On September 23rd 2026, KZSC’s Jazz and Blues director Annelise Schouten, sat down for an interview with Dana and Alden at a booth in the Felton Music Hall on the 8th stop of their Fall 2026 tour. Celebrating the release of their album Papa’s Boat, put out this past August, they spoke on their experiences making the album, musical mentors, the importance of community, and their grandfather, Papa’s legacy.
On Wednesday September 23rd I sat down with Dana and Alden McWayne for an interview at the Felton Music Hall, catching the tail end of their sound check and getting the chance to speak with them before Dana’s pre-show massage. Dana, an organic farm inspector and saxophonist, and Alden, a drummer and graduate of Berklee College of Music, are Eugene Oregon natives. Born into a musical family, the two got their start in middle school bands, playing jazz in local parks, and jamming in their bathrobes after working on apple orchards together during the pandemic.
Releasing and recording their first EP, Brothers, in 2021, Dana and Alden kicked off an incredibly noteworthy discography. With the releases of Quiet Music For Young People in 2023, Coyote, You’re My Star in 2024, and Speedo in 2025, the brothers established a unique sound and blend of Jazz, Indie, Funk, and Brazilian genres. Though rooted in Jazz and anchored by Dana’s melodic saxophone and Alden’s drum beats, their music genre-bends beautifully while maintaining a sense of playfulness. Instagram and TikTok videos on Alden’s account @Gucci_Pineapple and music videos directed by Weston Borg further this artistic vision, introducing younger audiences to the Jazz genre.
Now having released their 4th album, Papa’s Boat, dedicated to their grandfather “Papa”, Dana and Alden have embarked on a 39 stop North American tour. Alongside Ebba Dankel (vocals and keys), Andrew Mitchell (Bass), and Salim Charvet (flute and synths), Dana and Alden create an intimate performance filled with anecdotes of past friends, travels, and humor. Featuring artists like Marcos Valle, Mei Semones, EBBA, Eli Torg, Salim Charvet, Melanie Charles, Cinda Khan, Mirella Costa, and Zaza Desiderio, Papa’s Boat is one of their biggest projects yet.
“Papa’s Boat is really a snapshot of our musical community right now, just in the years since we’ve left Eugene Oregon we’ve traveled all around the world and made friends everywhere, like there’s a bunch of friends from London on here, there’s New York friends, there’s Brazil friends. And whenever we meet someone that we have a really strong connection with we tend to never let it go and at some point we end up making music with them.”
-Dana McWayne
In getting the chance to see them live each song, interaction between bandmates, and shoutout from the audience felt personal. Before playing “Lee’s Greenhouse”, Dana recounted experiences with the namesake of the track from his time as an organic farm inspector. Telling the audience, “He drove the same old Toyota and wore the same old clothes he had sown together. Being from Eugene I had mixed feelings about the full on hippie thing, but this guy Lee, he’s the real deal. Every year I would go visit him, and I’d go back to his greenhouse, be watering his plants and blasting jazz radio, and drinking a ton of his homemade kombucha. So this song’s for Lee.”
Papa’s Boat, recorded in London, meshed together international influences, collaborators, and friends in a way that honored Papa and their families nautical history. Through blending Brazilian, UK, and New York sounds, Dana and Alden created a uniquely personal body of work, representation of their taste, and homage to family.
“I think really it’s like the albums a tribute to our grandfather Papa, who’s on the front cover on his sailboat in Hong Kong. — Wherever he traveled around the world he made life long friends. So I think we’ve really been influenced by him and we love life just in the same way he does and that’s present in everything that we’re doing now.
-Dana McWayne
This interview has been edited for clarity and concision*
Annelise: For the people listening or reading this, if they don’t know you, if you could introduce yourselves?
Dana: Well we are Dana and…
Alden: Alden.
Dana: We’re from Eugene Oregon originally and yeah we just grew up playing music always. Like we were sports kids but then our mom was like “you guys have been born into a musical family you need to play music” so we both joined the middle school band, started on clarinet, and after one year we were the biggest music nerds. We were just dorky band kids all of high school, and Alden would play in my little jazz quartet and things just evolved from there. He (Alden) went to school in Boston-
Alden: I went to Berklee college of music, which was a good time, Dana was a farm inspector and then the pandemic happened and we were both in the house again working on an apple orchard together and we would just like jam every night in our bath robes. Because we were just like bored. And then we started to play in the park and we’d do Santana covers and Jimi Hendrix covers, and the whole town of Eugene would come out and dance. It was just magical. And then we were just like “let’s record this”. So we went to our neighbors house, who’s a guitar legend, Don Latarsky, and we made the Brothers EP. Which was the genesis in 2021. When we listen back I feel like it’s super raw, and kinda like early stages of us, but it feels very authentic to who we are now. The melodies still sound like us, the drum beats still sound like me, it’s just a very early version of us.
Dana: And I think a lot of our project is really about each of us as brothers having our own musical worlds that we’re in. We’re really all over the place because we’re kids of the internet, and I think that shows up in our music, it’s pretty eclectic. Alden is generally more in the Indie world of like Mac Demarco, Alex G, and I’m kinda in like old film soundtracks and Brazilian music and Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, from the 70s. And then we kinda meet at this place in the middle and make the music that you guys hear.
Alden: And sparks fly.
Dana: And yeah I just feel like there’s something to be said for making music with someone that you’re family with, there’s so much that we don’t even have to talk about or discuss when we go to make music. It’s just like we get each other.
Annelise: And what has it been like bringing in so many collaborators with this most recent album? Like the legendary Marcos Valle, what has that experience been when you both are so locked in, bringing that elsewhere?
Alden: I feel like it was a combination, combination, of close friends coming in and singing and playing instruments on the album and really using our community in New York. And then also tapping in legends, which kind of just came together out of the blue. Salim’s friend Zaza from Rio was couch surfing in my apartment and saw a Marcos Valle record Estrelar on the wall and he’s like “You guys like Marcos?” and we were like “We love Marcos” and then Dana became pen pals with Marcos on What’s App. Then they would just have phone calls, became friends. Marcos heard our songs and was very interested in collabing and it just somehow happened.
Dana: I think this album Papa’s Boat is really a snapshot of our musical community right now, that just in the years since we’ve left Eugene Oregon we’ve traveled all around the world and made friends everywhere, like there’s a bunch of friends from London on here, there’s New York friends, there’s Brazil friends. And whenever we meet someone that we have a really strong connection with we tend to never let it go and at some point we end up making music with them.
Annelise: And with this tour you’re only a couple stops in, it’s been like two week?
Dana and Alden: Yeah.
Annelise: Do you have any stories so far or anything you’re looking forward to?
Alden: We went to a thrift store earlier and there was a guy Richard who started talking to us and he was like “Man this used to be a bowling alley”. We start talking and then I go outside and he’s like “Alden! Alden! Wait up!” And he brings me a bowling pin, I think it was from the old bowling alley. So now we have a bowling pin in our tour van. I feel like the coolest part of tour is meeting new people in places we’ve never been, like we’ve never been to Felton. And like good food, good music, good people.
Dana: Also like because this is our what? 3rd or 4th tour now, in every little city we have these connections with people. So like in SF last night, and hopefully they’re coming tonight, we have these friends Aidan and Oliver that pulled up to our show in Stockholm Sweden last summer.
Alden: And Santa Cruz first!
Dana: Yeah Santa Cruz first, then they happened to be riding trains in Europe and they came to our show in Sweden. They make custom made leather work so they made everyone in the band custom- so my sax strap is made by them. So then getting to go on this tour we see them again and just see a bunch of old friends. It’s nice, I feel like the first time you go on tour every city feels unfamiliar and everyone’s strangers, but literally after the first one you have either a taco spot to go back to or some friends to meet up with.
Alden: Fun fact, they asked us for London recommendations and we told them to go to this pub, and then they met King Krule like near the pub.
Dana: In the pub.
Alden: It was like down the street, but I think he goes there a lot. I won’t leak it haha. Message… nah never mind, I won’t leak it.
Annelise: Also with making this album, did you have anything that was inspiring you while you were making it? Any songs on repeat? Movies or TV? Any kind of artistic inspiration.
Alden: Good Question.
Dana: Was definitely listening to Hermeto Pascoal, the Brazilian legend. “Lee’s Greenhouse” (featuring Mei Semones) is very much a tribute to him. We always make sure to have our own sound, we never copy other people, but certain songs we have these musical heroes and we make songs that’s an ode to them. And that song “Lee’s Greenhouse” is definitely for Hermeto Pascoal.
Alden: That’s a good answer. I have to say we recorded this album in London, and I feel like being in the UK influenced me a lot. Like I was watching Normal People, and I was listening to 1975 and just walking around in the rain and wearing sweaters. So I feel like it was a very British time in my life, so I feel like that seeped into it.
Dana: That’s true, I was listening to the Stone Roses album like every single morning.
Alden: A lot of New Wave.
Dana: Even though the album, there’s like no New Wave in the album.
Alden: A little bit the first track.
Dana: Okay, first track has some New Wave.
Alden: A little bit.
Dana: But I feel like the feeling of London was in us.
Annelise: I was gonna say, listening to this album for the first time and the first track, it felt very different from the things you’ve made priorly. What would you say you did differently going into making this album? Did you have a clear vision for it or did it come naturally over the course of recording it?
Alden: I feel like a lot of this album, you came in with a lot of compositions and different ideas, but a lot of the album just happened spontaneously. Like “Lighthouse” was just all of us in a room together, like 5 of us, the first night in London. And Salim just stared playing a Moog line and then I started drumming and then Andrew started soloing and then Dana started a melody. So a lot of it was just spontaneous combustion in the studio. And Malcom Cato who engineered everything, he’s a master engineer and drummer, he would just keep things rolling. And we’d start jamming and he’d be like “Keep doing it fella”.
Dana: And then he’d come in every hour and be like (In British Accent*) “It’s sounding a bit pedestrian in here boys, you need to mix it up”. And then we’d try something else, and he’d be like alright that actually sounds good.
Annelise: What would you say that you hope listeners get out of your album when they listen to it?
Alden: I hope it maybe reminds them of family or their home, I think there’s a lot of themes of that. Like us traveling everywhere and touring so much, but also grounding ourselves in our family and community, and our history. It’s kind of an homage to Papa, our grandfather, maybe hopefully it reminds people of their roots.
Dana: I think really it’s like the albums a tribute to our grandfather Papa, who’s on the front cover on his sailboat in Hong Kong. And yeah in the photo he’s just eating pistachios in his cut off jeans and sneakers on his boat.
Alden: Are they pistachios? I never noticed that.
Dana: But yeah I think Papa was just super eccentric and had this zeal and love for life. And wherever he traveled around the world he made life long friends. So I think we’ve really been influenced by him and we love life just in the same way he does and that’s present in everything that we’re doing now.
Alden: Joy, friendship.
Annelise: And how would you say you balance honoring his memory and trying to contribute this to your family while also bringing in so many people from around the world and so many collaborators?
Dana: I think in the fact that we traveled the world and brought in all these collaborators is carrying on his legacy. Like that’s what he would do.
Alden: And also a lot of the themes kind of developed organically, I keep saying that word, as the album was being finished like we’d just write lyrics or songs and we’d be like “Wow this is kinda about Papa too”. So all these seams kind of just emerged. At the start of the album we weren’t even like “This is an album all about Papa, this songs going to be….” It just kind of happened. Organically, we love organics.
Dana: I’m so sorry I need to go to my massage right now, but Alden’s still present.
Alden: I’ll keep going!
Dana: Shoutout university radio.
Alden: What’s your mascot?
Annelise: A banana slug.
Alden: Banana slug! Okay so I played intramural basketball in high school and we were the banana slugs
Annelise: Oh my gosh, that’s so funny yeah intramural basketball, intramural sports is pretty big. I feel like there’s some more questions that could be directed more towards you. I know Gucci Pineapple, I feel like it’s a household name to me and a lot of people I know.
Alden: Thank you.
Annelise: Which is really funny, and that was my introduction to you rather than your music which is really interesting.
Alden: That’s fire.
Annelise: How do you think your use of Instagram for example has changed since promoting your music more? Was it always like that or what has that been like?
Alden: I feel like I started making the comedy videos for fun and mostly out of boredom in the pandemic. And then they started to gain some traction and I was just like “I’m gonna try and go for it”. So I started making videos everyday and I got to meet such cool people, like different influencers and make new friends. So I feel like the internet has changed my life in that way. And people will just come up to me in the streets and be like “Gucci Pineapple” and I love it so much. But also I had this- always when I was doing comedy I had this vision of one day touring and having a band with Dana. And then I gradually started to post more with the band and the music, and then honestly shockingly comedy fans seemed to really enjoy the Jazz too which was cool. And now I feel like I almost spend more time on music, like recording, writing, rehearsing, touring, where I feel like I don’t even have much time anymore for Gucci Pineapple. But I almost miss it, like I wanna start doing comedy again too because it’s so fun.
Annelise: I feel like I first saw a video of you playing the drums, and I was like “Oh my gosh he’s cracked”
Alden: Thank you!
Annelise: Like this is insane. And correct me if I’m wrong but you’ve worked with Yussef Dayes before.
Alden: Mhmm.
Annelise: That too, I saw that collaboration and was like these are two of my favorite drummers right now in the same room together, what was it like working with him?
Alden: Well that was just a dream come true because he saw one of my comedy videos where I did like this, and then I pretended to punch Dana because he offered me a vape. And then Yussef followed me after that and then he discovered I was a drummer. Then he found our music and seemed to really get into it, and then we hung out in New York and I played drums for him and I was petrified. But then we just became pals like he took us to the studio where Malcom records and introduced us to Malcom. He brought us jerk chicken and açaí bowls while we were recording. And he was just so encouraging and supportive, even now he’ll message us and give us advice about touring, he’s like a mentor. But literally as a freshman at Berklee, and still now, he’s one of my favorite drummers in the world. So to even talk to him is crazy.
Annelise: And you’re currently in New York.
Alden: Yeah Bushwick.
Annelise: How has it been from Eugene to Berklee, to New York? Growing up in Eugene, I know you’re from a musical family, but what was the music scene like there and how did that influence where you are now?
Alden: The Eugene music scene, I feel like we grew up listening to a lot of like Grateful Dead, just surrounded by a lot of jam band music and reggae, which I’m sure Santa Cruz can relate to.
Annelise: Oh for sure yeah.
Alden: But the Jazz scene is small but vibrant. Like we were nurtured and mentored by a great drummer Kenny Reid who had Sunday Jazz jams, so we started going there in Eugene at the Jazz station. And then the Jazz programs in middle school and high school were super strong. Getting to Berklee I was just like “Wow, the talent here is off the charts”. So I definitely was bugging for a while, I was just in my head like I’m not good enough to be here. But I just like worked by butt off I went to jams every night, I would talk to everyone, this was as a freshman in 2019. I would just talk to everyone I could talk to, I was a sponge for musical knowledge. And then we got sent home for the pandemic, I started making stuff with Dana and then came back and really started to play with the band. The whole band I met at Berklee, and we would just busk on the street and play MF DOOM covers, and that was the origin of this band.
Huge thanks to Dana, Alden, and their team for this opportunity!