Let's Listen | Do A Barrel Roll!: "Super Smash Band: Rivals"

twitch.tv/bonusstagevan

In 2018, Do a Barrel Roll! began a journey to reinvent themselves. Instead of everything being conjured up and spearheaded by a bandleader, DABR! moved to a fully collaborative model. The creative input and burden would be shared amongst all members of the band. Instead of writing out everything note-for-note, arrangements would be crafted in real time in the rehearsal space. After hashing out a sketch, the band would scratch record a run through, listen back, and revise until the song was finalized. The result of those efforts led to this album’s predecessor and partner Heroes—an album focused on choosing grooves and clever mash-ups over technical wizardry and elaborate medleys. With Rivals, Do a Barrel Roll! turns up the dial on the eclecticism and heads into deeper cuts and more peculiar mash-ups. What’s next? Who can say? DABR!’s future isn’t decided yet, but one thing is for sure—they love making music together more than just about anything.

“Super Smash Band is a love letter to the Super Smash Bros. series of videogames by Nintendo. In these games, characters from all different types of franchises and genres that would never otherwise cross paths come together in the spirit of friendly competition. 

I have been scheming about doing mash-ups with videogame themes and music from famous records for a long time. There were signs of this in older DABR! recordings, even. Something in my brain causes me to highlight similarities and overlaps between things--especially in music--so I wanted to create an album that would allow me to put to tape my line of thought, as it were. 

Super Smash Bros. has been an influence on the band since the very beginning, so it was only natural that I thought of it as a correlation with this project early on. Soon I had created a list of characters from the Smash games and had the idea to do a song that represents each character. Being that there are almost 100 characters now, I had to be a bit more selective and decided to split the project into two albums--one to represent the original 12 characters from the very first Super Smash Bros. game on the Nintendo 64, and a second album to cover a mix of newer characters as well as honorable-mention, fan-favorite characters that players are constantly clamoring for the addition of.

I presented the project idea to my bandmates, and we started selecting songs immediately from a larger pool that I had put together. A few of the mash-up ideas were thought of before we ever started playing, but most of them were realized in the rehearsal space, and some were even refined during the recording phase. We are so immensely proud of this project and the excitement we can bring to audiences with this music. I really hope you enjoyed Heroes, and that you enjoy this long-awaited follow-up Rivals!”

-Austin

Let's all listen and talk about the album on Twitch at 6pm PT. See you in chat!