Drums and Tuba

Drums and Tuba
By Mike Hammer
Mar 23, 2005

Drums and Tuba is a trio of pop music. Some of the music is made with a tuba, there are some electronics, drums and masterful guitar playing. The band released its last full-length studio album, Mostly Ape, on Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records in 2002. A mostly instrumental group, Drums and Tuba make their living finding a groove and exploiting it.

They always bring an impressive motion to their live show, playing multiple instruments and using electronic sampling to loop themselves and bombard listeners with catchy rhythms you can’t escape. The secret to their success is simple: the band is made up of three expert musicians playing and improvising songs that drench you in energy and make you want to dance. They throw together funk and jazz and pop and produce a sound that will shake you like an earthquake.

Currently, they are touring Europe, opening for Cake, and they have a new album coming out later this year. I caught up with two-thirds of the band - Tony Nozero (drums, electronics), Brian Wolff (tuba, trumpet) - the night before they left for Europe, as they finished up a month long stint at TwiRoPa in New Orleans.
Mike Hammer: Where did you guys start as a band?
Tony Nozero: We started in Austin, Texas in 1995.
MH:
You started just playing drums and tuba, right?
TN:
Yeah, it was just the two of us.
MH:
Tell me about the Austin scene and how you guys made your band kinda fit into that scene when you were starting out.
TN:
I think it was a lot different then, than it is now, probably a lot smaller.
Brian Wolf: Yeah, everybody knew everybody else. Me and the guitar player ( Neil McKeeby) were playing in a band together before this one, and Tony was playing in a bunch of stuff and we were working together, so we just said he let's get together and start playing.
TN:
Yeah, it just happened organically. It seemed at that time, and it's sort of similar now, that you could just get gigs easily. There were lots of places to play and everybody was doing lots of stuff and you ran into each other all the time.
MH:
Did you guys try to set yourselves apart when you started, with having just the drums and tuba?
BW:
No, I just started playing the tuba, and I wanted to start a band. It was kinda just purely for fun. We sort of had a moment, pretty quickly, where we decided we needed a third person. At first we were thinking about more horns, but Austin is like, any of the horn players were all jazz guys, so we got together with Neil.
MH:
So the band evolved from just drums and tuba to a three-piece with a guitar. How did that change your sound? Define your sound?
TN:
At first we were doing kinda marching band on the street stuff, that had a big old bass drum and one cymbal and one snare and was just very stripped down. It was just kinda wacky, funky, weird stuff. So when Neil showed up we really started working on writing songs, making arrangements and such.
BW:
Back then it was a lot more punk. It was nothing we tried to do, it just kinda came out that way.
MH:
As an instrumental band, a lot of times I think that instruments take different roles that could be taken by a vocalist. This is something that we were concentrating on, trying to appeal to people who aren’t as familiar with straight instrumental groups.
BW:
We never really made an attempt to appeal to anybody. We just, we do melodies and stuff, and that makes it a little more accessible. No matter how weird it is. So, that gives people something to grab onto. And we were always kinda like, if people like it, they like it, if they don’t, they don’t. We didn’t have any plans for the long term or anything...
MH:
But you guys have managed to stay around and make a living as a band. How many albums have you put out now?
BW:
Seven.
TN:
Yeah.
MH:
Is that finished yet?
TN:
It’s getting there. Pretty close, we’ve been working on a lot of different songs.
MH:
Is that what some of the lives shows are for, right now, working out the kinks in the songs?
TN:
Yeah, some of it.
MH:
Well, there’s a lot of movement in your show, as far as playing different instruments and looping things and working with each other. Do you try and capture that in the studio?
TN:
With some of the stuff, it’s weird, some of the songs in the studio come out really differently.
MH:
How much can you copy the studio on stage?
TN:
They’re pretty similar. The structures are all written out – from the three of us being in the studio and working it out – and we pretty much stick to the format. There’s always little bits of improv that weave in and out, but there’s always...we always want a full song, not just a part that goes on forever.
MH:
For a while you guys were including some vocals. How did that change the songs?
BW:
It hasn’t changed them very much.
TN:
Yeah, it hasn’t changed them. The one thing that’s been difficult is figuring out how to go about it because we’ve been instrumental for so long.
MH:
Have the shows changed at all?
BW:
They're pretty similar. The people who’ve followed us, we’re doing new stuff, so that’s exciting, but mostly it’s just been difficult balancing all the sound. There are a lot of sounds and it’s just a matter of balancing all the sonic shifts that are going on.
MH:
Is that exciting for you guys?
BW:
Yeah, we’re always trying to do something different. You don’t wanna do the same stuff over and over again.