Leave the Drama incorporates reggae, rock, acoustic pop and jazz, producing a diverse album.
Dale Rodman has one mantra when describing his band: “You can’t pin our genre down, and we really don’t care.”
The Washington-based Dale and the ZDubs’ first album, Leave the Drama, was released March 29 on iTunes and features music from the same quirky, high-energy group that opened for Eric Hutchinson at Student Entertainment Events’ Winter Concert in February.
“We try to tap into a fun, weird, funky place in imagination,” said Rodman, who plays acoustic guitar.
Rodman said “ZDubs” are people who do their own thing, live by their own rules and refuse to follow the beaten path. It’s admirable that the band draws from — and excels in — several different music styles. In its attempt to defy genre norms, though, some songs end up as a confused jumble without a logical thread.
The six-member band hails from the Washington area and includes university alumni Justin Masters, who plays lead guitar, and Eric Abrams, the band’s lead vocalist, who both graduated from this university in 2011. Rodman, Masters and Abrams attended Walt Whitman High School at around the same time, and bassist Sean Dunnevant was a couple years behind them, said Rachel Edwards, the junior communications major who manages and books the band.
Dale and the ZDubs draws inspiration from Sublime and have played with a Sublime tribute band, Badfish, several times.
Rodman is right when he says the band’s classification can’t be explicitly stated. The album is a potpourri of genres, including traces of reggae, rock, acoustic pop and even a hint of jazz. And the ZDubs emphasize their diversity — two pulsating, harder-rock songs, “I Like” and “Never Land,” are sandwiched between calmer tracks “Man in White” and “Nothing At All.”Standouts are the first two tracks, “When She Smiles,” which features a driving guitar part, and “In Go the Lies,” which opens with a curious saxophone intro. The rest of the songs are so different from the intro tracks that they seem like a different album; they’re catchy but reminiscent of bands you’ve probably heard before and create a diverse mix — so much so that the band’s identity is unclear.
Dale and the ZDubs hopes to open for bigger-name bands during festivals over the summer. Current band members’ occupations range from soccer coach to teacher to student, but Rodman said he hopes to hit the road soon to play his music full-time.
“Not everyone in the band likes reggae, not everyone in the band likes jam music — everyone has different types of favorite music,” he said. “What you can hear in our music is all these different genres being kind of thrown into the mixing pot of our creative, original efforts.”
