Rubblebucket are a soul flavored indie pop band from Brooklyn, NY. They recently released a brilliant record called Sun Machine, and are currently on the road supporting this album. Spinning Platters had the opportunity to chat with lead singer / trumpeter Kal Traver ahead of this tour, and here’s what we talked about!
Rubblebucket are playing August Hall on November 7th with the brilliant Diet Cig opening! Tickets are still available here!
Spinning Platters: Hi. This is Dakin from Spinning Platters. How are you?
Kal: Good. How are you?
SP: I’m doing well. So is now still a good time for an interview?
Kal: Yes, I just woke up from a little nap so I might be a little slow for a second but I am excited to talk.
SP: Excellent. Well then, I will not ask you to do any sort of super complicated math while on this call.
Kal: Oh, that’s good. I would never be good at that sadly. It’s not my forte. I wish it were. I love mathematicians.
SP: I mean you’re a musician that means you have some sense of math.
Kal: I think I know more than like, I don’t know… I guess I have more of an intuitive sense. I love science, which I love learning. I think scientific method is really cool. I love just learning about the way things work. But I think I would be a farmer in another lifetime.
SP: I could actually hear that in the music a little bit. I hear the tinkering pretty prominently in what Rubblebucket do.
Kal: Yes. We’re like we’re makers. [chuckles]
SP: Yes like you’ve found a very like, there’s a very unique sense to your sound that’s very, very playful and I really appreciate it.
Kal: Thank you. [chuckles]
SP: How did you and Alex stumble across your sound?
Kal: It’s been a long… I don’t know. It’s funny because I think, in some way, it’s been a really, really long, long crafting over time… We say to each other a lot that we feel like we have kind of, the original essence of what our two minds and spirits and the way they resonated together like that. The things that we’d love together, they are still the same things. I think we were both really excited by jazz at a young age and the brassy music and improvising in this, that the spirit of “you don’t know what’s going to come next and you just create it on the spot.” Yes, so it’s hard to explain every element but those are some of the ones.
SP: I understand that. So, how so like thinking of, so Sun Machine, your record that came out this year. It’s really good first and foremost.
Kal: [chuckles] Thank you.
SP: You’re welcome. Then I started learning more about the tunes, your relationship throughout like the period leading up to this record and recording it. So you guys were involved romantically before this and broke up during the recording process. Is that right?
Kal: Yes. Well yes, it was like the recording process was really long… So long that we had a bunch of space. So it wasn’t like, it was like in session where like, “Fuck you, okay.” [chuckles]
SP: Yes. I guess my question here is it’s such a sunny album. How did you get to such a happy place from such a hard thing to do?
Kal: [chuckles] Yes. Well, I think I guess like from a personal perspective, I think for both of us, we love each other so much as friends, and like we always have been really good friends throughout the different mores of our, what our relationship was. I think the prospect of being able to still be friends after the break-up was like something we both really hoped for. As we were kind of trying to test the waters and see if that was going to be possible and it seemed like it was, it was really, it’s beautiful. That is a beautiful thing. I was telling people for a while in the midst to that, I felt like my biggest creative work at for a moment for a few months to a year it was just trying to get at peace with Alex and be able to still have each other in our lives. I don’t know. I feel like it kind of, that’s what called for celebration. Also, there are so many cool life lessons that can be interwoven into that. I think especially right now in the way the world is politically, society being so split and not being able to have difficult conversations. They’re shying with from difficult conversations. I’m thankful that I’ve had this experience to prove to me that it’s okay to get dirty sometimes, get down and dirty and work things out.
SP: Yes. Those are all very beautiful. If you were to, if a friend would have reached out to you and talk about a very similar situation where they’re dating a co-worker and things aren’t going well, what advice would you give them to keep the peace in the workplace while still working out the emotions of the break-up?
Kal: Yes. I think that for me and Alex, when we would keep working actively, but at the center of the break-up moment, we were able to have like a whole month where we didn’t interact. Then when we did get back together and have to play a show or have a session or something, it would be better but then like hard things would arrive again. Then to me, I always felt like going back to that space apart from work. Like where I was able to kind of work on, we were each kind of working on ourselves in our own private ways and that was so necessary because we had been so like intertwined for so long. I think yes, just to build a sovereign personhood and be able to believe in oneself without being defined by any other entity. I mean obviously, we are defined by our communities and our families and our friends and that’s beautiful but it’s nice to be able to have a little private like area to express and be and accept yourself.
SP: Yes. Have you done any music outside of this relationship?
Kal: Yes. Actually, it’s funny because at simultaneously with preparing this album and making it and recording it and all the other stuff that goes with the release. Alex and I have both been working on solo projects of our own compositions apart from each other. So those projects have been some of the most enlightening stuff. I think we would both agree on that. Mine is called Kalbells and then Alex, right now, he’s working on an album. It’s really been incredible. I think for me, with Kalbells, it’s extra special because I’ve been able to do the band with on all women. That’s something I had always yearned for ever since I was little, young musician. It’s just so, it’s so life altering and I’m learning so much and having a really good time.
SP: That’s great. When do you think we’ll be able to hear some of these?
Kal: It’s out. It’s great. I really loved it. I’m working on the second now, well after tour. I’ll be getting back into it. Then we’ve just been touring a little bit which is just a little kind of like been trying to conserve my energy and not split up too much, yes. We actually just did a Tiny Desk Concert that just came out in September. So it’s moving kind of fast but really fun.
SP: Excellent, I’m probably going to add that to this interview even though it’s about Rubblebucket but because well, you referenced it.
Kal: Well yes. I think it’s for Alex and I, we both, it is really connected to Rubblebucket. I think those psychiatric tests made Rubblebucket still be possible. Without those, I think there’s no way we could have been able to keep and keep it going.
SP: Yes, I understand that. Right so your opening act on this story, your support as a band called Diet Cig.
Kal: Yes.
SP: Which who I also am a great fan of.
Kal: Awesome.
SP: But you were talking earlier today, earlier in this call about sort of the current sort of social-political climate.
Kal: Yes.
SP: Diet Cig have managed to write some very impressive lyrics about putting yourself forward in the time when things are not safe to put yourself forward. I’d never expected stylistically, like I don’t think stylistically, your similar bands but you both have such a similar attitude in life. I guess in a nutshell, how did you end up syncing up with them?
Kal: I’m trying to remember. Yes because I’ve been watching them. I think we’re definitely from similar communities and scenes like the Western Mass / New York City pipeline. [chuckles] I remember we played a show at MassMOCA, the art museum in the Berkshire. Somebody came up to them and said, “Hey, I’m the mother of Diet Cig and they love you.” I’m like, “Oh cool.” Then I started checking them out and they were really like doing amazing stuff. Then we had a ton of mutual friends. Yes, the name Diet Cig popped up when we were thinking of who to tour with. Then we ran it by them and they were super excited. They’re like, “Whoa, okay let’s do it.”
SP: That’s fantastic, yes. They put on such a fun show.
Kal: Yes, I’m excited.
SP: Right.
Kal: Yes, because I had never actually seen them live, but I watched their Tiny Desk Concert. I was really impressed and then, finally, we did Rubblebucket’s Dream Picnic, that’s like our little festival that we throw. Diet Cig played that. They are so amazing. Like there’s like a power house of sound wild.
SP: Yes. It’s just two people making that noise.
Kal: I still didn’t believe it. I was like this sounds like it’s full band.
SP: Yes, yes. I’m also just imagining the difference between you guys because you’re a pretty sizable touring act if I remember, right?
Kal: Yes, there six of us.
SP: Yes opposed to two.
Kal: Yes.
SP: Yes, it’s just going to be a fun dynamic on stage.
Kal: Yes.
SP: Actually, this is a question I’m asking a lot of people, bands that are fairly optimistic that also kind of have a sense of the political climate. How do you keep, well on the road, how do you keep your head together when the news is all over the place and frightening?
Kal: Oh my God. How? Can I ask you first, how they do that? [laughs]
SP: Yes. I mean, how I deal with it? I occasionally shut things off. Like, I’ll go through like media black-outs. I also always try to remind myself that historically, inevitably good triumphs over evil most of the time. It’s just another part of that cycle of evil showing itself before good can try and plover it.
Kal: Yes, yes, that’s– I think that’s a solid approach. [laughs] I definitely take breaks from the news. I think there’s just a define balance. Obviously, this is a major of topic of discussion…
I guess the past two years I’ve become even more careful than ever about what I am looking at, trying to consider where I get my news. It’s like I’m in the bubble of people that agree with me and that’s okay, but I also think that if, I’m trying to have a balanced view of the world, I have to realize that it’s not. But having a bubble can be extremely valuable too, especially for creating social change because we can be hold ourselves accountable. Like, if we have like friends and family and associates that are trusted and then we can do leading by example with the choices that we’re making in the way that we present ourselves.
I think that for me, I’ve started to come to a sort of realization that some of the activities that allow myself to express and be creative in the face of feeling like everything is meaningless. Or just sometimes I’m really upset about what’s happening in the news and it makes me want to just be depressed. That’s real too, the depression side but it makes it so that like I get to experience, I think of what the world is experiencing with believing these voices that are litelling us, as women to like that we suck or whatever. We don’t have to believe those voices and like such a huge part of not taking that is developing our own sense of creativity and solidarity network. Anyway, so it’s like there’s so much work to be done and it’s never going to be boring. I think that’s one of the main things that keeps me up and then going.
SP: Yes and kind of like that’s a good sentiment too, especially the side of that final sentence. There’s too much work to be done for things to be boring.
Kal: Yes. It’s similar to meditation which is involved I found really useful thing. It’s like you can start to feel boring but if your only task is to observe your thoughts and that like you just give yourself over to that completely, all of a sudden, it’s like you’re watching the most interesting movie ever made.
