Digging into the minds of Diggin’ Dirt

Imagine if James Brown and Steel Pulse had eight baby boys. Those boys would eventually become the men behind the funk group from Humboldt County, Diggin’ Dirt. Though they formed in 2011, Diggin’ Dirt released their first studio album,  Full Season, in 2016 and have showed no signs of slowing down. This year, they have already released a new EP, Bedrock (2018), that further develops concepts and genres explored from their debut album. With a sound built on a singer, two guitars, a bass, drums, a tenor saxophone, a baritone saxophone, and a trombone, Diggin’ Dirt can create unique songs led by multiple different instruments. This can be heard in songs such as “Peace of Mind” — where the drums lead into a big-scaled outro — and “Leather Tramp” — where the saxophone plays a solo that would even leave Johnny Hodges impressed.

With funk having lost its place in the mainstream since the 1980s, it is so refreshing to hear a band in 2018 embrace groove-driven sounds. Though they mostly dabble in funk, Diggin’ Dirt also display a full portfolio of music ranging from reggae to jazz. Because of their mastery of grooves and musical diversity, I recommend that everyone gives them a listen; not only do they feel the music, but they make sure you do too.

Fortunately, I had the opportunity to interview 5 members of the band — Zach Alders (vocals), Rory Urquhart (guitar), Drew Weitzel (guitar), John Callahan (bass), Aaron Gottesman (tenor saxophone).

When in your lives did you know that you wanted to be musicians?

Zach: Well, my father was a drummer when I was growing up. Me and my brother had this room that was above the garage, so he would be in all these bands and he eventually showed my brother how to drum; he got me a guitar and I think I must’ve been maybe nine or ten. That was when [music] just became the coolest thing and I always wanted to do it.

Rory: I’ve been playing music since I was about 12. When I eventually came to college, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but the thing I love most is playing music, so I studied music in college and that put me on the path to dedicate a lot of my time to music.

Why the name, “Diggin’ Dirt”? Is there any reason or story behind it or was it just a spur of the moment name that everyone liked?

Rory: We were just sitting around one day after playing enough house parties to realize that we needed an actual name to stick with because people would ask us what our name was and we didn’t have one.

Aaron: It was a process. We were all just shooting the shit, sitting in the living room where we would play and trying to think of something that sounded cool. I’ve been working on a farm and literally all I was doing all day was digging dirt, so I just said it aloud, and everyone liked it. It’s like digging through the dirts to find that [funk] groove.

On your first album, Full Season (2016), the last two songs are entitled “Mac & Cheese, Pt. 1” and “Mac and Cheese, Pt. 2.” What inspired you to sing about mac ‘n’ cheese in two different songs? These two parts were my introduction to the band and I’ve been hooked ever since, but I have always wondered, ‘why mac n’ cheese’?

Zach: So I joined the band two years ago and we were working on that song. They were already playing that song and it was called “Mac & G’s” (inspired by Rory’s middle name). That’s how a lot of these songs were born; they wrote them a long time before I showed up and then I sort of put my own spin on it. I wanted to do something virile and sexual just because that’s a very funky move, but I also wanted to make it weird and make it juxtaposed as funk often is. That’s how we made “Mac & Cheese”: alluding a love experience with a goopy, sticky bowl of mac ‘n’ cheese.

Aaron: And that just happens during practice; things just come to be and then if we all laugh, we want to keep it in.

John: With that song, we came up with part two first. It became a song that we knew we had to turn into an epic, and then Zach’s story got thrown on it. It just started with a bass line and Rory’s middle name, and then we turned it into a bowl of mac ‘n’ cheese.

What is the songwriting process? Does it start from one person’s idea, improvisation, or in some other ways?

Drew: It really varies; it could be someone’s idea or improvisation. A majority of it is us jamming because we want to have fun and not just be stuck playing our old songs. We’ll just jam something out and want to keep a certain section. Like on “Leather Tramp,” a new song on the EP we just released, we were just jamming to warm up for practice one day and Zach actually recorded it. The next practice, we didn’t remember it at all. But then Zach came and played it back; we responded like, “Who is that? That’s really sick!” until we realized it was us and that that would become a song. So there’s stuff like that, but then sometimes somebody will have a riff that they noodled up on their own and they’ll bring it into practice and throw it into the mix. Then the drums will get thrown in, then the bass, then the vocals; it starts with one thing, and then grows out. Most of the song writing usually comes from an idea or jamming.

Zach: I usually wait to put the words in until we have the sound well-established.

John: It’s pretty organic; we never sit down to write a song and have composition sessions or anything. That’d just be really uncomfortable.

It’s not very common to see a funk group nowadays. What were your inspirations that have led up to your unique sound?

Aaron: It’s nice that there are so many of us; I think we all come from a little bit of a different background. We all have our own particular tastes, but we all have that one thing in common that we all like — the groove of the music. I think all of our influences come together, but we have our own little categories that we like the most. Everybody’s flavor gets mixed together and we’ve been playing together long enough where we can play off of each other too. We might start a song a certain way and then hear what somebody adds to it. Then you might want to change your own thing and it turns into this fusion of all of our ideas and backgrounds. It makes a sound that is not easy to categorize.

John: When you play a show, you want to play stuff that people respond to; and people respond to the funk. So we can play our reggae songs and people vibe with it, or a rock song and people get into it, but when you play some heavy funk, people get down. I think that’s what has kept the funk going — the response to it. And maybe it is because there are not a lot of bands playing it now, but if you give the funk to people, they love that shit.

Zach: I think it’s a style of some antiquity. It was sort of the bastard son of blues and jazz, but also the predecessor of hip hop. It’s sort of lost in its own time. As far as the funk, specifically, is concerned, I think I’ve always had a real interest in preserving that part of history; there was a time and an origin made up mostly of people who were extremely oppressed. They just became super proud and exuberant of their culture and it was cool to see a moment of that in history and I love the attitude of funk for that. It’s something that we should all be proud of.

John: And it’s just really fun to play; it feels so good. When you get a funk groove and you’re just locked in, it’s bliss.

Zach: You’re under a voodoo spell. You get what some call, saucy as a mother-bitch.

Unfortunately, I have yet to have the opportunity to see you guys live, but from watching live videos on YouTube, I get the sense energy is a big part of your live performances. How does that energy translate into your studio recordings? Is there a whole different kind of approach to working in a studio?

Aaron: Yeah, it’s a lot different. But we still track the big pieces altogether, which goes off this idea of us feeding off our energy. So I think as much as possible, we would at least have most of the band in the studio, no matter who we were trying to get a good recording of; we would scratch track the vocals and the horns, even if we are just recording rhythm. Going into a studio was — especially the first time we went — a little weird.

Drew: But it’s another perspective of our music that makes us better musicians because [in studio] we can analyze it better. I think it also improves the songs in a way because it really makes us foresee how it will sound on the recording. Whenever we play live, there’s always little variations.

John: It is extremely different. You’re in a studio and have headphones on; when you take your headphones off, you see we’re all just sweaty and dancing in silence. It’s a really funny experience. Sometimes we will do a take and then step outside and do some jumping jacks, push each other and yell, “come on, let’s feel this!”

Zach: For the song “Paycheck,” there was a moment where we just did crowd vocals and I got everybody in the studio around one mic, telling them to get into the groove. You’re just in this box of a room, which is all cushy and there’s no crowd; it’s weird.

John: For “Paycheck,” we were all side-stepping in a circle and clapping. We were all out of breath and panting. It was completely silent in the room, except for us sweating, dancing, and clapping. The music just takes you there. And you’re so invested in a song once you’ve recorded it because you track them and add all these layers; you really start caring about the outcome. I guess live, you’re more in the moment and are invested in the show and the crowd, but you really do get invested in songs themselves in the studio. You even get a different energy from that.

Rory: I’d say we are mostly a live band though. It’s just so satisfying, playing with a whole crowd. It’s such an energy release that you get high off it.

Drew: I think we all do it because it makes us really happy, but it’s also really cool to see other people get really happy and stoked.

You guys have recently finished recording your entire upcoming EP and have put it all on Spotify (as well as other platforms like bandcamp); what would you say the general theme of the EP is?

Zach: It’s a real mix; there’s a funk song, a few jazz-rock songs, a super reggae tune. We stayed true to the diversity in this one as the last one (Full Season). This one took a lot longer [to record] though. We made the last one in two or three months, but this one took about nine months.

How does this new EP compare to Full Season in terms of arrangement?

Zach: For one, we had Justin Bertolini on the trumpet for a lot of the recording of Full Season. He’s been up in Crescent City and hasn’t been working with us as much, so this EP had a lower-scale with three horns, which added a different element; you have to come up with more robust and interesting things without that piercing soprano on it. So there was that technical difference there. I think we also wanted to evolve in how straightforward we are going to be with transitions into songs and things within the songs, like playing with real dubs on a song, or that howling wind transition between “Leather Tramp” and “Typsy Gypsy”. There are some very new elements beyond just what we do instrumentally. With the production, it felt like it took on a new color.

Rory: In Full Season, Zach had only been in the band for less than a year when we started tracking it, and the horns started maybe a month before we got in the studio, so we were a pretty new band back then. We pieced songs together in the studio [for Full Season] without knowing how we were going to do it, but these songs for the EP are how we’ve been playing them for the last year or six months. We already knew, going into the studio, how it was going to be, whereas we were less prepared for the last album.

John: I think, too, that we felt more comfortable in the studio. The first time you go into a studio, you’re a little frantic in your head. This time, there was a little more experience, which i felt was noticeable.

Drew: I agree; I think there was the combination of having more experience in the studio and just us playing a lot more together, making us more comfortable as a band. A lot of the songs — like “Typsy Gypsy” — we have been playing for a while. That’s one of our oldest songs and we have been playing it with different members, so it has been fun to get that one really solid. There was also “Leather Tramp,” which came together last minute and we love that song; that one has an organic feel. So we have these old ones that we have been playing for a while and “Leather Tramp,” which was really fresh and felt good.

Now that your EP is done, what’s next?

Aaron: Some touring, and we have enough songs for another full length album; we are starting to look for a recording studio now. There’s a big focus on touring and working on new songs to record more. We are really just devoting a lot more time this year than we ever have in the past and are pushing as much as we can.

Lastly, what tips would you give to aspiring musicians?

All: Keep playing and practicing.

John: Just play gigs and practice, play gigs and practice.

Aaron: At first, we were just jamming in our friend’s living room and he said, “you guys should play house parties and stuff”. So we played a house party.

Drew:  It was terrible music — horrible.

Aaron: It was not terrible. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good.

Zach: At some point, on a deeper level, I would recommend that you really believe there is room for you in the musical world. Also, remain proud of something you make. That’s something that music has really taught me personally: to not just get stoked about it when you finish writing it, but to choose to remain stoked when you start touring and playing your songs everyday. Be proud of [your work].

Drew: I think what allowed us to get where we are as a group is that we always wanted to just play what we loved playing. That allowed us to convey this energy that people picked up and reinforced. Be true to your own sound; if it makes you feel good, it’ll probably make someone else feel good too when they feel that energy.

Aaron: To be honest, it’s pretty surreal for all of us too. We’re still flabbergasted too to be where we are. It’s kind of a thing that just happened; it’s hard to think, “oh, we should just check these boxes off”. That attitude has allowed us to have fun and do what we want to do.

Zach: Also, the technical side of becoming a touring band and laying out the logistics will take up so much time — at least as much time as the making and playing of the music.

Aaron: But if you love it, it’s totally worth it. We don’t do it for the money; we don’t even make enough money to support ourselves, but we love doing it.

Written by Shayan Shirkhodai