Whatever the Transfer can get as far as work, I think we need it. … And I think Tim would’ve wanted it this way.”

MT last played the Admiral in October 2013. But Bentyne said there would be a little different dynamic this time around.

“We’ve put some songs that were Tim’s songs on the shelf; we don’t do them any more,” she said. “Now we’ve been rethinking our repertoire. Even Trist has been bringing in songs that we haven’t done. He’s the kid of the group, but he was a fan. He can do a lot of things — beat-box things, a lot of scatting — and he keeps us on our toes.”

We’ll have much more from the interview in our preview story in the May 29 issue of Kitsap A&E.

In the meantime, you can get tickets for the show by calling 360-373-6743 or logging on to admiraltheatre.org.

— MM