THE INSOMNIACS Source: Blues Wax Date: 08/2009 Writer: Stacy Jeffress

BluesWax Sittin' In With Dean Mueller from
The Insomniacs

It's been just three years since the members of this Portland, Oregon, based quartet started playing together, yet they have garnered critical and commercial acclaim with their debut album Left Coast Blues, the release of which proved to be a Cinderella story as discussed during the interview. The band's 2009 follow-up, At Least I'm Not With You, debuted at number 14 on the Billboard Blues Albums chart the week of July 25th. Both albums were released on Delta Groove Music.

The Insomniacs were nominated in 2008 for a Blues Music Award (Best New Artist Debut) and are currently in the running for three Blues Blast Music Awards: Best Blues Band, Best Contemporary Blues Recording for the 2009 release, and Best Blues Song for that CD's title cut.

The group is fronted by 20-something Vyasa Dodson, who is lead singer, guitarist, and a prolific songwriter, but drummer Dave Melyan, Alex Shakiri on piano and harp, and bassist Dean Mueller are each an integral part of the band's retro groove.  The songs range from delicious swing to angry surfer; from two-step worthy shuffles to twist-inducing rock 'n' roll. The "old man" of the group, Dean, acts as spokesman.

Stacy Jeffress from BluesWax: You and Vyasa were in a rockabilly band together?

Dean Mueller: Yeah, we were in a band called The Pushrods. We played a lot together at some jams locally, but that was the first band that we played together in. When we shut that down, Vyasa wanted to start a band, and he asked me to be the temporary bass player 'cause I had a lot of things going. I said, sure, and the next thing you know we've got a band. I'm still the temporary bass player.

 BW: Y'all just started rehearsals as The Insomniacs in 2006?

DM: That's correct.

BW: And then three years later, here you are. That's a meteoric rise it seems.

DM: It's been pretty quick.

BW: At the time he asked you to be the temporary bassist, you were producing other people and doing studio work. When were you practicing as an electrical engineer?

DM: I kind of got out of that starting in 2004. I was doing some consulting and started doing some more recording engineering and producing. So, about a two-year transition from being an engineer to being a bass player.

BW: Vy found Dave, who's an interesting character in his own right. I found out in talking to Dave that he had a history in heavy metal?
DM: He came up playing a lot of Rock and Metal bands in the 1990s. I think he started getting into Blues toward the late '90s. He was a good drummer then, and in terms of refining the Blues craft, he's really got it.

BW: He's a funny guy. His Facebook entries are always a hoot.

DM: He is hilarious.

BW: And then Dave found Alex?

DM: Dave had some history of playing with Alex; Alex has been a pickup keyboard player in town for a long time, doing all kinds of styles. When he started playing for us he was playing with several bands. We've been able to keep him busy enough to have him just become a full-time member.

BW: He plays harp, too.

DM: He's a great harp player. I had heard that he played harp when he started with the band, but we don't do any of that on the first album. Then we decided to start working it in, and it sounded so good that now it's a real treat to have him, and we're glad to continue doing that more and more.

BW: I noticed that back when you were nominated for the [2008] Blues Music Award for Best New Artist Debut, John Nemeth was one of your co-nominees and again he is a co-nominee for a Blues Blast Award. To me there is sort of a similarity in the sound of The Insomniacs and John Nemeth, sort of a retro feel and a lot of really good humor. Do you see anything in common with him?

DM: First of all, I think John is fantastic. John knew people from around [Portland], and he showed up at one of our gigs and just sat in and started playing. I'm like, who is this guy? On the break I started talking to him, and he started telling me stories about Japan or something. He's clearly a fun guy and a funny guy. I think Vyasa's lyrics [are funny] and the whole band plays in a kind of humorous way.

BW: There's some good-natured ribbing among the guys on the stage, like when Vyasa sings "say goodbye to my chicken friends," and you leave the stage.

DM: We try to have fun on the stage, in the van, and in everything we do. I think that comes across in the music. The people in the audience smile and they have fun. We want them to have a good time.

"The inspiration is always coming from earlier music. We don't necessarily try to replicate it; we just listen to a song and play it our way."

BW: I should ask you about Stella [the band's van] and your near catastrophe. Was it on I-70 in Missouri?

DM: I think it was [Highway] 64. It was in Missouri, near Rolla. All the guys were sleeping except me; I was driving. We got up early 'cause we had a ten-hour drive. Got through Springfield - no problem. All of a sudden, a cop had somebody pulled over. We were changing lanes to get away, and the wheels somehow got caught in a strange rut. The van vibrated, the tire blew, and it was skidding down the highway on the wheel. The wheel sheared off, so it was riding down on the axle. I thought the van was going to flip. It fishtailed from side to side.

Fortunately there was nobody very close to us, and I just maintained control and got it over to the side. We got out and looked at it and just couldn't believe it. It cut a big groove in the pavement for about a quarter-mile. It was quite the experience. It was Memorial Day, so nobody was open. There was no rental care place open and the tow trucks were running light. We just really didn't know what we were going to do so we got online; we had our computers with us, figured out where to take the van and how to get a rental car and how to get to the next gig.

BW: Did the cop not see it happen?

DM: He did. We went skidding by him, and he didn't even come help us at first. He finished his ticket up first. It took him twenty minutes to get to us, and then he was in a big hurry to get us out of there. We never found the tire. There was about a hundred-foot drop-off right off the side of the freeway, and it happened right before a bridge. We were all okay. We were in the middle of an eleven-day run playing every night. So we just called ahead and called clubs and friends and people got equipment for the backline and pulled it off.

BW: That's a financial expense that your average Blues band doesn't budget for or have a budget for.

DM: It was covered by insurance. It wasn't the catastrophe that it could have been considering the whole rear end had to be replaced.

BW: Stella took care of you in her own way.

DM: That's the way I look at it.

BW: Kind of a lucky thing, I guess, is the album recorded in your living room [Left Coast Blues] getting picked up by Delta Groove. How does that happen?

DM: Its many things. It's some really great material. Vyasa did a great job writing the tunes.

BW: Ten originals! That's amazing.

DM: It's typical of a lot of people's first album - they've had this stuff that's never been recorded and there's a lot of it. I think we only played four or five gigs before we recorded the album, so it wasn't road tested. It took us about six weeks to record that with a big break in the middle. As we were doing it, we decided we were going to make it as good as we possibly can, and wherever it ends up it ends up. We did a CD release party and got a lot of local and regional press. Wherever I took it they would play it if it were a Blues station.

Unfortunately radio right now is pretty dismal for independent artists, but in Blues, there are a lot of people where you can walk in like in the old days and can hand your CD they'll pop it in, it sounds good, sit down, and they'll play it right there. I've heard every single song from that CD on the radio. It's a very strong CD; it wasn't just one or two strong songs. We tried to make it all radio ready, all the songs are pretty short. We put it on the internet and tried to market the band on Myspace and do anything that was free that we could. Jeff Fleenor from Delta Groove found us on the web. He's got a really good ear. He definitely found us, and he produced the second album, so he's been a really strong supporter. He talked to Randy [Chortkoff]. Record labels are very busy, so it took several months for it all to come together. I don't think they released it until August of 2007. So it was almost a year later when it got released nationally. For us it seemed like we had that album out forever. And then we got the [BMA] nomination and everyone quit their jobs. That's how it went.

BW: By the time of At Least I'm Not With You, you all have this great look about you. [I've heard you say] that you need to look like you belong on the stage, and you do. How did you develop this look?

DM: It was a bit of a process, it wasn't any great concept from the start. I started wearing suspenders and a tie and trying to look like I belonged up there because I was used to that. I picked up wearing hats. It was kind of funny because most of the bands around Portland wear whatever. A bowling shirt is dressed up. More and more everyone picked up on it. It actually took awhile to figure out we should have all skinny ties or somewhat skinny. We refined it over a little bit of time. Everyone's gotten more particular along the way. It didn't start out to be a plan. Now we're pretty particular. I think when you walk in, anyone should be able to see, oh the band is here.

BW: I notice that one of your co-nominees in the Blues Blast awards, Best Contemporary Blues Recording, is [fellow Portland artist] Curtis Salgado. Is there something about Portland that gives you the Blues? Your Blues association there [Cascade Blues Association] is organized enough to have the Muddy Awards. They have their act together. I'm trying to figure out, what is it, is it people drawn to live there, the atmosphere, or something in the water?

DM: It's a combination of things. I don't think it's the atmosphere. I think people are drawn to live here. Paris Slim [Frank Goldwasser] has come here, Fiona Boyes came here but isn't here anymore. A lot of people come here, and they like it, and they move here. It's actually a tough place to tour from.

BW: It's not centrally located.

DM: Everything's a drive. Seattle's not bad. But even northern California's a ten-hour trek for us to get to San Francisco. It's a tough place to be based out of, but the influences here, [the late] Paul deLay was here, Curtis Salgado. The Eugene and Portland area have a history of great bands coming out of them. There's a certain pedigree of people that came from here combined with people who want to move here. And it's also a very friendly scene. The bar is really high for here. You have to be sharp, you have to listen, and people are here to give you a helping hand. The Waterfront Blues Festival is wonderful.

BW: With the rich stack of originals that you've had I'm wondering, on the few covers that you've done on the two recordings, how do you go about choosing which songs you going to do covers of?

DM: Vyasa has to go up there and sing them and deliver them. He generally finds the songs that he wants to do. We try them out, but we really don't rehearse very much. We'll get together a couple times a year and try on a song and try it live a few times and see how it feels. If it feels good, we'll keep doing it. We go by how it feels when we're on stage playing it and how people react to it. We try to stay away from songs that most Blues bands are going to be doing. We try to go back to original or early recordings of those songs and get our inspiration directly from the people who wrote them and not from the rehashed versions.

BW: Whom do you listen to when you're driving in your car or sitting around the house?

DM: I'm constantly searching for music to listen to. I love the Fabulous Thunderbirds. In the van we've all got our IPods, and we're constantly pulling stuff up. Willie Dixon was someone I listened to a ton. It keeps changing, but it's all pretty classic stuff. It pretty much has to be before 1965 or so, not that I haven't heard good stuff happen since then. It's hard to answer that question. Vyasa is always searching for different music to get inspiration from. I love swapping CDs on the road with people. I love Jason Ricci's; we shared a bill with him.

BW: In Sedan, Kansas, of all places.

DM: Yeah. We sat in with Candye Kane for some tunes in Boulder, so I've been listening to her CD.

BW: She's swing oriented like y'all are.

DM: Candye's fantastic, and her band is really good. One of the greatest things about this last tour was playing three or four tunes with Candye and [guitarist] Laura [Chavez] and the rest of the band. We did one upbeat swing tune and Laura and Vyasa traded solos for about fifteen minutes. It was a blast. She's so tasty - she's got great tone and great feel.

BW: I should ask you about the vintage instruments you all play and the tube amps that you use in lieu of the more modern.

DM: Unfortunately we can't tour with the vintage of the vintage stuff that we have, because it's just too expensive. We all just plug a chord into our guitars and plug them into the amps. There are no boxes or artificial sustain or overdrive. That all becomes a function of us playing with some nice old amps that have a lot of character and have tubes. They're a bit finicky, and they're heavy and a pain to haul around, but they've been good to us, and you can't get that tone for the style of music we play out of anything else. You could get a more modern guitar, and Vyasa uses a Stephens Design pickups which get him more vintage sounds, so even if he's playing a newer guitar he gets that old tone. He travels with his old Magnavox amp and I use an Ampeg amp and my '64 Framus Star Hollow Body.

BW: Your bass is a beautiful thing.

DM: It's killer. The tone is great. It's got a woody upright sound and hopefully still has some punch. I lack sustain a little bit but uprights do. It's got a huge body but it's a really little neck. It's actually really difficult to play, and I think that's why nobody plays them. I love the sound, and I get complimented all the time for the tone of that bass. We can't have a real B3, but we use one on the recording. Alex's keyboard is not bad at replicating that sound. If we can, we have B3 and a Leslie, and Dave goes for a real soul drum sound as well. That's just our sound. We can't imagine playing this music with anything else.

BW: I saw it described as traditional '50s electric Blues music. Is that how'd you describe it? Does it fit into a category?

DM: I don't know what else to call it.

BW: You've got some angry surfer music and you've got some that you can two-step to.

DM: And we've got some early Rock n roll, we do some R and B. The title track is a classic R and B-type groove. And then we'll swing. The inspiration is always coming from earlier music. We don't necessarily try to replicate it; we just listen to a song and play it our way. A lot of that is Vyasa's song writing.

BW: You're a cause of unadulterated joy for your listeners.

DM: That's great to hear.

BW: Any hints of international touring?

DM: It's our plan. We still don't have a booking agency. We're a west coast band making inroads in the Midwest and the east. It's a tough deal when you're out here. We're pretty motivated. I can't imagine it happening any faster.

BW: Are you all in your 20s?

DM: No, 20s and 30s. Vyasa is the young man.

BW: Are you the old guy?

DM: Yeah.

BW: There's a maturity about you. You have a masters in electrical engineering. That means something. You have a back-up plan.

DM: Music was my back-up plan.