Dave Ozinga Cultivates New Carrot Carrot Crop | Q&A

by Casey Welsch

Dave Ozinga is a madman. He bobs around from band to project to experimental noise collective like they were games at a fair, and he wants all the prizes. Black Hundreds, Stone Agers, Shipbuilding Co., UUVVWWZ and numerous other projects have come and gone. And each time he shows up in the line-up, he makes his presence known.

Because Ozinga is also an artist — and aren’t most of them mad? — he has his own projects. For the past year or so, the duo of Ozinga and Nick French has been Carrot Carrot, an outlet for Ozinga’s songwriting.

The two-piece with French of drums and Ozinga on loops, guitar and vocals was an experimental Gordian knot of noise, melody and mantra, and it could get a bit messy at times. But when all the elements fell into place, Carrot Carrot could be something of amazing sonic beauty.

The band hasn’t been playing much in the past several months, though. It turns out things weren’t going so well for them, and the duo has been scrapped. But Ozinga won't let his garden wither.

He’s had it in his head for months, and now Ozinga is unveiling the new Carrot Carrot — a noisy quintet of professional soundcrafters that foregoes monotonous looping in place of densely textured, fleshed-out, fully realized walls of sound — at a show on Wednesday, June 15 at Duffy’s Tavern in Lincoln. Hear Nebraska caught up with Ozinga on his porch to talk about what people can expect from the new Carrot Carrot.

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Hear Nebraska: So anyway, Carrot Carrot.

Dave Ozinga: Yeah!

HN: What’s the deal?

DO: Well, we played in October, and it was kind of a disaster, the show.

HN: Just the two of you?

DO: Yeah, it was me and Nick. A lot of stuff went wrong, I don’t know. I couldn’t quite handle it, and I had gotten very involved in several other projects. I feel like we had been playing a little bit too much before that even happened. So I cancelled the next show we had and sort of just gave up. I kept writing and working on other bands but still working on songs. Doing a lot of recording, trying to come up with some new ideas because I didn’t want Carrot Carrot to die, just have different incarnations. So I played some solo shows trying to play pop songs, but really painfully, noisily loud pop songs. I did a couple of minimally attended shows, pissed off a sound guy. I almost broke one of the mics in the KRNU studios doing that. But then I thought I needed to play a show at least once this year. So I booked a date, Wednesday, and I didn’t tell anyone about it. I didn’t see if Nick could do it. He couldn’t do it. So here’s another challenge.

HN: So how did this lead to a new lineup?

DO: So I thought I could either do this by myself, or come up with something new. Up until then it had all been exercises, these songs. Explorations in looping, and texture, and just seeing how much I could come up with using these things on the floor in front of me and two people and a tape recorder. So I thought instead of having loops, I could get people to play these loops, live, really repetitive, but not using our little computer. I called up Jim (Schroeder) and Mark (Myers) and Mike (Elsener) and Joe and everyone agreed to it immediately and we got together. Immediately, the looping thing went out the window. I couldn’t do it, having them play the same thing over and over again. I couldn’t make them, they’re all such creative people.

HN: So what has this now become? It’s not sounding like Carrot Carrot anymore.

DO: Just these crazy songs. Three guitars, really loud, very intricate, so much going on, but still kind of contained to where you can listen to it. But the texture has never been better. There’s really good mesh and feel and the volume is annihilating! We’re playing like 8 songs on Wednesday, and maybe 1 or maybe 2 of them is from Carrot Carrot past, and the other ones I’ve been working on myself with a 4-track. So some of them are like a minute long. Some are really long. Instead of exercises, though, they’re songs now. They’re fleshed out. There’s a structure we adhere to instead of laying down a loop and seeing where it goes. We still get into Krautrock territory, though.

HN: Thank God! I expect nothing less from you. I was getting a little worried.

DO: Yeah. It’s less experimental for sure, but keeping that sensibility in mind while crafting pop songs. Also, having to deal with 5 people, 4 of which are playing some form of guitar, in this room, it’s a really insane wall of sound.

(This is a sample from an untitled Carrot Carrot song with the new lineup, recorded at a recent practice.)

HN: Awesome. So who, exactly did you get to join this band? And what exactly do they all contribute?

DO: Jim from UUVVWWZ to play drums, because I’ve been really appreciating his drumming recently because sometimes it’s really tight, and sometimes he spazzes out uncontrollably and I love that. He’s holding it down and keeping it crazy. Mark Myers from Big Language is playing bass. Big Language were a really weird free-noise-rock-flash fiction thing several years ago. He’s the oldest, he’s 46.

HN: Jesus.

DO: I know, but he’s got this insane music knowledge that he brings. Then Mike Elsener from Shipbuilding Co., Head of Femur, he plays lead guitars. Joe Foreman is also on guitar. We did Stone Agers together, Duke of the Hazardous Waste Pool. I wanted him to work on textures, something he does that I respect more than most. So he’s holding that down. But everyone I got involved are just total pros, you know?

HN: What do you mean?

DO: It’s amazing. There’s no BS. We just play the music. It’s drama-free. We bicker about time signatures instead of who’s going to give someone a ride or buy the beers.

HN: You said you got this idea thinking you had to play one show this year. Is this the only show you’ll be playing with this line-up?

DO: No, there will be three shows this year. There will be this one at Duffy’s, another one at a later date at the Old Pub and then we’re playing the Nebraska Pop Festival in August.

HN: Really? People expecting some Nebraska pop might get their minds blown then?

DO: Probably.

Casey Welsch is an editorial intern for Hear Nebraska. He'll see you at the show. You can contact him at caseywelsch@hearnebraska.org.