Have you ever searched “how to start a band” on Google? Let me speak from experience: it’s like rock bottom for actually finding other musicians. Joe Ralli, the namesake behind Ol’ Joey Scrums, found himself in that same spot when the universe decided to throw him a bone. As it would turn out, his future drummer was working the next shift at the brewery, probably wondering why this new guy sounded like Eddie Vedder.
It’s that mutual craving to make music that brought the Raleigh four-piece together, though that makes it sound more intentional than it was. They had day jobs and the kind of luck that only kicks in when you stop trying so hard. What started as brewery open mics evolved into something uniquely collaborative, complete with democratic rules and only an occasional creative standoff.
Their debut record, 4004, sounds like what happens when Appalachian country crashes into an indie rock show and no one wants to leave. Now, they’re wrapping up LP2 while proving that sometimes the best bands happen when you’re too busy working to overthink it.
What have y’all been listening to lately?
Dakotah: A lot of MJ Lenderman.
Ian: The new Watchhouse album, Rituals.
Martin: I’ve been on this big Fela Kuti kick for about two weeks. And then I found this Australian jazz funk band called Surprise Chef that I’ve been crushing on.
Joe: I listen to the same thing day after day: “Wheels on the Bus”. [laughs] Other than that, I’ve been listening to Passage du Desir by Johnny Blue Skies and Long Violent History [by Tyler Childers].
A nice eclectic mix! Now, looking back in time, what is the first musician that you remember obsessing over?
Joe: Mine were Nirvana and Pearl Jam. I built my voice around trying to sound like Eddie Vedder and Kurt Cobain combined, and I found it came naturally to me. I kept that scream, grungy, angry vocals.
Ian: When I got into contemporary music, it was more pop-punk adjacent — bands like The Wonder Years, The Story So Far, and Knuckle Puck.
Dakotah: I have two that are opposite ends of the spectrum: Beach Boys and Black Flag. My mom and dad were Beach Boys fans, but only their top hits. As I got older, I started diving into Pet Sounds, Cocaine Sessions, the weird unreleased stuff. That really hit me. My dad hated Brian Wilson and said he was the worst part of the band. [laughs]
Martin: I’m a big jazz nerd, so it was Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, and Joe Morello for me.
How has your musical taste changed since then?
Joe: Pandora had a lot of influence on my music taste. I was into the grunge scene, but I also grew up with a lot of country music in my house. I wanted to find somewhere to meld the two, and Pandora Shuffle delivered. That got me into Chris Stapleton, Tyler Childers, and the deeper worlds of Texas and Appalachian country. That’s the sound I enjoy listening to the most.
Ian: I started playing music live when I was in college. That forced me to broaden my horizons because I realized that when I was playing, I was playing by myself, and the music that I loved was almost impossible to pull off alone. So I broadened out into more pop covers and singer-songwriter stuff. Doing that and listening to other musicians around me helped me see how the guys who do this every day made it work.
Dakotah: I ended up going into extreme music, like slam metal and stuff like that, just because I grew up in the country where bluegrass was prevalent in my hometown, and the hipster in me did not want to do that. I started playing in heavier bands and listening to increasingly heavier music. But then I’d still go home and listen to Elliot Smith and the weird stuff that my parents had on CD. It was always funny to wear a Cannibal Corpse shirt and then listen to Elliot Smith or Tracy Chapman on my Zune.
Martin: I’ve just kept adding new music. House music was a big thing for me for a while. I was a scratch DJ, and that evolved from studying classical percussion, learning world percussion, mixing everything together, and layering it on top of itself. I’ve gotten into hip-hop and heavier music. Over the last few years, I’ve become increasingly interested in country music.
How did y’all come together as a band?
Joe: I moved to Raleigh in 2019, then COVID hit. By 2021, I started to venture into playing music around here. Around the same time, I got a job at a brewery, where I met Martin. There was an open mic at the brewery, and I invited Martin to come jam. I didn’t even tell him what we were playing until we got there.
Martin: He told me it was a 4 pm, so I took a shower at 1:30, and then he texted me while I was in the shower, saying, “Oh shit, it’s two o’clock.” [laughs]
Joe: But we went out there, we played a few songs, and it went about as well as you’d expect with somebody who’s never played with a band before and someone else who is incredibly talented. Not great, but fun as hell. So it got into our minds to play together.
Ian had been hanging around, and Dakotah also worked there, so we eventually got them on stage. Dakotah played this riff that resonated with something I’d been working on a few years ago, so we jammed on it right at the brewery. That song turned out to be “Self Destructing Man” on our first album [4004].
Dakotah: I remember playing around on the banjo, and Joe was like, “Hold on!” Then he swung the door open and said, “Ian! Get your ass in here right now!”
Joe: It was a very organic beginning to the band. Before that, the solo stuff wasn’t really going anywhere. I’m not that good at music, so I would be up at night and search “how do I start a band,” but then it just happened organically.
What’s your collective process for writing songs?
Joe: I write a lot. If there’s something that catches my eye and my ear, I bring it to the guys. Dakotah will do some lyric editing and banjo riffing. Martin and Ian will add their grooves. It’s a very collaborative process that starts with an idea of what we’re going to write about, and then they take over and make it sound good.
Martin: In the age of remote work, there’s a lot of voice memos happening back and forth. Joe’s sending an idea to us, and we’re thinking about it for a few days before getting it together.
Ian: Or sometimes we’ll think that we’ve nailed it, but then we’ll practice it a totally different way and like it a lot better that way. In the early days of every song, we try it a few different ways and see what sticks with the four of us. Even just because things that work great if you’re singing a song by yourself are harder to nail with four guys all at once. We’ll make some edits to the lyrics and chord structure, but the majority of the ideas begin with Joe.
Dakotah: Recently, we’ve gotten more comfortable with just open jamming stuff. Joe will come with most of an idea, if not a complete idea, and then we just record button and see what it sounds like.
Joe: We’ll work a song out for weeks or months. When it sounds right, we play it at the next show.
Ian: They also change a lot in between the way that we play them live and the way that we play them in the studio. Some of our songs are remarkably different in the recorded versions as they are the way we play them live.
How do the lyrical themes evolve as a song goes from a work in progress to being more fleshed out?
Joe: The lyrics will change, but very minutely, depending on how things are going with the composition of the song. If a word doesn’t make sense or like if the syllables are too much, I’ll cut something back and talk to the rest of the guys about it. We want to keep the message the same while messing around with the composition to find what makes the most sense for the song. The message is the most important thing, and then these guys really make it hit.
Dakotah: It’s usually a lot of cadence switching that we’ll do for lyrics, more than actually changing where the sentence is going.
Ian: Like, “Does this line work with the number of syllables it has and how I need to sing it?” Or “does it make more sense to have these verses in this order if we’re going to play this last verse bigger than the previous one?”
Dakotah: Or, our favorite, “we need a bridge here.” We still aren’t great at bridges, but we’re musicians, not architects.
Ian: When it comes to the studio, what we’re adding is just more instruments. Each of us plays a few instruments, and we like these large layered compositions in the studio that are just unfeasible for four people to pull off on stage. Dakotah plays banjo, guitar, and other instruments; I play bass, mandolin, and other instruments; Martin has a variety of percussion instruments that he wants to incorporate.
Joe: One of the big things that we sought out as a band was the collaborative process. I know that I can’t do it without them, and that’s been a big part of it.
Ian: It’s a remarkably even division of labor, too. Everyone contributes in their own way and is involved in that shaping process.
Martin: It’s pretty democratic. Even if we have an idea on another’s part, we’re all here to hear it out. We’re allowed one veto per session, and one veto cannot cancel out another.
Dakotah: Yeah, we had to establish that as a rule. Otherwise, it could become Lord of the Flies [laughs].
So y’all have been working on a new album. How’s that been going?
Joe: We are mostly wrapped up with recording; it’s currently being edited, mixed, and mastered.
Ian: I’d like to give you a date, but it’s not yet set in stone.
Joe: It’s a double-edged sword of playing shows, which is what we wanted to do when we started the band. But it does mean we are very short on time. We do everything in-house; Ian does all the recording, editing, and mastering.
Martin: Ian and I are doing a mixed-media piece for the album cover. The last album was from Joe’s apartment with one of my drums that Ian edited.
Joe: Shout out to Logan Lowry for doing the art piece that’s on the front of the album; he did such an amazing job. I am a former teacher, and the art class in my building did a competition to see who could do a piece of art for the album. Logan’s was the one we chose.
Beyond getting that record out, what are some of your goals for the rest of 2025?
Joe: Playing a bunch of shows!
Ian: We’ve also got this idea to do some collective writing. Nothing is set, but we’re trying to get ourselves out somewhere and see how we can contribute to parts of the writing process we don’t typically.
Who are some of your favorite local/North Carolina bands?
Dakotah: Shout out to our practice space neighbors in Doomsday Profit. Ian and I went to their lecture/show at Beer Study and had a great time.
Joe: I have to mention Jake Potter; they helped us get our first show as a group.
Ian: J Candeed, who also has his band, Particle Accelerators. The Rattletraps are amazing. Same with Johnny Sunrise and The Cards.
Martin: David Binanay is the CEO of The Violin Consultant Group. He’s a great friend of mine and has a great group of varied musicians within his circle.
We also have to shout out Brian Jones. He runs Southern Roots Entertainment in Raleigh and is the reason the four of us got to mix and test a lot of things out. He purposely gave us a trial by fire.
Ian: We wouldn’t be where we are without Brian. I knew him for years before I joined this group, and he has been a cornerstone of the local music scene in Raleigh for a long time.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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