There’s No Other Band Like Listener

By Travis Dvoracek
Contributing Writer

For those who want to get into a bunch of different music, I suggest trying Fargo’s new local low-power independent radio station Dive 95.9. You’ll hear a lot that won’t be on the main radio stations in town.

Besides bringing us music that we don’t hear elsewhere, they try to bring bands to Fargo that normally we wouldn’t know about or that would pass us by. They brought in Flatfoot 56 earlier in the year, and this past Saturday, the band Listener.

I first heard of Listener from Dive 95 when the station manager, Ben Larson, was told by someone to check them out and he added them to the station’s play list. Then I found out that Dive was bringing them to town. So I saved the date, won the tickets, and got my cousin to join me on the merry excursion, not knowing what I was in for.

It was one of the best shows I’ve seen this year and I’ve seen a few. It seems like all the best shows I’ve gone to are bands I’d never heard of.

The energy they let out with each song of indie hip-hop/spoken word/poetry slam music just gives you a new idea of what someone can do with music. It’s awe-inspiring to say the least, and the small venue, Studio 222, with seating for just enough people, helped.

After a great show, I got a chance to help reload the band’s van in exchange for an interview with Dan Smith; singer, lyric writer, bass, and horn player.

High Plains Reader: I got a couple questions I just wanted to ask you…

Dan Smith: Don’t worry, this is a safe place.

HPR: Why don’t you have shoes on?

Dan: Yeah, I perform barefoot. I’ve just done that for the longest time. I just feel more comfortable, able to curl my toes. I just feel right. I take my shoes off and it’s time to play. Something I do…a friend of mine has this rug that he gave me, half yak’s wool and half sheep’s wool, for me to perform on, whatever floor I’m on. It’s been real nice this tour, a nice plushy, Tibetan rug to stand on barefoot. One of the perks is usually at the end of the night I’ll sleep in someone’s bed, some random person’s bed or couch. Before the rug I had like black-as-tar feet and it would be gross. My feet were just gross. But I never got athlete’s foot.

HPR: Well that’s always good. I mean no one wants that. I love the PVC-pipe holder for your mic. Did you make that mic stand?

Dan: For maybe about five years now I’ve been doing like tough shows, I brought all the equipment, brought the PA, and wires and mic stands and all these things and set up and did the show. I’ve had various mic stands over the years and I would just leave them places, or they’ll get broke, or I’d lean on them too much and the thing wore out. I can’t have those bendy mic stands, I’ll break those. So I just had this vision of a sweet, just like one-length mic stand, and no one makes that obviously because everyone’s a different height. So Chris and I went to the hardware store one day…we’re standing there like, “How do they make this?”, and piecing it all together…one of those that looks like it has a “V” base, and the pole comes out at an angle, and I looked around for those old models they don’t make anymore, and/or are more than I would ever want to pay for a mic stand. We went to the pipe pile and grabbed iron pipes and strung them together and JB welded it. I want to make a guitar stand that way, but that one’s hurting my brain more.

HPR: Yeah, I just really liked the PVC pipe thing on there, ‘cause I saw you lean on that a couple times and you need something pretty strong there, you don’t want one of the bendy ones, ‘cause that will just move the mic around.

Dan: No, its pretty rigid. The mic pops in there and almost locks right in.

HPR: Do you put a little adhesive on the inside and let it dry so it sticks in there?

Dan: No, no, it was just one of those things that you just luck into.

HPR: So how did you guys come across the washing machine?

Christin [Christin Nelson; guitar, music writer, and washing machine player]: We were doing laundry one day, and slammed the lid of the washing machine, and he thought “that makes a good sound.” He got some recording equipment, and recorded some hits on the washing machine. He added a moonshine jug, empty of course, with screws and nails and shells-

Dan: I think there was a Tylenol jar-

Christin: Yeah, and drumsticks, and shakers, a tambourine, ratchet washboard, metal fingers…

Dan: maybe spoons.

Christin: Or spoons. And throw that together.

Dan: Clapping.

Christin: Clapping too. And then he was like, “I want somebody to actually play this as a human.” I had to learn it because it was written by a computer. And so for about a year and a half I played the song with a piece of paper on the ground with all the hits and eventually I just learned it.

HPR: A washing machine as a musical instrument…

Christin: Yeah, now I can’t do it without the words.

Dan: Yeah, I couldn’t do it without the washer. We went on the first tour without the washing machine and played it off tracks. Then I saw a washing machine next to a dumpster. I gutted it, threw it in the van. And a friend of ours made a music video.

HPR: Where can they find it, it’s on http://www.iamlistener.com?

Dan: Yeah, it’s iamlistener.com, it’s a very calm website.

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If You Go

What: Listener
Where: Lifelight Fest, Worthing SD: 5.5 mi. east of I-29 exit 64
When: Sept 3; Sept 4, 360 Stage, 1pm; Sept 5, Souled Out Stage, 1:30pm.
Info: 605.338.2847