We sat down with legendary bassist Nick Daniels III, who is currently slapping away in Ivan Neville’s band, Dumpstaphunk. Daniels and Neville have known each other for decades, and their tightness shows with every note of music. It’s no surprise that Jam Cruise asked Daniels to host a “Jam Room” on board the ship, as the man has been playing for decades and knows a thing or two about bringing people together with music.
With the band’s upcoming Phunksgiving concert and a new Dumpstaphunk album on the way, our own Rex Thomson sat down with the legendary Nick Daniels for an in-depth interview. Enjoy:
L4LM: First off, you’ve been telling fans to “Put it in the Dumpsta” for a long time, but I was wondering, do you ever worry about the environmental impact? Maybe you could add a line about separating out recycling?
Nick Daniels III: Well putting it in the dumpsta is recycling! (Laughs) It just is. We put it in the Dumpsta, we don’t say the word recycle, but that’s what it’s basically all about.
L4LM: I heard recently that your relationship with bandleader Ivan Neville goes all the way back to being roommates in college. Is that right?
ND: No, actually, I met Ivan when I was eleven years old. His uncle introduced him to me, and my sister’s boyfriend – she brought her boyfriend home from school one day – to meet us. I was 11 when she brought him home, she was 16. His name was Cyril Neville.
I got tight with him, through my sister, and he told me one day, he said “Man, you know what, I need to introduce you to my nephew. You and my nephew might hit it off real coolie cool.” So I met him, I was like 11 or 12 and Ivan was about 9. We knew each other because of the family thing, my sister and Cyril had two kids. I was already playing music in school, and I had a congo in my house that I bought because I wanted one, so my Dad got me one.
Cyril came over one day and saw it. I used to get on it and go ‘boom boom boom boom boom boom boom’, and Cyril got on it one day and made other sounds come out of it. And I was like, “Wait a minute. How you did that? Show me how to do that.” So he started showing me how to slap the head of the congo to get a different tone out of it, like “doo doo wah doo doo wah” and stuff like that. And I was like ‘Whoa!’
So I got into the congos real heavy after that. Four years later, at 15, I got in the first band I was ever playing with. I was playing congos. But that’s how I met Ivan and the whole Neville family.
L4LM: How has knowing the Nevilles all these years affected your life?
ND: The whole family, everybody’s musical. I hung around them a lot, and then I started singing with a singing group when I was 19 or 18. Everybody knew everybody, New Orleans is a big little city. And I’m saying it correctly: it’s a big little city.
If you don’t know everybody, you know somebody that knows somebody. It was like that for me growing up and being in the music scene back in the early 70’s and the mid 70’s. And then in ’76, with the singing group, I started playing bass. Then I moved around the corner from Ivan’s house– and I mean around the corner- so we started jamming in his shed. Next thing you know, we’re jamming every day in his shed. Me, Ivan, Gerald Tilton, and James Ladette, we started forming this band called the Uptown All-Stars.
L4LM: You put All-Stars in the name?!
ND: That was the name of the band, the Uptown All-Stars. That was in 1978 when we started doing all this in Ivan’s shed. And then in ’79, the Uptown All-Stars band became the Neville Brothers Band. The drummer James Ladette got mad about something and he wasn’t coming to a gig we booked. I told the guys, I said “Listen I know this guy who plays with the singing group I’m with, hes a great drummer, his name is Willie Green, let’s get him to play with Uptown Allstars.” So we got Willie Green.
I had been playing with Willie since ’74, and the next thing you know, that became the Neville Brothers Band. Willie Green, Ivan, Tillman, Renard Poshay, and myself.
L4LM: That had to be an interesting time for you, getting to play with those guys.
ND: Yeah, I had just started playing bass and I was still slightly learning. Ironically I’m still learning, but I was just getting it together on bass, so it was interesting. It was like college.
L4LM: It’s like you got thrown into the wolves!
ND: I wasn’t thrown into the wolves, I joined the wolves.
L4LM: That’s great! Did you ever feel overwhelmed or did you start swimming with it?
ND: I swam with it! We worked with the Neville Brothers for two years, 79 through the end of 80, almost to 81. Then they let me go and got a whole ‘nother band, got the same band back together without me. I just kept on moving musically, started working with Allen Toussaint and different other people in the city. Kept playing.
L4LM: The people you’ve played with reads like a ‘who’s who’ of music, and not just New Orleans music.
ND: Yeah, I left New Orleans in ’85, I decided to leave. I moved to LA because I knew Ivan was out there, he had left in ’81, so I went out there. I started working around, I knew Leo Nocentelli was also out there who produced the singing group I was with back in the seventies. As a matter of fact, my very first bass recording was with Leo Nocentelli, who produced the singing group I was with!
So I knew The Meters, I knew everybody, I was surrounded by them. I didn’t live too far from them – I didn’t realize that until I got older, I said ‘wow they’re not too far from me’. I started hanging with these guys, going by their houses, talking music, and that’s how I evolved.
L4LM: At this point you’re identified with the New Orleans music tradition. What does that mean to you?
ND: It’s important, I’m honored to be in that number. Growing up I wasn’t thinking like that, sometimes to this day I’m not thinking like that. I just like playing music. The older you get, you realize you are part of that heritage. Whether you want to or not you’re a representative, because you’re born and raised in New Orleans. I saw it. I lived it. So, like I said, I used to think I was thrown to the wolves too. Then one day I realized I wasn’t, I wasn’t thrown to the wolves at all. I just joined them.
(Laughs) It’s funny, thinking about it. I lived around the corner from everybody. Ivan, Ziggy, Cyril, Art… everybody was around the corner. You always knew somebody in your neighborhood that did something musically, because it was everywhere!
L4LM: I’ve thought before about how NOLA is isolated from the other cities. Do you think that forces people to pick up instruments and learn from each other?
ND: Yes, being on your own means being with everybody, because everybody’s there. You can learn a lot by just going and seeing somebody play, you don’t even have to discuss the music with them. All you have to do is just watch them play and you will learn a lot. That’s how it was, and I think that’s how it still is.
They got nice schools down there now for music, but when I was coming up, there was college if our parents could afford to send you. My parents couldn’t afford to send me so I didn’t go. If I could’ve went, I wanted to go to LSU, but I just couldn’t afford it.
L4LM: Were you part of music programs in high school?
ND: Yeah, I did music from 4th grade until I got out of school.
L4LM: This year was the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Did you lose anything in the storm?
ND: I lost my house and everything, yes.
I’m over it. For a while I was mad about it. The insurance company lowballed me, FEMA lowballed me. Most people got enough money to take care of their notes and pay their houses off and get it fixed. That’s what was going on during this time and a lot of people were saying that that’s the greatest thing that could happen, because they got enough money now to not only fix their house but to pay their house off!
I was hoping the same thing would happen to me, but I guess I didn’t fit in that category, and I got lowballed. The money I had, I fixed one side of the house but I couldn’t fix the other side. A year later they took the house from me. And after that I got mad, and I’m not going to tell you exactly what I said about the city, but I said that I was done. As soon as I said that, the strangest thing happened: Dumpstaphunk took off. (Laughs). Which made me have to come back and move into the city.
In doing that, I got over the house. I got over the madness of losing the house. I let that go. You can always buy another house, but you can’t buy another family.
L4LM: The recovery has been slow, but it’s happening. The music, however seems to be keeping that spirit alive. Do you remember your first gig after Katrina?
ND: No I don’t, but I think it was with Dumpstaphunk. I just don’t remember what gig it was, but it was with Dumpstaphunk. What Katrina also did, it put the music of New Orleans on the map. Not that it wasn’t on the map before, but I felt like it was, but even more so after Katrina, especially with the show Treme. It put New Orleans music on the map.
And then the show ended, now we need another show down there to put the music back on the map. New Orleans, to me, is the last musical frontier that hasn’t been explored, properly. At least that’s my take on it.
L4LM: Let’s go with a lighter note. You usually perform with a Saints jersey… are you a veteran fan of the team or a bandwagoner after the Superbowl win?
ND: I went to the very first Saints game in 1967 at Tulane Stadium. That shows you how long I’ve been a fan. My father brought me to the game, I was 13, something like that.
They’re true fans, ‘Who Dat’ fans. I was there with them. Even if they’re 1-15… I was working with Zig and Zig wrote a fight song for the Saints that year called “Let’s Get Fired Up” and I played bass on it, Zig arranged it. That was the year they went 1-15, they won one game, the very first season game they won. They beat San Francisco, and San Francisco went on that year to win the Super Bowl.
L4LM: I hate to mention this, but I am a Niners fan.
ND: And you have my condolences. (laughs) I’m quite sure I have your condolences too.
L4LM: So, not a lot of people have their own fan club, let alone their own t-shirts. [Check out the shirts here] How do you stay so humble?
ND: (laughs) When I think about that one, it blows my mind. I remember the first time we did the Jam Cruise, and Ivan was telling me “Hey man you seen these guys walking around with the Nick Daniels t-shirts on?” I’m like, “What? Come on man, you’re pulling my leg.” He said, “No man, for real… you’re gonna see them.” Yeah right.
And then all of a sudden I’m on the boat and I’m walking around, and I walk into these five guys and they all got t-shirts on that say the “Nick Daniels Fan Club”. And I look at them, and I go “oh my god” and put my hand over my mouth. I almost cried. But then I caught my composure and asked “what’s going on?”
“Yeah man, we’re your fan club!” “My fan club? You’re kidding me.” The head guy, I just started talking to him, and me and him got tight. He is officially my brother.
And then, after that Jam Cruise, we started touring that year, and it seemed like everywhere I went, there was somebody in the audience with a shirt on, and I’m like “Whoa!” Some people ask me, would I sign it? And I’m like, “of course.” But it blew my mind, and I’m still kinda blown about it.
I don’t look at myself as no star or anything like that. Sometimes it’s hard for me to see myself like that. I guess I am? There are times when I just don’t think like that. I just love playing music, I love singing. It puts where I’m at, it’s one of the reasons why I’m where I’m at. It’s kinda hard to call yourself a star.
It goes back to when my Father asked me one day, “Son, you wanna be a star when you grow up?” And I went, “Uhh… yeah.” He said, “Why you wanna be something so small? Why don’t you be a planet? As a matter of fact, be Jupiter, that’s the biggest planet out there.” He walked off, left me with my mouth hanging. I’m like, “wow, okay.” So that kinda kept me to the Earth.
Some entertainers have egos larger than their bodies. I just don’t see myself like that, I just don’t.
L4LM: You mentioned Jam Cruise there… You’ve been named one of Jam Cruise’s hosts for their infamous Jam Rooms. Can you describe the concept for folks who’ve never been on the boat?
ND: Well that concept is, at the end of the night, there’s the Jam Room. You go to the Jam Room, and everybody that shows up, everybody plays. You can get everybody to come up and everybody can jam. Adam Bell called me and asked me would I do it this year, and I’m like, yes I would. I’ve never done this before, it’s something different for me, and I said yes.
I immediately called my brothers from Dr. Klaw and asked them, would they open that night with me, because all of us are going to be on the boat, but we don’t have a show on the boat. I think we might open up that night when I jam, Dr. Klaw might play two or three songs, and then we’ll just have a jam.
Anybody that wants to play, come on up! It’s going to be fun.
L4LM: How do you pick the people to invite up with you?
ND: I’m not picking no one. Whoever wants to come and jam, come jam! It’s perfect… (Laughs) it’s a Jam Cruise!
L4LM: You mentioned Dr. Klaw. I know you recorded with them earlier this year. When can we hear it?
ND: At the end of the year, that should be finished. We are working on it now. After I get off the phone with you, I’m going to sit down and write some lyrics on one of the songs for Dr. Klaw. I’m also in the process of writing lyrics for a song for Dumpstaphunk. We also recorded a new CD ourselves.
L4LM: That’s good news! When will that new album come out?
ND: It’s not a certain time to be put out. We’re going to finish it, and when we finish it, we’re going to put it out. We’re not trying to say we’re going to have it out at the end of the year, or for the beginning of Mardi Gras, or for the beginning of Jazz Festival. We’re not trying to do nothing like that, but hopefully around those times I’m talking about, it should be finished and put out.
L4LM: One last thing before we wrap up here. You guys are doing a Phunksgiving concert in New York on November 25th [Details here]… are you excited about it?
ND: I’m a big Thanksgiving guy , and any chance to get funky on a fullk belly is good with me!
L4LM: Well thanks so much for talking with us Nick, can’t wait to see you at Phunksgiving and on the boat!
[All article photos courtesy of Dumpstaphunk’s official website]