Splendid: Did it take you a while to get to your present point, where you've got a lot of stuff on stage but it looks like you know your way around it pretty well? Is it still being tweaked or is it pretty well set in stone now?

Joe Tomino: It's always growing.

DP Holmes: It's always gonna grow.

Stu Brooks: Always changing.

DP Holmes: When we started, I had one mic on the snare, through just guitar effects pedals. And now he has a mic on the snare, and he's got these pads, all samples, they both have samplers, and we added keyboards --

Joe Tomino: Mixers...

DP Holmes: Mixers. And we'll probably keep adding. As the money comes, we'll keep adding.

Splendid: You'll have to have more arms grafted on soon, too, then.

Joe Tomino: Yeah.

Stu Brooks: Yeah, that's true.

DP Holmes: That'd be nice.

Joe Tomino: Everything's in real time, so we're definitely working hard. We're not playing a loop. There might be a lot of sound happening, but everything's triggered or played in a linear path in real time.

Stu Brooks: It's true, though, it would be nice to have more arms.

Joe Tomino: More arms would be good.

Splendid: It seems like, because you're doing the stuff in real time and so much of the original dub was so low-tech, it might even be more interesting to go with what you could find at garage sales and stuff.

Joe Tomino: That's pretty much how it is at this point. We're humble with our gear, for sure. It's kinda ghetto.

DP Holmes: Everything's breaking.

Splendid: But you're not to the point of having two reel-to-reel recorders set up on stage and running one tape reel between them, or anything like that?

Joe Tomino: If we had money, it would get to that point, perhaps.

Splendid: I think I remember reading that you guys all got into dub in college or before, but who or what got you started with it? How'd you get interested?

Stu Brooks: Joe played me my first dub tape.

DP Holmes: Yeah, likewise. Joe has more of a history of early years.

Joe Tomino: I joined this reggae band right out of college, and it wasn't a dub band, but it was kind of reggae crossed with hip-hop and R&B and stuff, and they came to part of one of the songs and they were like, "Yeah, this is a dub section." I had no idea -- I couldn't understand what the hell "dub" meant. Like, "What do you mean, dub?" And they wouldn't tell me. They wouldn't even try to explain it. And coming from such a different background, I had no idea. So anyway, I listened to the music -- my man Ivan made me some mix tapes of classic dub records. He had vinyl for days on his wall. And basically, that's how I got hip to it. I started hearing the college radio dub shows, and I had a mix tape that he made me, and I played it for these guys while we were driving around in the car in New York City with the bass all the way up, and... that's really it. Then we bought a lot of records collectively and kinda got into the style.

Splendid: So in that first batch, what were the things that you bought that really had an impact?]

Joe Tomino: I think (King) Tubby has really had the hugest influence on this band, from that scene, but definitely so many others -- Scientist, Mad Professor, Lee "Scratch", Aggrovators...

Stu Brooks: Family Man played a big part in how I came to be playing the way I do now.

DP Holmes: Family Man was a huge part.

Stu Brooks: I did some touring with him a few years ago and I got to watch him play quite a bit. We were the opening band, but we followed him around.

Splendid: That wasn't Dub Trio, though, right? That was you with another band.

Stu Brooks: Another band, yeah. But while I was out on the road with them, I was definitely working the Dub Trio gospel.

Joe Tomino: I remember -- (to Stu) the gig when you came back. (to us) We played a gig in New York City at a club that we totally despise so we're not gonna drop their name, but we did this gig there, and we hadn't rehearsed before the gig, I think -- we were still kinda developing the concept, which is actually always being developed... And I remember playing that night, and we recorded it, and it was just magical. Stu, obviously, we could hear a big change in his playing; maybe due to not playing for a couple of weeks while he was gone, we kinda played a really nice set. The first set in, I felt like it was some shit we were on, y'know?

Splendid: Do you record your sets?

Stu Brooks: We used to record every set, yeah.

DP Holmes: Until we broke the microphone.

Stu Brooks: Thing thing right here. (He taps our T-shaped stereo mic)

DP Holmes: Yeah, that little Minidisc mic. We broke it.

Joe Tomino: We would still do it. It was a big part of learning for us.

DP Holmes: We would always record every set, and the day after we'd get together...

Splendid: Yeah, they make surprisingly good recordings, don't they?

Joe Tomino: The compression on those things is nice. The kick drum sounds great. We recorded for the first time -- Meat Beat Manifesto's tour manager recorded our set, and that was the only set we've recorded so far on the whole tour.

Stu Brooks: We're gonna do some DV tonight. That guy Ben from Meat Beat's gonna hook up one in front of the house and get the show for us, so we can watch and listen.

Splendid: So when ROIR starts doing DVDs, that can be the first one.

Stu Brooks: Right, dig.

Joe Tomino: We talked about it once. Perhaps...

Splendid: Did it strike you as ironic, at all, being a trio whose "hook" is live dub, to actually record an album?

Stu Brooks: It was interesting because we hadn't been in the studio yet with the concept, so we had to fly by the seat of our pants going in there. Musically we were prepared, but we weren't really sure how we were going to go about doing the dubs. What we did was pretty much what we'd do on stage, minus the live dubbing of Joe, which is a huge part of the live sound, but we got to do Joe's business in post.

Joe Tomino: Some real-time dub, some pedal work... it was as real time as it could be.

Splendid: Are you happy with the way the record turned out?

Joe Tomino: It's great. I think it's great.

Splendid: Not to imply that I don't think so.

DP Holmes: No, it's cool. Now that it's been out for...

Stu Brooks: Eight months? Nine months?

DP Holmes: Eight or nine months or something like that. We already seem to have outgrown it. We've progressed, we've changed the sound a bit -- we've added a lot more punk and rock and a little bit of metal.

Splendid: When I saw you guys in March, you seemed a lot harder than the album.

DP Holmes: Yeah, and maybe even a little bit more now.

Splendid: Excellent.

Joe Tomino: The thing is, dub is the foundation of this band and probably will always be, but we're not closing any doors on ourselves. Whatever we were listening to is how the concept developed, and we just happened to be listening to a lot of punk and post-hardcore stuff over the last year, and it just kind of seeped in, with a dub foundation over it.

Splendid: They seem to fuse together really well.

Joe Tomino: Yeah, really well. It's great. It's really fun.

DP Holmes: It's kinda like the light and the... well, dub's pretty dark too. But the light and the dark crashing.

Stu Brooks: The wide and the thick... y'know?

Splendid: How much of your set now is improv, or structured improv around a single theme... how many actual "songs" would you say you have?

DP Holmes: You said it in the second part. Structured improvisation. We're not always totally, like, to form. We stretch things out, make things shorter...

Stu Brooks: Basically, parts. They're all songs, and they all have parts, but...

Splendid: Between the parts you have room to play.

Joe Tomino: Room to dub, yeah.

Stu Brooks: All the dubbing is improvised. Even the forms are improvised, somewhat, and there's a lot of queueing going on between musicians.

Splendid: It seemed like there was a lot of communication between you guys.

Stu Brooks: Verbal, and aural as well.

Joe Tomino: Gotta keep the ears open.

Stu Brooks: Certain samples mean certain things. Joe might call something -- call a drop...

DP Holmes: Or a certain drum fill might mean something.

Stu Brooks: There's constant conversation going on.

Splendid: So there's this complex code going on over the music?

Stu Brooks: Not really complicated, but definitely a code.

Joe Tomino: The fact that we know each other's playing really well, too...

DP Holmes: Just from playing for, like, six years, just the three of us.

Splendid: Yeah, it must make you really tight.

Joe Tomino: If I hear Dave do something or drop out, or if I drop out, I know that someone will be there. It won't even be a question. We just try to be one mind playing three, five, six, seven different instruments.

Splendid: What kind of audiences respond best to you guys? You've been on tour with a lot of other bands... Who gets into it most, if anyone.

Joe Tomino: That's an interesting question, because the gigs and the touring we've been have been so diverse...

Stu Brooks: Our hometown crowd, basically; if we haven't done a show in a while and we get all our peeps out there, it's pretty wild. And we've played Soulive, who's like a modern funk organ trio, we've played with Antibalas, who's like an Afrobeat orchestra, we've played with Meat Beat, who's like an electro/breakbeat/dubby thing, we've played with Beans, who's a hip-hop guy... And everyone seems to respond really well to it. It feels good. That's a tough question to answer, but I definitely thing our home town crowd has heard it the most and understands where we've been and where we're going.

Splendid: Do you get a lot of artists who check you out and then want to collaborate, or maybe they're looking for remixes?

Joe Tomino: Definitely.

Splendid: Anything coming up that you want to talk about?

Joe Tomino: Nothing coming up yet that's going to be released. We're trying to just concentrate on the next record rather than concentrate on projects outside of a full length, but we're open to any possibility if it's the right situation.

Splendid: So, do you have the next record done already?

Joe Tomino: Nope.

DP Holmes: We have the music for it.

Stu Brooks: The material's there. It would be cool to have a guest mixer, guest musician, or guest producer or engineer. Who knows?

Joe Tomino: Scientist came out to our show in LA.

Stu Brooks: He's a bud.

Splendid: I thought he was still in Maryland.

Stu Brooks: He lives in LA.

Splendid: Is he still doing studio work?

Joe Tomino: Yeah, he still does stuff.

Stu Brooks: He releases stuff in Europe.

Joe Tomino: He releases a lot of stuff overseas...

Splendid: Yeah, I've bought a couple of those discs, I think, but it's hard to tell new stuff from archive stuff.

Joe Tomino: There's some guys he works with out in LA... He's busy doing that. He called us up one day because we sent him the record, which was really cool for us because he was a big influence, for sure. He was like, "Hey, I got the record. I really dig it. Let's talk." It was good to see him and meet him. It was really cool.

Splendid: You could do a whole record with him.

DP Holmes: That'd be nice.

Stu Brooks: Yeah. It'd be a nice mashup.

DP Holmes: Dub Trio meets Scientist.

Splendid: You could get the guy who did the covers for all of his classic records (Tony McDermott) --

Joe Tomino: Totally! Dub Trio meets Scientist.

Splendid: Yeah, he could put you guys on the cover with Scientist and Pac Man and vampires and Space Invaders and stuff.

DP Holmes: Cartoons, yeah. Cartoon dub trio.

Joe Tomino: That'd be fun, right?

Splendid: Kind of on that topic, I've talked to a lot of people who got into, or got back into dub, and Scientist, as a result of playing Grand Theft Auto 3.

Joe Tomino: Nice.

Stu Brooks: That's a beautiful thing.

DP Holmes: Yup.

Stu Brooks: Unfortunately there's some weird legal stuff going on with him and Grand Theft Auto 3. The Greensleeves people...

Splendid: Did the money not find its way back to him?

Stu Brooks: I think he kinda won a settlement or some shit. It's just weird label stuff, you know? It's too bad. They tried to say that he didn't write the tracks -- that even though it's under his name, he didn't make those tracks what they are. That's bullshit. Those are his tracks -- he took everything and made it what it was. It's absurd. They just couldn't understand that an engineer could have that kind of role. It just shows you that...

Joe Tomino: Did Greensleeves write the tracks?

DP Holmes: (sarcastically) Yeah.

Splendid: So what else is ahead for you guys?

Joe Tomino: Shows, regionally, in the months coming up, and some festivals. Warped tour. Whatever comes our way. People have expressed interest in taking us on the road, and we've just gotta work it out with the manager and all that BS. The record, though, is gonna be a crucial document of what we've been doing over the last year.

Splendid: So how'd you get hooked up with ROIR? Did they come to you, or...

Stu Brooks: One of their artists saw us play. Badawi.

DP Holmes: Badawi.

Splendid: Oh, he's great. I saw him here at Metro.

DP Holmes: Yeah, he's great. He's a great guy.

Stu Brooks: He saw us play and made a phone call to (ROIR's) Lucas Cooper --

DP Holmes: -- And he came out two days later to another show we had, and then that week -- was it that week?

Stu Brooks: It just moved so fast.

DP Holmes: Pretty soon after we were signing on.

Joe Tomino: It was a blessing, for sure.

Stu Brooks: Yeah, ROIR's a great label. Lucas Cooper is a blessing. For a label/artist relationship, he's great.

DP Holmes: He's the scheisse.

Splendid: Did you ask him to do a cassette of the record? (laughter)

Joe Tomino: That would be rock.

Stu Brooks: We did the first ROIR seven inch for our single. (A short discussion of vinyl and the band's available merch follows. We won't reproduce it here.)

Joe Tomino: First seven-inch they've ever done. It was pretty rad.

Splendid: I've got ROIR cassettes from fifteen years ago... it must be cool to be on a label with that kind of history, especially compared to some outfit that doesn't know you or your genre...

DP Holmes: Yeah, exactly. There's a good history there.

Splendid: Well, I've kind of run out of steam, questions-wise. What else do you want the world to know about you guys?

Stu Brooks: Well, I think we can all answer that. (He thinks) We like to be met.

DP Holmes: We're into being met. (Long pause)

Joe Tomino: Jokesters. (That's all the explanation he offers.) I think that one thing that people shouldn't misunderstand about us is that we're not really trying to be anything that we're not. Even though the name is Dub Trio, we're not singing. We're not singing about Rastafari, although we respect the tradition and realize what the music came from. We're not Rasta or anything like that -- we just love the music and we're making music with integrity. What we dig, hopefully people dig it. They just need to open up their ears and listen.

Splendid: Do people really accuse you of that? It seems like most of your audiences are pretty enlightened.

DP Holmes: We've gotten a little bit... like in reviews.

Joe Tomino: Like, a review that we've gotten in a reggae magazine, like people have these preconceived notions of what we're gonna be, because it says Dub Trio.

DP Holmes: What we're trying to be. They compare it to... just classic dub, classic reggae, which isn't what we're trying to be.

Joe Tomino: When someone sees us live, though, I think it's a totally different thing. We've never been accused of that by someone at a live show, but if someone just happens to come across the name... they should just listen to the music and come to a show.

Splendid: Well, you've got to be far more connected to the original dub aesthetic than all those Swedish guys who whip it up on their laptops.

Joe Tomino: We're definitely starting with the classic sound. Something about playing live instruments -- we happen to be musicians, and playing it live is what we do. I guess we could sit up there with laptops --

Splendid: It doesn't seem like it'd be much fun.

DP Holmes: It would be fun, but for the audience probably not as much. It's not as interactive.

Joe Tomino: Our show now is pretty interactive. I mean, watching Dave down on his knees for half the fucking show, tweaking pedals, and me trying to do things, and Stu turning around and going down -- there's definitely a lot of movement going on, a very visceral experience.

Splendid: Yeah, you have a much more visually interesting show than people would expect. Final question: There are people who firmly believe that dub is gonna be the Next Big Thing -- not that it necessarily needs to be, but if it happens and you guys are at the forefront of that, are you gonna be the guys on the cover of GQ and making guest appearances on WB shows, or are you gonna be the quiet guys in the background?

Joe Tomino: Dub Boy Band?

Splendid: Yeah.

DP Holmes: We'll date the stars.

Joe Tomino: Date the stars, yeah. Go out to fancy restaurants. Food's important. But again, we're not trying to be anything that we're not. Whatever happens, happens. I definitely agree, though, that I think there's a resurgence of Jamaican music and dub. Especially... there's this Julian Marley track on the Top 10 R&B/hip-hop station that's kind of dub. It's seeping its way into everything. No Doubt had Sly and Robbie producing tracks...

DP Holmes: It's especially seeping its way into the hip-hop world.

Joe Tomino: There's a great band called The Exit, from New York -- we saw them down at South By Southwest. They had a great rock-pop thing, doing a little of the reggae dub -- not live, but a little of it. So yeah, it's coming back.

After we finished the interview, Stu realized that he'd forgotten to mention something pretty big: he played the bass line on "So Seductive", the Tony Yayo (G-Unit) track that also features everyone's favorite human target, 50 Cent. It's currently lingering near the top of the charts, so he gets to hear himself on the radio. Can a Dub Trio/50 Cent collaboration be far off?