Behind The Music-"We "Bout 2 Do Dis Thang"
DWB writes music in a variety of ways. A song can come from a concept, lyric, riff of full blown, completed demo. Whatever the form of the initial inspiration is, DWB will always rehearse and jam on something until everyone gets comfy with it and it slowly melts into this beautiful cosmic conglomerate that sounds like no one but DWB. The song we are featuring this week is "We ‘Bout to Do Dis Thang" and we thought we’d give U a little insight into what we were thinking as we wrote it.
We were jamming in Robby’s basement and Cozmo just started on this riff in Aminor. It was BAD from the funky downbeat. I remember I had just bought this really cheap megaphone from Radio Shack and I kept on saying "We Bout To Do Dis Thang" over and over again. Ok, maybe there needs to be a little background story as to why I would even say something like that in the 1st place, so here goes.
We had just gotten back from playing a gig in Cincinatti called "Funkdown for Food" It was kind of a showcase and community benefit concert all wrapped up into one event. The evenings host was none other than funk legend Bootsy Collins. We were all star struck by Bootsy and his entourage. It wasn’t like this was some MTV awards show or anything but Bootsy showed up in his FULL funky garb. His leopard print leather outfit complete with cowboy hat and trademark star shaped glasses matched the colors of the Cincinatti Bengals football team. He looked like the head some interplanetary biker gang, a funky biker gang.
DWB played an adrenalin filled show that nite and Bootsy seemed to dig it. He sent his protégé "Freekbass" to get up and jam with us on a Sly and the Family Stone medley. As the evenings festivities came to a close there I was face to face with one of my funk heros. Bootsy was working with an independent label/promoter who had said they wanted to sign us and have Bootsy produce us. I was so pumped! Dishwater Blonde produced by Bootsy Collins, I had stars in my eyes. I said my goodbyes to Bootsy and we exchanged numbers and his last words to me were "Hey Davis, We ‘Bout to Do Dis Thang"...I was like woah(best Joey voice)
Ok, so back to my story. We left Cincy and were creatively inspired. We were about to hit the big time, so we thought. I began to dream of a DWB album that featured Bootsy Collins on a track. Well, long story short it never happened, or at least hasn’t happened yet BUT it lit a creative spark. While we were putting together "One Tribe" and rehearsing tunes for what was soon to be DWB’s 3rd CD we stumbled upon this riff that Cozmo came up with that just sound like an album intro. As we planned for the album my intention was to have Bootsy saying "We ‘Bout to do Dis Thang" with his cartoonishly funky voice. So as U listen to that track U might here me slightly imitating Bootsy as we weren’t able to get him in the studio.
The lyrics were written to be like the forward of a book. They were supposed to portray an intentionality in our music, a mission statement of sorts. I wanted to let the audience know that we weren’t just playing cool riffs with meaningless words, no, we wanted the lyrics to be loaded with good stuff, encouraging stuff that helped make lives better. With the addition of TurntablWrecka’s samples I think we achieved something really cool. Even if Bootsy didn’t produce it:)
