Adam Ditt, é um músico da California. Começou a aprender musica desde criança, começou pela guitarra, mas queixando-se que lhe fazia doer os dedos, passou para o baixo, no entanto este rapaz é uma caixinha de surpresas e toca imensos instrumentos. O seu gosto musical, também é algo que se revela original, dado que tem apenas 22 anos e o seu gosto musica, está entre os blues e o rock.
Sempre com o chapéu que já se tornou a sua imagem de marca, Adam toca em diversas bandas e hoje em dia consegue viver unicamente da música, tendo assim um sonho tornado realidade. Este romântico blues man, esteve à conversa connosco e antes de ir de tour pelo Reino Unido, deu-nos uma entrevista magnifica, onde ficamos sem duvida a conhece-lo melhor, bem como o seu percurso musical.
Adam tornou-se um dos nossos musicos preferidos, pelos seus dons musicais e simpatia. Na entrevista falamos das suas principais bandas, pelo que também podem ficar a conhecer melhor ambas as bandas e desde já ficam a saber que ambas vão ter álbuns novos em breve.
Vamos passar à entrevista, que pelo que já explicamos anteriormente, optamos por manter as entrevistas na sua lingua original, para que seja acessível a um maior número de pessoas.
You play a lot of instruments, how many do you play and when you start playing?
Yeah I play multiple instruments drums, guitar, harmonica, mandolin, bass, and double bass. I started playing instruments when I was about 10 years old when I picked up my first guitar and then I started taking lessons from the guitar store around the corner from my house until I was about 13.
This love for music and play music, comes from your family?
I had always been raised listening to really great classic rock pretty much since i was conceived into this world; my dad would listen to the who and led zeppelin and my mom would listen to norah jones and all the great Motown artists. On my mom’s side of the family her father (my grandpa) and uncle (great uncle) were twins and they played in the U.S Army band back in the early 70’s. Other then that those are the only two family members I know of that played music in my bloodline. I took up a great amount of music appreciation from my Unlcle Richard (mom’s side) who showed me bands like The Beatles, Grateful Dead, Miles Davis, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
What was your first instrument?
My first instrument I played was this $40 squire acoustic guitar and I learned on that for about a year before my dad bought me my first electric and of coarse in the way the universe likes to do its things, I complained that the strings hurt my fingers and my teacher at the time brought over and bass and we ended up exchanging the guitar for a bass because I fell madly in love with the way it sounded.
Why your love for Bass?
Bass came so natural to me when I first started playing it. I learned a lot of Beatles songs and the way McCartney would emphasize the melodic and rhythmic groove in the songs made me really want to expand my horizons on the bass. From then on I went off to learn a lot of Chris Squire and John Entwistle approaches to the bass and I tried so many times to perfectly match the speed and precision those players had. When I truly lost my heart to the bass is when I had to start learning Motown songs and funk bass lines for my high school music class. Damn that was a challenge. From then on I wanted to mix both Jamie Jameson and John Entwistle to capture my own sound using their tones and mentalities on the bass to influence my directions when I was writing songs with other musicians.
Can you say 2 or 3 bass players that you admire?
Jamie Jameson, John Entwistle, Jack Cassidy, Bootsy Collins, Chris Squire, Paul McCartney, Carl Radle, John Paul Jones, Family Man, Jack Bruce… the list goes on haha
You have a lot of videos playing guitar and singing, do you write songs too? talk a little bit about that.
Thats me being bored and wanting to show my friends on the interwebs really haha
Ive been writing songs here and there I only like sharing them when they are finished or if they suck because I'm a goof ball hahaha
Who or What is your inspiration to compose and write?
Honestly most of my inspirations as someone trying to write a song comes from all the amazing song writers ive been able to pay bass for the last 5 years. My good friend corey kaiser really inspired me at first he played in a band called The Merry Rounders and seeing them I was floored by this song writing talents.
In this moment, you are playing in two bands, Professor Colombo and King Tree & Earth Mother, this two bands have different music style and some members play in both bands. How this work, talking about rehearsals, recording, gigs…does’t is hard reconcile all this work and stay focus in both bands, always giving your best?
I actually play in 5 or 6 bands…. Creatures Choir, King Tree and The Earth Mothers, Dream Phases, Professor Colombo, Cosmic Correlation Conspiracy and The Trout Brothers Band. I also play with other country/folk singers. Most the time its all about time management, not all the bands i play with have something going on all the time. Its really fun to be able to play all these different songs and styles of music especially because all these guys are really good friends of mine. i always try my hardest to stay focused on giving it my best work because it never benefits anyone if some one is slacking off at practice or a gig.
Introduce us Professor Colombo, we know this band have a long story…
Ya its a story of about 4 years… So I used to play in this band called Coleidoscope back in my senior year of high school and the band was making good traction around town and we got asked to play this bar called the blue beet in newport beach by this band called “Professor Colombo.” We showed up and the bar wouldn't let any of us stay in the club because the oldest member in our band was only 20. Out back of the club is where we met Eric Roebuck for the first time. he was a cool dude, fed us a 12 pack of PBR because he felt back we couldn't drink at the club. Little did we know until he told us, Eric didn't have a band it was only him and his acoustic guitar and his friend Danny played congas. We made good friends quickly after hearing him cover a bunch of classic rock tunes, Curtis Low by Lynyrd Skynyrd to be exact. Parting ways from that gig, we saw Eric putting together a backing band for his songs shortly after. It was almost one year later I got a call from Eric asking if I could play bass for him at a big christmas show in Costa Mesa and also mentioning he needed a drummer, so i gave Henry (guitar player of Coleidoscope) a call and both us ended up being the rhythm section for that particular show. After that I was unable to play with group due to my intense involvement with Creatures Choir at the time. Henry ended up playing guitar for a few gigs with Colombo after that and thats when I was involved with Elijah Peters. I met Eli when I was playing Creatures Choir. He was know to come around our band practices riding a bike with 6 or 7 different instruments hanging off of him. I was so enthused that he played rag time blues and shortly introduced him to Hot Tuna’s Hesitation Blues. From thence I booked us a bunch of local gigs to score some dough and spread the new sound that we were producing. Eli and I actually played a gig opening up for Colombo with Henry on guitar, they sounded really badass that night but soon after the gig we watched the entire rhythm section fighting each other and Eric was at loss with a need for more musicians again. I didn't really see or hear from Eric too much after that until about November of 2015, 8 months after that previous gig with Professor Colombo, that I got the same call to start up the band with him again just this time he had eli playing guitar and harmonica. So then again I called Henry and we formed the band. We played our first show together at The Marine Room in Laguna Beach December 25th 2015. Not even a month after that we recorded our first self titled album. Since then we played all over Southern California building our song list and fan base. We found that hard work payed off; we had so many beautiful people owing to our shows singing and dancing to our songs. Then like all good things…. we had quite an intense argument so the band took a little break. We decided to put Henry back on guitar and throw (my best friend since the 5th grade) Mike Trout on drums, making Professor Colombo a 5 piece band. That would lead us up to today and the band is currently working on our second full length album and three week tour in the U.S.
Professor Colombo have change a lot in this years, why that happens? Do you think now this band have the sound of they are looking for?
I partied with The Growlers after Beach Goth 2, when I was 17, and I asked Brooks, “What is the most important thing to do as a band to become what your band is today?” He replied “Find the people who are down and fuck the bullshitters..” That was easy enough for me to pretty much understand that people who don't commit end up quitting or getting kicked out. So with Colombo there was a lot of non commitment with past members. The line up we have now is full of dedication and with that the sound has developed and strengthened more than it ever has and is still developing of coarse.
How you describes Professor Colombo sound?
Professor Colombo is very similar to The Band. We have been able to tastefully take country, blues, rock, and pop and make it into one big cocktail of disastrous fun. Well at least for me and the boys hahaha I always really enjoy writing music with these guys and our friends always seem to have a good time bumping our tunes haha
Professor Colombo last album is from last year and you record it, can you tell us how was the recording process? And about compose and write…the band do that all together or how do you do?
Our first album was a compilation of songs that Eric had written and needed musicians to play the rest of it. We recorded at the Mansion Family Studios in Costa Mesa before it closed down in 2016. We recorded with Corey Kaiser (former member of Merry Rounders) which was honestly a huge honor because he is such a close friend and inspiration. We reorder the entire album live and then added extra instruments doing over dubs. The entirety of the album took only a month and a half to finish. when it came out it was a relief and a celebration. We threw a huge party hahaha
For When a new album?
Hopefully by the end of 2017 or beginning of 2018.
In all Professor Colombo History sometimes you are in, another times out, when you star playing with them?
I'm a lifer hahaha I love the music and love the dudes I wouldn't quit on them.
Who is King Tree? talk a little bit about the band history.
King Tree and The Earth Mothers is Henry, Mike, and I. All of us play in Professor Colombo but it is music composed by the three of us. We have been playing together for 7 years just jamming and playing in different bands together. We formed this band officially in 2016 before we knew that Mike was moving to Denmark for 6 months so after he got home we really kicked it to gear writing songs and hanging out.
Talking about King Tree, you are a tree pieces, less people, less instruments, how is the compose and write process?
The sound in my opinion is huge for only three instruments. We like to play loud live and fill out the sounds in the studio.
Can you describes King Tree music?
King Tree is psychedelic neo soul rock hahaha
What is the biggest influences?
We definitely love Jimi Hendrix but we pull a lot of influence from Stevie Wonder, Humble pie, Pink Floyd, The who, Radiohead, and tons more. We are huge on listening to all the greats and pulling influence from that.
For when a new album?
New album is a secret haha we have been recording but we are going to spend a lot of time making sure its perfect before we know for sure hahaha
Next week you start a tour, do you wanna talk a little bit about that and how happens opening to Walter Trout?
Ya! Im super excited for that! I grew up with Walter’s kids Mike, Jon and Dylan. We did a short run with him last year opening up for his England run but this time he is spending more time in the U.K so we will be playing 8 shows with him! Jon is the lead guitarist and singer, Mike plays drums also sings and I play bass. Walter has always been a really huge inspiration to me because he fathered me on the blues, introduced me to the greatest songs and artists (some of which I’ve been fortunate enough to meet the last few years). I look at the Trout family as my second family away from home and they inducted me as an honorary Trout brother which was really cool., made me feel more at home. I’ll be in the U.K April 30th- May 11th playing all over the map!
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