New album "Burnt Offering" by The Budos Band coming ...

When it came time to title their new album, one decision was easy: “This isn’t The Budos Band IV,” proclaims drummer Brian Profilio. “This isn’t just more of the same.” The Budos Band embarked on an experimental journey since the release of The Budos Band III in 2010, seeking inspiration from sources far and wide.

While wizards use books of spells and alchemy to mix their masterful potions, the Budos employ heavy doses of continent-spanning psychedelic rock to beckon the occult and conjure the supernatural.  Hence the title of the band’s fourth album: Burnt Offering. 

“We made a conscious decision to embark on a new sound,” explains baritone saxophone player Jared Tankel. The heavy, trippy side the group unveiled on The Budos Band III reaches full flower on new tunes like “Aphasia,” “Trouble in the Sticks” and particularly the title track “Burnt Offering.” “We were messing around with an old Binson Echorec at practice one night and this loop emerged,” recalls bassist Dan Foder.  The droning fuzz guitar is a call to the gods from below and encapsulates the band’s sonic progression perfectly. “This record is fuzzy, buzzy and raw, and more obviously psychedelic,” adds Profilio.

Like a cratedigger’s classic from a parallel universe, “Tomahawk” melds heavy, distorted guitar riffs with bright blasts of brass and bubbling drums. An eerie, ceremonial vibe awakens the slumbering giant “Into The Fog” and prods it to life.

Driven by melodies, rhythms, and changes that animate muscle and bone to move, yet compel the ear to lean in closer, these full-bodied instrumentals push Budos’ music deeper into new territory.
All lingering traces of touchstones of yore—be they Fela Kuti, Dyke and the Blazers, or Black Sabbath—have been wholly absorbed and filtered through the Budos Band’s ever-evolving aesthetic. “We sound nothing like our first record anymore,” confirms Profilio. Anyone content to just slap the old “Staten Island Afro-soul” tag on Burnt Offering and move on clearly didn’t listen to the music first.

The group composed more than two dozen songs in the course of making Burnt Offering, yet only recorded fifteen, further distilling its essence to ten classic cuts for the full-length release. If a new tune failed to capture the rambunctious energy of their live show, if it revised familiar territory or obvious influences, it got cut. Budos was determined to break new ground. “If any band says that’s easy to do, they’re fooling themselves—and not writing good enough songs,” insists Brenneck.
In order to reach the apex of the mountain, the band had to come together like never before. Always a brotherhood, the time spent writing and recording Burnt Offerings saw changes that many bands would have run from, but for the Budos presented opportunities to hone their craft.  “Making this record reaffirmed that we work together really well,” says Profilio.

Burnt Offering breaks from Budos’ earlier records in another significant regard: this is their first album without an outside producer. “We had arrived at a different place sonically and needed see it through completely ourselves,” says Tankel. They still praise Daptone mastermind Gabriel Roth, who worked alongside Brenneck co-producing their first three records, but parting ways at this juncture made sense.

“We know exactly where we’re at,” says Profilio. “We didn’t want to have to explain ourselves if we were in pursuit of a specific sound or vibe.”

“We made the demo that got us picked up by Daptone in my parents’ basement when I was eighteen years old,” Brenneck recalls.  “This album is a continuation of that, fifteen years later … with a lot more records under our belts.”

After all that time, Budos has become more than a band—it’s a brotherhood. “This is a real family band,” says Brenneck. “Guys who’ve been making music for a long time, and friendships that run completely parallel to the music.” They still rehearse religiously almost every week, even if some of those rehearsals encompass just as much drinking, socializing, and listening to music as actual practice.

That camaraderie doesn’t evaporate when they put their instruments down.  On tour, they hit a brewery or pub for lunch en masse before sound check whenever possible, and like to stir up trouble. There are dust-ups and reconciliations. All that kinship comes to a head when they hit the stage. “We’ve seen some things out there that most bands don’t get a glimpse of these days,” suggests Tankel. “All of that craziness just brings us closer together. We couldn’t shake each other if we tried.”
And capturing the intensity of Budos’ electrifying shows on wax, making the grooves vibrate with excitement, was one of the biggest challenges of Burnt Offering. “We record live to tape, with minimal effects,” Brenneck says. Nowhere to hide, then.  The band insisted that each song push the envelope. No room for filler.

The Budos have traveled far and wide—playing across four continents—since the band’s inception. A lifetime of world tours and weekly rehearsals went into the making of Burnt Offering, and the journey is far from over. As long as there are new audiences to thrill and sonic frontiers to explore, they’ll forge ahead. “We haven’t fulfilled our mission,” concludes Profilio. “We’re still very hungry.”

The Budos Band Official

The Budos Band: An interview from January 2011

THE BUDOS BAND: NOT REALLY COMMUNIST REVOLUTIONARIES



The Budos Band come from Staten Island but seem like they climbed out of a colossal pile of Ethiopiques comps after strength training from Fela Kuti and inspirational interludes with Dennis Coffey. Their newest album is out now on Daptone and they discuss now their own plans for an impregnable Budos compound. This interview by Jonny Bell of Crystal Antlers.





The interview





Your drummer said that he gives Budos Band songs working titles off the top of his head, and that they usually come from Dungeons & Dragons or HP Lovecraft. Are there any other fantasy role-playing card games that influence you?



I don’t know, he’d be much more qualified to answer that question. He’s really the man of that world in the group—I’m not sure what else could even be out there. We certainly appreciate the titles that he comes up with so we let him run with it, and then take it to Daptone and see what they say about it which is usually something like, ‘change the title.’



When I first heard your music I was convinced it was recorded in 1968. How do you do that? A friend of mine who listens to a lot of old music loaned me a burned CD with no info, and I was just totally convinced it was an old funk group.



Yeah, it’s the recording techniques. We use an all-analog studio. We use tape—we don’t do anything in computers. We really try to use the techniques that made those old records sound great—you know the horns, shared microphones, and it’s all recorded live, so there’s a real nice natural bleed between the instruments. No crazy overdubs—it’s a real live feeling recording, and to boot it’s all analog tape with that warm sound that old analog records have.



Your music reminds me of the music from Blaxploitation films. Do you have any personal favorites? Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song/Darktown Strutters/The Final Comedown?



You know we get that a lot and it’s funny, I don’t really think that’s a big reference point for us. It just kind of ends up going that way for whatever reason. Black Caesar is a classic and obviously the soundtrack is killer—that’s the one that springs to mind as a favorite. We don’t go in with that outlook, but it ends up taking that form on some occasion.



Where does the name ‘Budos’ come from? I googled it and the only thing that comes up is a commune in southwestern France.



There’s actually a town of Budos, France that we drove through while we were on tour over there, and there’s a Budos Castle, Château De Budos. Actually, the negative release of that is on the backside of the Budos III album artwork.



Oh right—I saw one of the press release pictures had a picture of you guys in front of a castle.



Yeah that’s the Budos Castle. Our French tour manager knew about this ahead of time and told us we were taking a ‘very special trip’ one morning, and he wouldn’t tell us where we were going. He said there’d be naked women hanging from the trees on the side of the road, which got us excited, but it ended up just being a random town on the side of the road in southwestern France called Budos. Anyway, tangents aside, ‘Budos’ actually comes from a name that we used when we first started the band ‘Los Barbudos,’ which means ‘The Bearded Ones’ in Spanish. It sort of loosely referenced Fidel Castro’s revolutionary posse/baseball team, and that’s what we rolled with for a minute. Then it took on political connotations that we either just didn’t feel comfortable with or want to make part of our ‘thing.’ We’re not really communist revolutionaries you know—just a bunch of guys playing music from Staten Island playing music. We decided to just shorten the name and make it ‘Budos,’ which doesn’t really have any real meaning other than what it originally derived as, and coincidentally a town in south western France, and apparently a commune as well…



You guys are part of Daptone Records. Most of the Daptone stuff seems to be heavily influenced by the music of the 1960s. Do you ever feel like you’re revivalists?



It’s an influence of ours, but we’re just making the kind of music that we like and sounds good to us. For Budos, we’re trying to jump a decade or two, and get into more 70s-influenced stuff right now, and make it our own.



I think you stand out from other groups on the label because of that and it seems like you’ve explored some new territory since the beginning of the band. I’m a fan of Sun Ra, and it doesn’t seem like too big of leap from what you guys do. You’ve got the right instruments—do you think you’ll ever venture in to Sun Ra territory?



I hear that totally, and I think some of it can translate, but I think his stuff is a little too in outer space for us. We’re not trying to go into the jazz realm much at this point, as much as rock. We used to do a cover by this band Cairo Jazz Band that sounded more like some east African funk that went more in the Sun Ra direction, so I can hear that similarity. But we’re not blasting off to outer space anytime soon.



Cairo Jazz band, didn’t Soul Jazz re-issue that record? I feel like I have that record somewhere…



Yeah it’s definitely possible.



Speaking of labels, there’s a lot of really great re-issue labels out there right now like Numero Group, Soul Jazz, and Now Again. Do you have any favorite labels, reissue or otherwise?



Classics like Motown, Chess, Stax—all that stuff. What’s that new label that in the past year put out a bunch of Nigerian psych rock? Oh, Soundway.



Are there any other old gems you could turn me on to?



Are you familiar with this old orchestral group called Orchestre Poly-rythmo? I think they’re from Benin, which is next door to Nigeria. They’re pretty smokin’ stuff. And one of our biggest influences that kind of come through on our second album was ‘Ethiopiques’—that whole compilation series of Ethiopian jazz. It was put out by a French label called called Buda Musique. And there’s like 25 volumes or so out now.



You guys originally started off as a straight afro-beat group?



When we were Los Barbudos, it was mostly straightforward Afro beat.



So you must be big fans of Fela Kuti. Have you seen the Broadway musical Fela?



Yeah definitely—we know the guys that play in the band. It’s kinda funny that they made a Broadway musical out of it. It’s one of those things that on one hand is cool and on the other doesn’t necessarily make sense. At the end of the day I think it’s a good thing, but it’s definitely at first glace a little bit of a head scratcher.



Have you ever considered running for political office or starting a polygamist colony like Fela?



No, but not necessarily opposed to the later. It would be cool to set up our own state within New York City, where all we did was smoke pot, write music and have sex with a lot of women, but I don’t know if that will ever happen, and I don’t know if that should be printed or not, some of us have girlfriends and they might not appreciate it!



Fela was influenced politically by the Black Panther party in the US, and I always stare at an Emory Douglas poster on my wall when I listen to your band. Do you feel like your music carries any of the political spirit from early afro-beat?



Yeah—Antibalas, for example. They’re good friends of ours and definitely influenced us early on. I feel like they have a pretty explicit political message, and I think we don’t have as much of one partially because we don’t have lyrics and it’s hard to convey a political message without lyrics there to do it. We’ve done an Obama event and a couple of other political things, but we don’t consider ourselves to be on the front lines of any political music movement.



What was it like to play the Getty?



It was cool. I’d never been there before, and it was quite a structure to take in while playing. It was pretty sweet there up in the hills overlooking the city. We had a great time and it was actually our first time playing in LA. And Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, our label mates, were playing the Hollywood Bowl that same weekend so it was kind of a big label thing and it was awesome.



I was reading that J. Paul Getty’s grandson was kidnapped in Italy in the early 70s, and held for a $17 million ransom. Long story short, Getty refused to pay until they started mailing body parts and ultimately negotiated them down to $2 million. Have you ever played anywhere run by someone as blood thirsty as J. Paul Getty?



No. Wow, that’s pretty crazy.



How would the Budos Band negotiate with kidnappers?



I think we’re big enough that hopefully we could take down the kidnappers ourselves.





This interview by Jonny Bell of Crystal Antlers.

The Budos Band: An interview from 2010

Hailing from Staten Island, a group of eleven musicians called The Budos Band is making their rounds this August 22nd to our beloved Granada Theater in Dallas. The group will be touring for their third album simply called The Budos Band III, an album filled with Afro-beats mixed with soul, dipped in funk, and peppered with a dash of rock that seems like it came straight out of the sixties. The amazing thing is that the group has only been around since 2005 and they have already travelled the world showcasing their intensive live shows filled with an energetic sound that no one can keep from dancing to. Their sound is the very definition of booty-shaking and baby making music.

When listening to their albums, the sounds that emanate from your speakers will call forth layers of spooky funk, salsa, and afro-beats that could raise Fela Kuti from the grave. Devoid of any lyrics, the instrumental pieces are almost specifically designed to be a soundtrack for the next Quentin Tarantino movie. The new album takes the framework laid down by their first two albums and runs with it, heading into a darker sound that still keeps your butt shaking. I corresponded with the Budos Band and asked them a few questions, Jared Tankel, the baritone saxophone player, responded.


The interview


I’ve heard you describe your music as “Afro-Soul,” I love the sound and was wondering if your new album was staying in that same vein or if you are branching into new sounds?

Budos Band III still draws heavily upon Ethiopian jazz and west African funk with the subtle influences of American soul. But this album gets much more inspiration from American psychedelic, rock and even metal music than any of our previous releases. It’s still the same band and the same sound but we’ve gotten heavier and a tad more rock oriented.

I’ve only been into this type of music for a few years and have discovered a plethora of great acts, where do you draw your inspiration from for some of these grooves?

Mulatu Astatke, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo, and the Rail Band are all African artists (Ethiopian, Beninese, and Malian, respectively) whom we’ve gotten really into. On the other side of the ocean, we draw inspiration from Curtis Mayfield, Motown, Stax, Hi Records, and American rock ‘n roll.

Is there a band leader or is it a collaborative process between all of the members?

The writing process is pretty collaborative. Tom and Dan (our guitar and bass players) work out a lot of the rhythm sections together. Andrew and I write most of the horn melodies. Brian (our drummer) is very involved in the arranging of songs. And our percussionists and organ player fall into place pretty well at this point. We’ve been playing together for so long that it’s a very comfortable process and everyone knows where they fall in the collective whole.

What’s the craziest thing that has happened at one of your shows?

Last week, we were selling Budos Band panties and some lady showed up not wearing any, bought a pair, put them on right then and there and modeled the backside for all to see.

It’s been three years since the last album, what took the longest, writing the songs, or recording?

Well, it’s been a busy couple of years for both us and our label, so really what it came down to was scheduling recording sessions that worked for everyone. The tracking itself only took 3 nights. The amount of time definitely led to stronger songs, though.

How hard is touring with such a large band?

Rolling with 10 guys definitely presents its challenges. It takes twice as long to get somewhere as it should. And even if we’re doing our best to be mellow, chaos is always brewing. But at this point, we’ve been at it long enough, we know how to make our way. It may not be the smoothest ride all the time, but we’ll get it done and rock out. We’ve perfected the art of dealing with authority – perhaps we haven’t quite perfected it, but we give ourselves plenty of opportunity to do so.

Do you guys ever play covers?

Occasionally, the first album has a cover of Sly Stone’s “Sing a Simple Song”; the second album has a cover of “My Girl” and the third has a cover of “Day Tripper”. It’s fun to take these classic, recognizable songs and put the Budos spin on them and make people go “what just happened…?”

How does where you live affect your sound?

Staten Island means rugged and raw. We practice in an old burnt out Evangelical church on a dead end street near the train tracks. We’re not concerned with being involved in some hipster Brooklyn indie scene. That doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate fans from any walk of life, but you’re not going to see the Budos break out with synthesizers and drum machines.

Where did the name “Budos” come from?

We were originally called Los Barbudos – The Bearded Ones – named after Fidel Castro’s baseball team of revolutionaries. We started getting a lot of questions about whether we were Communists; what our politics were, etc… And to tell you the truth, we just wanted to focus on playing music. At that time, there were other bands in New York that were a bit more political, so we figured we’d just leave that to them and focus on the music. Plus, we don’t have any lyrics and without a vocalist, it’s a bit tough to carry a political message. So we let the music speak for us and leave it at that. We cut the name to The Budos and when we released our first record, Daptone Records added “Band” hence The Budos Band.

Some of your songs have a very dark and scary feeling to them; do you ever listen to Doom Metal?

Yep. Our drummer Brian loves it and there are quite a few other metal heads in the group as well.

Whose mom cooks the best food in the band?

That’s a dangerous question around these parts.


mydallasmusic.com, Interview by Travis McAnelly, published July 2010