Does the archetypal Boston band continue to wear grotty sneekers and write mid-paced, acoustic college radio hits? ADAM CONNORS asked Dave Derby, lead singer of Boston’s The Dambuilders.
There is something sweet about the majority of music which comes out of the US city of Boston. This youthful college community has borne many a ‘perfect guitar pop’ band, what with Buffalo Tom and The Lemonheads pacing its streets and lanes.
For the last four years The Dambuilders have been amongst it all, albeit with their own unique bent.
Rather than being a bunch of lads in sneekers and sport jackets, the attention frequently turns to their manic violin player, Joan Wasser, her jet-black hair bleached with a single white strip. Fast becoming a cult figure, the unnerving edge of Wasser’s violin seemingly breaks hearts as well as that Boston musical inheritance.
“A really great thing is that we’ll play a show and some girl or young guy will come up and say ‘My Mom made me play violin and I hated it and stopped and now I want to learn it again'”, Derby says of their frontperson-by-default.
“I think that’s really cool, I think she’s converting people into the concept of rock violin.”
And it is the very first thing which strikes you about The Dambuilders’ debut album, Encendedor. With the boundless height-scaling sound of the violin colliding with Wasser’s screams on the opening track, Copsucker, the concept of rock violin comes wailing home. Combine this anomaly with the pacey, pop rhythm that has come to be associated with said US town and you have a basic idea of their craft.
‘The violin is a thing that a lot of people think is a gimmick at first, but we think the violin makes as much difference as the guitar. It is so much a part of our sound.”
“I think we’re a lot more mobile and visual than the Boston bands which most people talk about. If you consider The Lemonheads, for example, as a Boston shoegazing band, it’s probably because Evan (Dando) needs to concentrate on his shoes.”
Do you mean they are probably changing colours in front of his eyes? “Yeah (laughs). Definitely.”
In a quick-fire follow-up to the only recent release of their debut album Encendedor in Australia, Derby gives us a clue about the direction of their latest album which is soon to be released here, titled Ruby Red.
“It is a bit harder, maybe harsher, than most of the tracks off Encendedor. Probably closer to tracks like Copsucker and (the Pixies-styled) Collective”, the latter being a monumental track with the band yelling “antiseptic” for the chorus.
Indeed, the opening track of Ruby Red, Smooth Control, is their paciest track to date – lots of distorted violin and new found backing harmonies from Wasser – soon followed by the already radio earmarked Teenage Loser Anthem.
“And the new video for the first single off the new album is basically about us playing a show in a club and a young skateboard guy falls in love with Joan, which is not that much of a stretch of the imagination really.”
While the eastern states get to see The Dambuilders with Jeff Buckley and Sydneysiders Glide over the month of February, we seemingly have to wait for these Bostonians a little while longer. Boo.
