Jason Woodbury and Zach Toporek (JPW and Dad Weed, respectively) join musical forces for an outstanding first release.
“Amassed Like a Rat King” by JPW + Dad Weed starts off with the coolest, fattest bass line to come from the greater Phoenix area in a long time. The song is the title track from the duo’s killer new record, and as great as the bass line is, it is just the tip of a very catchy, indie pop iceberg.
This particular gem is not about to start sinking any cruise ships, though, so don’t go calling for the lifeboats yet. Once you turn on the song, no one is going anywhere. The rats that Jason P. Woodbury (JPW) sings about in “Amassed Like a Rat King” are too busy boogie-ing their collective asses off to desert any sinking ships thanks to that butt shaking bass groove.
The song was the first track that Woodbury and collaborator Zachary Toporek (the Dad Weed part of the equation) created for the record (released in April on Fort Lowell Records), and it is a reflection of some tall tales told by Woodbury’s uncles in his youth.
“I guess I’m literally reflecting on the nature of a rat king, which is a bunch of rats stuck together inextricably. It’s kind of a gnarly, metal-sounding thing, but really that song in particular is me kind of reflecting on my youth and the machine shop, Cherokee Saw and Tool, that my family owned in Coolidge when I was young,” says Woodbury.
Apparently, an eight-year-old Woodbury liked to wander around the big building, and his uncles would tell him about finding a ‘rat king’ in there to scare him. It’s kind of amazing that such a pop gem came from such a revolting thought, but with a lyricist like Woodbury at the helm, mining life events for lyrical gems is commonplace.
As “Amassed Like a Rat King” continues beyond the title song, the strength of Toporek and Woodbury’s collaboration is palpable. The two played all the instruments and did all the vocals across the 11 tracks, with Toporek engineering the recording prior to handing it off to the incomparable Sam Cohen for mixing.
“We cannot sing Sam’s praises enough because this record sounded pretty good before we sent it to him, but he really understood the vision and took it to 4K,” says Toporek.
“Sam’s credits are vast. He’s worked with Kevin Morby, Danger Mouse and Karen O. — so many people (including Norah Jones, Bob Weir, and Shakira). It was beyond a treat to work with him. He mixed the record at Slow Fawn, his studio in upstate New York,” adds Woodbury.
It’s super charming how much Toporek and Woodbury seem to love working together. Beyond occasionally finishing each other’s sentences and making each other laugh throughout our phone conversation, the two clearly ‘get’ each other as people and musicians. “Amassed Like a Rat King” does not sound like the work of just two Phoenix dudes hanging out and having a good time together, but that’s exactly what the record is and faithfully represents.
While both artists have released recordings separately, Woodbury as JPW, and Toporek as Dad Weed, they have been frequent collaborators in each other’s projects and have played together live on multiple occasions. Each of them brings different talents to the table and appreciates how their strengths and weaknesses balance out.
“I am not good at a lot of the ancillary business stuff like booking. Jason is a lot better at that,” shares Toporek before Woodbury chimes in.
“Honestly, a huge influence on us, both sonically and operationally, is Nick Lowe, Rockpile, and Dave Edmunds; it was all the same guys, but it was presented in different ways. When the set is weighing a little heavier into my tunes, but we might call the show as a JPW show, but with this record, (we) really felt like this was something distinct from our individual projects and the fact that it was the two of us making it made sense that the credit is ‘co’ on everything. We are co-producing, co-writing, and playing it all, so that’s sort of how it came down.”
Together, Woodbury and Toporek have created something that fans of artists like The Shins, Beck, and even a little Dream Syndicate will enjoy. There is a shimmery, summer pop quality to a song like “Everybody’s Talking (Again),” for example, that conjures a collision of dreaminess with the stark reality of life’s more poignant questions.
It sparked a cool bit of conversation from its creators.
Woodbury: We’ve been going back and forth on that one. Zach joked that the song is Christian Rock adjacent. That song is weirdly about church as a young kid, in a certain sense, and Zach had brought up that he felt like it’s about the rapture and everyone is talking about moving away, i.e., going to heaven.
Toporek: And you are thinking about sticking around so maybe you’re not going to get raptured.
Woodbury: Yeah. I think there is truth in that, but I think that the sticking around thing is less about getting left behind. I think what I was trying to say with the song, and sometimes a song presents itself fully formed and is like a full-scale message to yourself from yourself, and when that happens, you are occasionally surprised by the eloquence of what your unknown self is capable of.
The idea that deferring the meaning or the value or the promise of life to the ‘next’ life is unsatisfactory to me. If heaven can exist after we die, then I believe heaven can exist with each other in these little glimpses and little moments.
One of the most interesting parts of the song is the ending, which has some super lush vocal harmonies that soar like classic ’70s radio hits.
“Gordon Lightfoot was the influence for all the melodramatic vocalizations toward the end of the song. I thought it was so much fun. I’m not a cut loose kind of guy when it comes to music, but as a collaborator, it was so much fun to get to that point in the song, and it was kind of joyous,” says Toporek.
The band delivers a slow-dance classic in “Far Off Road,” and then Toporek lets it all hang out with his lead vocal on the bouncy rocker “Frightening.” This one sparked another enlightening chat.
Toporek: I think it started as just a jam. He came up with that bass line, and I ended up going down the rabbit hole and expanding on it a bit. That one is a pretty strong co-write, lyrically, between the two of us. Jason had a couple lines going and I remember doing dishes one day and just thinking where it should go from there and came up with the next verse.
Jason came up with one of my favorite lines on there: ‘I think the map is probably hidden from a certain point of view.’ I kind of just extrapolated that out into trying to feel your way through life blindly, and the frightening thing is, when you look at life, sometimes. ‘Frightening’ for me is kind of what happens when you kind of peek into the hidden room. What does it cost to look within, and whatever the answer is, it frightened the hell out of me.
Woodbury: I think “Frightening” might have started off with the idea that it was a Dad Weed song. It’s one of my favorite vocals from Zach on the whole record. He just really sings the hell out of that song, and it’s really enjoyable.
Toporek: And I’m deeply uncomfortable with it, and I can’t stand to hear it. One hand was on the mouse and ready to hit delete, and the other hand was grabbing it and pulling it away. It really took some self-restraint to actually let myself be myself, which is a very strange sentence.
Woodbury: It is frightening to lean into those supposed or perceived flaws, but we live pathologically in an age when it is very difficult to face things that are very apparent. This record is definitely us reflecting on that and recognizing that the thing that frightens us is the thing that is necessary for us to grapple with, and it just might be the thing that saves us.
Amassed Like a Rat King is a record that has a lot to say, just as Toporek and Woodbury have a lot to say as musicians and two guys making their way in the world today (hello, Mr. Wendt). While it is incredibly thoughtful and in touch with a wide range of emotions, it is also playful, rockin’ and a lot of fun. There is truly a little something for everyone across each and every song.
The penultimate track, “So Brightly There,” is also something of a standout. Like “Far Off Road,” the song provokes the image of a dark room and two figures holding each other closely while immersed in dance.
Woodbury: “So Brightly There” is a song I wrote for my wife, Becky (Bartkowski), that she would like, and she is really the one who pushed for Zach and I to collaborate. She said, ‘You and Zach make a lot of sense as collaborators,’ and she understood that we brought a certain balance to each other on a creative level.
It is the one song from the record that we are not going to try and replicate in the live sense just yet. I’ve never been all that great at writing love songs, but there are at least two certified love songs on this record, and I’m proud that I’m slowly but surely upping my quotient for writing love songs on each record.
Toporek: I think that the concept for the next record should be songs that our wives might actually like. If we played to their tastes more, I think we might get more people to listen to it. When Jason played me “So Brightly There,” I thought, ‘Oh, amazing. You did it. Great job.’ We did a couple of little overdubs, but he brought a fully formed, two-minute and seventeen-second pop banger.
Woodbury (acoustic guitar) and Toporek (drums), who both sing lead and backing vocals on the record, along with guitarist Rick Hines and bassist Andrew Bates, will be performing most of the songs from “Amassed Like a Rat King,” at the release show this weekend. Do yourself a favor and hit the show, and if you can, grab the awesome record on green vinyl from the band, who will have copies for sale throughout the night.
