Dumb Waiter’s sound is as eclectic as the music scene they come from. The rising Richmond quartet has been blowing minds with their intricate jazz meets math rock fusion, crossing more musical boundaries in a few bars than some acts do in their entire catalogs.
Dumb Waiter’s sound is as eclectic as the music scene they come from. The rising Richmond quartet has been blowing minds with their intricate jazz meets math rock fusion, crossing more musical boundaries in a few bars than some acts do in their entire catalogs.
This article is taken from the brand new print issue of RVA Magazine. Click here to read the digital version of this issue.
The group, comprised of guitarist Nick Crider, drummer Nathaniel Roseberry, saxophonist Tristan Brennis, and bassist Keith Paul, made their mark last year with the astounding debut record Is This Chocolate?. The record, like much of the group’s history, came to life around their de facto headquarters at Richmond’s Gallery 5, where they played one of their first shows with the renowned duo Lightning Bolt and recorded in the old firehouse’s upper gallery.
For Is This Chocolate?, Dumb Waiter enlisted some of the city’s best local talent to create the sprawling and musically rich sounds that fill the tracks. Local musician, producer, and general audio wizard Dave Watkins was brought in to engineer and help produce the record with the band. “He knows how to get the best performance out of you,” says Nathaniel Roseberry of working with Watkins. “He knows when you’re doing your best, and goes, ‘That’s the one.’”
The combination of Dumb Waiter’s accomplished musicianship and Watkins’ amazing production was made all the more impressive with the addition of the strings provided by Matt Gold and Treesa Gold of Richmond’s Goldrush. “We just gave them a few suggestions and they ran with it,” says Roseberry. “I don’t think a single track even took them more than an hour.“ “It was almost disappointing… we spent all this time making this really complex and hard music, and they just got it immediately, jokes guitarist Nick Crider. “We were like, ‘Come on, this should be harder!’”
The end result of the collaboration is nothing short of amazing. The record experiments with metal, noise, world music, and funk–and that’s all just in the first song. “What we’re going for now is to have more contrast,” says Tristan Brennis. “Where there’s the dissonant and the cacophonous, but there’s also the melodic and the resonant.” “It’s important to express everything,” adds Keith Paul.
Much like their compositions, Dumb Waiter is constantly evolving. “Halfway through the record, we figured out where we wanted to be,” says Roseberry. “There are about two to three songs on the record of us as a beginning band, and two to three songs with us where we are now and what we’re trying to make.”
Dumb Waiter has certainly hit their stride, and 2014 will be a big year for the band. They have another planned Watkins-helmed release in the mix, this time a split with RVA noise rockers Navi, and the band is heading down to make their SXSW debut this spring. Of all the big plans Dumb Waiter has coming up, one thing is for sure–their sound won’t get any easier to pin down, even to those closest to the group. Roseberry explains: “The album title came from Dave Watkins, when we were listening to something we’d just recorded. He was like, ‘What is this music? What is this? What the fuck is this? Is this chocolate?’”
