Features / One Question Interviews

Jesse Sendejas (Days N Daze)

SPB: Is there a special technique you use to optimize the sound of your banjo when playing clubs?

Sendejas: It's just me layering instruments in the recordings so we've only actually had a banjo player play with us live a handful of times, and usually all acoustic so sound wasn't an issue. John …

Alex (Debt Neglector)

SPB: Songs about girls: yay or nay? (Why? Any favorite examples?) 

Alex: Songs about girls are fine I guess if it’s done respectfully. Some of my favorite bands write songs about girls but there are times when it can get a little cringe inducing. Like I don’t want to hear a song about a “nice …

John (Disconnect Disconnect Records)

SPB: You've had a good run in 2019. What do we have to look forward to in 2020?

John: 2019 was great for Disconnect Disconnect, working with some great upcoming bands (Blowfuse, A Time To Stand, Drunktank, Stone Lions, Kill The Rooster), great new albums from some bands we’d worked with before (The Decline, …

Wes Bentley (Doc Rotten)

SPB: Do you read press/reviews written about you? 

Bentley: Sometimes, for a review, I am more likely to read them because I want to see if it is a positive review. Interviews not so much because I was there and know what I said.  

Ray (Drunktank)

SPB: You took time to write this second album. What are your plans for the near future (or to put it bluntly: are you planning on working a third album soon)? 

Ray: At the moment we are really happily promoting our latest release, Return of The Infamous Four. We're playing shows, festivals, doing some tours …

Distillator

SPB: You've been touring a lot including some interesting support tours. What's your absolute dreamband to tour with and why? 

Distillator: We've had the pleasure to tour with many of our favorite bands already: Vektor, Pestilence and Metal Church. Since we are a band with 3 people we have 3 different opinions. We'd love to do a …

Blag Dahlia (Dwarves – vocals)

SPB: What is the most important vocal element when doing sound check for a Dwarves show? 

Blag Dahlia: A sound man who isn’t profoundly retarded. They do exist, but to find them you have to travel far and wide sorting through countless buffoons until, like the princess and the pea, you find one …

Divided Heaven

What is the strangest trend you see in modern music (music-wise or industry-wise)?

The strangest trend I see in modern music is the return of the cassette tape. Who would've thought? I know, I know...there are cassette tape purists that will claim the media format never really went away and that's true. But one cannot deny …

Rob Piper (Darko-guitar)

SPB: Do you get nervous before you play a show? 

Piper: When I first started playing live in my early teens, I got so scared that I could hardly hold the instrument. The more I played, the less nervous I got, but it still depended on how prepared I was. If I was playing solo …

Del (Delmar & the Dedications)

SPB: What musician do you think had the greatest influence on Delmar’s sound today?  

Del: I've always been a huge fan of ‘60s girl-group pop bands, and at first, Delmar started as a cover band doing garage punk renditions of b-sides from The Chiffons, The Supremes, Lesley Gore, etc. I eventually realized that …

Eric Martinez (Dezorah)

SPB: What kind of guitar do you use (and why did you make this choice)? 

Eric: I play a Mexican made Fender Duo Sonic (Surf Green). I chose this guitar because I wanted something tonally versatile that would not leave me completely broke. So far it has given me everything I want in a guitar …

Frank Meriwether (Dark Oz)

SPB: What is the weirdest description you’ve heard of your music? Could you see where the commenter was coming from? 

Frank: I really can't think of any weird descriptions, unfortunately, but the weirdest comparison I got was comparing our music to Genesis. I started listening to music (in a way so as to form …

DJ Scully (Dead Empires)

SPB: How did including a vocalist change your songwriting approach? Did it?

Scully: Ironically, adding Jason didn't change anything for us writing-wise because we thought the album was done before he joined! We had probably 90% of it written and arranged and we were making plans for where to record it when Jason came …

Kelly (Dreadnought)

SPB: What is the weirdest venue/setting you’ve ever played a show at?

Kelly: The strangest setting is tied for either a fighting ring in the basement of a bar in Kansas or one of my best friend's wedding. I'm not sure the basement was actually used as a fighting ring, but it felt like we were …

Eddie Roxy (Department S)

SPB: What do you remember of playing your first live show?

Eddie: The first Department S concert was at the MUSIC MACHINE (now KOKO) in Camden. I was playing keyboards in those days. My main memory was having Boy George standing next to me dancing, he was wearing his Romanesque/Britannia costume with a roman …

Jeffrey Blum (Drip-Fed)

SPB: When writing songs, how do you draw the line between taking influence and mimicking?

Jeffrey: Writing songs has always been and continues to be a frustrating process for me. It doesn't come easy like I see in a lot of people around me. I usually write by messing around on my guitar until I …

Daniel Albaugh (Die Young)

SPB: What is the longest (in terms of time) tour you’ve been on? Would you be out for that long again?

Albaugh: In Die Young's touring hey-day, mainly 2004-2008, we did quite a few tours that were roughly two months long. Sometimes the tours that included international dates in Asia or Europe felt the …

Arrica Rose (Dear Country)

SPB: Have you ever forgotten lyrics mid-song? How did you recover?

Rose: I have forgotten lyrics. If it's my song I'll do a 2nd verse same as the 1st, use what lyrics come to mind sort of thing, or mumble a bit until they come back. If it's a cover song I'll ask the …

Andrew Barnes (Drunk Couples – drums)

SPB: Drunk Couples is a departure in sound from your previous project. Do you find it challenging to separate the different styles or associations that come with changing bands?

Barnes: It all came pretty naturally to totally shift musical gears when CJ and I started Drunk Couples. Not only is this band …

Damaged City Fest

SPB: Festivals are a continually popular concept, though varying in formulas. What do you think is best about a festival versus a “regular” line-up of 3-5 bands?

Nick and Chris: We don't see festivals as an "alternative" to normal shows and prefer to view the two types of events as separate entities. I think if …