Snarky Puppy is a peculiar band name. It conjures up images of a creature both angry and cute, with a wagging tail and some sharp little teeth.

Snarky Puppy grew out of the jazz school at the University of North Texas. I read that your grades were pretty terrible there and you didn’t get into any of the serious school jazz bands, so you formed your own band instead.

Yeah, I came into that programme as a pretty under-developed musician. Actually… I was terrible, yep. But I was already writing music that wasn’t really jazz, and I wanted to hear it performed, so I got some friends together and we started rehearsing at my house. Yeah, which is perfect, really. But Yeah, that’s true. But having a lot of changing players brings new energy to the tunes when we play them, and a lot of the players are sidemen in other bands, too, so not everyone’s available all the time. But it’s great having, like, three drummers and six sax players and four guitarists or whatever. Some players are more forceful, others more subtle, but they’re all great improvisers, so a What’s so hilarious about that? We try to write catchy melodies and punchy grooves, and there are usually verses and choruses of some sort. That’s pop, right? And jazz fusion is not something I really listen to. I dig some things by Weather Report, but a lot of fusion stuff just sounds too… athletic, I guess. There’s a mindless proficiency there that gets in the way of an emotional connection. So I resist being called a fusion band. Some people say what we do is jazz, some call us a jam band, or fusion, or even All of the above and more. Black, white, young and old, funk fans, metal heads and music students, hip hop and gospel fans. We make some seriously mixed-up music, and it brings in a seriously mixed up crowd.