AU and friends turned on by Natural Wood
This weekend I sat down with Alfred’s own witty and extremely talented comedy music duo, Natural Wood. The band consists of Sam “Moss” Mameli, a junior, who plays mandolin, harmonica and vocals, and David “Ash” Torrey, 2010 alumni, who takes on vocals and guitar for the group. We covered everything from musical influences to the guys’ favorite sandwiches in this exclusive interview.
Melanie: When did you guys decide to form Natural Wood?
Ash: It was the spring semester of 2009.
How did you come up with your band name?
Moss: It was Ash’s idea.
Ash: To be fair, we’d been joking about starting a band for a while.
Moss: It was one of his shower ideas.
Ash: Yeah, most of my great ideas happen when I’m in the shower. So I went to Moss one day and was like, hey, I know what our band should be called, Natural Wood (coincidentally the term “natural wood” is a lyric in one of their songs about Live Action Role Playing). And we hadn’t even written a song yet.
Moss: At that point it was just pipe dreams.
What was the first song you wrote together? What inspired you to write that particular song?
Ash: The first song was “Good Bondage.”
Moss: We have a friend named Jeff, who’s an alumnus and an engineering major and eventually he got really into photo and specifically fetish photography. He’s also a really good…
Ash: Well, he made rope corsets.
Moss: And he did chainmail too. So when we heard about this we were like, “well, that’s interesting.”
Ash: So one day I was talking to him and he asked me, “Do you know if there’s any girls who’d like to be tied up?”
Moss: So, uhh, we were like, “Bondage?…But it’s good bondage. It’s tastefully done.”
Ash: And that’s how we wrote “Good Bondage.”
What was your previous musical experience? Had you been in bands before?
Moss: Yes.
Ash: Yes.
Moss: My first band was in high school. I learned to play guitar when I was 13. I started a band in high school because I wanted to play in this fall concert. We played Purple Haze and Iron Man in that band. It was super cool as freshman in high school. After that they kicked me out of my own band because I wasn’t showing up to practice, so I started a Ska band called Dalai and the Llamas, and that was fun, and I’d also play at coffee shops and play covers…piss off old folks with punk songs.
Ash: Oh, so my history. The first band I was in was when I was 14, I played bass. I was in that band for a year and we wrote almost all original music. There was another kid in the band, he was 16 and had a car. That band fell apart and I was in a bunch of small crappy bands until my senior year of high school. Then I started playing in a grunge alternative band called Fall of Eve. That was fun though and I played bass for them till I graduated. After that I had one other band prior to Natural Wood called the Fire Hose Connection – rock comedy but not nearly as good.
Can you describe the process of recording your music? What compelled you to put out an album and sell it on iTunes?
Moss: We had written about 10 or 11 songs and were like, this is about the length of an album.
Ash: And we decided, what the hell, let’s try and do this.
Moss: So we found this guy in Cheektowaga (near Buffalo), he actually recorded one of Eminem’s albums. So we worked with him on the album,titled “Self Titled.” He did the keyboards you hear on the album and some backup vocals.
Ash: Leading up to recording the album we wrote two more songs so we replaced two of the original ones we were going to record.
Moss: We had already done some recording on Garageband.
Ash: But we wanted more professional recording.
Ash: It took about two collective weekends to record. Immediately put it on iTunes. We went to a company called Disc Makers to make the CD and put it through to CDBaby, a company that distributes our album pretty much everywhere…except Sweden.
How would describe your fan base?
Moss: I’d like to imagine we have fans. Friends and family don’t count.
Moss: We played at a Fetish convention in Ithaca. They loved it!
Ash: So we’d say anyone at Fetish conventions to your typical nerd would cover our fan base.
What’s coming up next?
Ash: Scheduling shows across the general Western New York area. And into Maine. We’re playing some comedy clubs, working on gigs all over. We’re also thinking about recording a second album.
Moss: We’ve never denied that we wanna make money out of this.
Ash: Yeah we wanna make money so we can keep doing this.
Favorite sandwich?
Moss: I like a super mighty from Mighty Taco. A burrito definitely counts as a sandwich. So yeah, a super might with lettuce, no sauce, sour cream, guacamole and onions.
Ash: Anytime I go to Subway I get Italian herb and cheese bread, turkey, provolone, lettuce, green peppers, onion, spinach, honey mustard, oil and vinegar.
Favorite superhero?
Ash: I’m gonna say Batman. He’s one of the only superheroes that doesn’t need superpowers to win. He just needs gadgets!
Moss: I’m gonna go with the Comedian from Watchmen. He’s a great vice character. He represents the cynical side of life and still laughs about it.
What’s your favorite song to play and why?
Ash: Whatever the newest song is that we’ve written because we’re not sick of it yet.
Do you guys have any notable musical inspirations?
Ash: I’d say Moxy Fruvous is an inspiration musically. The Smothers Brothers for comedic style.
Final question, if you could time travel, what time period or year would you go back to and why?
Moss: Victorian England. They dressed so much better then. They were snazzy!
Ash: The Middle Ages, because I want to be a wizard.
Be sure to check out Natural Wood’s album, “Self Titled,” currently available on iTunes and look for posters for upcoming local live shows.
