David Wax and Suz Slezak, the married couple who form David Wax Museum, have put an extraordinary amount of research and work into their sound. They've spent years studying folk music in Mexico, digging back to its roots there to find inspiration, and have traveled the world as official "cultural ambassadors." But here's a promise: The four minutes you spend here listening to "Guesthouse" will be four of the least fussy, least boring, least academic minutes of your day.
The first single from the forthcoming album of the same name, "Guesthouse" is a gregarious, wonderfully charming ode to the sort of gregarious, wonderful charm that gets a band invited to stay at guesthouses while on tour. Appropriately enough, when Wax himself discusses "Guesthouse," he offers thoughts on both its roots and its more playful meaning.
"This song draws loosely on two Mexican folk songs from the son jarocho tradition – 'El Buscapies' and 'La Iguana' — and is about coming to terms with our peripatetic lifestyle and constantly being a guest," Wax writes via email. "Sometimes I've felt like a guest within the Mexican music community, and so I found myself also thinking through that process and navigating it through this song.
"We're always looking for a place to stay on the road, and we know we've really hit a home run when someone offers us a whole guesthouse all to ourselves," he continues. "When I graduated from college, all of my housemates were in professional schools, embarking on careers with guaranteed incomes and paths. It's one thing to decide to become a musician when all of your friends are artists, and quite another when your friends are on more traditional paths. The good thing is that when you're in your 30s, your friends can then house your band. "
Guesthouse comes out Oct. 16 on Thirty Tigers.
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