Mark Davison - Nuke The Soup

Nuke the Soup is a new project featuring Mark Davison, singer/guitarist/songwriter and founding member of Cubic Feet. Keyboardist Brian Simms, bassist Mike Mennell, guitarist Rennie Grant, and Chester Thompson (Genesis, Zappa) on drums round out the current line up.

Make Waves Not War is the band’s first release. Producer Pete Solley (Romantics, Oingo Boingo – and all Cubic Feet albums) mans the desk and contributes keyboards. The first single on the album is track #2, “Filled with Dread”. It is a peppy, ska tinged number which is a perfect summertime cut to go with your Red Stripe.

 

Chris- How did Nuke the Soup get involved with the Red Cross and the benefit for Haiti?
Mark- it started when I found out that the Senator was interested in having bands play.  I contacted Banchi productions over there.  They are running the live shows there at the Senator.  I discussed with them ticket splits (you sell a certain amount of tix you get a split of the sales)  I would like a lot of people to be exposed to the band and I’m not really concerned about money making from sales at this point.  Why don’t we just make it a benefit and Haiti just happened not that long before, it’s a really good cause.  Than from there we put some bands together that also wanted to participate.  It was an idea at the time.  We needed a place where the money was going to be channeled, a legitimate place instead of a check written to a blank organization.  We thought that the Red Cross would be good to channel the money to Haiti, so we just got in touch with the Red Cross and a representative there.  They backed us; Crissy (luck media) had something to do with that.  That’s pretty much it.  We picked a date and made it happen.  Hopefully we will get a good turn out and raise some money for Haiti.

Chris- Sounds like a very cool win win situation.
Mark- Yeah, it would be good exposure for all the bands.   Good for the concert goers.  There will be a lot of diversity, and all the money will go to Haiti.

Chris- How did Nuke the Soup form as a band?
Mark- It’s kind of my project.  I’m the songwriter in the group.  I played with a group called Cubic Feet for many years.  We had 4 cds out under Cubic Feet, during that time I had some songs that really didn’t fit with Cubic Feet.  They developed into sort of a surf theme.  The songs that missed Cubic Feet all seemed to work together fairly well, through a series of projects with some people I worked with in Cubic Feet, the producer Pete Solley, who did all the Romantic records, couple of drummers we worked with.  We put the record together than I had the task of putting together a live band.  We had different studio musicians on the album.  Chester Thompson is one, some people may be familiar with his work with the group Genesis.  He is pretty high profile.  Bass player we worked with Mike Mennell in LA.  He’s a little hard to get for local live gigs, Chester as well so, for the last festival we got sort of the cream of Baltimore guys that are out doing it.

Chris- How did you get hooked up with Chester Thompson?
Mark-Chester is a friend of a friend.  He is actually originally from Baltimore so he has some reason to be here now and than.  A friend of mine Jimmy Wilson knew Chester from way back, I actually did a project with Chester years ago and I always thought I would want to use him, and the situation finally came, the drummer couldn’t make it, and I needed someone, then there’s Chester.

Chris- What inspired you to get into music initially?
Mark- I’ve always been involved in music to some extent.  I started playing guitar at 12.  I was playing in high school, the folk assembly and things like that.  I always had some sort of jam band/garage band going on.  After college, I met some friends who were also out of college, didn’t really have a solid idea of what we wanted to do with our lives, music seemed like a good thing and we started bands together.  That only went so far.  Than I started Cubic Feet with my writing partner Woody Lissauer.  WE been together with Cubic Feet for many years, 4 records, and Woody started doing some solo records, it ws time for me to find some other stuff.

Chris- Make Waves not War- will this ban an ongoing theme or something specific to this album?
Mark- I think it will actually be an ongoing theme.  I think we may have a Make Waves not War 2.  It’s kind of our slogan, our catchall.  It sums up what the band is about.  Nuke the Soup, on one level microwaving the soup, you want to reheat it, than eat it up, which is what we try to do, eat it up.  There’s the water reference there, could be about surfing, nuking the soup, so as not to get too violent with the nuke, make waves not war somehow works together.

Chris- I’ve been listening to your cd a lot.  I really like ‘Big Green Jungle’, and ‘Fill with Dread’
Mark- those are 2 we are definitely going to play at the show on the 12th.

Chris- they both seem semiserious with an upbeat feel to the music.  Did you have to be in a certain state of mind to write these?
Mark- you know its funny, a lot of my songs come to me in a dream.  I had the chorus in a dream.  I was in Austin at SXSW a number of years ago, and I just wrote this chorus in a dream, wrote it down, and just expanded on the chorus ‘In the big green jungle’ (singing), like a financial angle, then it has other ramifications, like life in general.  It’s a nice metaphor.  That’s kind of how I have written a few songs.  I’ll get something in a dream or an inspiration and that’s the center nugget, then from there you have to work, then will build song around it.

Chris- that’s kind of a different way to write a song.
Mark- you know in a dream I sometimes hear a whole song, bridges, choruses, its all there.  You wake up and can’t remember anything.  I may catch a few lines, than have to recreate the rest.  I had dreams where other people are singing it, on the last song on the cd called ‘our song’.   I had this funny dream.  I had seen this movie where Eddie Vedder was actually this impersonator or Neil Diamond believe it or not.  He and his wife had this funny name like Thunder and Glory.  It had this tragic end, but before that they were on stage.  I was on stage with Eddie Vedder.  He was singing the song ‘our song’ you know with his deep voice singing.  I was kind of observing it, than I woke up, that’s not Eddie’s song, that’s my song.  Its my dream, so it must be my song.  I wrote down a couple of lines than expanded on that.

Chris- that’s odd- Eddie Vedder and Neil Diamond.  Its an odd creative process.
Mark- That’s the lazy man’s creative process, wait till you dream something..

Chris- I guess it makes it less formulated and more creative.
Mark- well definitely the strong things come thru, and generally I don’t want to work on anything unless its really strong.  I try to limit myself instead of writing all the time, so I get the ones that I cant get out of my head.  I figure if it sticks in my head it will probably stick in someone elses head.

Chris- seems like a good theory.
Mark- Yeah, but sometimes not sure if you want it in your head.

Chris- yeah, you hear a song in the morning and it sticks with you all day at work.  I just watched your video for ‘Filled with Dread’ it had this guy walking with this weird mouthpiece and everything else seems to be going backwards.
Mark- Yeah, the way that was done was the mouthpiece is an ipod and George the director, I was in Baltimore at the time. The video was made in LA.  George was mouthing the words to the song and the actor who is a circus solie kind of guy, he’s holding up the ipod walking backwards during the filming, than they reverse.  I’m not sure exactly how he did the ipod, but he reversed the footage so you see the actor walking forward and everyone else on the sidewalk going backwards and the cars are going backwards, its kind of catchy.

Chris- it’s very bizarre.
Mark- yeah, you might not catch it at first, car going backward down the street.

Chris- first you see one guy in the background walking backward, and wonder is it just that one guy. You look again, and its like everyone is going backwards.
Mark- Yeah, I think George did a great job on that.  It was very low budget and I liked it enough, this time, I went out there with my guitar and did another video with him for the song ‘Ying and Yang’.  That video should be on youtube in a couple of weeks, than there is a third video out there now for the song ‘Blind’

Chris- Yeah, I saw that one, where is that one shot at?
Mark- That’s shot down town Baltimore.  Its not druid lake, it’s a similar one, that’s right next to it.   Its just a little west of Druid hill park.  That was directed by Skizz Cyzyk.  Anyone that’s been to the Md Film Festival would know Skizz because he was a big part of that for the last 10 years or so.

Chris- To me your music has a beach party jam to it, something more you would think of from Southern California than Baltimore, Maryland..
Mark- yeah, anytime you mention surf you would think southern California; I drew a lot of my inspiration from places I’ve been like Southern Australia, and Dominican Republic.  The Dominican Republic is the other side of Haiti, that’s another reason for the benefit for Haiti.  I’ve been to the Dominican like twenty times or so, windsurfing and such.  When we went there we used to run into these students who were on some sort of program where they travel around and help out in the poorer parts of Dominican Republic and Haiti.  It was some sort of work-study program.  We were sympathetic when we found out what happened with the earthquake, and with some of the students there.  We were familiar with some of the programs there.

Chris- With your sound do you feel you need to go somewhere else to get the attention you deserve?
Mark- I think you always have to get out of your local place, unless you’re in LA or NY.  You really have to get out there.  Our first places we were playing were the beach.  We played last summer.  WE played Dewey Beach Festival; we played Chincoteague, VA for WCTG.  They are one of the first stations to pick up our record.  They play it a lot.  I even heard it several times when I was there on the air.  We played Ocean City.  I like playing the beach, because it’s easy to get to the water.  That’s a big plus.  After the show at the Senator we are going to do a show at SXSW.  That’s in Austin, TX, big music festival, tons of bands there.  WE are going to have our own little party they’re featuring the band.  There aren’t many official parties there, so that should bring us some attention.

Chris- how did you get into the festival there?
Mark- Basically we have a venue there that was interested in putting something on with our band and for the right advertising and other stuff you can make an official party out of it.  That’s how it works.  I’ve been going there for many years and we just thought it was time for a party.  It’s a sushi restaurant so that’s kind of fitting with the Make Waves not War there.

Chris- nice transition
Mark- Good sushi appetizer to lure everyone in yeah.  Yeah, I think you have to get out of your town.  Baltimore, I hear it is said that ‘bands in Baltimore, they are all like crabs in a pot, one is almost about to break out and another one pulls him in.  Its pretty tough to get out of Baltimore, but there are a few that are doing it.  You have Milkshake on the kids level were nominated for a Grammy this year, which is pretty good, and we share a keyboard player Veronica Lodge.  She tours around with Milkshake.

Chris- what’s next for Nuke the Soup after SXSW?
Mark- After SXSW I plan on writing some more songs and work on volume 2, and some touring this summer.  I would like to play some more beach sots, that’s always fun, probably do another local gig or 2.  If we could tour some that would be cool, but we are a little busy with family life, you know we’ll do what we can.

Chris- when you work on volume 2 will you ne working with your touring musicians or your studio musicians?
Mark- Probably back to the core group which are, Well Chester is hard to beat on drums, and my friend Mike Mennel on bass from LA is one of the best bass players in recording, Randy my guitar player actually goes ot on the road with us because he’s local, Brian Simms is a local, Glenn Workman is filling in on the 12th.  Glen Workman, interesting fellow, he was over my house during the big blizzard rehearsing and I call him shoeless Glenn Workman because he doesn’t like to wear shoes.  During that blizzard, he is over with short pants, a jacket on, but no shoes, no socks, and he is out in the snow.  He drives in his car with no shoes.  He said he was shoveling snow for 2 hours without shoes.  Glenn Workman will be there, and I promise you he will not be wearing shoes at the Senator no matter what the weather is, also on the 12th Jason Heiser will be on drums, he tours with Charm City Devils, who recently came off of a tour with Motley Crue.  He is a first class local guy, Rennie will be playing guitar and Jimmy Charleston is on bass.  We have a fairly crackerjack crew for the 12th so it should be pretty good.

Chris- How did you gather the rest of the bands on the 12th?
Mark- that was mainly Banchi productions, the group that is running the Senator right now.  It’s kind of a mixed bag of acts.  I’m really not that familiar with the other acts except for whatever I’ve heard on myspace.  I’m pretty excited about it.  There is not one type of music all night.  There is something a little harder edge; there is a really good guitar player that was voted one of the 10 best in ’09 in Guitar Player magazine.  Wayne Johnson.  There will be variety, a little something for everyone.

Chris- How’s marketing?
Mark- we are taking an ad on 98rock, even though WTMD is more our market, but they are commercial free.  Hopefully because of the nature of the show they will give us a little plug.

Chris- I was thinking 103.1 RNR would be a good fit for you guys.
Mark- we are also pushing for them to give us a mention too.

Chris- I was trying to think of where you would fit around the radio band.
Mark- 103.1 is triple A, so is TMD, TMD may be a little light for us.  103.1 would be good, but they are really hard to get on.  They play what they want to play.  They don’t listen to promoters much.  They kind of have to discover you.  It’s kind of like WXTM in Philly another great radio station.  Hard to turn any heads on your own, kind of have to be on a major, or get lucky.  We do very well with triple A radio with this record.  WE debuted #4 with the first single Dread got played on 60 radio stations across the country.  People know the band somewhat.

Chris- ‘Filled with Dread’ has a nice catchy sound to it, very ska kind of sounding.
Mark- that one track does, than there is one that is a little bit of reggae on another track, another with ska sound.  There is some continuity there, but also some variety.

Chris- Very cool, do you have anything else you would like to add?
Mark- Come see our show on 12th, see the bands, support Haiti, if your in Austin, TX come check out our party at SXSW.

Chris- I appreciate your time, and look forward to the show and getting some cool live shots of you guys.

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