Album de la Semaine : Dope Body - Kunk

Dope Body
Kunk

Interview de Dope Body, par Alex Martinez de Alt Citizen

I saw you guys open for Fucked Up at LPR back in September, I think? Anyway, amazing live show! Does it bother you if you’re more energetic than the crowd is? I’m assuming you also get a lot of similarly intense or energetic responses from people at your shows… care to share the most memorable ones?

Thanks! That was a fun show.

I think generally it does get a little annoying when you are kind of pouring your heart out in front of people and they are just sipping their drinks and maybe obliging us with a very subtle head bob. However, most of the shows we have played over the course of our existence as a band have been like that so I think we are more or less used to it. In a lot of ways, I think a limp crowd make us go ever harder in order to highlight the awkwardness and the disconnect of the room at the time, kind of like a self deprecating improv sketch comedy set or something. That being said, when we actually play for a rowdy crowd, it’s a transcendental body high for us and as a result we go even harder. Kind of like how some bands or DJ’s reserve a certain volume for only their set and force the openers to play at a lower volume. If a crowd is feeling it, we will respond by going into headlining DJ volume mode… 

I guess a few recent highlights would be the last time we played at Death by Audio in August. This girl was super drunk and got basically naked and started trying to fight Andrew and tear the drums apart. Andrew kind of ripped some of her hair out when he tried to pull her off the drums. She then proceeded to bite Andrew around his waist. There was a pile of beer and hair and maybe blood in the middle of the floor after we got done. It was a sloppy mess, but it made for a unique viewing experience for the audience and us alike. Two days after that we were in Poland at OFF Festival and we played probably the biggest show of our “career.” There were probably close to 2000 people there and they all seemed to know about our band. It was surreal. Poland is sick!

We’re pretty spoiled with a crazy amount of Brooklyn bands here. It’s easy to be lazy and not seek out bands from other places, like Baltimore. What are your favorite Baltimore bands that we should definitely check out?

Horse Lords is a great band from Baltimore. They have been touring a lot this year and starting to get a little higher profile. They definitely deserve any hype they get. Some of the most talented all around musicians in the city and any city for that matter.

Chiffon is a fairly new band that is very good. Its this like futuristic drippy sex R & B stuff. Think like Zapp and Roger meets Battlestar Gallactica or something.

Roomrunner is also good. They are good friends of ours. Like a ’90s noisy grungy thing that is also very endearing.

You got your name from that Lil J YouTube vid, which none of us at the office had ever heard of, to be honest. What are some other weird, slightly surreal Youtube vids we should check out?

Yeah, I wonder where Lil J is now. If she only knew what she started. I really like watching glitch videos of that game Skate 3 for X Box. I like to imagine all the things that happen in the game happening to real skaters as if its just a normal part of being a skater and all injuries are non life threatening.

This is a good one too. Really puts things in perspective:

I know Natural History came out not too long ago but can we expect any new music soon? What’s next for Dope Body?

We basically have an album written. We will probably be recording it over the Winter and hopefully have it ready to go by the Spring. Let’s say May or June 2014. We don’t really have any shows coming up. I think we needed to take a break for a few months to do something that actually involves each of us making some money, which the band never does haha.The next big thing is a festival show in New Zealand in February. I don’t want to get into any specifics about it other than that it will be very cool. We are trying to organize a show or two on the West Coast before we head over there. Keep your ears open for more info as it comes out!

Line Up :

David Jacober
John Jones
Andrew Laumann
Zachary Utz

Label :

Drag City

Tracklist :

01 – Casual
02 – Dad
03 – Goon Line
04 – Muddy Dune
05 – Old Grey
06 – Obey
07 – Ash Toke
08 – Down
09 – Pincher
10 – Void