Spike and the Gandy Dancers are a new band with new album, What You Gonna Be? There’s something both timeless and retro in the sound. Lead singer, Peter VanDusartz, has a unique and compelling voice. You can see them live June 6 at the Aster Cafe followed by The Toolmasters – A Trip Shakespeare Tribute Show.
Please tell me about the band and how you got together.
Most of my musical journey has been solo or very small collaborations. I call this album my collection of my “pretty little songs” that I have been writing and playing and singing for many years, mostly to myself or those close to me.
I eventually realized that if I wanted my songs to be heard, and I needed these pretty little songs to be fully realized and actualized, I needed to take the risk and reach out and collaborate.
All along as I wrote and sang this music, in my mind, I could hear the full display of a baseline, a lead guitar, even organ and horns. To complete my vision I turned to my heroes of local Minnesota musicians, and the best place I could think of was to go to John Munson. John Munson has always seemed to be the core central figure in so much Minnesota music and I had gotten to know him as a fan.
It turned out to be the perfect collaboration and ultimately John helped me produce this album. John has a connection to everyone I could ever want to invite into the album. And so this turned into an ensemble project with many noted local musicians like Richard Medek on drums, Steve Roehm on vibraphones, Dave Salmela on accordion, Sasha Burke on Hammond B3 organ, and Marc Anderson on percussion. I also invited friends like Jeff Neau on electric guitar, Aaron Smith on tuba, Alan Goldberg on piano, Denny Hartung on flute, and of course John Munson on so many instruments that you’ll just have to check out the liner notes on the gatefold album. I also was able to collaborate with my son Peter who co-wrote Magic Carpet Car with me. I even got Jacques Wait to do the mixing and mastering.
When it came time to put together the live show I was able to bring Jeff Neau and Aaron Smith together and found other Gandy Dancers from local music, including Kent Mortimer on drums and Bill Turner on keyboards. The term Gandy Dancers refers to all of these local musicians who’ve been playing in the Minneapolis scene for so many years and who travel up and down the river valleys, playing in small towns. Enlisting the talents and magical powers of so many of my heroes has truly brought my pretty little songs into full blossom and bloom.
Your new album, What You Gonna Be? Feels like a spiritual exploration with looking for god in Descending or finding Sacred Conspiracy or all the belief in Believe. How much of finding who you are going to be or are becoming is rooted in that exploration or finding of a spirituality?
To be honest, that surprised even me. I am not a religious person. But I have been very religious in my childhood and upbringing, and some of those formative values, themes, and mythology have clearly rooted into my core. That said, many of my struggles and periods of growth have been very spiritual, and when I’m trying to express the most personal and vital artistic expressions, they clearly come through in spiritual archetypes.
However, the songs are intended to be interpreted as they are written and performed, and so whatever meaning or interpretation you or anyone else has about what this music is resonating, that’s frankly none of my business.
Crazy Blue has an honest edge to it. If someone sang that to me, I don’t know if I’d feel flattered or zinged. Is there an intention behind it?
Ha! Intention is 100% flattery, 0% zing. If there is any zing in this song, it is a zinger directed at myself. Sometimes beauty is literally, just plain, too much to behold.
The video for Be Here Now is so Minnesotan. For so many folks in Minnesota, the lake is their happy place; it’s such a good fit but what inspired it?
Be Here Now is a mantra centered on eastern philosophy and spirituality which directs focus to the moment and place that we exist, rather than where our mind and emotions can take us. Yep, you’re right, that’s a happy place. The video footage I took is of exactly that kind of happy place along the Mississippi river. This place is an inspiration for other songs on this album as well.
How and where will you be celebrating upcoming album release?
I’m Spike, and I’m bringing a handful of Gandy Dancers to the Aster Café in Minneapolis, which is one of the most romantic sites to experience “Beauty Rock” anywhere in the upper Midwest.
I will have oodles of limited edition, custom colored vinyl albums, with full gatefold jackets that includes original art fitting for display, that you can purchase directly from me.
Doors at 7:30, music at 8:30, joy all night.
Mostly Minnesota 