Interview: Eli Winderman of Dopapod October 9, 2015 11:02

Eli:  The band started basically as a vehicle to play house parties and other random gigs we could get together.  We used to play basement house parties and renegade festival sets all the time.  As well as all over New England.  We did that for about a year or two until one day I got a call from our first booking agent.  Once that happened, we began touring pretty heavily and haven’t really slowed down too much until now.  We’ve had breaks here and there, but for the most part we’ve been touring pretty heavily for 4 or 5 years now.

 

Eli:  I suppose I should just speak for myself here, but my original keyboard influences were John Medeski, Herbie Hancock, Rick Wakeman (Yes), Neal Evans (Soulive), Bill Evans, and Brad Mehldau.  Basically, when I was 15 I was introduced to a lot of the funk stuff from the 70’s, as well as the new age jam/funk stuff.  It was the first time I realized I could really be a keyboard player.  

 

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Photo by Amanda Sandwicch - CSMPromo

We're approaching one year since the release of your fourth studio album, Never Odd of Even.  Have you guys had a different approach towards each studio release?    How do you ultimately decide on the tracks and their placement within each album?

Eli:  It feels like more than a year to be honest.  Each album has a bit of its own approach because our tastes are constantly changing and our abilities are becoming more mature.  Every time you make a record you learn a lot about the process as well as yourself.  We usually write constantly, and try to get songs going in the live rotation so they can get some road time.  We’ve found that songs develop over time and eventually we have enough songs for a new record so we can begin the process.  This time around, we have a lot of music stored up that we haven’t played live.  We’re starting off next year with a long writing/rehearsal time and aiming to come back in 2016 with a lot of new music.

 

Eli:  A lot of our music starts with a demo that I make.  I share it with the guys and if they like it then we start learning as the band.  The parts always come to life once we learn them, and everyone throws in their individual ideas for the song.  Then we play it live and figure out what parts are good and what parts need to be changed.  

 

Eli:  The dates have actually gone down a little bit, so we’re able to attempt to balance our lives a bit more than in the past.  We all have our routines to balance out the tour schedule, but it’s definitely not easy.  Lack of sleep is a hell of a drug.

 

Eli:  Rob writes most of our set lists, but we usually end up ditching it and calling out tunes live.  Either that, or segues just naturally happen.  That’s always my favorite and one of the coolest parts about this scene of music.  There are no rules and it’s pretty freeing to go into a concert with that mentality.

 

Eli:  That’s probably a question that a lot of festival promoters would love to know the answer to.  I think what makes festivals have longevity is the community.  If the festival has a strong and supportive community then you can’t even get rid of that festival.  If you look at festivals like Gathering of the Vibes, High Sierra, and Burning man (kind of a festival?), these are all events that have been going on for 2 almost 3 decades.  It’s more than just a music and art festival.  It’s tradition for thousands of people.