Roll of the Dice: 9 questions with Comprador

Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.

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Have you checked out Please Stay Off the statue, yet? The new album from Cincy/Philly act Comprador is so damn good! TGEFM highly recommends you click this link to download, press play on the record and then check out our interview with Charlie D’Ardenne below.

Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. Congratulations on the release of  Please Stay Off the Statue. Let’s start it off by talking a little bit about how this album came into existence. What was going on at the time that helped kickstart and influence the songwriting process?

Thanks for interviewing me! This is my sixth Comprador album (I lose count easily so I think I’ve mentioned the wrong number in other pitches interviews etc). I did three in Ohio before I moved back to Pennsylvania in 2019 and this is the 3rd of the second trilogy for whatever that’s worth. I’ve been active in a handful of other Philly bands since a few months after I moved here.
Albums 2-5 were almost purely solo efforts with a couple guest spots on each but this one I opened up slightly more to collaboration — my friend Parker wrote bass parts for most of the A side; Gina from Lo-Priestess / Dear Forbidden write vocals for ‘Ripcord’ and Steve from Disaster Class wrote synth parts for ‘Better Luck Next Time (Taylor’s Version).’
A few of the songs I wrote potentially as Best Bear songs (Philly band I drum in) & they eventually morphed into Comprador tracks but I think they may be more intuitive and vocally hooky than I’d typically try to write.
Also on prior albums I’d try to polish the instrumental first and then write vocals at the end which was getting increasingly frustrating — on nearly all of the Please Stay Off the Statue songs I worked out acoustic / vocal arrangements first and played them at solo gigs or open mics before I went into the studio to track drums.

What album or band or significant singles made you go “Yeah, this is what I want to do”  Not just an influence but who or what was the catalyst?

One of my high school friends started a band in Cincinnati named Shadowraptr. I was on summer break from university when they released their debut EP in 2010. I had already played music in semi-public venues by then but I think this was maybe the first moment when I recognized people I knew personally were releasing music that sounded ~ professional ~ and not like the raggedy cassette recordings I’d been making in my room for my own entertainment.

We’ve all got a few, what is your biggest regret? A gig you turned down, advice you didn’t take, what one thing do you wish you handled differently as a musician?

I am extremely conflict avoidant and basically in any instance I’ve felt strongly disrespected or ignored I tend to ghost. For a few of these relationships I’ve gently reached out (or the other person did) years later & we’ve made amends but I do wonder about a couple of these instances, if I’d fought or argued more or tried to make a stronger impression instead of evaporating, if anyone involved would have experienced better outcomes. But alternately if I’d done that maybe everyone would just think I’m even more of an asshole!
Unsure if any of the regrets necessarily outweigh the others which which I suppose is good — I think the regrets tend to be like absurdly specific and contingent stuff like  ” I should have used the single crash instead of double crash setup at the White Eagle Hall show, so maybe I would have been asked to be full time instead of temp drummer; but also people should have been nicer to them online so they wouldn’t be pressured to dissolve the band like five months later”

What have been some of the most memorable moments or experiences as a touring musician so far? What’s been the most unexpected? The weirdest?

I played bass in a band named Sun Country for perhaps a little less than a year late 2013-2014 when I lived in Ohio. We did a show in Cleveland and afterward met a trio of Spanish dudes who were hitchhiking across America. They offered to share their Big Gulp full of mystery juice which I promptly chugged. Then I ran down to the shore of Lake Erie. I undressed and swam out to just within sight of shore. I remember talking to people when I was out in the water though the rest of the band is adamant I was by myself out there. Eventually I washed up and the band walked back to the house where we were staying overnight. Somehow I only lost a sock. A photo of me passed out in the van on the drive back the following day is color-inverted & rotated on the cover of my 2019 compilation ‘Go to Sleep’
Unsure if this counts as most unexpected but Humilitarian (Philly band in which I play guitar) did a weekender up to New Haven Connecticut earlier this year and a few of us went to eat at a random diner and after a while it dawned on us that A Country Western (another Philly band) were also there so I went out front and chatted to them for a little
I think I have dozens of medium-compelling (or less so) anecdotes like this, very luckily no major disasters like hospitalizations or gear stolen

The music world has also changed a lot over the last few years.  What are some of the biggest industry changes you’ve come across in your time within the scene?

I was just starting to find my legs in Philly before COVID happened so I didn’t have a super informed sense of the scene in spring 2020, but from talking to other musicians here it sounds like it’s gotten way harder to persuade people to come out to weeknight shows as a direct result (& also thus increasingly hard to help touring artists who are trying to play Philly on a Tuesday / Wednesday / whatever)
I’m tempted to complain about T****k here too but no

The world of Comprador has roots in both Philly and Cincinnati.  Both are pretty different cities in terms of history and culture but there’s something about each one that seems to breed creativity.  What is it about Philadelphia and Cincy that nurture artists?

At least when I lived there (not that it was like a policy I invented!), Cincinnati prioritized free shows — artists would get paid from bar & merch sales. I think a downside of this was people might attach less importance to seeing a particular artist because they could see five other awesome shows the same night for no money, but the upside was more fluidity within the scene– people would see artists they would have never encountered if they were concerned up front about the cost, & artists were less restricted to a specific clique as a result. Cincinnati’s a relatively small city but I feel like this element of the scene made it way more dynamic than you’d expect.
I lived in Phoenix for a while and Philly is very slightly smaller but I’d guess 1.6 million population is the perfect cutoff for experiencing all the advantages of a medium sized american city– it’s big enough you aren’t constantly running into the same people but small enough to stay navigable and accessible (Phoenix seemed atypically hard to break out of the house show scene into independent and medium-size venues but Philly like Cincinnati seems far less gatekept). Philly is close enough to New York (& DC and Boston…) it’s easy to go watch artists at shows there or commute to play shows; we’re also close to thriving college/university scenes at Rowan in Glassboro NJ, Haverford & Swarthmore west of the city, student DIY communities based around Temple in north Philly and University City in West Philly. It’s not unusual to see the same artist playing Union Transfer and a relatively underground DIY venue in the same month. I think the ease with which both artists and fans can access various tiers of the live performance experience drives the whole scene and is especially engaging for musicians.

One of our obligatory questions in these interviews also tends to be the one I have found most important on a personal level. Who are some bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about, but you think they should know about?

List? let’s!
Sal Fratto (from Elephant Jake) — Beams & Ace Of Wands from Ontario — Little Hag — John Kim Faye — Annalise Curtin — Dante Robinson — Tubey Frank — Paperdisk — Generalife — Niqu — Carraway — The Lunar Year — Bodega — Super City —  R. Ring — Soften — Alyssa Garcia — Hit Like a Girl — Queasy — Cold Court — Zeta — Sweet Pill — Broke Body — Catbite — Plastic Bitch — Latchkey Kids — Tisburys — Lung — Small from Georgia — Red Tank — gilly march — 49 Burning Condors — Moonroof — caring less — Lily Mckown — Clear Deep Sea — splendi — Precious Little Life — Mol Sullivan — tetchy — Big Girl — Afloat — Puppy Angst — Lizdelise — Pinkshift — cosette gobat — Grocer — *sorry if I forgot to mention your project*

What’s next for Comprador?

I imagine this is insulting to actual mothers so I’m hesitant to express the thought this way but I get a postpartum type thing at the completion of each album– if I try to resist the expectation or not I always anticipate consciously or unconsciously like ‘maybe people will notice this one!’ & they don’t so it’s back to gestating more songs again and the completed album drifts into the ether joining the others. so dealing with that the next several weeks or whatever
Less pessimistically I’m playing solo at West Philly Porchfest on 6/8 and later that day doing an electric set with Humilitarian; also June & July Philly shows and playing Asbury Park NJ as Comprador for the first time later in July

Was there anything I missed that you’d like to share or dive deeper into with our readers?

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