Feature

DAP-KINGS: FLUSHED WITH SUCCESS

Gabe Roth is the bass player with The Dapkings and co-owner of New York’s ‘Daptone Records’ – the world leader in the current authentic vintage Funk scene (or ‘Deep Funk’, if you like) and I am talking to him with the label co-owner – Neal Sugarman, who is also the Saxophonist with The Dapkings.

Snow Boy: Gabe, you formed Daptone Records after your split with the Philip Lehman – the co-owner of your previous (Funk)label ‘Desco’.

Gabe: That’s right.

Snow Boy: How did you get involved in the label?

Neal: I’d done two albums for Desco with The Sugarman Three with Gabe as producer so there was no question that we would do a third with him, even though we weren’t sure what the label might be.

Snow Boy: I’m surprised that you wanted to form another label straight after Desco folding.

Gabe: Well it’s not always fun to run a label but I’d rather lose money because I don’t have the resources to do something rather than lose money because you’ve been ripped off by some company. It’s an honest living, trying to sell some records.

Snow Boy: Now look at you. You must be one of the hardest working bands in the business.

Gabe: We’re working a lot but as we’re growing and spreading out there is less pressure to play so many gigs. We can go out and hit real hard for a while and go home and relax a bit.

Snow Boy: The Funk scene is very restricting but you’ve gone way beyond that haven’t you.

Gabe: We’ve only ever felt restriction in the UK. The transition from this kind of elitist Funk-following – record collectors, the underground scene. It was our strongest support in the world on a grass-roots level. 10 years ago here in the UK was the strongest following but now the scene’s stagnated and a lot of other countries have caught up. We’ve got a more mainstream following – not in a ‘Madonna’ way, but just music lovers checking us out and enjoying our music. With better distribution here now and being on Jools Holland and playing on the Mark Ronson/Amy Winehouse things will hopefully pull us out of the pigeonhole, but at the same time, it’s not something we want to dismiss. We’re still putting out 45’s and have loyalty to the fans. Our attitude to the sound will always be the same (recording analogue), but the material will be more song-orientated rather than groove-orientated.

Snow Boy: This new album is way more Soul and R&B orientated than Funk.

Gabe: Our tastes have been drifting away into sweet soul, soul ballads, Gospel, Blues and going back to Stax and Motown. After going through all the obscure Funk all this sounds really fresh.

Snow Boy: Through this album you’ve been discovered by the Northern Soul scene here – which may end up as a mill-stone around your neck like the Deep Funk scene was. It’s a massive, dedicated scene who know more about the music than the artists but it’s a good and a bad thing. They’re very precious and loyal.

Gabe: This is the country where they’d go “This one is Northern Soul, this one is a deep ballad, this is southern, this is Deep Funk…..”, but we’re flattered to have the support from such discerning people that put our records next to those other great artists. It means a lot.

Snow Boy: There must be a lot of people, too, that want to hear your music that know nothing about the Funk or Soul scenes who have discovered you through the Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse records?

Neal: We’ll be interested to see that. I’m not sure that the people that buy their records read the sleeve-notes.

Snow Boy: But aside from Sharon Jones, the Dapkings are known in their own right.

Gabe: Ronsons album is a great big pop album and if that opens doors for us then great. They’re all nice people to work with.

Snow Boy: Have you been writing much new material on the road for the next album?

Gabe: Some, but we already have songs in the can like ‘Genuine’ and ‘What About If We All Stopped paying taxes?’ that were only ever released on 45. We could do an album like that or we could do a deep soul album or Northern Soul. There are so many ways we go, we’re undecided at the moment.

Snow Boy: Are The Sugarman Three on the back-burner now?

Neal: I wouldn’t say that but it’s been hard running the recording studio and doing this band and being a father. A lot of my band have been snatched up. My tastes have changed too. I’ve been doing some demoes. We’ll see.

Gabe: We have a lot of different stuff in the can ready to be released though. Some Gospel artists like Naomi (Davis) Shelton And The Gospel Quuens, Binky (the Dapkings guitarist) has a lot of stuff, Budos Band, more Sharon, some reissues……

Neal: Plus going on the road for six months.

Gabe: That’s our biggest challenge right now: organizing our time. There are a lot of opportunities.
Words SNOWBOY