In the beginning of the spring, Dopapod hit the storied Bluebird Theater for a three night run in Denver, CO. Welcoming special guest opener for each of the three shows, the band brought out Boston-based jammers The Jauntee to get the party started properly. The Jauntee have amassed a following of their own over the last few years, spending a lot of time on the road and cultivating their unique sound. 

It seems that the roots between these two bands run deeply, as Dopapod guitarist Rob Compa and The Jauntee drummer Scott Ferber went to school at Berklee College Of Music together. Not only were they classmates, but they bonded over a mutual love of Phish, and jammed together for their first-ever session at school. Fortunately, Ferber was able to dig up a recording from an early jam session in 2006 with bassist Tom Mitchell for your listening pleasure.

While the two ultimately wound up going down different roads, it’s great to see these firmly-planted roots taking hold in the jam scene. Both are excellent musicians, and their Bluebird reunion will surely be remembered as a great moment in this long held friendship. The two teamed up when Compa joined The Jauntee, letting loose on a cover of Frank Zappa’s “I’m The Slime.”

Thanks to The Jauntee and their manager Erwin Schemankewitz, not only do we have pro-shot footage of the collaboration, but we were also able to catch up with both Ferber and Compa for an in-depth look at this musical bond. Enjoy this video from 4/2/16, and interviews with both musicians, below. Be sure to rock out with The Jauntee on June 6th as well, when they perform at the Brooklyn Bowl in Brooklyn, NY with up and comers Sprocket. You can find more info here.

Watch “I’m The Slime” from the April 2nd, 2016 concert, below.

L4LM: How did you two meet? Do you remember anything specific of the moment that made you say ‘ I need to jam with this guy’?

Scott Ferber: Rob was actually the first person I ever jammed with at Berklee. We both were freshman in the fall of 2006 and if remember correctly, the very first jam session was after our first day of orientation.

Berklee has rehearsal rooms with amps and drums in them — being a freshman, what I didn’t know is you have to bring your own cymbals. So I show up with just a pair of drumsticks and am stuck playing toms and drum rims for a few hours.

That initial jam was me, Rob, Noah Schy and Alexander Potts, two other super talented musicians who now live and perform in LA. I specifically remember my first thought being “holy shit I need to get better” – especially hearing Rob. Even then he was very commanding guitarist.

After that first jam, I continued to play with Rob as much as possible and played with him more than anyone else at berklee my freshman year. Mostly because he was pretty much always down to jam whenever I asked.

Rob Compa: I don’t remember for sure, but I think we met in the elevator going up to the dorms one day or something like that. I just remember that Scott was one of the few Phish fans I met while I was there, and we connected on that level. There was a certain degree of jazz snobbery at Berklee, although it wasn’t as bad as most people would probably imagine it to be. I just know that I had a slightly hard time finding people who wanted to play the same kind of stuff that I was into, so once I met Scott it was just a given; I had to play music with him.

L4LM: Are there any particular great arrangements that you remember playing?

SF: We pretty much just open ended jammed when we got together. I’m sure there would be a few Phish songs thrown in from time to time. Maybe once or twice we jammed with a ‘jazzier’ bass player and played song jazz standards.. But mostly… Just good ol’ improv.

RC: If I remember correctly, it was mostly just improv. We probably played some tunes off of Scofield’s album “A Go Go.” That was kind of the Berklee anthem at the time. Everyone was obsessed with that record and Lettuce’s “Rage” album at that point in time. I specifically remember one moment when we were jamming in a rehearsal room in the basement of the main building, and we were playing as a trio with this incredible bass player from Japan who spoke really fragmented English. We started playing Limb by Limb, and he knew the song perfectly. It turned out he was a huge Phish fan. I didn’t even think people knew who they were on that side of the pond.

L4LM: Did you ever think of starting a band together?

SF: It had definitely been talked about – if hadn’t taken the following year off from berklee things may have turned out differently, who knows! I would have lived in the same house as Rob that year had I not decided to spend some time on the west coast. And then when I returned to Boston, Rob had started playing with Dopapod, and I ended up replacing his spot in that same house. So, the timing just never made sense. Everything worked out in the end though and I couldn’t be happier for the guy!

RC: Absolutely. I think both of us tried to start a band either with or without each other like twenty times before either of us found a thing that stuck. I’m pretty sure Scott left school for awhile at some point, and by the time he came back I had dropped out and joined Dopapod, so we went down different paths by that point. 

L4LM: Scott, what do you like about jamming with Rob?

SF: He’s a great listener, plain and simple. He has such a great ear and will pick up on nuances that most would miss. He’s never just soloing on top of the band. Everything he plays is based on what the others are playing around him. More so, he’s an extremely versatile guitarist – you could throw him into just about any musical situation and he would hold his own.

L4LM: Rob, what do you like about jamming with The Jauntee?

RC: They’ve just got a great sense what that kind of diplomatic, group improvisation is all about. They’re great listeners; really interactive, which I love. It’s fun to play in a setting where one little note or idea or chord change can become the lever that changes the direction of the train tracks. And I really appreciate how they’re down to play a jam for a ridiculously long amount of time just to search for that one moment that made the jam worth however much time they put into it. Also, from a guitarist’s perspective, Caton is a really inspiring player. He makes me wanna step up to the plate.