Budos Band Want Their Instrumental Funk-Rock in a Tarantino Film

Looking at Staten Island Afro-funksters the Budos Band, it's hard not to make comparisons to a certain city-named band. Like jazz-rockers Chicago, the Budos have a predilection for complex horn arrangements, plenty of heavy grooves, and album titles compose of Roman numerals.

But the similarities end there, since the Budos' lineup doesn't include an equivalent to power balladeer Peter Cetera. In fact, you can forget any kind of vocals whatsoever, now and forever -- the Budos aren't going to mess with the massive instrumental attack that has won them a cult audience over the last decade.

Budos have been steadily rolling through LPs and 45s -- formats which are par for the course in the world of analog-loving Daptone and this fall's 'Budos Band III' could be that fabled next-level album for the group. ,

"Our second album did better than our first, and we're expecting good things [of the new one]," baritone saxophonist Jared Tankel tells Spinner. "The Sharon Jones record has been a huge success so far, it's been great for the label and studio."

Jones' 'I Learned the Hard Way' gives Daptone the distinction of being the sole independent label in Billboard's top 20 so far this year, putting the Budos in good position to strike just like the cobra on their album cover.



Unlike 'Led Zeppelin III,' 'Budos Band III' turns toward, not away from, heavier rock sounds. Tankel says their original Afrobeat-oriented material has absorbed Ethiopian and Ghanaian sounds, "but a really heavy rock listening diet from some of the guys has contributed to the sound of this record. Riff rock, psychedelic stuff, heavy metal - the stuff we listen to in the van is pretty wide. It'll go from Fela [Kuti] to Black Sabbath; we tried to do a Black Sabbath cover, but it sounded kind of weird. Guitar and bass in particular are heavier on this album, the lines are more locked up and rock oriented on this record and the drummer is incorporating more rock beats than funk."

But any notion of crossover stops dead at the Budos' steadfast refusal to work with vocalists.

"Budos have always maintained a strong policy, an aesthetic that we're an instrumental band," explains Tankel. "We're aiming to get more work in scoring, creating soundtracks. I think our sound works really well for that stuff, and we've had a bit of interest from that end recently."

Indeed their chugging grooves are perfectly suited to car chases and the like. "We keep waiting for Quentin Tarantino to call us," Tankel quips.

The closest the Budos have gotten to working with vocalists has been through sampling, and in that respect, they hit the big time last year. The most famous act to sample the outfit? "Black Eyed Peas, strangely enough," Tankel says, still sounding amazed.

"Thankfully, in the song ['Imma Be'], the sample itself is small so you can't recognize it; not that I'm talking bad of them, but it would be kind of weird for the Budos to be associated with them."

With a mainstream nod like that, we gotta feeling that this coming year is going be a good one for the guys.