Dumpstaphunk
Somebody said we didn’t have enough FUNK up in here…Over its past 17 years, Dumpstaphunk has earned its reputation as the most well-regarded next-generation New Orleans live powerhouse, the type of band whose live shows attract sit-ins from legends like Carlos Santana, Bob Weir and Trombone Shorty.
Bio
When New Orleans roots-funk Dumpstaphunk first released their single “Justice” in January 2017, the group viewed the song as an important, if delicate, funk-blues anthem that spoke to their country’s turbulent times.
“We wrote that a time when a lot of things were going on, says the group’s founding member Ivan Neville. “Myself, Nick [Daniels] and Tony [Hall] were kids during the Sixties and Seventies, so we saw a lot growing up, and we see the same stuff still going on: the systemic racism, the racial profiling, all the social injustice.”
Nearly four years later, a brand-new version of “Justice 2020” (featuring Jurassic 5’s Chali 2na and Trombone Shorty) released on October 29, 2020, which will anchor Where Do We GoFromHere – the band’s first full-length album since 2013’s acclaimed Dirty Word, slated for release early 2021. Where Do We GoFromHere will be the group’s most powerful and pointed statement of their career; more sharply relevant than the group could have imagined when they first began work on the album several years ago. The new R&B tinged title track “Where Do We Go From Here” dropped Friday, August 28, 2020, with more singles to be released off the upcoming album in months to come.
Over its past 17 years, Dumpstaphunk has earned its reputation as the most well-regarded next-generation New Orleans live powerhouse, the type of band whose live shows attract sit-ins from legends like Carlos Santana, Bob Weir and Trombone Shorty. Alongside Hall, Daniels, Alex Wasily, Ryan Nyther and drummer Devin Trusclair, cousins Ivan and Ian Neville have built upon their family’s iconic NOLA legacy as they’ve transformed Dumpstaphunk into the city’s pre-eminent 21st-century funk-fusion export, resulting in recent career highlights like their July 2019 opening gig for the Rolling Stones on their home turf at the Superdome.
Modernizing and reinvigorating the Neville family groove has been one of the driving forces of Dumpstaphunk ever since the band spontaneously formed during Jazz Fest in 2003. Daniels and Hall both played with the Neville Brothers for years, but the band has never stood in the family’s shadows during its nearly two-decade career. For his part, Ian Neville never could have predicted he’d still be in the same band 17 years later, but the guitarist could sense the group’s historical weight from the onset.
“It was cool we were branching off and doing our own thing from our ancestors,” Ian says today. “We thought the group should be a fluid, changing thing, just like life.”
The band crystallized its early sound on its 2007 debut Listen Hear. By that point, the group was already proving prolific within the national funk-jam circuit, selling out headlining gigs across the country over the six years that followed until 2013’s Dirty Word. That record, which featured everyone from Flea to Ani DiFranco, was a modern funk masterpiece that reinforced the group’s well-earned reputation as the Crescent City’s freshest funk fusionists.
Since releasing their last album seven years ago, Ivan Neville became a father for the second time, an experience that shaped his outlook on the future-facing originals on the group’s new album. “The unknown, sometimes, is scary,” he says, discussing the band’s “Where Do We Go From Here,” “but sometimes you just have to take that ride. We’re at a crossroads right now in this country, and something’s got to change.”
The band’s mix of classic and modern influences can be heard throughout the new album’s songs – like the party-friendly mix of R&B, funk, rock, swamp-pop and blues of “Where Do We Go From Here.” from the slap-bass rave “Make It After All” to the band’s contemporary renderings of NOLA R&B rarities (the 1975 Blackmail gem) “Let’s Get At It” and early Seventies classics (Sly and the Family Stone’s) “In Time.”
“We hope people can hear the new songs and are inclined to dance and inspired to think at the same time,” says Ivan, speaking to the new album’s delicate balance between topic material and dance-floor rockers. Or, as Ian describes the tone of the album, “subtle but pertinent.”
The hybrid rhythms and grooves can be attributed, in part, to the fact that the album was recorded partially with the band’s former drummer Alvin Ford Jr., and partially with current drummer Deven Trusclair, who joined the group in 2019.
Dumpstaphunk culled material from many different sources over the past few years, creating during downtime and rare off tour cycle stop-gaps at various studios in New Orleans: some songs were born on-the-spot in the studio, others as a drum beat or a groove at sound-check. A few were simply covers that were already in the band’s live repertoire. The songwriting was largely collaborative, with all band-members contributing their own respective stylistic nuances.
“The songs all have their own little process,” says Ian. “That’s the best way we work.”
“I guess you could call it an unorthodox way of putting a record together,” Ivan says of the piece-meal sessions that resulted in Where Do We GoFromHere. “We were originally thinking of calling the album ‘Coming Soon,’ as an inside joke amongst the band alluding to how long it was taking us between records, but as a touring band doing over 100 shows per year, the majority of time we’ve been on the road.”
One song with an unexpected genesis is the band’s poignant cover of Buddy Miles’ 1973 chestnut “United Nations Stomp,” which features a searing guitar solo from a special guest, rising blues guitar phenom Marcus King. “I was driving around one day and that song came up on my iPod,” says the band’s longtime bassist Tony Hall. “I was like, ‘Oh, that’s cool. What is that?’”
Dumpstaphunk puts its own unmistakable stamp on the Buddy Miles cover. “We’re not biting off anybody’s material,” says Ian. “There are a lot of bands that take somebody’s song, flip it, and call it their own. As music listeners, we are simply students inspired by the legendary music of the pioneers that have influenced us, these songs are part of the fabric of our DNA, weaving their way into set lists, and in the studio, and taking on a life of their own “in tha Dumpsta”.
Thinking about the band’s evolution over the past nearly 20 years, Ivan points to their Sly Stone cover as perhaps the best example of the band’s perpetually forward-thinking progress.
“That’s a brave song to try to cover, and we did a damn good job on it”, Ivan says. We all love that song, we were all influenced by that music, but we were still able to make it our own, somehow.”
“Writing songs and coming up with original material is always a beautiful thing,” Ivan continues, while still waxing over the successful attempt of Sly’s “In Time,” he may as well be outlining the entire musical philosophy behind Dumpstaphunk: “but when you can cover a song like that, staying true to the original but still make it your own, it’s a magical thing.”
Where Do We GoFromHere is perhaps the best evidence yet of Dumpstaphunk’s ability to strengthen and transform their singular NOLA roots in combination with the deeper outside musical and philosophical influences on which the band is founded.
“Obviously, the New Orleans history is just embedded in us, but we manage to incorporate all the other stuff we’ve listened to over the years,” says Ivan. “We’re representing a legacy, but we’re reimagining a lot of it, too.”
DUMPSTAPHUNK is….
Ivan Neville – keyboards/vocals
Tony Hall – bass/guitar/vocals
Ian Neville – guitar
Nick Daniels III – bass/vocals
Devin Trusclair – drums
Alex Wasily – trombone
Ryan Nyther – trumpet
