Dravin and The Ravens is a garage-rock revival, and self proclaimed end credits music group hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio. DATR’s bassist, Jackson Weist and I go back all the way to our high school days, where we were in a Weezer cover band together. After reconnecting at a show they played at Beachland Ballroom, it only made sense to start a conversation with the group, getting a little more insight on their creative process, influences, and how the band originally formed.
“What is everyone’s #1 song they’re listening to right now?”
Jackson - “For me, I’ve been really rocking with the first Paramore album, All we know is Falling, Pressure and Emergency are the two really big singles out of that.”
Dravin - “I’ve been really on a Dr. Dog kick lately… I really like the song ‘That Old Black Hole,’ on the album Be The Void, I like that one quite a bit. There’s also a song of theirs called ‘Be The Void’ that's awesome, but it's not on that album.”
Mitch - “The past year, or like, past 10 months I’ve gotten really into Dave Matthews Band, and can’t really narrow down just one song. But as of today I’ve been really listening to Avril Lavigne for some reason. I can’t explain it, but Avril Lavigne, one of her hit songs, ‘What The Hell’ has been on repeat for me today.”
“How did DATR form? What is the origin story, and what started the vision?”
Dravin: “Things really got off the ground some time around November of ‘21, I was at a show on a rooftop helping run sound when a mutual friend told me to ‘jam with this guy’ – and I did, it was Mitch, and he’s pretty good at drums. We’ve stuck together this whole time, and we’ve had Jackson in the group for a little over a year.”
Jackson: “Yeah, a little over a year now. Mitch and I were in another band around early ‘23, and when the previous bassist for the Ravens was dropping out, Mitch hit me up and was like ‘hey man, are you in any groups right now?’ and at the time, I was only really focusing on school, and I really wanted to get back into making music, so I was totally all for getting back into it.”
Gavin: “That's great - I’ve also been a part of groups that have formed like that from jam sessions. It's so good to have something good come from that. So speaking of the Ravens –
“What exactly does ‘The Ravens’ mean? Is there any deeper meaning, and where did it come from?”
Dravin: “It rhymes.”
[All laugh]
Dravin: “Yeah, yeah, that kind of is it though, even if it sounds dry. It was supposed to be temporary –”
Jackson: “Speaking of which – can we change it?”
[All laugh again]
Dravin: “When we played our first show, Mitch’s family owns a record store, and for their opening we were gonna play there. One of our original members couldn’t make it, so we decided to just play some of my original music, and we just decided to call it Dravin and The Ravens. And now we’re here, almost 4 years later! So I guess it's alright.”
“How did everyone begin playing or get into their respective instruments?”
Mitch: “The first instrument I played was cello in 5th grade in my school’s orchestra. My brother, when he was 8, played drums for his school’s talent show, so I wanted to try drums also. A couple years after, I played drums for my school’s talent show, played for about a year, and moved on to some other stuff. Around 2019, I had another talent show coming up, and I wanted to do something - so I picked up drums again. When Covid hit, there wasn’t a lot to do, and I really got back into it.”
Jackson: “I did band in 5th grade, played french horn, and it was fine. Didn’t love it – but at that time, I really loved playing The Beatles: Rock Band. I think most musicians have had some kind of Beatles phase. Eventually, a friend or parent asked me the classic question: ‘why don’t you just play the real thing?’ I was like – ‘Paul McCartney plays bass! So I guess I’ll play bass.’ And I’ve been playing bass ever since. That would have been 2012, 2011?”
Mitch: “And you’ve barely grown!”
[All laugh]
Dravin: “I took guitar lessons before 2nd grade, and had no motivation to play at all and very quickly fell out. I got into musical theater and choir for a long time, until around when the pandemic hit I picked the guitar back up. I was obsessed with The Beatles - they were the only thing I’d listen to. I was like, ‘I want to be the next Beatles.’ I would learn Beatles songs on my acoustic guitar, and pretty quickly started writing some of my own stuff. Basic stuff at first, and had that time to develop as a guitar player and a songwriter before, I mean, it was probably a year before I had started jamming with Mitch. He was the first person I ever jammed with, I kind of just fell into this. And I think things are going ok so far.”
Gavin: “It definitely seems like it, that's something you always love to see. I’m hearing a lot of Beatles influence from you all, but additionally to them, Where does the sound for DATR come from?”
Dravin: “For me, guitar wise, I pull a lot from the garage revival stuff. So really like, Jack White, White Stripes, The Raconteurs, those kind of projects. Lyrically, I like to pull from that 90’s, ironic kind of stuff. I love Ben Folds, Cake, and now I’m getting more into Dr. Dog, and The Beths.
Gavin: “You said 90s irony?”
Dravin: “Yeah, kind of ironic stuff.”
Mitch: “That’s the new genre we should call it.”
Gavin: “I like that term – I think there’s a lot of real influence from that. I met Jackson in a Weezer cover band, and going into that project I knew nothing about them. I didn’t know the stigma associated with that band, I didn’t know anything about Pinkerton and the nuances of that album… I was just looking forward to playing some more guitar. But over the years I really learned what a tremendous impact that realm of ‘irony’ or even ‘post irony’ has had on music and on culture.”
Dravin: “I love that era of music. Especially its writing. I like that you can say what you want to say and you can veil it a little bit.”
Jackson: “We’ve gotten a lot of compliments on the most recent EP, with people saying it sounds like the end of a 2000s coming of age movie. I’ve gotten that compliment from a few different people and I love it every time. I think that’s exactly what we’re shooting for right now.”
Gavin: “The trope of those movies where you root on the underdogs is timeless. The 80s had that, the 2000’s definitely had that, and it's so awesome to see something timeless being able to use to establish your sound. Circling back to earlier, What is everyone’s favorite DATR song?”
Jackson: “Two right off the bat for me are Out of Order, one of, if not my favorites, it captures what we’re going for so much of what we were just talking about, the kind of song you’d hear playing for the protagonist of a 2000s Disney Channel original movie in some competition sports game, skateboarding into the sunset, jumping into the air, freeze frame. I think that one’s my favorite. But its followed by one that we don’t play much, Vicariously off of our debut album. I think it has the roots of where this EP has been going, and you can hear that influence. You can really see the growth, and that’s really cool to me.”
Mitch: “I’m gonna say Washing Machine off the new EP, it's become my favorite ever since it came out. I remember before we released it, Dravin sent in the final mixes, and the way it transitions from the song before, I get really excited about it and that makes me love the song way more. It’s a favorite of mine to play as well. Another favorite is also ‘Vicariously,’ it was technically the first song we wrote as Dravin and The Ravens and I think it was the first single we released. There’s something about the groove and feel of Washing Machine, and I also like the wavy emotion of ‘Vicariously.’ Especially at the end when it sounds like everything is blowin’ up, but also it's weirdly beautiful.”
Dravin: “It’s hard for me. It’s like picking a favorite child… I’m gonna say Slow Burn right now, that's the closer on the new EP. But there’s some recency bias on that one, we didn’t write it that long ago. It’s been fun, it’s been different. But also, I have a soft spot for one of the earlier ones we wrote off the first album called Jingles on TV. It’s simple and has 3 chords, but it has some goofy lyrics about writing jingles for a living and I just get a kick out of it.”
Jackson: “I think it's our best example of us trying to rip off Cake.”
Dravin: “It is my love letter to Cake, yeah. And Bumper Stickers, it's a weird one for me because it's probably the one I’ve listened to the most on my own. I love listening to it, but I don’t necessarily love playing it that much. I think I forgot about it when we were talking about favorites, but I do genuinely love that one, I do love the lyrics. It’s a little closer to pop than anything we’ve done, previously or since, and I like it. It’s fun.”
Mitch: “That might be my favorite.”
Jackson: “It’s the one I get the most compliments about when I tell them I’m in a band. They’ll text me or I’ll see them later, and say ‘oh, I love Bumper Stickers’. And that’s always so funny, because like Dravin said, it's so boring to play live.”
[All laugh]
Mitch: “I had to change it up a little bit live. We play it mostly the same, but at the end, I added this metal breakdown and it's so fun. For the live set, I wanted to add something different to make it feel and sound a little more fun. The super slow halftime breakdown at the end that I did at the end on a whim at one show – Jackson was like, ‘keep doing that!’”
Gavin: “Mitch, I don’t think we really got around to talking to you about your influences, who has really spoken to you as far as external influences for this project?”
Mitch: “Honestly, I got really into Jack White right as I met Dravin. I knew who he was but I never really gave him a listen, and Dravin showed me an SNL performance they did as a 3 piece and was blown away at how tight it was. Anything he’s shown me that’s Jack White related I really got into. A lot of my personal influences, early on, were a lot of Foo Fighters. Taylor Hawkins was my favorite guy, and was all I talked about for a while with them. Definitely today, especially the past year, a lot of Dave Matthews Band, I take a lot from their drummer Carter Beauford. When I was younger playing drums, my brother always said that I was an overplayer, which I agree with, but Carter Beauford to me is the definition of an ‘overplayer’ but it works. I’m trying to find a way to put that into my playing. Lately, the past couple of years, I’ve been inspired by more drummers that aren’t in bands but record for other artists like studio drummers. They do the one thing I think all drummers need to do and just hold it down. That really taught me a lot - if you want people to get into your music, and into the groove of a song, keep the groove basic and hold it down. Professional studio drummers are more of my thing now.”
Gavin: “Props to you for setting a good example, because as a drummer or a bassist, the single most important thing you can do is hold it down. I played bass for a number of years, so I can definitely attest. In a bit of a different direction, outside of music what kind of hobbies do you guys have? Any niche or special interests?”
Jackson: “What niche special interests don’t I have…”
[All laugh]
Jackson: “I feel like I could be a billboard for a Hobby Lobby or something. I don’t know man, I’m just into so much stuff. Today’s big theme was, I’ve been doing a lot of Warhammer, like painting and building and stuff. It’s really soothing to me to put on an album and just like, paint some dude. I’m also in law school right now, so that really dominates a lot of my outside of band time. I’m in my second year of that right now. Weirdly enough, my grades got better after I joined Dravin and The Ravens. A lot of people asked me, ‘are you sure you’re going to be able to balance that with school?’ and I guess it helped, for some reason.”
Dravin: “For me, I’ve been trying to figure out another hobby. Music consumes, like, 99% of my life outside of work, but I was a gamer for a long time throughout middle school and high school. I had a gaming channel and everything. Recently I’ve gone back to my roots with Minecraft and I’ve been enjoying that quite a bit. I’ve been really into Portal lately too. So I’ve been kind of back on the gaming sphere a little bit more than I have been. More tied to the band, but I like doing some graphic design.”
Mitch: “The past couple of weeks, me and my brother have been playing Halo, just 1v1. Kind of what Jackson mentioned, I want to get into painting, or some form of art. I actually do graphic design, I went to school for it and I try to do it as much as I can for the band. I own a business with my family, we own a record store around Cincinnati, that, and drumming are really the things I focus on.”
Gavin: “What record store?”
Mitch: “It's called Three Feather Records, me, my brother and my dad all own it together. We opened it about 3 and a half years ago. The day we opened was the day after we had our first show. We’re in a town called Fairfield, Ohio, like 30 minutes out of Cincinnati. That's kind of my main gig.”
Gavin: “We’re almost out of time, and just a couple of more questions - this one will be different for everyone, but what’s it been like navigating the Cincinnati music scene, and what advice would you give to new groups trying to get off the ground?”
Dravin: “Making connections is key. Be out there, I’m not the most extraverted person in the world, but take what gigs you can starting out, take as many as you can, and meet as many people as you can. Building that network is important, I’m not really from Cincinnati, I’m from about 45 minutes outside of town, from a town called Hamilton and I had pretty much no connections going in. Thanks to a lot of the people we met early on, we were able to grow in that scene to the point where we are now, and I’ve been really appreciative of that. We do it a little differently, we aim more towards venues, but Cincy’s got a really big, thriving house show scene at UC. That's where a lot of bands are starting off and doing some great things. Its a very supportive scene and a good place to start out.”
Gavin: “That's good advice, I know how difficult it can be to find a group or find shows. I know some places and scenes in Ohio can be notoriously hard to navigate, and I know people who took months and even years to find a group. It can be a hard time. But that's great to hear you guys have landed in a positive environment.”
Gavin: “Where can we find and listen to your music?”
Dravin: “Yeah, we’re on Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube, all the major platforms. You can find it on our website, dravinandtheravens.com. If you come to shows, we have CDs and stuff, so that’s pretty cool. “
Gavin: “I love a good CD, cool. That’s really all I have for now. But before I let you all go, do you have any closing thoughts? Anything you want to share with the world?”
Jackson: “Stream our new EP – “
Jackson and Dravin, in unison: “Business as Usual!”
Jackson: “You can find it everywhere, Spotify, Apple Music, you can shout Dravin and The Ravens at a dumpster at your nearest Dominoes… and we’ll pop out and play a show for you.”
[All laugh]
Mitch: “Love yourself and others.”
[All laugh again]
Gavin: “I really appreciate your guys time, it's great to reconnect and it was great seeing your show at Beachland Ballroom.”
Dravin: “We really appreciate the opportunity – we loved Cleveland and getting to play there. We’re always looking to grow that audience.”
Business as Usual can be streamed here.
Dravin and The Ravens new single, Out of Order can be found here.
