Ivan, how did you get involved with the gig tonight?

Well, Nikki is my friend. Nikki and Angela. I know them and it’s a great cause.

You are familiar with the foundation?

I know it’s helping some kids that are less fortunate. Inner-city kids that need some help. Everybody needs a little brightness in their lives. If it can come to you. Especially if you live in a dark world. That’s basically it. I have some rare downtime. They called me and said, “Do you want to be a part of this?” I’m like, “Hell yeah.” I knew Nikki had played something last year and she and Angela have been involved with it for quite a while. It’s a beautiful thing.

Any new Dumpstaphunk material coming this year?

You know, we’ve been in the recording studio this week, as a matter of fact. We got some stuff that we have been meaning to record. We got some stuff in the can that we need to finish up. There will be some new stuff coming out this year. Most definitely.

Crawfish Fest in New Orleans on the days between Jazz Fest weekends announced their lineup and has you listed for April 29, 2019.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re going to be on that. Me and Cris Jacobs. The Neville Jacobs band.

You guys released a new album, “Neville Jacobs,” in September 2018 and did a few shows. What are the chances of a bigger tour?

We’re trying to make some time for it. It’s just, that’s the whole thing. Carve out enough of a period where we can go out and play and just do that music. We will do some stuff in the summer. We have at least one festival date. There will be a few dates around it. As much as often as we can get some windows to do stuff, we definitely will. We love that record that we made. Hopefully somebody hears it and thinks enough of it.

For people that are familiar with Dumpstaphunk, or even those that aren’t, what is it about Neville Jacobs that is different that will appeal to them?

Neville Jacobs is a little more, it’s got some nastiness to it, it’s got some skankiness to it, it’s got a little more Americana kind of flavor to it. It’s very soulful, it’s soulful. Cris is a songwriter. He is leaning toward a country, Americana kind of vibe and more guitar-oriented songwriting.

How did you guys meet?

He was playing with his band some years ago and we crossed paths a couple of times. I walked into Harrah’s Casino in New Orleans to go play poker and he was sitting at the poker table. I ended up sitting next to him. We both knew who each other was. “You are Cris Jacobs. We should do something one day.” You always say that to someone, a mutual musician that you respect and dig what they do, but it doesn’t always happen.

We ran into each other again . . . it was to do with poker, I swear to god. This friend of ours, he was doing some shit in Washington, D.C., something to do with, they were talking to members of Congress, they were advocating to legalize online poker, I swear to god. So I went up to Washington, D.C., and my man Cris was up there too and we’re hanging out. We play in this celebrity tournament with some professional poker players, a couple of sports figures.

After that we got together and we wrote some songs. We just got together with a little tape player and put some ideas, he had some ideas and I had some ideas and we ended up recording some shit. Then it turned into – we had some pieces. We pulled in a couple of other guys, Brady Blade and Tony Hall. We got them involved. We went ahead and we made a record. We loved what we did. It took a few years to get it out. We had laid down the tracks. The record came out this past September after all that time.

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