The opening track on Welcome Joy—the Cave Singers’
follow-up to their 2007 debut, Invitation Songs—is “Summer
Light,” a sparse and lovely pop-folk song with a gleaming guitar riff
and uncomplicated but spirited drumming. The song is also an
invitation—in the opening line, singer Pete Quirk coyly mumbles,
“Come on baby, let’s take a ride/And we might make it to morning
light/The sun is bright and bold and brave/My car is a stone that
gently waves.” A soft shaker kicks in, the guitar plays on, and
suddenly you’re in the car, riding shotgun with the windows
down—”We sing to the radio as we drive on,” Quirk continues. “We
don’t care where we are/We don’t care if we arrive soon.” With relaxed
percussion, subtle harmonies, and guitar riffs that race along like an
old Buick on a Southern highway, for 35 minutes, Welcome
Joy—a title the band took from a John Keats
poem—takes you on an easy ride to wherever it is you’re
happiest.
The second track, “Leap,” brings to mind fireflies fluttering in
tall grass at dusk—the air is still humid, but the breeze has
cooled enough to leave goose bumps when it kisses skin. Or you might be
far out in the woods, rays of the afternoon sun dancing on the ground
through a thick canopy of evergreens. Or maybe there’s a swimming hole
for you to jump into. For Quirk, the songs remind him of the East Coast
where he grew up.
“I was thinking about where I’m from—New Jersey and the Jersey
Shore, and kids swimming at night and going pool hopping. I was there
until I was about 21; the songs are inspired by little cinematic things
that I remember from being there.”
The Cave Singers started quietly in 2006, following the breakup of
Quirk’s post-punk band Hint Hint.
“I started playing acoustic stuff because I didn’t have a practice
space, so I had to record stuff in my room on my four-track,” says
Quirk, of the Cave Singers’ early days. “I had to be quieter, so my
roommate wouldn’t get pissed off.”
Then one afternoon, his roommate—Derek Fudesco of Murder City
Devils and Pretty Girls Make Graves—joined him for a jam
session.
“We were both recording stuff—I was doing stuff for a movie,
mostly electronic bass and drum machines and vocals,” explains Fudesco.
“And Pete was doing a lot of vocal stuff. [One day] I was playing his
guitar, messing with it, coming up with little repetitive riffs.”
Fudesco’s playing style—a percussive, repetitive fingerpicking
that has become as much of a Cave Singers trademark as Quirk’s worn,
weary voice—also developed out of necessity; always a bass player
in his former bands, Fudesco just didn’t really know how to play the
guitar.
Once Quirk and Fudesco built up a solid set of songs, they sought
out a drummer to join them for live shows and found former Cobra High
drummer Marty Lund, who happened to live a couple blocks away.
“We’ll set up a recorder and just play for five or six
hours—jamming,” says Fudesco of the band’s creative process,
before laughing and correcting himself. “Not jamming, it’s not
like we’re noodling, there are no wailing solos or anything. We just
kind of freestyle songs.”
“The actual songwriting is pretty enjoyable,” Quirk adds. “We just
hang out. It’s organic. The songs just come together.”
On Welcome Joy, Fudesco’s guitar sets the pace for many of
the songs; his steady riffs feel effortless, reflecting the band’s
laid-back approach to songwriting.
“I like linear music, something that rolls along,” says Fudesco.
“That’s what I enjoy listening to and writing. Our songs tend to be
based around one idea, and we just let it go as long as it can until
it’s not interesting anymore.”
But while the riffs repeat within each song, there’s still plenty of
variation over the course of the album. On “At the Cut,” Fudesco’s
guitar is an aggressive Americana/rock ‘n’ roll jangle. On “Leap,” he
picks the strings more delicately, the notes sounding quick, quiet, and
bright. “I Don’t Mind” is more playful, almost Wilco-y, and “Beach
House” is smoother and more relaxed.
However the Cave Singers do it—organically, accidentally,
whatever—it works. Welcome Joy‘s 10 solid tunes make good
on Quirk’s opening invitation to take you on a ride. Regardless of
where you end up, the Cave Singers will make sure it’s someplace warm,
someplace full of joy. 
