Arguably the biggest Boston jam heroes of the past few years, Dopapod are coming home once again. Founded by four Berklee students in 2007, the band built a solid musical footing fusing progressive rock and funk influences with modern electronics for a pleasantly wonky, consistently driving sound. Presenting a lively semi-improvised set which hits the right balance between polished and loose, professional and playful, Dopapod tours a dance party that’s accessible to a range of music fans.
Since making the Boston Band Move to Brooklyn (as is tradition), the band have built a massive following in the Northeast as well as becoming become mainstays on the national festival circuit. With acclaimed appearances at everything from the smaller fests like The Werkout to regionals like Catskill Chill and Peach to big dogs like Bonaroo, they have done an excellent job making their groovy presence felt by the masses. With a busy festival season on the way, as well as the promise of a new album in the near future, Dopapod looks set to have a big 2016.
This weekend, Dopapod hits the Sinclair for their three night homecoming residency. We chatted with guitarist Rob Compa ahead of the gigs about his time in Boston, touching on the Berklee experience, house shows and his favorite spots in Allston.
Allston Pudding: Can you tell me about your experience at Berklee?
Rob Compa: As of next month, it’s ten years since I started there. I didn’t graduate- that’s sort of the story of Berklee, that no one graduates- but I went for 4 semesters and it was great. I focused on guitar playing when I was there, which might not have been the smartest thing in retrospect. I could have learned about recording and production and arranging horn parts and all this other crazy stuff, but as a 19-year-old all I cared about was becoming a better guitar player! That was basically all I did while I was there.
If I hadn’t gone, though, I wouldn’t have met the guys in the band and I wouldn’t be here right now. That was sort of the most important part: the other students that you meet. I almost feel like you learn more from them than from the teachers if you have an open mind.
AP: Would you say the band came together because of everyone going to Berklee or more because they were part of the scene that surrounded Berklee?
RC: It’s hard to say. I feel like there’s lot’s of bands that start at Berklee, and everyone’s in like 20 bands, and a lot of them sort of feel like Berklee bands. Ours never felt like that to me, even though we all went to Berklee. We didn’t just play recitals at Berklee. We wanted to go out, and we were even willing to skip classes to take gigs. We relied a little less on the Berklee atmosphere than booking our own gigs and traveling a couple hours to play shows and stuff like that.
AP: Were you mainly playing house shows or traditional venues?
RC: We started off mainly playing venues and nobody showed up because why would they? No one know who we were and we honestly weren’t that great of a band yet. We took a different approach and for a year all we did was play house parties. There’s always people at house parties and they’ll hear your band whether they want to or not.
We started doing that and there would always be people in the room. But we’d do that and then try to play a club show and still nobody would show up and we didn’t no why. Finally we figured out the code that cracked it: we got stickers! We would play a house party and then all those drunk kids the next morning would have these stickers in their pocket and they’d go “oh yeah, that’s the name of that band I saw last night!”
After that I remember we played one house party where the cops showed up and broke the whole thing up after 3 songs and everyone was bummed out. We thought “maybe this is a good thing; let’s wait and see!” A month later we played at Harper’s Ferry, which is now Brighton Music Hall, and it was sold out. When the cops showed up people didn’t get to hear a show so they thought “we’ve gotta see them again next time.” The next time was a real club show and it was packed out!
AP: Since your time in the city, police have been cracking down a lot more on basement/house shows. Do you think it would have been more difficult for you to build a following without those performance opportunities?
RC: Definitely, yeah. At least in Boston, since we had some other towns where we were doing okay. But Boston was a hard one. Doing okay is pretty relative- we were doing okay for a band of 20-year-olds so if there were 40 people there we were happy.
But if we hadn’t been able to do the house party thing I don’t know if we would have developed. It’s hard to say though; maybe it would have just taken longer. But I think, if anything, it was a pretty great shortcut to developing a fanbase around the town.
AP: You lived around Allston for a while. Did you have any favorite spots?
RC: I hung out at Mr. Music pretty much every day! I got the impression that some of the dudes were a little mad that I was the kid that would show up every day and never buy anything, but a couple of the dudes knew me by name and they didn’t care at all. I’d show up, hang out all day then say “oh crap, I’ve gotta get to work!”
Also that indoor market that’s just different Asian food places… Super 88! And Twin Donuts was a constant fixture for us. Especially after playing a house party; we’d roll in there at, like, 4AM and the staff would be miserably tired and grouchy but we’d just say “hi!” That was definitely a regular hang.
AP: Are you going to try to visit any of those while you’re back?
RC: Definitely Mr. Music. That will happen. I don’t know what else. My girlfriend’s coming to these shows too so I’m going to drag her around all the old haunts.
AP: How do you balance the written songs in your sets with the more improvisational elements?
RC: We have specific songs that are the “improv” songs of the set usually, and we space it out so that there’s not too many really long improv sections in a row. I don’t like it if there’s nothing but jamming in a set. I love jamming, but after a while I need a three minute song; a palate cleanser.
Also, for us, if we improvise too much by the end of the show we’re just out of ideas. It’s a variable resource and we want to spread it out through the course of the night so hopefully all of it is passionate and filled with intent instead of us being like “we’re tired, we’ve got nothing left, let’s get it over with.”
We also never really play the setlist as written. Maybe it’ll be a little, maybe it’ll be a lot but it’ll always change to some extent while we’re playing. A lot of times it means we won’t finish a song because we’ll drift off into some other song. We don’t really talk about it, it just sort of happens. We used to talk about it, but now it happens accidentally and organically, which is what we want. That’s part of the fun of the performance for me- going song to song and never stopping. We’ll transition into some song and all of a sudden we’ll have been playing for an hour with just two songs.
AP: Are there any intricacies or challenges to putting together improvised sets like yours that fans might not think of?
RC: When putting together a setlist like that, a thing in my head is putting songs next to each other that might have the opportunity for an improvisational segue. I’ll think if the keys relate in an okay way, and if there’s an easy way to get from one tempo to another. But you want to do that without two tunes next to each other being too similar, since that would just be boring.
There are different ways to put together a setlist. You could start small and have things get more dramatic over the course of the night, sort of like how a DJ might design a set. More often than not though our sets are a bit ADD. We’ll do a little bit of this, then do something different, then do a little bit of that. It’s less linear and jumps around.
AP: How do you split up setlists when you’re playing to some of the same people for multiple nights in a row?
RC: It’s easier than it used to be. We have enough songs that we don’t really need to worry about it. We don’t repeat anything but we will try to do some creative things like start a song one night and finish it the next night to add some theme of continuity throughout the run.
AP: How have the dynamics in the band changed over the past few years?
RC: I think our writing has become a bit more collaborative lately. I enjoy that. I feel the songs are more interesting when we’re all working together versus someone just bringing in a demo. I guess also as years go on we have people taking care of the business end of things for us. We don’t have to worry about it so much and we can just worry about playing together. But we’re all getting a bit older and getting more relaxed about things. It’s a bit easier to get along and do what we do.
AP: This isn’t your first time doing the Boston residency. Would you say there’s a different feeling to the homecoming shows than other sets your guys play?
RC: Totally. We did the three night run in Boston last April and those were my favorite shows of the year. In your hometown it feels like everyone’s rooting for you and anything you do they’re going to be okay with. I feel like you could get away with murder up there. That’s pretty liberating for a band that improvises and does whatever they want!
Dopapod kick off their residency at the Sinclair tonight, 4/28, with openers Aqueous. Three day passes are sold out but individual tickets to that show, as well as Friday’s performance with Haley Jane and the Primates and Saturday’s with Strange Machines are still available.