BandWagon Magazine - July 2023 - Carti Ferrari

BANDWAGON PHOTO OF THE MONTH | SUNDIVER CA MOXI THEATER 6-11-23 | PHOTO - RIGHT EYE PHOTO

ROCKING IT

A FEW QUESTIONS WITH TOAD THE WET SPROCKET’S DEAN DINNING

BY KYLE EUSTICE

There are countless ridiculous band names—from Chumbawamba and Limp Bizkit to Hoobastank and Thirty Odd Foot of Grunt. Then there’s Toad The Wet Sprocket. What’s a sprocket, why is it wet and what does that have to do with a toad? As the story goes, the band named themselves after a comment Eric Idle made on the skit “Rock Notes” from the 1987 Monty Python’s Flying Circus album, The Final Rip Off. Even Toad The Wet Sprocket’s lead singer, Glen Phillips, once admitted it was "a joke that went on too long.” Initially intended to be temporary, the name stuck. More than 30 years after they released their debut album, Bread & Circus, Phillips, Todd Nichols, Dean Dinning and Josh Daubin are still rocking with it.

Formed in Santa Barbara, California, Toad The Wet Sprocket catapulted to mainstream notoriety with the 1991 album, Fear, which included the singles “Walk on the Ocean” and “All I Want.” The project peaked at No. 49 on the Billboard 200 and both singles were Top 40 hits. Their fourth album, 1994’s Dulcinea, produced two more hits, “Fall Down” and “Something’s Always Wrong,” and the album was eventually certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). With their success mounting, they returned three

years later with the Top 20 album, Coil, but it would prove to be their last for 16 long years. After several breakups and makeups, Toad The Wet Sprocket reconvened in 2013 for New Constellation and followed up with 2021’s Starting Now. The band is currently on tour and will make a stop at the Mishawaka Amphitheater on July 2 with special guest Reed Foehl. BandWagon caught up with bassist Dean Dinning to discuss fame, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and random encounters with Jay Leno.

BandWagon (Kyle Eustice): When did you pick up the bass for the first time and what about it did you like?

Dean Dinning: When Toad was starting out, I was the keyboard player and Glen played bass. I had a Fender Precision bass that my dad had bought for me, but I hadn’t played it very much because it wasn’t fun to practice. The first time I played bass for real was at a Toad rehearsal when we were working on a new song that didn’t seem to warrant a keyboard part. I came up with a great bass line on the spot, and from that point on, I was the bass player in the band.

What was your first band called?

Believe it or not, my first band was called Toad the Wet Sprocket

Did you anticipate finding the kind of success you did with Toad?

When we recorded “Bread and Circus,” I felt like we could get a record deal. After that, when we made ‘Fear,’ I thought we could be

The songs were legitimately great, and we had Columbia Records promoting us and we were out there in the road building a following.

verse. One time Toad had just played on The Tonight Show, and I had gone out to a restaurant in Beverly Hills with my wife and her parents after the taping. As we are standing there waiting to be seated, Jay Leno and a few friends come in behind us. Jay Leno sees me, walks

The reason for the band’s breakup was “creative differences.” What kind of conversations needed to be had to reunite?

After we broke up, we all needed to realize that a band creating their sound is kind of a magical thing that is really hard to replicate, especially if you grow up playing with each other and filling the spaces in the music that other people leave for you. We also needed to understand that Toad was a valuable thing that we had created, and that our music had brought joy and comfort to a lot of people. As crass as the music business can seem sometimes, being a part of people’s lives in that way is nothing short of a privilege.

After 1997’s Coil, you didn’t release another album until 2013. What did you do during this hiatus?

During the hiatus from 1997 to 2003, I explored a lot of things that I had wanted to do when I finally had the time. I took voiceover classes and acting classes, did some plays, made some films and met a terrific bunch of actors and writers, some of whom are now producing big TV shows. I still recorded music at home, and played bass on songs for people, but I did very little live playing.

How did it feel to make another album together?

Making New Constellation was really fun because we wanted to make something special for our fans who had waited so long for a new album. We swung for the fence in a way that we hadn’t done since Fear. We put pedal steel on it. We put strings on a few songs. We had a new producer, Mikal Blue, who had been a fan of the band since the beginning and had always wanted to work with us. He knew what was great about the band and how to capture it. It also contained two songs that I had written the melodies for: ‘California Wasted’ and ’Is There Anyone Out There?,’ which was a first for me.

The music industry has changed so much since you started. What are the pluses and negatives?

I guess you could say that one of the negatives of the music business in recent years is that we don’t sell CDs anymore because of streaming. But I don’t think Toad would be selling many CDs right now anyway because there would not be any copies in the record store, other than a few gathering dust in the used bin. I get that at a certain level artists are hurt by streaming. But in our case, I think it has helped keep our music live and allow it to be discovered by a new generation of listeners. Some of them show up at our concerts and walk out with a CD, but many of them would rather just have a t-shirt.

How did COVID-19 impact not just your music career but your mental health?

When COVID hit, the thought that we might not ever get to play in front of people again was devastating. Music is one of the things that brings people together. A live music experience, where fans of an artist really get to share that love together, it’s just so important for the future of mankind. The thought of not being able to play shows Dean combined with not even being able to go to shows was unthinkable. Needless to say, I was very depressed.

What does making music mean to you?

It’s my purpose for being here. To appreciate it, enjoy it, be moved by it and participate in its creation. To have helped create something that will be enjoyed by people around the world for years to come has been my honor. I want to keep doing it as long as possible.

Don’t Look Back, You’ll Burn Your Eyes Out The Sounds and Stories Behind Carti Ferrari’s New Album

BY LANDON UNGERMAN

The last four years have produced a definite truth: change is the only constant. Some may say change is the easiest part of the journey, but moving on without looking back is where we falter. After four years of unwavering change, alternative artist Carti Ferrari is returning with a new full-length album on July 7. With a title like You’ll Burn Your Eyes Out, one would understand why Carti didn’t look back, keeping on a path that led to a fresh yet familiar collection of sounds.

BandWagon covered Ferrari a couple years back amid the release of his catchy trap single, “The Farthest.” Although the single has made its way to the album’s final tracklist, Ferrari’s narrative has significantly changed. What was once a “boxed-in” creative process for the young trap artist has blossomed into a collaborative and holistic approach to music.

“I felt like I had been dialing into the same sounds and aesthetics, and I wanted to branch out,” Carti Ferrari says. One listen through the album shows beyond a doubt that since “The Farthest,” he’s reached further—but he didn’t do it alone.

“I have to give my producer, Adam, a lot of credit,” he explains. “We wanted to have fun making the music. What went from just picking a beat from one of his beat packs turned into building instrumentals from the ground up.”

As fundamental as it sounds, being a part of a song’s creation from start to finish changed everything for Ferrari. There weren’t two sides of a waveform anymore; rather a canvas with no disposition allowed him and Adam to take the music anywhere, or vice versa. What resulted was a collection of songs with a colorful array of sounds that,

in Ferrari’s words, “has a little something for everyone.”

And he’s right. The palette of sounds on the album reflect those of early 2000s pop-punk, modern R&B, melodic trap and even indie bedroom pop. Adam emphasizes using music unlike your own to inspire what you create, so as Ferrari’s music taste expanded, so did his realm of inspiration.

“I was listening to a lot of My Chemical Romance and Beach Bunny when I was making the album,” he notes. “I love how that came through in places on the album.”

Creativity flourished with the infusion of new inspiration, a collaborative partnership with Adam and the organic growth and maturation of Carti Ferrari as an artist. As the album developed over a course of years, a different version of Ferrari comes through on every track with a binding theme: a better self.

“There’s about 3 or 4 tracks where you can still hear the old Carti Ferrari,” he says, “but halfway through, Adam really pushed me to be a better version of myself on every song we did.”

Ferrari’s outreach for something improved and unfamiliar shines on the title track, “You’ll Burn Your Eyes Out.” In his words, “It’s further out from anything I’ve created before. It has a really chill indie-rock feel, yet it's alternative and dark at the same time. I love it.”

What’s more is Carti Ferrari’s push for something more purposeful and full didn’t stop in the studio. The album is a reflection of its artist, who, for the past four years, has been on a reflective, enduring personal journey. When asked what the phrase ‘You’ll Burn Your Eyes Out” means, he had an answer that summates the point of the album:

That’s why Carti Ferrari can’t look back—he’ll burn his eyes out. Only he could say what he fears. Perhaps it’s what’s behind him or the chance that he’ll never be able to return to where he’s been. One listen through You’ll Burn Your Eyes Out will reveal what he can’t turn back to.

“It’s about facing something you don’t want to face. For me, it’s coming face-to-face with what you fear most.”

THE MYSTERIOUS MAGIC OF 311

S.A. MARTINEZ ON THE FATEFUL JOURNEY TO RED ROCKS

BY KYLE EUSTICE

As 311 was driving from Omaha to Los Angeles with dreams of making it in the music business, they made a pit stop at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado. Standing in front of the historic venue, Nick Hexum, S.A. Martinez, Aaron “P-Nut” Wills, Chad Sexton and Tim Mahoney vowed to play there one day. More than 30 years later, not only have they performed at Red Rocks multiple times, they’ve also sold it out, a testament to the loyalty of the group’s diehard fanbase. On July 1, 311 will take the Red Rocks stage once again, this time joined by Arrested Development, J Boog and Matisyahu.

“It's an amazing venue,” Martinez tells BandWagon. “There are only a handful of those, but Red Rocks is a destination. It always makes for an event type of atmosphere. People fly in for that show because it's so unique and so cool. It’s always been a part of the band's lore. We said, ‘One day, we’re gonna play here.’ I had been to Red Rocks to see Neil Young in ’89. I remember driving that long stretch late at night and everyone was asleep. It was the first time I was driving to Colorado. I’ll never forget it.”

Martinez, who joined 311 in 1992, has played thousands of shows all over the world and released 13 studio albums with the group. Never did he imagine growing up in South Omaha he’d have the opportunity to share stages with the likes of Smashing Pumpkins, No Doubt, Green Day, Cypress Hill and Korn or set sail on the annual 311 cruise. As fate would have it, Arrested Development joined 311 on the cruise this year. Helmed by Todd “Speech” Thomas, the Afrocentric hiphop group captivated Martinez in the early 1990s with songs such as “Tennessee” and “Mr. Wendal.”

“When we first moved out to California,’ Tennessee’ was huge,” he remembers. “That was a very early memory. I remember going into one club on the strip, that song was playing and people were fucking going off. We crossed paths with them once in Japan, but I don't think we really interacted with them. But they were just on the 311 cruise we did in March, so the camps kind of got to interact a bit and some of the wives spoke. I caught one of their sets on the boat and it was great. It’s just a testament to a great band making great music and staying true to their mission and to themselves.”

It felt like a natural step to ask Arrested Development to join the Red Rocks bill, so they “made it happen.” In addition to playing shows again—which were put on hold in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic brought the concert industry to its proverbial knees—311 is just beginning to tinker with new music. Their latest album, Voyager, was released in 2019 and peaked at No. 18 on the Billboard 200. It was their first album not to debut in the Top 10, and Martinez wants to make sure the next project is their best. Otherwise, he says, “What’s the point?”

“We’ve kind of dipped back into that recently, but it's been a little bit of here, a little bit of there just because of the logistics of where everyone's located these days,” he explains. “With Chad being in Arizona, he has to line it up to where he can come out for a chunk of time. We’ve really only had two sessions, and they've only been like maybe four to five days each, you know. We're still in a very embryonic stage, but there's been some demos kind of flushed, were flushed to a degree beforehand. So we had something to work with. After Red Rocks, we will go back at some point within that week or two and get back to doing that.”

311 fans should be elated by the prospect of a new album. Much like Phish or the Grateful Dead disciples, 311 fans are fiercely loyal. In fact, it’s more like a community of family than anything else. But it still baffles Martinez. He’s not quite sure how or why 311 has become almost a religion to people.

“I think it’s just the relationships that have been born in that bubble are just so impactful and meaningful to the fans,” he suggests. “One fan told me she went to a show just because she wanted to be within the confines of the community for an uplift. The base is tight knit in many ways, so I think that's a big part of it. I also think it's a bit of a mystery to me, but it's incredible that something has been stitched together, held itself and continues to expand. We’re still gaining new fans. It’s a cool thing, but there’s something special about the community itself of 311 fans and how they hold one another up. I think that's really the magic ingredient, but it’s still kind of mysterious.”

Martinez is acutely aware of the Grateful Dead comparisons. “We’ve heard that comparison for years,” he says. The band’s longevity is on par with the Grateful Dead’s, too. Jerry Garcia fronted the band from 1965 until his death in 1995. 311 just crossed the 30-year mark since their debut album, 1993’s Music. While the Dead has carried on with John Mayer as Dead & Co., it will never be the same. As for 311, they’ve weathered a plethora of storms but never called it quits—and big part of that is due to their fans.

“It's pretty incredible,” he says. “To have that continuity with a segment of your fans who are just with you through thick and thin is invaluable.”

311 PLAYS RED ROCKS AMPHITHEATER ON JULY 1 WITH ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, MATISYAHU AND J BOOG. FIND MORE INFORMATION ON THE RED ROCKS WEBSITE.

UNITED FRONT

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT’S SPEECH REMAINS STEADFAST IN HIS MESSAGE

BY KYLE EUSTICE

Arrested Development played Washington’s in Fort Collins on February 27, 2020, just days before COVID-19 shuttered the live music industry. Anyone who caught the show was greeted by the same positive, Afrocentric vibes the kaleidoscopic group has been transmitting since the 1990s. More importantly, their message of unity was still intact and hadn’t wavered over the last 30 years. Arrested Development’s 1994 single “United Front” (from the Zingalamaduni album) easily translates to today, lending their music a longevity that many groups don’t have the luxury of experiencing.

With lyrics like, “Totally confused, depressed ‘cause of the news/ Watch TV, more bad is what you see/Everyone is lost and they’re looking for a savior/Everyone is blind and they’re looking for a leader,” the song is a sobering reminder of the United States’ ongoing socio-political mess.

“IF I DIDN'T MENTION THAT THE SONG WAS RELEASED IN ’94, IT COULD HAVE EASILY BEEN ABOUT TODAY,” SPEECH TELLS BANDWAGON. “WE NEED A ‘UNITED FRONT' TO FINALLY MAKE THE CHANGES WE DESERVE AND OUR HUMAN HEARTS ACHE FOR.”

Fortunately for Speech, he frequently finds moments like that on the road. Arrested Development still packs venues across the globe, something Speech doesn’t take for granted.

In fact, they just returned home from Europe, where they were welcomed with open arms. They plan on bringing the same warm energy to Red Rocks Amphitheater on July 1 along with 311, J Boog and Matisyahu.

“It's the most beautiful venue in the U.S., filled with the majesty of nature and bright red sandstone rocks, plus it's acoustically perfect,” Speech says of the historic Colorado venue. “I’m looking forward to being in the sacred mountains because our music soars in this atmosphere. Just imagine our debut album cover and the openness of this venue—it’s a match made in heaven.”

But Speech could have easily sat that one out. While overseas, he experienced a medical emergency that required hospitalization. Although he’s feeling much better, his health woes aren’t exactly over. On Father’s Day (June 18), he took to Instagram to reveal he was walking outdoors for the first time in weeks. His breathing was noticeably labored, but with a smile on his face, he assured his fans he was on the mend. At 54, he’s acutely aware of the importance of self-care, especially in light of his recent health scare.

"I proudly turn 55 this October—God willing,” he notes. “My selfcare involves a lot of nature, prayer, meditation, reading, studying and concern for what I put into my body. During our tour last month I was rushed to the hospital for a respiratory infection. I could hardly breathe. My brother died from an asthma attack at age 29, so I take these things seriously. I was blessed to have been served for more than 10 hours in the British healthcare system for a whopping $0.”

Speech, as he suggested, is no stranger to tragedy. In 2018, Arrested Development lost their longtime mentor and spiritual guru Baba Oje, a devastating blow to the whole band. He explains, “Baba was a big part of what Arrested Development was and is about—community, the elders and the youth united, embracing wisdom. It takes a whole village. We used to have an empty rocking chair on stage for him during our concerts, but as of the last few years, it's an ending chant on our hit ‘People Everyday:’ ‘Go Baba, go Baba.’”

Despite Baba’s absence, Speech is still guided by his passion for the music, his bandmates and fans. He says, “There's still a burn-

ing fire in my soul. Issues like banning Black books in schools, mass shootings every weekend in numerous inner cities, police brutality and killings of innocent Black women and children, the magnifying and promotion of violence and degradation within mainstream music are relevant issues of today, which our music has addressed since the ‘90s.”

Needless to say, the current rap landscape can be a place of frustration for Speech with the hypersexualization of female rappers, vacuous lyrical content and seemingly never-ending stream of violence that has taken dozens of rappers’ lives over the last few years.

“I have mixed emotions about current hip-hop,” he admits, “but the biggest disappointment is the lack of continuum. When we were young, we were proud to continue the legacy of Afrika Bambaataa and The Cold Crush Brothers. We were even delighted to dig in the crates and push the envelope of older jazz, funk, soul and rock records. To this day, our generation features artists like George Clinton, Bob James and James Brown. This generation has generally divorced themselves from the continuum and pretend that they somehow got where they are on their own.”

But rather than idle in disappointment, Arrested Development continues to make new music, material that will hopefully uplift people who are grew up with the band’s older material—including hits such as “Tennessee” and “Mr. Wendal”—and new fans just discovering them for the first time.

“We've released our best music since the ’90s within the last three years,” Speech says, confidently. “People must go listen to Don't Fight Your Demons and For The FKN Love albums. They are some of the most exciting and relevant songs of Arrested Development’s catalog. My label, Vagabond Records, is doing well, too. We actually care