What is going on: Some dudes and a scratchly beard
Ok, so here’s the deal: I was in Japan for a year, and when I came back in August of 2008, I moved to Portland, Oregon.
I lived in a house with some friends from high school, most notable of whom was Joel Wrolstad, who is Capybara’s chief singer. We were going to do music there, but quickly realized that if we really wanted to dig our heels in and make the best thing possible, we needed more time. We wanted to be able to devote all day and all night to writing and recording truly incredible and original music. Enter Mark Harrison. Mark and I were in a little band called Dadbot while we were students at the University of Missouri. Mark calls me one day in October and says “wouldn’t it be great if we could just live somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, no jobs, no distractions, and write another album together?” I told him that yes, that would be an extremely, extremely, extremely good thing. I told him that maybe we could do that in a few years. He said he would rather do it starting in January.
That night, I left a note under Joel’s door that said something like “Joel – we are going to live in the middle of nowhere and write music for three months starting in January.” Thus began the three long months of planning, organizing, cajoling, negotiating, arguing, and convincing that it took to make that dream a reality. Step one was making sure another friend from high school, Jared Horne, could accompany us in this project. Step two was figuring out where to go.
Incredibly, within a day of telling my Mom about this plan, she tells me that her real estate agent friend has found us a ridiculously cheap house to rent for three months in Taos, New Mexico (which is, uncoincidentally, where my Mom lives). Skip ahead to January 7th: Jared and Mark make the two day drive from Kansas City to Portland. January 10th: The four of us leave Portland and drive for 48 hours straight to New Mexico with two quick stops: one at the Pancake Pantry in Los Angeles for breakfast, and another in Phoenix, Arizona to pick up a Yamaha CP70B piano (one of the only portable pianos with actual strings and hammers).
So now we’ve been in Taos for about five weeks. Jared and I had our birthdays. Joel made an incredible stew. Mark worked at freaking Sundance. But mostly, we’ve made some tunes that we are really proud of. We’re going to keep doing that for another two months or so, and then it’s off to tour. That’s where you come in: we really truly want to play shows for everyone that we know and love (and even people we don’t know; we love you too), and in order to do that, we need to really get the word about Capybara out there. The more people that know about us, the easier it will be for us to get shows and plan this tour. So hey, if you like the jamz, feel free to share them with anyone and everyone that you think would appreciate them. That is seriously the ultimate favor you can do for Capybara. And Capybara will always pay back favors, either by cooking you a delicious stew, giving you a haircut, or discussing Lost with you ad nauseum.
Seriously, check the myspace often, because there will be a crazy amount of updates, especially concerning the progress of our not-quite-ready official site: capybaramusic.com.
You really get my goose,
Darin Seal
