Dopapod plans special Halloween show

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Dopapod will perform at Putnam Den on Halloween night.

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Rob Compa and his friends are ready to surprise people on Halloween.

“I think we know what we want to do,” said Compa, guitarist for Northeast-based jam band Dopapod. “It’s pretty cool, but we just have to sort of fine-tune it. We’re not just going to play a normal show. Definitely not.”

That’s good news for regulars at Putnam Den in Saratoga Springs. The jam fans will receive the Halloween treat Tuesday — Halloween night — when Dopapod takes the stage at 9 p.m. Doors open at 8.

Compa said planning Halloween and New Year’s Eve shows — prime times for rock outfits — can be like studying for final exams. He believes Dopapod aces the tests every time.

“We always end up having a good time,” Compa said during a telephone interview last week from his home in Hawthorne, New Jersey.

Podsters can warm up for the show by checking out the group’s latest album. “Megagem” is scheduled for release Thursday. The work behind the new sounds happened last winter, at the solar-powered Mountain Star Studios in Black Hawk, Colorado.

“We recorded in like a barn, seriously the middle of nowhere,” Compa said. “No phone service, nobody around and the air was really thin, so we were all acting a little loopy. We literally got snowed in. There was nothing else to do.”

So Dopapod just played.

“The whole ‘Time is money’ thing was not a factor,” Compa said. “We did all the overdubs and stuff later. I did all my guitar overdubs at home with my amp in my closet. It was really fun.”

There’s more fun on the album.

“For one thing, there are strings on it, like violins, cellos, stuff like that, which we’ve never had before,” Compa said. “So that’s way different. And I think some of the songs are a bit different than people would expect from us, some of them are on the mellower side compared to what we’ve usually done and some of them are the opposite, revisiting what we did a bit when we were younger … a little more progressive, a little angrier, maybe.”

The album will have to tide over fans for a while. Dopapod, which has played 150 shows a year for the past seven years, will take a break from touring in 2018.

“We’re exhausted,” Compa said. “I feel like people who haven’t toured before might be like, ‘What are you doing?’ But I think we’re just so tired that’s kind of starting to feel like a normal job.

“If you’re going to go out and be a musician, you’re not making a lot of money,” Compa added. “The point of why you get into it is because it’s fun. I’m not saying it’s not fun anymore, but if it’s starting to feel like a normal job, you need to take a step back and look at some things.”

Compa said he and his band mates always want their music to be passionate.

“My goal is every night, I want to reach the place where I felt like when I was 14 and figured out how to play ‘The Sweater Song’ by Weezer,” Compa said. “I was just so stoked about it. I want to feel that excited about music every time I pick up a guitar.”

Reach Gazette reporter Jeff Wilkin at 518-395-3124 or at [email protected].