A new album release from Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggits does an outstanding job of not only bringing together a mass number of musicians to create something special, but it also brings together a slew of genres and creates this vibe and aesthetic, atmosphere, and approach that becomes all its own.
A big part of the addictive aspect of this massive album release is the simple fact that it has a bursting personality, and this is something that you definitely start becoming attached to quickly and that never lets up throughout the entire record.
The Solar Cantata album has a lot of color, energy, and a wide array of instrumentation that helps it push the envelope and become something that lets you begin to expect the unexpected about halfway through the record.
Actually, it only takes about four tracks to start expecting the unexpected. Once you get four songs in you realize that you need to listen to this album from beginning to end so that you can soak everything in for what it's worth.
One of the most amazing aspects of this record is how it was performed. There's so much liveliness and energy involved that it feels almost like the whole thing was recorded live on the floor.
Almost every track on this record has the vibe of musicians feeding off of each other's energies right in the moment.
So, in turn, it puts you in the moment as well.
There's a vivacious energy that comes through this record and as it unfolds you end up enjoying all the surprises that it has around its corners.
This record has everything from trumpet, slews of percussionists, violins, upright bass, ukulele, banjos and mandolin, pedal steel, harmonicas and more. You name it, they have it.
You get inspiration from jazz, rock, pop, and just tons of other genre influence that come into play and bring in these beautiful waves of intensities to the record and so much culture and flare throughout its course.
Now, this is quite a large release. There are 20 tracks in total, but I can tell you right now that it's worth listening to in full.
If you listen to the entire record in one shot, it really serves as quite an amazing and colorful escape from your everyday reality.
You hear elements of all these different styles and vibrancy, but you also have humor, and lyrics that you end up diving into as well that are quite fun and tell stories.
Some of them can even be so descriptive you can picture things in your head as the song is playing.
So, this is an outside-the-box and very unique record that most certainly took some time to make because of the fact that there are so many songs and so many musicians involved, and I feel like it takes someone very dedicated to being able to put something like that together.
You can hear the love for the craft in every single note played and, in every track, you listen to.
This was a gorgeous record with these textures that flow in and out and you end up getting wrapped up in everything.
With the release of such a well woven and massively built record, we had to have a chat with Dan from Bobby Joe Ebola about how this all came to be and more.
Here's what went down.
Buzz Slayers: Hey Bobby Joe and thanks for taking some time! The Solar Cantata record was huge! How did you get all of these musicians to be a part of it and how many are there on the record?
There are well over 50 musicians appearing on Solar Cantata. Most of them are actually old friends; in our 30 years as a band, we’ve been lucky to have some truly superb musicians in our community. Others are professional session players our studio engineer Gabriel Winter called up. We made sure to pay our players, friends and strangers alike, fairly for their time and labor helping us bring our little musical fever dream to life. Many of the players would have probably come into the studio for free if we had asked (and a few did refuse the money we offered), but we wanted to honor their labor and expertise, and all the heart they put into playing. And we are pretty happy with the results.
Buzz Slayers: What is this record about to you and what sparked the idea?
Solar Cantata grew out of conversations between Corbett and me about how we were coping with the horrors of modern life in the wake of the Covid pandemic. We had both written some lyrics and started sharing things back and forth. This went on for several months by email, since we live in different states. When we finally got together in person we realized we had a couple of albums worth of material.The album explores what it’s like to watch the crumbling of the world into which we were born. Politically, ecologically, and culturally, things are unraveling in real time and there is very little solid ground. Most Americans do not have a frame of reference for how bad things can get. As a band we were always pretty strident about our criticism of the American Empire, but in the near term anyway, what next is likely going to suck even more for most of us. And there is no going back.
We were writing songs about the apocalypse all through our career. And what we came to realize is that the end of the world is more of a process than an event.
Buzz Slayers: This is your first studio album since 2012. What have you been doing?
After 2012’s Trainwreck to Narnia, we toured pretty relentlessly, made music videos and did a bunch of ambitious projects. In 2013, for example, we played nearly 300 gigs. By 2014 we were pretty burned out and needed to recharge. But we stayed busy and worked together on other projects. Corbett got hired to direct and produce a full-length documentary Turn it Around: The Story of East Bay Punk (2017) in which I served as story editor. That project took several years. In that time, Corbett became a dad and moved to the North Bay. I worked as a high school science teacher for a while and co-hosted a live storytelling/comedy showcase in Oakland called “Knew Better, Did it Anyway”, then I moved eventually to Reno. I recorded a record with a country band, Tumbleweed Timemachine. Lots of little projects but nothing really stuck.
When the pandemic hit, our friends in the band The Love Songs had to cancel their tour. So instead they made an animated comedy short to promote their album, and they invited us to make cameos. So in That Sucks!, we appear as ourselves alongside a pretty star-studded cast that includes Weird Al Yankovic, Kirk Hammett of Metallica, Dexter Holland of Offspring, Narduar the Human Serviette and many more. That project might have been around when we started talking again about writing new songs.
Buzz Slayers: Where do you go from here now that the record is released? What;s next?
It’s been a whirlwind of activity here at Ebola HQ. We’ve been sending off records and other goodies to the hundreds of fans who helped us raise over $35,000 on kickstarter. We’re in preproduction or production on 10 music videos right now. We are planning a few regional tours and talking with artists, revamping the band store, and some other stuff we can’t talk about yet. There is lots of work to do, and it’s just the two of us.
Buzz Slayers: Are you performing live at all?
Yes, we are! We’re playing our first show back in Petaluma CA on Feb 21, followed by Crockett CA on Feb 22 and Sacramento CA on Feb 23:
Friday, February 21st
Petaluma, CA @ Rain Dog Records
1010 Petaluma Blvd N, Petaluma, CA 94952
7pm, $12 (no presale, door only), All Ages
with Banzai 88 and MugSlug
Saturday, February 22nd
Crockett, CA @ Toot’s Tavern
627 2nd Ave, Crockett, CA 94525
Doors: 6:30pm / Show 7pm, $20, 21+,
with Middle-Aged Queers and Unwoman
Community outreach by Punk Rock Saves Lives
ADVANCE TICKETS HERE: bit.ly/bjetoots
Sunday, February 23rd
Sacramento, CA @ Cafe Colonial
3520 Stockton Blvd, Sacramento, CA 95820
Doors 6:30pm / Show 7pm, $15, All Ages
with The Knockoffs, Lokeigh and The Four Eyes
ADVANCE TICKETS HERE: bit.ly/bjecafecolonial
For the February shows we’ll have one of our oldest friends, accordionist Dylan Blackthorn, backing up our usual acoustic duo format.
Then May 28-June 1 we will be hitting the Pacific Northwest with two other bands with East Bay roots, Middle Aged Queers and Dollar Store (featuring Jeff Off from Crimpshrine & Fifteen)Wednesday. May 28th
Chico CA @ Naked Lounge
118 W. 2nd St.
All Ages, 7PM, $10
w/ Knifes (Chico)
Thursday May 29th
Salem, OR @ Blast Off Vintage
860 High St NE
Doors 7PM, All Ages, $10
w/ Bazooka Sharkz (Salem)Friday, May 30th
Portland, OR @ High Water Mark
6800 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
Doors 8PM, 21+, $12 advance / $17 at the door
w/ Cartoon Violence USA (Portland)
ADVANCE TICKETS: https://www.treetix.com/4cuy-/highwatermark
Saturday May 31st
Seattle, WA @ The Black Lodge2632 42nd Ave SW
w/ headliner Ninety Pound Wuss
ADVANCE TICKETS: https://bit.ly/npw-maq
Sunday, June 1st
Astoria, OR @ The Grand Marquee
824 Commercial St.
8:00 pm, $10 cover, 21+
w/ Get Down Moses (Astoria) and The Dumpies (Austin TX)
For more information on all these shows, go to https://bobbyjoeebola.com/ and scroll down to our Tour Dates section.
Buzz Slayers: Who are some of your biggest musical influences?
We’re all over the place but we also share a lot of faves. Punk, hip-hop, klezmer, you name it. We both love the sorts of outsider musicians who got play on Dr. Demento but have real songwriting chops and melodic hooks that take it beyond novelty and humor. Acts like They Might Be Giants, Frank Zappa, Weird Al, Tom Lehrer, Ween, and others. I love bluegrass and outlaw country, as well as 70s-80s rock like Judas Priest and Thin Lizzy.
Buzz Slayers: How long have you been doing this and what is your favorite aspect about it all?
The band first started in the summer of 1995, so we are approaching our 30 year anniversary. I believe that’s known as the Pearl anniversary, so anyone planning to send us gifts to mark the occasion, please keep that in mind.
For me, my favorite part is the process. Taking these odd random notions inside our heads and hammering away at them to create our album has been a wild voyage. It was difficult work, even stressful at times, but it was beautiful to get to work 10, sometimes 14 hour days with some of our favorite artists and musicians on the planet. I love the finished product, but I also get to keep the memories of the 75 or so incredible days we spent in the studio making it.
Buzz Slayers: What would you like to express to fans of the music?
Thank you so much for your support! We literally could not have completed this project without the friends and fans who believed in us. We hope you enjoy listening to the album as much as we enjoyed making it. We’re pretty proud of it, and hope some of the songs help you make sense of the things that are happening right now, give you a much-needed laugh, and let you know that you are not nearly as alone as you may think.
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