Digging The Dig | The Source Weekly - Bend, Oregon

Digging The Dig

The east coast band with three songwriters returns to Bend

Coming off a blistering five sets in two days at South by Southwest, Erick Eiser, keyboard player, guitarist, songwriter and one-fourth of New York's indie rock band, The Dig. Out on a national tour supporting their fourth studio album, "Bloodshot Tokyo," Eiser took some time out of his busy schedule to discuss the album and the tour.

After the 2010 debut album, "Electric Toys," The Dig has spent the last decade working hard on consistent and collaborative song creation among the three songwriters, as well as on regular touring in support of their albums. As described in "SPIN," the band boasts sounds that fall "between the worlds of garage, post-punk, and slow mellow reflection without having to choose one or the other."

When asked about the origin of the band's name, Eiser told me that the band formed in Boston in the early 2000s, when the group was attending music school. During that time in Boston a gigantic road infrastructure improvement project named the Big Dig was going on. The local events paper in Boston is also named DigBoston, (it was formerly known as the Weekly Dig). In addition, an influential music documentary called "Dig," based on the band Brian Jonestown Massacre, was popular at the time. All of that led them to decide on the band's name.


"Blood Shot Tokyo" is considered the "most wide spanning stylistically and colorful of their records," displaying the enduring practice of song creation that remains the root of the approach to their evolving sound. Inspired by an eclectic mix of musicians and performers ranging from bands such as Parliament, The Kinks, Bach, Betty Harris and Harry Nilsson, among others, their sound and inspiration is complex and wide ranging—allowing for room to experiment and evolve over time.

"You don't really know what you have until you record or at least write a bunch of music and then have time to step back and review it," Eiser says. The consistent multi-person writing allows the band to find the gems that could otherwise be overlooked in the creative process that goes into recording a new album.

Eiser tells me that The Dig played Bend once before a few years back when The Horned Hand was still a popular local venue. Today, they're looking forward to returning to Bend for their Friday show at Volcanic Theatre Pub.

The Dig, Nico Yaryan & Palo Soprano

Fri. March 24, 9pm

Volcanic Theatre Pub

70 SW Century Dr., Bend

Tickets at BendTicket.com

$10


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