Since 2008, Dave has been recording music with his youngest brother Matt under the nom de guerre Klebe & Davis. Working out of a studio in the attic of their childhood home, they have produced five DIY albums: Eat Your Heart Out (2020), Music for Parents and Children (2017), From the Law to the Legends (2014), Fate’s Forgotten Fruit (2013), and The Best of Klebe & Davis: Volume 1 (2010). Writing about Music for Parents and Children, Stefan Shepherd of Zooglobble calls it “bonkers,” possessing an “anarchy that you just don’t hear in kids’ music these days.” The genre-hopping duo draws sonic inspiration from Warren Zevon, Tom Waits, Frank Zappa, and Ween. They are currently at work on a new album, tentatively titled Themselves.
Eat Your Heart Out (2020)
Eat Your Heart Out comprises eleven songs about the ups, downs, and in-betweens of romantic love. Both a bringer of sunshine and a caster of shadow, romantic love has just as many winners as it has losers, and their stories remind us of the triumph and the toll of this uniquely human concept. An infatuated young man gushes about his new girlfriend in the Buddy Holly-esque “Melinda on the Brain,” while the ruined spouse of “Song for the Fall” mourns the death of a 20-year marriage, the joy of the one no greater or less than the pain of the other. Celebrations of the flesh (“Pepperoni Nipples”), philosophical musings (“They Do It for Love”), and bitter rants (“Too Much Shit”) likewise contribute to the motley of voices on EYHO. As a race of emotional cannibals, feeding and being fed upon at Cupid’s grand banquet, we needed a proper soundtrack to get us through the main course, and Klebe & Davis, at last, have given it to us.
Music for Parents and Children (2017)
Two years in the making, Music for Parents & Children is a potpourri of weird and whimsical songs that spans generations as well as genres. The album supposes that in each child there is a mature adult longing to hear something soulful, and, conversely, that in each adult there is a boundless child itching to hear something silly. Raucous, high-energy tracks like “Dirty Rusty Troll” and “Piece of Fuzz” counterbalance the record’s softer, more contemplative tunes, such as “Wolves” and “Fire Drill.” With these songs, families will never again have to bicker over what music to play during parties and road trips. Klebe & Davis (themselves separated by 14 years in age) have reached across time and struck a stylistic compromise between mother and son, father and daughter, old and young.
From the Law to the Legends (2014)
Klebe & Davis’s third album, From the Law to the Legends, marks the group’s official foray into hip-hop. A throwback to the genre’s Golden Age (1988-1992), From the Law to the Legends is just as comfortable celebrating hip-hop as it is critiquing it. “Sandcastle Emergency” and “Gentlemen’s Club” satirize the predictability and nonsensical nature of rap lyrics, but “Movin’ Weight,” a song about fast food addiction, is a straightforward homage to the music’s great label fables. The album’s production, inspired by legends like Sam Sever and Prince Paul, combines original instrumentation with samples from Burt Bacharach, Ozzy Osbourne, and the musical Oliver! Listen and learn, people.