David Wax Museum

Museum on Wheels

The David Wax Museum Takes Mexo-Americana to the Far East and Back

By Andrew Clayman
Published in The Nashville Scene, May 2013

"It all started because someone heard about a show we played in Grand Forks, North Dakota," says David Wax, frontman for the punnily named Mexican-American folk-fusion outfit The David Wax Museum. The Missouri-born, Boston-based Wax is describing the delightfully unlikely chain of events that brought his little indie band to Shanghai, China — performing for college students as American "musical ambassadors" back in the spring of 2012.

As it turned out, a woman who once lived in Grand Forks now ran the American Culture Center in Shanghai. And after hearing of The Wax Museum's rousing performance in her hometown, she personally invited the band — one conveniently founded on the notion of cultural exchange, mind you — to hop a plane and hold a weeklong residency at the prestigious University of Shanghai.

"It just goes to show that every show you play plants some seeds," Wax says, "and you never know when those seeds are going to bear fruit. We've always embraced playing all sorts of places across the country, so this was kind of a random, fortuitous thing that reinforced that philosophy."

Language barriers aside, the idea of working with students was one firmly in line with The Wax Museum's modus operandi. Since the group's inception in 2007, Wax and his rotating crew of bandmates (singer/multi-instrumentalist Sue Slezak being the one generally full-time member) had made a point of visiting numerous American colleges, introducing students to the instruments and stylistic traditions of Mexican Son music — a rural precursor of sorts to the better-known mariachi genre. Wax himself had picked up the music while studying Mexican history as a Harvard lad back in 2001, and his passion for the style has led to four albums of unique border-crossing experimentation, most recently 2012's Knock Knock Get Up.

"I think that with each record we've come up with new ways to kind of fuse [Mexican Son and American folk and indie rock] in a way that's hopefully more seamless each time," Wax says. "That's been a great challenge as a songwriter — for me to not just rely on familiar tropes or familiar ways of writing, but to find different starting points. You know, I might start with this specific Mexican instrument, which will lend itself to these different rhythms, and that's going to lend itself to this different syntax and these types of images. Working like that keeps you engaged as a songwriter and allows you to contribute to the dialogue and hopefully contribute something fresh to the musical landscape."

A year removed from the Shanghai adventure, Wax doesn't seem inclined to start adding Chinese folk traditions to his repertoire just yet. But his time there clearly made an impact, nonetheless.

"It was amazing in that we really felt like the students got it," Wax says. "They didn't always know where we were coming from at first. But they got it. It was just a powerful experience to be a part of."