It may have been more than 30 years since Sam Calagione, David Wain and Ken Marino attended New York University together, but they’ve never lost the particular rhythm that old friends can always fall into.

In many ways, the night of July 22 was a celebration of the group’s success: Wain and Marino went on to be part of the Gen X touchstone sketch comedy group The State and Wain later wrote and directed the cult classic “Wet Hot American Summer,” in which Marino starred.

During the pandemic, Wain and Marino teamed up with film composer and Shudder To Think frontman Craig Wedren to form Middle Aged Dad Jam Band, a cover band featuring Marino on vocals, multi-instrumentalist Wedren and Wain on drums along with a regular touring band. The group, named based on the fact that its members are, in fact, middle-aged dads, is undertaking a U.S. tour that also doubles as the 25th anniversary of “Wet Hot American Summer.”

The choice of venue was Dogfish Head’s Rehoboth Beach brewpub, which of course was founded by Calagione, who honed his homebrewing skills at NYU; Marino, Wedren and Wain were among his early test subjects. 

When asked the secret to how they’ve stayed friends for so long, Wain said, “Separate bedrooms.”

Marino added, “When you meet somebody, or somebodies, that you connect with and you have a good time with and enjoy their company, you don’t want to let go of that.” 

Wain chimed in, “When you meet someone that you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible!”

The occasion was also marked by the release of Middle Aged Dad Beer, a different take on a traditional wheat beer that has a sweet flavor and darker color thanks to the use of figs, lime peels and spruce tips. 

Middle Aged Dad Jam Band, or MADJB for short, played some of their first gigs at Dogfish Head as a way to warm up before playing before bigger crowds, which Calagione equated to how the Rolling Stones would warm up for stadium tours by playing small clubs first.

“We are the Rolling Stones of music,” Wain quipped.

“Unfortunately, the biggest show we did was the worst show we played,” Marino added.

Since then, the band has popped up in all kinds of places: Marino said at a show in Albany, N.Y., he emerged from on top of a bus as the band played underneath a bridge. Wain said other gigs have been at a wedding and a law firm. He added that much like filmmaking, music is a collaborative effort with lots of good-natured ribbing.

Given the tour also celebrated the anniversary of ‘Wet Hot American Summer,” the guys of course reminisced about its making. Wain directed the 2001 film and co-wrote it with fellow The State alum Michael Showalter. The film featured many famous faces, some of which were known commodities at the time, like Paul Rudd, David Hyde Pierce, Christopher Meloni and Janene Garafalo; some that were soon-to-be-famous like Bradley Cooper and Amy Poehler; and other alums of The State like Marino, Joe Lo Truglio and Showalter. 

The film was done in the style of 1980s-style camp comedies like “Porky’s” and “Meatballs,” and even though it was not successful upon release, it attracted an audience over the years, enough to do two revival series for Netflix: “Wet Hot American Summer: The First Day of Camp” in 2015 and “Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later.”

Marino said for the original film, everyone stayed at an actual summer camp and bonded over the shoot.

“It was a really cool experience,” he said. “We all recognized that it was a special shoot. We were like, ‘I don’t know if anyone is going to see this movie, but it doesn’t matter because this is fun.’”

As for what has kept the group all working together all these years later, Marino said, “I think it's a nice partnership because we inspire each other to keep moving forward. We like working together. We like the things that we do.”