ARC students and Commercial Music Recording majors, Quin Darcy and Garrett Wootton dedicate their time to learning music theory and applying that knowledge to their progressive-experimental-psychedelic-jazz band, TUBDRAGGER.
The name of the band comes from a story Darcy’s girlfriend’s dad told him about having to drag a tub up a flight of stairs.
“I liked the sound of it because it conveys that slow and lethargic tone that represents our music pretty well,” said Darcy.
Darcy and Wootton met a few years ago in level one recording at ARC and by level three recording they formed their band and have been working on material for roughly a year now.
They are currently working on an LP – a vinyl record – with about 10 songs.
Said Wootton of the record, “All of the songs will be self-produced and right now we’ve got six songs completed.”
Darcy added, “The title of the album is ‘Fruit for the Depressed’ written for sad people by sad people.”
Darcy’s cousin gave him his first guitar 11 years ago has been playing ever since.
He is also learning to play other instruments such as the fiddle, mandolin, banjo and flugelhorn.
Wootton has been a self taught drummer for the past three years.
Darcy draws influence from American jazz pianist and composer, Bill Evans and Joe Pass, an American virtuoso jazz guitarist.
Wootton’s main influence is drummer, Chris Collis from the math rock band This Town Needs Guns.
Darcy and Wootton also have some shared musical favorites including Alt-J, Grizzly Bear, and This Town Need Guns.
It wasn’t until the age of about 16 that both members began to appreciate music and both are huge advocates for learning and understanding music theory.
Said Darcy, “For us it’s all about putting forth the effort to appreciate and understand the complexity of what you might be doing,”
Added Wootton, “Once you understand the theory enough you begin to be able pick apart music and you find yourself searching for more challenging material.”
Some of the band’s music, previously recorded by Darcy, can be found on Soundcloud under “TUBDRAGGER”.
TUBDRAGGER expects to begin live performances late summer or early fall 2015.
