Skewed Sensibilities – An Interview With Tomahawk


TomahawkTrevor Dunn is not just one of the best bassists ever to be associated with heavy music, but in the world. His long resume of accomplishments alone would more than fill this space and he is still carving out new sonic territory all the time. He is most known in popular circles through his long association with Mike Patton as a member of Mr. Bungle and now in Tomahawk. Oddfellows (Ipecac) came out in January, and Tomahawk is hitting the road again so this was a good time to chat with Trevor and find out all about the band and his path as an artist.

Trevor great to speak to you! How are you doing today?

I’m good, I’m alright. It’s been a nice easy day. I’ve been staying in. Actually this whole weekend has been great. I haven’t had much do to. I’m chilling at home and I’ve been listening to some music, studying some string quartet music. I am actually planning on writing something for a string quartet later this year so I have studying some Bartok, and Schnittke and what else, late (era) Beethoven, and others. Just now I was looking at the score for Bartok’s 3rd for String quartet. It’s got some great stuff. A friend of mine recommended it. .

Tomahawk is about to hit the road with a short run of special US dates followed by a European tour. What can fans expect when they come out to see the Tomahawk show?

Our shows are a mix of all the records. Of course there is only one that I’m one, the most recent. But we are also doing stuff from the first one, Mit Gas and Anonymous. It’s a mixed bag from all of the records. Personally for me being the new guy in the band, it all works well for me and it feels very complementary.

Do you still feel like the new guy in the band?

Not really since I have been playing in bands with Mike Patton for thirty years! (laughs) We’ve spent enough time together now that I feel like a part of the band. Of course there are always stories that come up with the old bass player. There’s not a lot of bands that I play in that are like that, where I stand in the place of someone else. Either way, whether I had to do that or not it’s cool with me.

Do you feel pressured to stay faithful to the old recordings or do you have the latitude to add what you want?

Well they certainly give me the latitude. Ultimately it’s Duane‘s baby. It’s Duane and Mike’s project. Duane writes the bass lines, pretty much. So I try to do them justice. When it came time to record them, I was able to add my own nuances to whatever, and Duane is totally cool with that. And live, I can get away with all kinds of stuff live. (laughs) We’re all out there trying to create a good show and play the songs. I’m obviously not gonna take it too far ‘out’.

Even though the band just finished a small stretch of touring, is it tough to get ready for a tour with a band like Tomahawk that has long periods of inactivity?

It’s a tough gig. Sometimes it is and sometimes it’s not. All the touring we have done recently has been really sporadic. We did a short run last October. We did the south. And then in February we did the West Coast and Australia. I’ve been touring with other bands in between. In terms of my chops and the other side of it, compared to some of my other gigs, Tomahawk is a piece of cake. Our first show in Boston on this run will be our first show in maybe a month and a half. I’m sure we’ll rehearse the difficult songs at sound check and I will give them a listen on the plane on my iPod and make sure I still have everything memorized, which I’m sure I do. It’s not like some other bands I am in, where I have to do a lot of homework. It’s actually kind of a breath of fresh air for me.

How did you all work together as a production team?

It’s kind of just a matter of people throwing out their opinions and then seeing what sticks and what doesn’t. If someone has aesthetically really strong opinion about something and everyone else disagrees about it, we might compromise if they other guy feels so strongly about it. If someone has a strong opinion based on production or the songwriting, then you know that is enough to make it valid. Again, with rock music like this, there is a given about how the mix should sound, or just some common knowledge or unwritten rules based on how it was written, or something else we feel is important. There were no big battles. When Duane and I mixed the album in Nashville, Patton was in California. So there were a lot of mixes sent back and forth. It probably would have been easier and faster if we were in the same place. But other than that it was pretty easy.

Do you think the public’s taste has caught up to Tomahawk a little?

It’s hard to say because obviously, there is a lot of crap out there. Most popular music is really crap. It’s funny because I had this similar thought then Bjork became popular. I was like ‘Wow! She’s really weird and she’s popular. People are getting there for something or she’s tapping into something accessible and its still being able to be weird.’ And this was years ago. Personally, Tomahawk is not that weird of a band, but maybe I have a skewed sense about these things. This is just the most straight forward thing that I do musically. It’s got everything that accessible music has: melodies, it has beats, and doesn’t go on forever. That could be a part of it. Then on the other hand, you look at a band like Tool, which I’m not a fan of, but they are super popular and it is almost like prog-rock. There is definitely no accounting for taste. I can never explain any of it. (laughs)

Words: Keith (Keefy) Chachkes

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