Dig deep down into the Earth.
That is the message on the opening track of Rubblebucket’s latest full-length album, “Earth Worship,” by the same name. Released in October 2022, the album features 13 tracks and is described by a news release as a “groove-forward, joyously layered collection of songs.”
Now, Rubblebucket – led by frontpersons Kalmia Traver and Alex Toth – will celebrate “Earth Worship” and a 20-year journey that began for the duo as undergraduates at the University of Vermont in Northampton this weekend. The concert will take place at the Academy of Music on Nov. 18 at 8 p.m. Dante Elephante will open the show.
Toth sat down with The Republican for a phone interview prior to the show. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. Can you tell me about “Earth Worship” and the work behind getting the album out?
A. It was during the pandemic, and we hosted these song-a-day groups with our friends. There were like 35 of us in the group, and it was all remote contact, but it was an interactive thing we were doing, and it was a great way to all stay connected, feel productive and have community during the pandemic. It was seven songs in seven days, and we did that a few times, and it was just a very beautiful experience. At the same time, Kal (Kalmia Traver) and I were – there were these dance parties emerging outdoors in Brooklyn. A lot of them emerged during the protests, so there would be the protests and then there would be these dance parties after the protests out in parks, and this continued into the winter. This was a very kind of life-saving thing, to have these community dance parties. And it was mostly disco, it would be like these disco parties. It was the energy that we were going into this with, and we kind of loosely had the idea of making a disco record, and it didn’t come out that way at all but- (laughs) It kind of goes back to our groovier roots and there’s a lot more percussion and it’s more bass-heavy because I wrote a lot of the songs on bass. It was really fun, writing the songs on bass guitar. Kal had the lyric prompt - “Earth Worship” - and it was a very loose prompt.
Q. Even the title by itself, “Earth Worship.” Can you tell me about the message behind that title and the album as a whole?
A. There’s sort of this thing of healing generational trauma and how we pass trauma through generations, like our parents pass on their trauma to us from their parents and their parents and their parents. There was this image - I think I first heard it from Björk during the Biophilia record cycle – kind of like emerging from the Earth, just many generations of mothers, just down and down and down and down and down. It reminded me of when I went to Ireland for a family reunion, and I visited this ancient gravesite from 400 AD or something like that. My ancestors, all of my grandparents, were in a vertical plot – like father, son, father, son – going down, they were, like, piled on top of one another. There was this image of the oldest being deepest down and kind of going up and getting closer and closer to the surface. And eventually we all pass, and we leave our karma and our actions from this life, and we’re just passing on our energies. It’s the idea of this healing journey and healing that trauma and lessening it in this lifetime so that we’re passing on hopefully less harm and less pain.
Q. While “Earth Worship” isn’t necessarily about conservation, there is a little bit of that as well, right?
A. Right, right. Kal and I are both activists, and we were sustainable economics minors at the University of Vermont, and we have local environmental and climate change activist groups tabling at our shows on this tour. There’s also the Friends of the Earth, and we’re doing a call to action for them and raising money for them as we go here.
Q. We just passed the one-year anniversary of “Earth Worship’s” release. How do you feel you’ve changed as an artist since then, reflecting on the past year?
A. It’s interesting to think of “how have I changed in a year?” I guess the biggest thing that’s been coming to me in this year is that it’s kind of intense to go from not touring Rubblebucket to doing the first tour in four years. It was a lot of nervousness, in general touring is a high-pressure thing. It’s very mentally and physically and emotionally exhausting. Sometimes people don’t think it’s like a real job or something like that, and certainly it’s hard to make a living in this profession. It’s extremely exhausting and grueling but certainly there’s a very beautiful, extremely rewarding, and fun side to it. It can be this very pressurized, intense thing, and certainly it has been – that’s just part of the deal in trying to make this all work in all of the ways: financially, emotionally, and all the relationships involved. It’s just a lot. Kal and I have been making music together in bands for 20 years – we met freshmen year at the University of Vermont and we’ve been in bands ever since – it just takes a lot. But the feeling I’m coming to as this year nears its end and (with) this album cycle is just feeling more settled in who I am and doing this and feeling permission to do this. I feel like yes, I’m doing a good job and I can be confident in that. And also the mental health aspects and the physical health aspects of all of this, I just feel like I’m getting better and better at all of the routines and balancing it all.
Q. And you and Kal must be extremely close now, knowing each other for two decades now. What is the creative process like for the both of you, how do you bounce off each other?
A. If you listen to our solo projects side-by-side, you can really hear a lot of our individual personalities and you can really hear how the two coming together makes Rubblebucket I feel like. (laughs) We both have pretty different approaches to music and our songwriting practices are pretty different, but there’s obviously a common connection that keeps bringing us back together, and a language, and something that we’re both excited about creatively in one another and the different things we bring to the table. A lot of times, we each write individual songs or song ideas and then we pass them back and forth. A lot of that’s just remote – we’re not usually in a room together until we’re actually working on the album officially. For our “Earth Worship,” we did a lot of remote back-and-forth and then we had all of our songs selected and then we went into the studio with the band for eight days and laid down all sorts of crazy stuff that we wouldn’t have thought of on our own.
Q. Your latest single, “Teardrops,” came out just a few weeks ago. Can you tease anything else that might be in the works?
A. “Teardrops” came out two weeks ago and we’ll be playing that at the show. We’ve been playing that and it’s been awesome. We also have been playing another unreleased song, in addition to our old favorites across all of our albums. The shows have been amazing and we have some new set designs, this interdimensional portal, and some new wardrobe and costumes. We’re just having a great time out here and we’re really looking forward to the show at the Academy of Music. We have a bunch of new songs that we recorded in the works, so we’re just going to keep releasing new music as time goes on.
Q. Is there anything else you’d like to add?
A. We feel like Western Massachusetts has been like a second home to us, and it actually is the origin of a couple of our musicians. We have a lot of history there and we love coming and playing there. Our drummer, Rebecca, is from Northampton. We just want to give a shout out to their mom, Joanne. We hope you appreciate it.
Tickets to Rubblebucket’s concert, which range from $24.99 to $29.99, can be purchased online or by calling the Academy of Music Box office at 413-584-9032, ext. 105.