The seeds for Ripe may have been planted at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, but since its 2011 founding, the pop/funk/rock quintet has carved out a niche sound built on a foundation of grooves, hooks and thoughtful lyrics that have yielded three studio albums.
The most recent collection is the forthcoming Play the Game, a dozen songs helmed by producer Joe Chiccarelli (White Stripes/The Shins/Beck) that draws inspiration from a pair of seminal albums.
“Two albums we were talking about as touchpoints during recording were Remain in Light by Talking Heads and I Am by Earth, Wind & Fire,” explained front man Robbie Wulfsohn.
“There’s a lot going on, but in a way that feels clean and deeply rooted in the sound of a band that elevates a group into something different in the studio. I think that involved the way we recorded the record, the people we chose to work with on the record and then I think, in terms of what the record is about now that it’s out—I feel like you’re always telling the story of a band when you put out an album.”
Not unlike those two seminal recordings, Play the Game has a lot of moving pieces that can be complex, but never overwhelming. “Peacocks” is the perfect amalgamation of punchy horn charts, a thumping bassline, snappy guitar riffs and a beeping keyboard effect that falls somewhere between Beck and Jamiroquai with a dash of Jason Mraz thrown in for good measure, while “Affogato,” a song about resilience, sits at the crossroads of Afro-pop and Americana via percolating rhythms and dreamy pedal steel fills.
Special guests Lawrence help out with some of the heavy lifting via harmonies that combine with darting rhythms to give opening jam “Letting Go” a yacht-rock sheen.
Elsewhere, storied jazz/rock guitarist/producer Cory Wong lends his considerable talents to “Strangers,” a soaring cut wrapped in ethereal synth that washes about a disintegrating relationship punctuated by crisp six-string chords and jazzy brass that comes across like a Toto deep cut.
There’s a lot going on, but in a way that feels clean and deeply rooted in the sound of a band that elevates a group into something different in the studio.
For both Wulfsohn and drummer Sampson Hellerman, Ripe’s willingness to trust Chiccarelli’s recording approach was key to the band’s latest evolutional step on this new album.
“One way to make a record is you go in, cut a few takes, take the best parts from each take, put it together and then fix it in ProTools,” Hellerman explained. “Joe is an old school guy and he took it to heart when we said we wanted to make an old school record.
He had us drilling takes until we were sweating, our hands were bleeding and we couldn’t go any further. He really pushed us and we learned a lot from that process.
It was long and tedious. By the end, I think we decided to stay out of the studio for a couple of weeks and catch our breath a little bit. It was a really amazing process to do it in such a real way.”
With a brand new batch of songs to tantalize a fanbase eager to dance at Ripe’s live shows, the forthcoming tour with blue-eyed soul singer Allen Stone is one the entire band is looking forward to. Having played numerous festivals ranging from Bonnaroo and Firefly to SweetWater and BottleRock, as well as having headlined venues like MGM Music Hall at Fenway, Wulfsohn and his crew are ready to take on all live-music scenarios.
“There are two versions of the band we get to lean into depending on the circumstance,” Wulfsohn explained.
“One is where we put ourselves into more club-style rooms during the summer and try to blow the doors off it with energy. Then I think there are the tours like the fall tour and the “Bright Blues Tour” where we get to be in big enough rooms with the crew we’re most happy to take out on the road and get the highest level of what we do. We get to meticulously try and make it perfect for the people that are there. I think it’s going to be us swinging for the fences and trying to rise to the occasion in these rooms that, in many cases, are bucket-list items for the cities we get to do.”
He added, “We’re getting to do something that even if growth happens from there, it’s still a once-in-a-lifetime feeling for us in real time. If there was ever a time to come see us it would be now. We’re going to be freaking out every night, so come freak out with us.”