Bozeman dirties up with evening of vibrant neo-soul at Filler
Portland-based Dirty Revival are bringing their soulful sounds and energetic beats back to Southwest Montana as part of their fall tour.
The unique ensemble delivers powerful originals and superbly arranged classics with a resounding presence, delivering passionate performances from dimly lit dives to crowded concert halls and open festival skies. Led by the soaring vocals of Sarah Clarke, the septet is rounded out with the talents of Evan “Evvnflo” Simko (guitar, MC), Terry Drysdale (drums), Jon Shaw (bass), Ben Turner (keys), Chris Hardin (tenor sax) and Thomas Barber (trumpet). The dynamic collective shines on stage, citing influences from funk and soul-infused icons of the past.
In anticipation of their regional performances, the Rolling Zone spoke with vocalist Sarah Clarke about the spirited live show and bringing that energy to the studio as they ready their upcoming release.
Rolling Zone: No stranger to touring, Dirty Revival has a busy start to fall with a number of shows around the Western US. What does tour prep look like for this seven-piece – or do you play so much you don’t even need to rehearse?
Sarah Clarke: Yeah, I mean, the latter is kind of where we’re at most of the time [laughs]. It does make it challenging to make changes to our set. A lot of the time we get home and just want to decompress, so we really have to push ourselves to get back together to work on new material or change our set a little bit. For the most part, we’ve been together for so long and have so much material that it feels like we can be pretty flexible. Sometimes we get into ruts, generally because we really enjoy the flow of the set we’ve created. But ideally, we like to spend some time together set designing, so we’ll have a cohesive show to bring people.
RZ: You’ve played Bozeman – and specifically the Filling Station – many times, but you’ll likely be performing to one or two new faces among your local friends. For those who have not had the opportunity to see a Dirty Revival show, what would you say they’re in for?
SC: We’re kind of a raucous crew, it’s a good time. There’s a lot of information coming at you pretty fast. It’s hard to keep it from not doing that with seven people, and we want to make sure everyone has something to say. The trick can be who’s going to say what when. For the most part, we put a lot of thought into our music and arrangements. We’re very very proud of the material that we create together. We try to keep it very fun and lighthearted, but also see the value and importance in having more meaningful conversations within the music. Hopefully by the end of the show people are feeling like they danced it out, but also a little invigorated and refreshed as well.
RZ: It’s hard to peg you as agents of any one genre, though you draw influence from just about every one a listener can think of. Does the band have a go-to descriptor for the sound it’s putting out?
SC: That’s funny because it’s been about five years and we still are just like, ‘does anyone have any idea?’ How do we describe ourselves accurately without using too many words. That’s been a challenge for us. It’s like [deepens voice] ‘soul and funk, but we play rock and also R&B, classical’ When people ask what we play, I feel like we confuse more people by the answer than we ever intend. One of my favorite parts about this project is that there don’t seem to be any definitive boundaries for the musicians involved. Everyone’s open-minded and [come from] very different backgrounds. I think that’s why we have such a unique sound, or at least why we play with so many established sounds. We have nostalgia with all these different kinds of music and want to play that. So, I tell people a lot of things and it changes on the regular.
RZ: This collective is composed of seven skilled musicians, all bringing their respective expertise to this sort of musical ecosystem you’ve created. Are there efforts made to ensure each individual talent is showcased?
SC: It’s really interesting because there are a lot of different talents and people shine in their own ways, and we give them the space to explore within their own comfort zones. Our drummer (Drysdale) for instance, he’s always like ‘I’m not a huge solo-er, not a 10-minute drum solo guy. That’s not really what I want. What I want is to establish a groove and live in that pocket.’ We try to make sure we give him that opportunity and don’t get too excited with changes all the time so he can do what he loves behind the drumkit. Our trumpet player (Barber) is extremely well versed in his instrument, studied at Juilliard and has done a whole ton of crazy things in his career. He’s one of my favorite players and is an insane jazz player as well. Trying to give him space is important, and we want to showcase all of those years of education. I think we do a good job at giving everyone who wants a solo, a solo. And we make sure at least once a set they have a moment to talk to the crowd with the rest of the band supporting them.
RZ: Let’s talk a little bit about Dirty Revival’s original recordings, the eponymous debut and two-song follow-up in “So Cold” and “Closer.” With the live performance very much your thing, for the lack of a better word, what does the band hope to capture when heading in to record a song you’ve probably performed a hundred times on stage?
SC: That’s one of our interesting challenges. There’s such a big difference between live performance and records. It’s okay to have a 10-minute song when you’re playing live – if it grooves, people are going to dance and have a good time and you can go wherever you want to go with it. But weirdly, surprise surprise, it doesn’t always translate in a recording. We’re in the process of working a new album, recording and designing and everything that comes with pre-production. We’ve done a lot of work with our demos and Evan (Simko), our guitarist who’s also a producer. He’s been working really hard to help us get our stuff at least down in demo form. We all found it challenging to cut stuff out, in fact, we were wanting to add things. It’s hard to get down to the bare basics. One of the things Evan’s really been pushing for is having us do it the other way around, focusing on pre-production as a group before ever taking it to the stage. How would it sound if we were to record it, then we’ll rehearse and figure out how we want to make it feel as a live track. That way we kind have both options from the beginning. Again, paring down a seven-minute song where you feel like everything you’re saying matters a lot, it’s hard. We have to bring in other ears.
RZ: What stage are you at with the new album?
SC: There’s so, so many stages. As far as getting the music written and recorded, ready to mix, master, ready for artwork, ready for all that, we’re about halfway through the recording process. Which is encouraging because it’s been such a crazy busy couple of years, especially with summertime and the amount of traveling we do. It’s really nice to look at the record and [see] an end in sight. We’ve got like seven tracks basically done and are working now to figure out how we want to fill out the rest of the record. And like you mentioned recording songs we’ve played so many times on stage, one of the things we realized was that we have a ton of music, but so much of it we’ve played for everybody. How fun would it be to write some tracks specifically for the record, figure out how to play them live later, and give some of our diehard friends out there something new to listen to when the record comes out, something that they haven’t heard before. In a perfect world, we’ll be done in October with the recording process and begin the other side of the creative stuff. The videos and art, creating visuals and branding the music a little bit – the stuff I think is equally as fun.
RZ: During its live sets, Dirty Revival is also known to whip out a range of covers from all different corners of the industry. How do you think the band putting its stamp on various classics enables your audiences to hear them through new ears?
SC: With a lot of the music we choose to cover, we’re looking at arrangements that are perfect the way they are and just want to rock out on them, but sometimes we’re like what would happen if we did this and that. We’ve been doing a cover of Ginuwine’s “Pony” since the band was born, and it’s changed a lot over time to now quoting different songs in it and doing all these different things. Sometimes it just kind of evolves on its own, but I think it’s important for bands to at least have a back pocket of covers that they can pull out to give people some bearings. I think if people know the song, then you mess with it a little bit, or if you just perform it really well, they can then compare you to something they already have in their head. We’re not a cover band by any means, but it’s just fun for us to take some of our favorite songs and really pick apart and repackage them.
RZ: Apart from Dirty Revival, and I’m sure this is true of many of your band mates, you’re also an independent musician, releasing the song “Take My Time” earlier this year. As a solo artist, what does stepping out and doing your own thing allow for? Or is that not part of the plan right now.
SC: That’s something I’ve really been taking a hard look at in the last few months, being a little bit more independent as a musician. Not because I don’t want to always be in this project, I do, but being able to play music and perform it on your own really gives you a certain level of freedom as an earner as well as being able to take some gigs that aren’t suitable for the entire band. “Take My Time” is kind of funny because the entire band recorded on that [laughs], so it’s not as much of a solo record as it was presented. They definitely helped me out a ton bringing that track to life, and they’re definitely great at what they do, but it’s important to keep your sense of self. I am very guilty of losing that sometimes in this project, especially when we get to be really busy. It’s hard for me to focus outside of this one thing, so it was good to be able to do something that had my name on it. It inspired me to sit down more at the piano and write songs that are really not appropriate for Dirty Revival, that are very much in the singer/songwriter vein of being a little bit more vulnerable and personal. It was a really great experience.
RZ: What’s your and/or Dirty Revival’s plan after the fall tour wraps, say 2020ish?
SC: I think it’s really important to have some regenerative time, and I don’t remember the last time we had more than like a week. We’re tossing around maybe taking a bit of a break from the road and reexamining some things musically, flesh it out a little bit. We’ll ideally sit down with each other and really get back into music when we’re not so tired. We do hope to release a record in 2020 too, but never know what’s going to come from that, what type of touring we’ll be doing off that record. It’s a perfect time to take a bit of a break and really be ready to hit the pavement running like we have been for the last few years.
Dirty Revival visits Bozeman’s Filling Station on Thursday, October 3rd. Pacific Northwest indie folk trio Sway Wild will get the music started at 9pm. Advance tickets to this 21+ show are $9 at www.chickenjamwest.com or $10 in-store at Cactus Records. Day of show tickets will also be available for $12 at the door, depending on availability. Doors at 8pm.
Clarke & Co. head to Missoula’s Top Hat Lounge the following evening, Oct. 4th. They’ll finish off their Treasure State shows with a stop at the Great Northern in Whitefish on Oct. 5th. Tickets and additional details available through the band website.
Learn more about the band at www.dirtyrevival.com or find them on Facebook and Instagram for updated tour details and other announcements. Their latest release, Dirty Revival, is available now. Watch out for a new album coming soon. •
