Following the release of the band's debut album Tawk Tomahawk (2012) and their first Grammy nomination, Hiatus Kaiyote went on to tour throughout 2014. “When I asked him what I owed him, he handed me a torn-out page from a Sears catalog,” recalls Cross. (2021) Choose Your Weapon is the second studio album by Australian neo-soul quartet Hiatus Kaiyote, first released in through Flying Buddha and Sony Masterworks.
At the time, Dumble was living in a house owned by Jackson Browne and Cross headed up there to pay for the custom relay box. “I really couldn’t afford to mess around with pedals at that time,” says Cross. An oversized cord went to a blue two-space rack unit that housed mechanical relays to control which amp was engaged. Each guitar only had a middle and bridge pickup and was outfitted with a heavy-duty switch-imagine the massive switches on the back of vintage Fender amps. 'Comprised of Naomi 'Nai Palm' Saalfield (guitar, vocals), Paul Bender (bass), Simon Mavin (keys), and Perrin Moss (drums), the twice-Grammy-nominated group Hiatus Kaiyote returns to announce their new album Mood Valiant, out on June 25th via Brainfeeder Records / Ninja Tune. The solution was based around a pair of Japan-made Strats that were modified by Valley Arts. Naturally, Cross needed a way to switch between sounds easily. Cross and Dumble decided on two KT88-loaded heads (a first for Dumble at the time) with matching 2x12 cabinets in orange suede for a clean sound and an Overdrive Special with a 4x12 cab for a lead sound. Mood Valiant has been six years in the making, with solo projects, a breast cancer diagnosis for Hiatus Kaiyote’s lead singer and guitarist, Naomi Saalfield (aka Nai Palm) whose cancer is now in remission after a mastectomy and a pandemic interrupting and influencing it’s creation.
One of the early users of his amps was singer/songwriter Christopher Cross, who was brought in by Bonnie Raitt. His off-the-grid lifestyle forced Dumble to frequently look at alternate payment arrangements with clients.