Prodo

(transcript to be posted soon) - 89.9 WWSP

November 1, 2013






The Prodo Awakening

By Gwen Fabbiano

Prodo is a Funk-Rock Jamband founded in 2007 in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Prodo has spent the past 6 years developing and honing a unique sound built on Dane Pastor’s devilish double bass drumming, Jeremy Erickson’s steady organic farmer-boy bass lines, and Henry Robinson’s infectious kung-fu guitar riffs

Henry Robinson, lead vocals and guitar for Prodo, shares that lately they have been intensifying the focus on their undying passion for making and sharing music.

IMG_5365What was your first experience with music like?

“I was recently listening to Ted Talks. If you haven’t heard of it they are pretty cool. They are informative talks by intelligent and interesting people. They were talking about music and how music is a language, which we were picking up possibly even before we were born, and we have all of it sitting within our subconscious.”

With that being said, Henry shared that he took Suzuki style piano lessons when he was in 3rd or 4th grade and did so for 3 years. “That was a HUGE sculpting factor in the way that I play music now because Suzuki is all about ear training and being able to repeat the things that you hear. Prodo’s music is very much the same, because when we play we listen to each other and react to what we hear.”

Henry admitted he was just like all the other kids out there who had a strong distaste for practicing piano, as he reflected on his mother making him the timer for 15 min-

utes of practice, and after the timer was set he would walk as slowly as he could toward the piano in a desperate attempt to burn up extra seconds. “Now I am definitely reaping the benefits.”

Anything specific that you guys do to get the creative juices flowing?

“No it comes pretty easy for us because we don’t…really…. try. At school I was a philosophy major, and Jeremy had a minor in philosophy as well, so we are interested in thinking about things in a way that thinking about things effects the way that your behavior is.”

Henry spent two of the last 4 years in China, learning about Daoism and Zen Buddhism, “which is all about not planning, and just being spontaneous. We bring that very much into our musical style.” Henry convinced a professor of his to give him credit for and independent study project, as he mentioned attempting to talk to Monks in his “broken Chinese” as he observed them and climbed some mountains and wrote some papers, “which was pretty sweet” he said.

When Prodo decides to write some new stuff, they all plan a weekend to get together. They pull out the digital recorder, hit record and start playing. “We usually start with one note or one beat and just listen to each other and start playing.” The improvisation leads them all over the place. “After a while, after about 10 minutes we will stop playing and stop it and then start up another song.” Then after the weekend is over, Henry goes home and replays the recordings, takes notes and picks out the parts that were “awesome”,

and isolates those parts. They go back, listen to them, start playing them again and then structure their songs from there.

“We’ve strayed away from, in the last year or so, from actually writing songs on paper and then trying to adapt them to the band style, but instead, just letting the band speak. It’s got a more authentic sound to it I think.”

Biggest challenge for the group?

When we graduated, we were really into having more grown-up jobs and lives, well, probably Dane and Jeremy more than me, but then we decided that wasn’t very fun and that we should definitely do the band instead.”

Even in talking about being reunited in a more serious way, Henry could not think of one challenge that gets in the way of the trio. “The only thing that is looked at as adversarial is getting more shows and playing more and growing our audience because that’s really what we want to do.”

Roles of the Prodo members?

Henry describes his role as “to provide a leading voice and sculpt the sound. I’m interested in Taoism, improvisation, and playing rugby. My musical style is shaped by the compositions of phish, the beats of Dr. Dre, the groove of medeski martin and wood, and the space in Brian Eno’s music.” Henry is the lead vocalist and guitar player.

While talking about the bass player, “Jeremy is a superhero. He’s an extremely relaxed and stress free individual with a gentle voice that only speaks positivity. Playing the bass, he anchors our sound. With him rooting us to the ground Dane and I float up and play off of him, each other, and the sounds and motions around the room. Jeremy is interested and active in sustainable farming, rock climbing, and speaking Spanish. His musical influence is all positive reggae and a serving of red hot chili peppers.”

And then there is Dane, the “energy source. As a person and as a musician he seems to have tapped into some secret energy source tha - The Scene