Das Rumpus: Rump Rock.

Das Rumpus play the Moon Bar at the Empire Hotel on Thursday.

Local jazz funk disco combo Das Rumpus head to the Moon Bar for some giant grooves and deep down bottom end this Thursday night with Gorgonzola and DJ Deceptikon. Bassist and occasional guitarist or vocalist Tom delves into the sordid world of their eclectic mix of global influences.

“Things have been evolving over the past couple of years,” he explains. “We started out just as friend who were jamming together, and over the years we’ve added members. The current line up’s been together for about a year. Style wise I guess we’re into jazz funk and a lot of seventies stuff. A lot of influences have played their part, lots of latin things. More and more so I think we’ve being influenced by dance music, which is showing up in some of our newer stuff.”

The band doesn’t have a full time vocalist, why this decision?

“It’s not really a decision. I think to get a vocalist would be more a decision than to not have a vocalist. I don’t think any of us in the band have a huge desire to do vocals. We could have gone out and looked, but most of the music we like is instrumental. I really like diversity in music, and I think that’s something our music conveys, so I guess unless it was someone that was really chameleonic in what they do I think we’d get bored.”

“We’re looking a guests for a track here or there. We’re not anti vocals, but we don’t want it to be the centre of the music.”

What’s next for the band?

“We’ve been doing some recording, but it’s a very labour intensive process. We’ve come up with a lot of computer problems transferring data from one computer to another. You always expect some, but there’s been vastly more than we anticipated. We’re using hard drive recording just with friends with home studios. It’s been a good learning experience, but we’re using this more as a stepping-stone. We’ve got our sights set on something more concrete.”