On the Rise: Dank

Georgia is home to many influential musicians, such as Ray Charles, who reminded the state that she’s always on his mind by writing what became it’s official song. A melting pot of talent, the city of Atlanta, GA has birthed many great acts such as OutKast and members of the Zac Brown Band. Georgia has once again given us a gift in the form of music and their name is Dank. In their latest self-titled album, which was released on February 3rd, they teamed up with producer Scott Nicholas to bring us what they describe as “a  rhythm and blues tradition with a modern sense of urgency and experimentation.”  Boy, did they deliver! MusicFestNews, with yours truly, recently had the opportunity to pick their minds and get to know them a little better. Here’s what they had to say:

When and how did you first become interested in music? How long have you been playing music?
Jimmy Bone: My first memories of music are from before I can even remember for the most part, and involve me playing with my Donald Duck guitar and singing along to “Baby Beluga” by Raffi. Needless to say music has been a part of my life ever since, but I didn’t seriously pick up a guitar until I was about 13.

What are your musical influences?
Josh Birmingham: Capricorn Records
Matt Henderson: Robert Glasper, Chuck Levelle, Bruce Hornsby
Jimmy Bones: Jimmy Page, Thurston Moore, Wynton Kelly

Does anyone your family play an instrument?
Josh Birmingham: My granddad played drums and is the one who got me into the drums. He played drums in bands like The Dreamers down in Macon, GA and taught me how to play my first beat when I was 8.

What made you realize you wanted to pursue a career in music?
Matt Henderson: In middle school I was really into sports, soccer in particular, and one year I got injured and ending up missing most of the season. With all the free time on my hands I turned to all the musical instruments we had lying around our house and stumbled upon a lifelong passion.

As a musician, what’s something special that you hope to be able to accomplish?
Jimmy Bones: Music scenes that are truly special aren’t something you go out and find, but rather something that happens right in your backyard. We played a show in Memphis recently and I was talking to a local there who was part  a collective called Brister Street whose motto is “create your culture,” which to me says it all. All it takes is a group of individuals of any size, any place, with that mindset, and you’ve got a scene. I consider Dank to be that. I would love to see our culture we have created grow and evolve to include other bands and be something that others will be inspired by.

What do you think about downloading music online?
Jimmy Bones, Josh Birmingham, Matt Henderson: Having grown up our whole lives with the internet, downloading music has been our main mode of consuming music, and that is not to say that we haven’t bought countless numbers of cd’s, vinyls, tapes, concert tickets, and the like, but primarily all the music we listen to is gotten through streaming services or directly from the artist online, which is by far our favorite way to get music. We have grown up with this method of consuming music, as it were, and it is all we have ever known so we are not scared by it. We are just waiting for the industry to adapt, and in the meantime we are working with our fellow musicians experimenting and coming up with more and more ways to get our music to our fans and enjoying an age in which music is more diverse and accessible than ever.

What do you feel distinguishes “an artist” from a musician?
Jimmy Bones, Josh Birmingham, Matt Henderson: Being an artist is a mindset and essentially a way of living, and involves striving towards originality and working to further his or her medium and/or genre in new and positive ways, while a musician is someone who plays an instrument, performs, practices, and becomes technically adept. An artist can be a musician, or a painter, or a writer, but any one of these is not necessarily an artist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYWPH7ZSoz0
Why did you choose to play this kind of music?
Jimmy Bones: I suppose there are a multitude of reasons why one would choose to play a particular style of music, like if they were picking up a gig for someone or wanted to explore the music of different regions or cultures. The music we play is honestly just the purest version of all the things that we want to be playing. It’s the type of music that has spoken to us the most throughout each of our lives.

Do you have your own favorite type of music and is it any different from what you play?
Josh Birmingham: Welllll I like trap music, gangsta rap, especially Jeezy, so we obviously don’t play that kind of music  (laughs). Look out for a side project though.

Trap, huh? I see a collaboration in the future. Someone once said write what you would want to perform over and over. With that in mind, what song do you love to perform the most?
Matt Henderson: That was a wise man. I’ve been enjoying playing “Crash the Door” recently, and that is a song with a lot of energy and spunk that we all wrote together back in an Athens, GA basement, which I think is what gives it that zest that makes it so fun for me live.

What is your wildest story with the band?
Matt Henderson, Josh Birmingham, Jimmy Bones: New Orleans. Mardi Gras.

Haha, enough said! What did you do before you got into the music industry?
Jimmy Bones: Construction, hotels, poetry, writing, caddying, the works.

Gentleman, thank you for making the time to do this interview with us. We wish you a very successful career and look forward to catching up with you in the future to hear of your new musical adventures.

“So, musically what does it mean to ‘Crank the Dank’…riffs that grab you by the nape of the neck…” – MP3.com

https://soundcloud.com/crankthedank/sets/dank

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