Sgt. Dunbar and the Hobo Banned Interview: SXSW 2010

Featured on NPR' 'All Things Considered' as one of three artists to watch at SXSW, Albany, NY jazz-folk collective Sgt. Dunbar and the Hobo Banned are returning to Austin this year as festival veterans. The unsigned eight-member band currently has one EP and two full-length albums in their arsenal, plus plenty of new material to preview at SXSW next month. Spinner recently spoke to frontman Alex Muro about serendipitous meetings with hobos, Dungeons and Dragons and the band's eclectic sound.

How would describe your sound?

We're an eight-piece band. I would describe it almost as indie gypsy music. We have that very brassy sort of sound. A lot of people say we have a New Orleans-based sound, even though we're from way up Albany, New York, which is about as far as you can get from New Orleans.

What are your musical influences?

Some of my biggest influences would be Neutral Milk Hotel, the Microphones, early Bob Dylan. But for the rest of the band, the list is huge. We have huge Beatles fans, Beirut, Arcade Fire. The whole Elephant 6 Collective in general is a big influence on us. We have our own recording collective in Albany, which is comprised of a whole bunch of bands called the B3nson Collective.

How do your non-musical influences listed on your MySpace, like Charles Baudelaire, Edgar Allan Poe and Salvador Dali, shape your music?

When we write songs, they're about something. We're not the type of band that writes songs for a musical mood. The people who do write songs, and there are a couple of us, are people who are interested in life. We read a lot. And so when you find something that really resonates or strikes a chord with you, that can be the kind of thing that births a song. A lot of our songs are inspired either directly or indirectly by moods and ideas we've encountered in other people's art that we really love.

How did the band form?

Tim Koch, Dan Pardee, Donna Baird and I all met in college. We went to college at SUNY Albany. Originally it was just a recording project. We had a website; we would record songs and just post them on the Internet for our friends. But after a couple of years we started getting more serious about it and playing more shows. Then in 2007, we met Jen and Eric and other people had joined the band before that -- our friend Louis and my brother. Then we sort of really gelled.

How did you come up with your band name?

When I was still in school, I took a Greyhound bus to go home and I met this hobo. I'm the kind of person who will talk to anybody. I was getting on the bus and there was a strange dude with this huge beard and a duffel bag and a trench coat. He ended up sitting in front of me and starting a conversation. I was half expecting the guy to be a crazy hobo, but he had some really interesting things to say and was a real levelheaded dude. I wasn't expecting that at all. He told me his name was Sergeant Dunbar. He was a Vietnam vet. He'd been all over the country after he'd come back from Vietnam and he just couldn't live a normal life. This was really strange and had a really big impact on me. So I was just telling people the story, and it crept into a conversation about band names. We thought that's a really great band name.

What's the craziest thing you've ever experienced on tour?

It is either Super Happy Fun Land in Houston or playing in a backyard in New Orleans and having people jump over fences to come see the show. That was pretty crazy.

What is Super Happy Fun Land?

It's this huge warehouse with ridiculously trippy murals all over the walls. We played there last year after SXSW ended and there were seven bands. The only people there were the bands. It was just so weird, like, beyond weird. You can't really believe that such a place exists. It's also kind of a halfway house, so the sound guy was a homeless man and he lived there. He did a great job, but there was this other lady who lived there and she had the squeakiest, highest voice. She was so accommodating, but in a creepy way, like they were going yo kill you later in the night. It was just weird.

What's in your festival survival kit?

Friends in Austin, acoustic instruments for busking and peanuts for the van. That's our staple in the van. After every stop we have to clean the van out for peanut shells. They're cheap and nutritious.

What's your biggest vice?

About half of us in the band are huge dorks, like really huge dorks, so video games are a pretty big vice, but also magic cards and Dungeons and Dragons. I wouldn't count Dungeons and Dragons as a vice -- that's just awesome. Magic cards may fall into the vice category. I played when I was in middle school and one of the dudes in our recording collective got back into it and sucked all of us back into it.

What's your musical guilty pleasure?

My favorite seedy radio song of all time is 'Sex and Candy' by Marcy Playground.

I don't know if that qualifies. Can't you dig a little deeper?

Is that in too good taste? Umm, Avril Lavigne's 'Complicated.' That's her first single, right? Is that good enough?


Laurie Kamens is a contributor from Seed.com. Learn how you can contribute here.