Discharge

WAFFLEBARREL

1. Yard Car (DePrato)
2. Headin' Out
3. Ticklin' The Bean
4. Less Lobos

5. Spitfire
6. The Wise Man
7. Discharge
8. The Peppermill (Deprato)

Joe Deveau-- Keyboards
James DePrato-- Guitar
Jeff Symonds-- Bass
Adam Weissman-- Drums

All songs by Deveau / DePrato / Symonds / Weissman except where noted.

Produced by Wafflebarrel
Engineered by Jaimeson Durr at Hyde Street Studios, San Francisco
Mixed by Joe Deveau

Written and recorded in its entirety on June 27-28, 2011
Mixed whenever Joe had a chance, 2012

---

What do you do if you're four musicians who are dying to play together but who are stupidly busy in other projects and living all over the West Coast?

You book two days of studio time, hope for the best, and see what happens.

In this case, the result is Wafflebarrel's debut, self-titled album. Entirely written and recorded in two days in June 2011 at Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco, it's the beginning of a long-discussed collaboration among four veteran players who have been friends and mutual admirers for years.

The band's origins can be traced back to 2005. Drummer Adam Weissman and bassist Jeff Symonds, old friends and collaborators throughout the 90s, were playing with keyboardist Joe Deveau in Rich Price's touring band, The Foundation. At Slim's in San Francisco, they saw Bay Area superstar James DePrato playing for the first time. "We knew he was a monster ten seconds into his first solo," said Symonds. After Rich Price joined the Sweet Remains and the Foundation disbanded, Deveau moved to LA and became a music editor and put out his second excellent solo album Carry You Home. Adam moved to Seattle and mastered the art of real estate while playing locally. Symonds went home to San Francisco and began playing and recording with DePrato for a series of Bay Area artists, including Megan Slankard (A Token Of The Wreckage), Joel Streeter (Matador) and Jesse Brewster (Wrecking Ball At The Concert Hall).

All four players were eager, in getting together, to try something different. "We all love great songs above anything else, and Joe is a killer singer, but we wanted a chance to stretch out a little on our instruments and write some songs where the band itself had to be what was memorable," said Symonds.

After years of attempting to pull together a session, finally in June 2011 the stars aligned. With the outstanding Jaimeson Durr engineering, the band tracked four songs on Monday the 27th and four songs on Tuesday the 28th. Only one song features any overdubs and editing. The rest are just what they seem to be: a great band playing live together in one room. Recorded without a click track or any preconceived ideas about content, the songs included here are all complete live takes. No song was played more than four times. "There wasn't time," said Symonds. "We knew we only had about twelve hours of actual recording time, so we had to work fast. But that's part of what made it good-- we didn't have time to second guess anything. Once we had it, we moved on to the next idea."

With the exception of the two DePrato tunes that open and close the album, the band went in deliberately with only a few skeletons of songs: either a riff, or an idea for a sound, or a groove. In fact, tracks 2-5 of the album were conceived entirely on the spot, each written and recorded in about an hour. "It was great to write and play music for two days and never have to talk about music," said DePrato. "We didn't have to discuss anything; we'd just play ideas to each other, and the songs just happened. We never had to explain chord changes or explain what we thought things should sound like. We could just play an idea, and people knew what to do." Weissman was also struck by the very quick communication among the players. "You never know how things will go until you're doing it, and this session was everything you hope a session would be. It was what music is all about."

After capturing the first few tunes, it was obvious that the band could play in a series of different styles. To keep things fresh, they decided to try a different stylistic template for each song. The result is an album that has Meters funk, jam-band flights of improvisation, King Crimsonesque 7/4 math rock, and 60s-era soul. "Even though we were consciously working in a series of different styles, it still sounds like the same band. You can always tell it's us," said Symonds.

Throughout the album, the virtuosity and the cooperation of the band is on display, from the wild solos on "Headin' Out," "Less Lobos" and "Discharge" to the band interplay on "Ticklin' The Bean" and "Spitfire." Spitfire was the last song written and recorded. "We had an hour left before Joe had to leave for LA, and we really wanted to get eight songs on tape, and I suggested we try an uptempo 60's soul thing. From the moment I said that to hearing the playback of the keeper take was 30 minutes. Sometimes not leaving yourself all the time and tracks in the world is a good thing," said Symonds.

With the dream now a reality, the band is eager to play the songs live. "It'll be great to share these songs with people. I've been lucky enough to do a lot of recording, but my life as a musician has been largely spent on stage. The band will really take off for me when we can see how the material translates with an audience," said Symonds.

The band takes its name from a DePrato tweet from his most recent tour with Chuck Prophet with which every touring musician can identify: "Waffle House or Cracker Barrel? The debate rages." Why not have both? Pull up a chair and help yourself to some Wafflebarrel.