{"id":1305833,"date":"2018-07-10T17:40:40","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T21:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/?p=1305833"},"modified":"2018-07-10T17:40:40","modified_gmt":"2018-07-10T21:40:40","slug":"alivefive-damood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/2018\/07\/10\/alivefive-damood\/","title":{"rendered":"Alive@Five: DaMood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1170\" height=\"658\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RzwfA1PffHg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">For a few short minutes, my interview with local band daMood is cut short when bassist Dan Zboyan \u2014 who\u2019s been prepping hot dogs in the kitchen of his home off Rosemont Avenue \u2014 runs onto the back patio and beckons us to follow him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The four of us truck into the kitchen and follow Zboyan\u2019s gaze out the front window. There, nestled under a bush, is a fawn about the size of a fox terrier \u2014 so young that white spots are still speckled along its back.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">It\u2019s the second deer we\u2019ve seen that evening. Frontman Ricole Barnes already pointed out an older doe walking among the trees out back, shooting us a wary look before running from the house. It\u2019s a common sight at Zboyan\u2019s place, a rustic retreat right on the border of urban and rural Frederick. Since daMood was founded, it\u2019s been something of a sanctuary for its members, the Platonic ideal of a practice space. Removed from the city, but not too far removed. Bucolic, but not too bucolic (you know, you can still get cell signal). There\u2019s a full set of instruments and sound equipment in the basement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cWhen I first heard about this, I was like, \u2018That is too good to be true,\u2019\u201d Barnes said. \u201cI think why we\u2019re such a tight-knit band is because we have this to come to. A house on the hill. I always say it\u2019s like a safe haven away from all the madness down there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Practice at Zboyan\u2019s has been a tradition for the band since they came together about two years ago. Barnes has told the story over and over again, but he\u2019s happy to repeat it: how in February of 2016, he made (local) history by becoming the first hip-hop artist to perform at the Weinberg Center during the Frederick Music Showcase. How the performance was an honor, but also a responsibility, in a way, to forge a path and create the best show possible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Barnes didn\u2019t want to be a guy on stage with two turntables and a microphone, so he asked some local musicians \u2014 artists he\u2019d worked with before \u2014 to form a full backing band. Before that first show, they all took a shot of Jim Beam Honey (now a ritual for the band, and the basis for the title of their latest EP), went out, and performed a show that helped define their unique local sound \u2014 rock and rap, hip-hop and a little bit of punk, an amalgam of styles and influences borrowed from members of the band.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">There are now six, including the original five members \u2014 Barnes, Zboyan, guitarist Chris Smith, keyboardist April Reardon, and Ethan Lichtenberger on the horns. In the past few weeks, they\u2019ve also added Thaddeus Achey (or Tad) to replace their original drummer, something that\u2019s required the youngest member of the band to learn 36 original songs from scratch. But that doesn\u2019t bother him. Achey\u2019s been in literally dozens of bands since he first learned to play the hand drums during two childhood years in Venezuela, including a \u201cfolk new metal\u201d group after he moved to Maryland. But it was daMood, he said, that helped him realize the type of music he wanted to play.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018Let\u2019s hear the Latin drums from Venezuela, let\u2019s hear some new metal,\u2019\u201d Achey said. \u201cI finally feel like I can be appreciated and also give my all to this band.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The original five members of the band had a similar feeling after their first Weinberg performance. The night after they played, they all went back to Zboyan\u2019s house for a feast, Smith said. He even saved a picture on his phone \u2014 fried chicken, coleslaw, cornbread and macaroni and cheese.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cIt was like, we have to keep going,\u201d he said. \u201cThe camaraderie and the synergy that we had was a real good feeling, real good thing. Like, alright, let\u2019s keep the ball rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">That\u2019s brought the band to their next big venture \u2014 the Alive @ 5 show they\u2019re playing tonight at the Carroll Creek amphitheater. In a way, Barnes said, it\u2019s even bigger than the Weinberg. There will be more people there. The set is longer. And while they might not be the first hip-hop act to perform there, \u201cwe\u2019re definitely one of the more original acts,\u201d Zboyan said confidently.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">That means the band \u2014 like they did for the Weinberg show \u2014 is thinking big. There will be some covers, Barnes said (\u201cI mean, I know that audience could be 16 to 70. A lot of those folks have never seen a hip-hop show a day in their life.\u201d), but daMood will also play some originals and mashups off their EP. They\u2019ll bring in other local artists, including frequent collaborator Eriq Brown (stage name Bead Gawd), whose pseudonym, he later informed me, stands for \u201cGreatness Achieved With Dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Later, he and Barnes would practice Brown\u2019s song \u201cPeanut Butter and Jelly and Chopped-Up Strawberries,\u201d a playfully repetitive ode to girls looking like a snack (inspired, Brown said, by a real late-night snack he whipped up one night). The band practiced \u201cGimme Revolver\u201d and \u201cMake a Wave\u201d and \u201cWe\u2019re Up,\u201d all off their EP. But they didn\u2019t play \u201cFrederick Famous,\u201d an earlier song riffing on the band\u2019s local following. In truth, Barnes wants to be bigger than Frederick, and he thinks daMood can make it happen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cI\u2019d like to take us local, national, international,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re definitely a band of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For a few short minutes, my interview with local band daMood is cut short when bassist Dan Zboyan \u2014 who\u2019s been prepping hot dogs in the kitchen of his home&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":1244246,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-1305833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alivefive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1305833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1244246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1305833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1305833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1305833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}