For the members of Dispatch, their upcoming shows at Madison Square Garden will bring things back to where it all started—for the second time. In 2007, after three years apart, Chad Urmston, Pete Heimbold and Brad Corrigan reunited for three sold-out benefit shows at Madison Square Garden. The gigs, which were billed as the first sold-out MSG plays by an independent band, benefited charities in Zimbabwe and led to another reunion date benefitting the African country in 2009. Though their personal relationships were strained by the time they formally parted ways in 2004, the reunion shows rejuvenated the band and led to a formal Dispatch reunion in 2011. The trio has released a self-titled EP, a DVD, a live album and the full-length album Circles Around the Sun in that time and they plan to release a new single before July 4th weekend. They have also toured the world, selling out marquee venues like Morrison, Colorado’s Red Rocks and New York’s Radio City Music Hall along the way.
On July 10 and 11, Dispatch will return to Madison Square Garden for the first time since 2007 for two arena-size benefit shows. Billed as Dispatch: Hunger, the shows will aid a number of charities including Calling All Crows, Center for Hunger-Free Communities, New York City Coalition Against Hunger, No Kid Hungry and WhyHunger. They are also the band’s only proper headlining show in the United States for the remainder of 2015. While prepping for the big gigs—which will feature support spots by Dr. Dog and John Butler Trio on July 10 and 11, respectively—Urmston reflected on his band’s return to the World’s Most Famous Arena. He also offered a state of the union on his band four years after their reunion and hints that fans should expect a new album in 2016.
The group released its “Bound By Love” single last week and all proceeds from sales between June 29 and July 31 “will support hunger initiatives that increase access to nutritious foods for underserved neighborhoods and support giving people.” Click here to download.
Dispatch is only playing a few US gigs this year but they are big ones—two nights at Madison Square Garden in mid-July. They are also benefit shows supporting Hunger in America. What led to the decision to focus on these big special shows instead of a proper tour?
We wanted to do a show that carries meaning with it, and we had such great memories doing those three shows in 2007 that really were a marriage of music, ethics, social issues, and such. It was such a highlight of our lives, and we said to ourselves, “Let’s see if we could go back and play some shows overseas, but let’s just play once here in North America that really counts.” In that way, it was kind of an experiment to go back to MSG a few years later and do it again.
We just wanted to be able to play on a cause a lot of people don’t know much about—something that is an undercurrent as far as issues that we all face today. Hunger seems like a good one to learn more about. It kind of goes unnoticed sometimes.
It has been three years since Dispatch released a new studio album and that project was your first full-length recording in 12 years. Does the band have any plans to return to the studio?
We’ve been writing a bunch, and we have had a few three or four-day writing sessions. We had three of them on either end of gigs during the past few years, where we got together for a few days. So we have a bunch of tune, and trying to figure out which ones to focus on. One of them [“Bound By Love”] we just recorded in Australia when we were there; I think we’re going to release that on June 26, and we’re definitely going to play that at the Madison Square Garden shows. Practice for the show starts Saturday [June 27], and so I don’t know if any new ones besides that one are going to make it into the setlist. I hope one or two others get sprinkled in, but we got a lot of songs to play over the two nights and we’re not playing that much so we’re trying to squeeze as much in already. For me, it’s always exciting when we incorporate really new stuff.
You mentioned that your new songs were co-written and worked out by the three members of Dispatch. Do you think your next studio project will be more of a group record, featuring songs co-written by the band, rather than each member bringing in their own idea?
We will see—our writing process has always been pretty similar. Guys have ideas, and we kind of hack them out. Sometimes the ideas are fresher out than others, so sometimes it’s better to have a little idea and everyone kind of jump on. That’s a really fun way to do it because then everyone feels that they are a part of the full creative process. It’s less fun, I think, when someone comes with a song to the table and it’s 99% done, then it is just ownership from the other two guys. I think that it’s also that we’re older now—more mature or something—where the process has a little bit more appreciation and acceptance instead of fighting over for this and that.
Dispatch’s sound evolved a great deal during a short period of time in the mid-‘90s, moving from your acoustic early recordings to a more electric jam-rock sound. How would you say the band’s sound has evolved since you guys came back as a full-time touring entity in 2011?
I’d say that the band’s trajectory up to our four albums while we were playing a lot together [from 1996 to 2002] kind of made sense. Our first album, Silent Steeples, was more acoustic. Then the next albums were getting more electric like Bang Bang. Then with Four-Day Trials, we were kind of getting more complicated with our tunes; getting heavier. Brad was hitting harder on the drums, and I really wanted to go as heavy as possible. Who Are We Living For? was a lot heavier and kind of led into what I did with State Radio.
Then, after all that time away and when we came back, and we did an EP [in 2011] and full length, Circles Around the Sun, in 2012. It’s hard to follow if there is an even trajectory at that point. We had a bunch of tunes and recorded them with [The National/Interpol/Trey Anastasio producer] Peter Katis. But we have been away from each other for so long and hadn’t recorded as a band in over 10 years. We had a lot of songs and, for whatever reason, there was no reggae on the album. On the EP there was a little bit of a ska/reggae vibe, which we have always done in the past. And then, on the proper albums, there was none of it. It was kind of just more straight-ahead rock, but kind of rootsy rock and I think, with where we are going now, we all feel excited to get back into the reggae and kind of explore more of the world music aspects again of what we have done in the past. We all love that sound and want to explore it a little more on our next album.
We have also been kicking around the idea of making a dance record. I don’t know if any of our fans would like that but that is kind of fun for us—kind of having Dispatch-y melodies and harmonies, and having underneath it the dub-step, and taking it someplace totally where it has never been before. [Laughs.] I feel like we have the balls to do that.
It is funny because dub-step has roots in dub music, which is itself rooted in reggae. In a lot of ways, it’s exploring a very different side of a similar coin.
Yeah, for sure. I don’t know why, but we have all been digging the dance thing and the reggae vibe.
Instrument switching was another early hallmark of the band. What is the instrumentation on the new song you recorded in Australia?
It feels good to come back to that, and the new song that we recorded is pretty much me on piano, playing like the skank, and Pete’s on drums and Brad is on bass. Brad has never recorded bass before. Pete has never recorded drums with Dispatch. So none of us were on our main instruments, but it really gave us this raw feel, and it kind of reminded me of what we sounded like when we recorded “The General“—because we were learning how to record bass and drums at that point, too, after being an acoustic guitar band before that. So it was going to become a demo kind of thing. It had that vibe and, in that way, it was really fun.
Was there a purposeful decision to switch up the instruments on this new track, or did it just naturally happen by the way that you guys just sat in the room that point?
Pete has been really psyched to play the drums. He would just get behind the drum kit and play it, and I had this little piano song—this very simple piano song, and I just started playing it and it was really straightforward. It had a simple beat to it, and Brad walked into the room where I was practicing it, at Pete’s studio at his home called Dragon Crest, so I was hitting up Pete’s upright piano, and Brad came up to me and asked, “What was that?” and I was like, “This is a sketch of a song I’m working on.” He was like, “Whoa, that was great” and he picked up the bass. Brad looked really strange holding a bass but, by the time we were in Melbourne, Australia at the end of session, we had basically a day to record it and Brad came up with this great bass line and was getting more comfortable. Pete was great at the drums, too. He plays simply, but he has great pocket and feel.
Dispatch have shifted back and forth in terms of how much improvisation is involved in the live show. At this point, how much would you guys improv in the song structures when you guys are reworking your songs live?
Well, especially with this new song, it would be great to have Pete on the drums, which we have never really done. We have a couple of tunes where we let Pete unleash on the guitar, and we’ll definitely have at least one of those a night because we don’t have enough time, and there’s so many songs. Some of those wide-open shows, where we would maybe just cut it all back and listen to each other and see where we’re going, we’ll have a little bit of that, but it’s probably going to be relegated to two or three songs a night.
In addition to these big MSG shows, Dispatch are playing a few smaller US shows this year. You played a few songs at Port Chester, NY’s Garcia’s this winter, hosted a pop-up show in your house and, on June 30, you are playing a benefit gig in Westbury, NY. In certain ways, those shows bring the band to their stripped down, acoustic roots.
Yeah. I think that we enjoy playing pretty mellow, just to sit around on acoustic guitar harmonies and really listen to each other while not being all wired up and plugged in. Those are pretty fun and mellow, and conversational. And this goes with the last question: I don’t think we’ll ever be a band that plays the tracks, or clicks into a metronome or anything like that. We’re always going to keep it loose so, if there is that moment where if someone does something, where they’re taking the tune higher, we could follow that person and listen to where that song is going because the improvisation is important as far as never being locked into anything or structure. But, yeah, these little shows coming up are just good ways to knock the rust off some tunes that we haven’t done and also re-interpret some of the electric songs in a more fun way.
After focusing on Dispatch and State Radio for a few years, you released your second solo album, The Horse Comanche a few months ago. Are you writing toward another solo release at this time or focusing on new Dispatch music at this point?
I have a bunch of solo stuff I am working on and it’s going side-by-side with some stuff that I am working on with Dispatch. Sometimes it isn’t clear where or who the song should land with. But I am working on a concept record that involves inspiration from the freight train jumping that I’ve done in the past and trying to create a full and clear story from start to finish.
It is really fun to work on, like a little Tommy or The Wall, but, meanwhile, we’re getting closer to being able to record this record, and we’re looking to record it in 2016, so that’s really fun to think about and what tunes are going to come out during that process. We have a lot of work to do, but that’s going to come out sooner than any other solo stuff.
