The Cave Singers can draw a full house at the Showbox any time they like. But instead of sticking to the big city, the folk-rock trio has booked a tour through places like Bremerton, Kennewick, and Anacortes—essentially anywhere in the state they could find a gig.
But that doesn’t mean guitarist Derek Fudesco is any less excited about playing towns pop music has forgotten. He called us from New York City a few days before a gig with the Murder City Devils (Fudesco’s on-again, off-again hard-rock band) to talk about Billy Joel, taking the Cave Singers electric, and trying to book a show in Big Sky country. More of our conversation can be found at seattleweekly.com/reverb.
SW: What have you got planned for the next couple of days?
Fudesco: Um, we’re doing a cooking show. There’s a show on IFC called Dinner With the Band, and they invited Murder City Devils to be on it.
Are the Murder City Devils back for good now?
It hasn’t really been discussed. I mean, no, we’re all doing other things. But these [MCD] things are fun and we’re lucky that we’re able to do ’em. Things keep coming up and we just keep saying yes.
Why did the Cave Singers decide to tour the Evergreen State?
The idea is that we wanted to just, you know, travel around our state and play as many places as possible. Now it’s kind of sparking things, like “What if we do a three-week tour of California?” There are so many more places you can play in California. Bands usually just go through and play four or five spots.
Or Montana?
We haven’t played Montana. We haven’t been able to get a show there.
After you’ve been playing with the Cave Singers for a while, do you get a hankering to go back to play some heavier stuff?
I don’t really think about it like that. We’ve been working on new stuff, and it seems like the new stuff is a lot different for us. And it is a little bit heavier. I’m into what I’m doing now just as far as writing. So if I want to play heavier stuff, I’m gonna write heavier stuff.
How are the new songs different?
They’re really different for us. We brought a floor tom [drum] into the mix. There’s a distortion pedal now, and there’s an electric guitar. So we’re really branching out on this one.
You work the vinyl counter occasionally at Queen Anne’s Easy Street. Do you guys have a Barbara Streisand/Neil Diamond filter that the records go through before they hit your desk?
Are you kidding me? It’s like [Billy Joel’s] Glass Houses, man—thousands of copies. That’s probably the one you see the most.
Do you cherry-pick for yourself before you pass on new stock to the rest of us?
No. Just a tiny bit. And barely at all.
