(*both laugh*) Episode 32: Chris Wollard and Chad Darby (Ship Thieves)

tl/dr: Ship Thieves have a new album out on Chunksaah and it rules and we talked to Chris Wollard and Chad Darby for a couple hours and it was super fun and important and memorable.

To say that I'm a big fan of both of these guests is to vastly understate things. Not only do Chris Wollard and Chad Darby separately occupy important roles in a couple of my favorite bands of all time (obviously Hot Water Music and Samiam if you're keeping score at home), together they've been half of the grossly-underrated Gainesville band Ship Thieves for just over a decade. If you're not familiar with the history, here's a brief retelling: back around 2008/2009, Hot Water Music's Chris Wollard put together a side project that was never intended to be a "real band." He got together with Addison Burns and a few other buddies and recorded a handful of songs at a handful of locations and put out an album known as Chris Wollard + The Ship Thieves back in 2009 on No Idea Records. Fast forward a couple years, and a lineup that included Wollard, Burns, Chad Darby on bass and Bobby Brown on drums had solidified, and collectively they put out the second Chris Wollard + The Ship Thieves album, "Canyons," in 2012. It was a little more riff-rock oriented than the occasionally-acoustic debut album that came before it. By 2016's "No Anchor," the lineup remained not only intact but had developed its own identity and direction, thus Wollard's decision to drop his name from the title and have the project carry on as Ship Thieves. 2021 brings with it the release of "Irruption." The band has found a home on a new label, Chunksaah Records, a label run by the inimitable Kate Hilts and the Bouncing Souls camp. It continues down the musical road that the band was headed down on "No Anchor," and in many ways it does all of the things that "No Anchor" did, only it does them better. The rhythm section of Darby and Brown is as tight as ever, and Darby's bass grooves move in ways we hadn't heard from this outfit before. Burns also moves to the front to take on co-vocal duties on a few tracks, his smoother delivery a noted contrast from Wollard's trademark gravel-throated tones. The band had a lot of fun making the album, and that is evident in spades throughout the duration of the couple hours that we were lucky enough to chat with Wollard and Darby. This was one for the baby book (we still have that, right mom?). "Irruption" is out March 12th and you can theoretically pre-order it on vinyl, except that all the options are presently sold out. There's other new Ship Thieves merch here though: https://www.coldcutsmerch.com/collections/chunksaahrecords