No Percussion, No Worries

"I feel like the songs are a lot more guitar-driven,” The Budos Band’s drummer, Brian Profilio begins, discussing their latest and fourth album, Burnt Offering. It’s certainly a distinct move away from the Afrobeat/soul/funk sound that the Staten Island, New York City nine-piece instrumental band established with the release of their eponymous Daptone debut album a decade ago. “The guitar plays a bigger role on this album than on the other ones. The other ones were more horn-driven. Not that the horns don’t remain a prominent feature on these tracks, but it’s really the guitar and the bass drive a lot of these songs now.

“There was less percussion on the record too. Our [percussion instrument] shekere player [Vincent Balestrino] left the band, and with him leaving, it sort of moved a lot of the other percussion to the side a little bit, and that opened up our sound a lot.”

The other thing that seems to have impacted on the sound and direction of the new album and therefore the band was a curious old bit of technology called a Binson Echorec, a weighty Italian-made beastie that utilised a flat metal “tape” to create echo and was most famously a fave of Pink Floyd guitarist Dave Gilmour.

"We just decided to do it ourselves ‘cause we know that we’re just not smooth as Gabe, you know?”

“Tommy [Brenneck], the guitarist, and Dan [Foder], the bass player, are always looking for old vintage gear and every once in a while they find a real nice piece, and now the Echorec is in the mix. It really brings a lot – it’s really cool. It’s pretty big – and it’s delicate – so travelling with it would be real problem, so it won’t be coming out on tour with us!”

For Burnt Offering, The Budos Band chose not to call on Daptone Records’ co-founder, in-house producer/engineer Gabriel Roth – the man behind their own previous three albums – opting instead to produce themselves.

“We wanted more of, like, a rock sound, a heavier rock sound, and Gabe normally has a pretty soft touch on things. So we just decided to do it ourselves ‘cause we know that we’re just not smooth as Gabe, you know?”

It seems it wasn’t until the reviews started coming in that Profilio – who in his straight life is a teacher and so only tours during school breaks, but created the cover art for Burnt Offering – realised that there was something of a parallel between the “ancient mythical wizard” he’d come up with and the one on the inside cover of Led Zeppelin’s “untitled” fourth album. Like Zeppelin, The Budos Band had titled their first three albums I, II and III.

Sound-wise though there’s nothing Zeppelin about Burnt Offering but some of the cuts could quite easily soundtrack some Imperial Star Trooper scene in any of the Star Wars movies, though, for Profilio, “we’re hoping for Tarantino to pick up on them!”