Hello and welcome to Applause Performances, sampling the sounds of Northeast Ohio.

Here's the Cleveland-based band, C-Level.

So Coda, you and Dave met when you guys were teenagers at a place that is now, I understand, a beauty shop in North Olmsted.

Can you talk about that, how you two met?

Yeah, so yeah, we met when we were young.

My mom worked at a bar called the Phoenix and she saw Dave playing at the open mic there.

And she just told me this kid can play like Jimi Hendrix and you gotta meet him.

And the first time we jammed was at the Phoenix at the Open Mic Night.

When we met, I remember our friend and teacher, George Hartwig, who's a local musician based out of Parma, he was running the open mic night and he just had this way of corralling people and making people feel welcomed and like they can do whatever.

And like I remember the first song we did play was "Hey Joe", right?

Me, you, and George.

And Cody and I started just learning guitar together.

Like I would show him some stuff when we would jam.

And...

Eventually he switched over to bass when we started getting more serious with being in a band.

How did you, you mentioned George, your mentor.

Yeah.

Furious George.

Furious George Hartwig.

Yeah, how did you guys meet both meet him?

I remember at that time in his life, this was when he was first doing music full time and he's a pretty serious, well thought out guy and just seeing someone like that and growing up being like, okay, it's a possible thing.

I can figure out how to make my life work and do music and it was super important because he had this way of, like I was saying, uplifting everybody and just kind of being, you can do this and he was doing it.

So it was like a really kind of like critical time for like.

At least myself, to meet like Cody and meet George and know that you can do these things because there's so many people in our, like, I feel like we get a lot of people saying you can't do something.

So to meet someone saying you can is a super important person to have in your life.

So all that great guitar work, that's all from George?

Yeah, yeah, George taught me a lot.

Taught me a a lot, a lot about singing and a lot playing.

Yeah, I was gonna say.

I was gonna say more more about vocals Dave when Dave first started singing he he was he had a really rough time with it And George George really brought it reeled him in The first time I remember doing that, like, I was so afraid to be loud.

Like I was like so quiet.

And then the sound guy metal Bob in the back and George in the background, you need to be louder.

Now I know for this next song you're gonna play it's called Cleanest Hands.

You're gonna switch things up a little bit, Dave.

Can you talk about what you're going to do?

So I'm playing a lap steel guitar, and I'm singing and playing harmonica.

So we got real into Ben Harper and John Butler and players like that, that really rip a lap steel.

How did you learn how to play that?

It was really weird because like, the instrument itself is like, you take all the fingering you learn and you forget about it, and now you gotta kind of slide across it and hold it in a different way.

So Koda, you and Dave started out playing covers together.

That's how this started from Bad Brains to Hendrix.

Did you ever think that it would turn into something more than that?

Yeah, when we first started playing that was like my dream was to just be in a band with Dave I remember there was a good Couple years of our friendship where I was just afraid to ask him and then I finally asked him and he was like Yeah, why wouldn't we be in the band together?

So yeah, there was always I always first saw it going further.

Yes And I know Dave in the background, you were actually writing songs.

Yeah, yeah, it's quietly.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was one of those things.

It's like to put yourself out there is kind of scary and especially being around You know people we knew around the mic night who are really doing good and like watching george and all these guys this rocket It was like one of the things where it's just kind of like i'm doing this and maybe someone will think it's cool And so I remember showing it to cody and and jay and like getting positive feedback and being like, okay We can do something Talk about those early songs that you were writing.

So, let's see, I think the first one we did as a group was "Stomp."

The first song you ever showed me was called "Let It Feel."

Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah.

It was like a slower song.

Performed that song's like acoustic for probably a year before sea level started and that ended up becoming a sea level song But the first song yeah as a group was "Stomp."

So yeah, it was like one of those things like, you hear all your heroes and you're like, how do they do it?

And you're just trying to figure out this vague thing because all advice about songwriting is kind of vague.

Like, there's some pretty good like, structured things out there, but like, so it was one of the times where you're trying to craft in the darkness and it was kind of cool to like, bring something out and have someone be like, yeah, I like that, that's cool.

I can get behind that with you, you know.

Yeah, was it nerve wracking to bring the songs to coda?

Yeah, it still is.

It still is when I present songs to Cody and Pat or Cody and Jay, like How'd you mention that?

I think he might be more nervous nowadays.

Yeah, really.

Yeah, no, really good.

But I think it's important that whatever you do in life, you have a friend that's not afraid to tell you exactly what they think and feel, right?

Because that means they care that much about it as well.

So I look forward to the, maybe I don't like that one as much comments, or maybe the real can start here as opposed to there, you know.

It's like one of those things that we're doing this together and I wouldn't want to do it any other way.

Yeah, you two have such great chemistry together.

You can tell you've been playing together for a long time.

I do want to talk a little bit about the band's name, C-Level.

Okay.

What is it, Dave, what is the band name mean?

When I was in high school, I was playing in a couple of high school bands, and I played in a band with my friend Zach Dimmer, and this guy named Tom Durr.

And we only did a couple shows, and James Shelfont.

And we were driving to the gig, we didn't have a name, and Zach's like a, he's a real creative dude as well, and he was just like kind of like, well, what if we call the band C-Level and Durr, because Tom's last name is Durr and it spells out Clevelander.

Clevelander?

Yeah, and we were like, oh, that's cool.

We just stuck with the C-level.

You guys have long wanted to do a concept album.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

What made you want to do that and how did you approach it?

Okay well it's something we've had in the in the burner for a while and been thinking about and like we've always like like to do kind of like a bigger uh concept project but it never really panned out and then our drummer Pat he brought up this uh Albert Ayler performance in which John it was for John Coltrane's funeral and he's playing he rips the saxophone screams a couple times the first time out of anguish and the second out of joy.

And Cody and I have both recently experienced some loss and through our grieving process have been like writing these tunes and reaching out to a bunch of people and like a lot of people we admire and we got a lot positive feedback for the songs we were writing and it pieced together to be this kind of concept and it outlines this John Coltrane, this Albert Ayler performance.

Yeah, because the album is called "Scream Like You're At Coltrane's Funeral."

We recorded a track with Pete Francis and we recorded one with HR from Bad Brains, Dana Colley from Morphine, we also recorded with Lydia Lunch, Eugene Hutz from Go Go Bordello, Mike Watt from the Minutemen and like we've met these people, we've got to talk with these guys and like just share a moment with them but when we got to send them a tune and have them not completely be like, but rather be like this is.

This is cool.

Yes.

I'll put my voice on it was like insane and it's hard even rationalize.

We've done this.

You have a podcast.

Yes, Dave.

And it's called Zig at the Gig.

First of all, tell me about that title.

So I used to do the two, when you're at a show, right, and trying to fill time, I would try to make the most of every moment we had, right?

So you get there, you wait.

You get there you wait, so instead of that, I would pull the bands we were playing with, I'm like, hey, I'm gonna start a podcast in my van.

Can I interview you?

So I would interview people in my band, we would get all sweaty, and then like, we'd miss sound check.

So this happened for a while.

Logistically, it didn't pan out.

At least the idea of the concept of the podcast.

And then around the time of 2020, when things were shutting down a little bit, Dave started to do a lot more of remote interviews and just get more consistent with it.

And that's when the podcast kind of took off and he started to be able to talk to some of these people that we're talking about.

Some of the people you've had on the podcast, you've featured on this album.

That was kind of the... Yeah, that was kind of the moment we have to share and it was cool to know that was more than just like a Conversation or just like you know that we meant something to them, too So that was super special and it's hard to believe like I'm saying we can even say we are on a we're on wax with these guys So you mentioned that this album is really, you know, inspired by a lot of loss.

Has it been a cathartic experience?

I mean, what have you gotten through all of this?

Yeah, so yeah, like Dave said, we were going through a period of losses, like my grandpa, we lost my grandpa who was one of our biggest supporters and then we lost Dave's mom who another huge supporter and then my grandma.

So it was just kind of a period a lot of loss and getting to work with these artists that we, you know, grew up listening to around those people around Dave's Mom and around my grandpa showing them like, check out this crazy bad brain song.

So it was very cathartic to get to this point in life where we're able to work with these people.

And it's beyond cathartic, because it's like the ultimate joy of what we do coming back to us, knowing that the people that inspired us are ready to work us.

Care enough, you know, and to have your hero be like, yeah, it's a cool song.

You know what I mean?

Like, we've done it, we're done.

Like.

That is incredible.

Incredible.

And how does this work?

You work on the tracks, you send them to these folks?

Yeah, it's mostly with now.

It's like we kind of we'll pitch a song.

Hey, we wrote the song We hear you here and here and whatever they send back and that's that's pretty much been it There's been a couple like we did one tune with Angelo Moore from Fishbone and like he he had a different process.

Before we say goodbye, I want you to talk about the last song we're gonna hear, and it's called "Long-Legged Fly."

And it's your new song.

It's out on all the streaming stuff.

It features Pete Francis from the band Dispatch.

Dispatch was a huge band for Cody and I because as a band we've always sought beyond ourselves.

Most of our, if you look through our discography of gigs, right, our gig history, most of them are benefit shows.

We try to do more for our community and leave it better than we found it.

And Dispatch was a big inspiration to even think like that.

So to think that we can work with Pete and that he was willing to like he actually he came to Cleveland and opened let let us open for him.

We were his backing band a couple a couple months ago.

That's right So, uh, it was like It's been incredible and we're really proud of the song Guys, thank you so much.

It's been great having you here.

Dave Dickey and Coda Crose from the band C-Level.

Thank you.

Thank you for having us.