Category: interviews

The touring year is almost over for LA psych-rockers (sorry guys, being a lazy journalist today) Darker My Love. The band is rolling through my hometown the night before Thanksgiving and then doing a few more weeks worth of dates that will return them home to the West Coast just a week before Christmas. The band’s second album, simply titled 2, is a swirling and dreamy ride through the clouds – full of noise, guitar pedals, keyboards, Darker My Love seems to draw influence from bands ranging from the Dandy Warhols and Spiritualized to the Beatles and the Beach Boys (just check out the rich harmonies in “Two Ways Out”). Other reference points include the Stone Roses, Ride, and (here comes the ’90s hair metal geek in me) Saigon Kick (seriously, the vocals on “Blue Day” sound like something from SK’s The Lizard album).

I called bassist/vocalist/heavily bearded Darker My Love member Rob Barbato yesterday before a DML gig in Indiana.

Continue reading “Trippin’ the light fantastic with Papa Roach … er … Darker My Love”

DOWNLOAD: “Sweet Chariot” from Dead Child’s Attack

Though he’s played in indie rock bands far removed from the metal scene (Slint, Tortoise, Stereolab, Royal Trux) and served time in Billy Corgan’s short-lived post-Smashing Pumpkins band Zwan, guitarist David Pajo is really just a shredder at heart.

During the Slint reunion tour in 2005, Pajo, Michael McMahan, and Todd Cook started talking about putting together a metal band that paid homage to the bands they grew up listening to (Maiden, Priest, Motorhead) and shortly thereafter they hooked up with other Louisville, Kentucky musicians Tony Bailey and Dahm to form Dead Child.

Dead Child’s debut full-length, Attack, was just released on Quarterstick Records and the band is currently in the midst of a short run of tour dates.

I sent Pajo some questions last week and here’s what he had to say:

Message boards are lame, anonymous users with the freedom to say what they want without being held accountable. That being said, you’ve been taken to task by a few posters on the Donewaiting message board essentially as being a “fake” metal musician. And Dead Child has been mentioned in the same breath as bands who supposedly previously wouldn’t claim their “metalness”, if you will, but now are perceived as jumping on the bandwagon. So I ask you, Mr. Pajo, would you care to silence your anonymous, hiding behind a name, “critics”?

This is a bummer but I anticipated this kind of backlash. It’s a risk for us to call ourselves a metal band and it would be just as easy for us to drop it. But we set out to form a metal band so why refer to it as anything else? I’m trying to get away from this elitist bullshit! Besides, aren’t there more fruitful efforts to pursue while we orbit on this tiny pebble than sorting out what’s metal and what’s not? Metal is a broad fucking term – ultimately, it’s just music and attitude.

I understand the sentiment though – poser metal (hair metal) was a real problem in the 80s and I used to hate those guys/bands. But these days it’s not so much of an issue, except for that nu metal shit. Hot Topic metal. I think you’ll see more and more people like me coming in (or back) from other genres that have finally ‘seen the light.’ I think this should be welcomed because it will help expand and fortify the genre. It’ll be interesting to see what develops from these new influences. What I’m trying to say is, I understand that metal is precious to you and you have every right to be suspicious but please judge us on our music. Not our recorded history (which only tells a fraction of the story). If it’s not your cup of tea, we are easily ignored.

I don’t know why people would think we’re jumping on some sort of bandwagon, it’s not like I’m milking the market dry. I’ve had prominent people in the indie rock world, people who I thought were friends, turn their back on me for “committing career suicide.” Quarterstick is pushing the record as hard as they can but we’re all still broke, sleeping on floors, averaging $100 a show, playing to tiny crowds. I’m 40 years old, We got $0 the last two times we played out and they were legitimate shows! I’ve been doing this shit for a long time. Yes, I gave up a successful career in the indie rock world and my old friends don’t talk to me any more. But I can’t deny where my heart is, and I can’t help that it’s 100% in metal.

To those anonymous critics that never experienced life before cell phones, internet, MTV, and compact discs:

• My front four teeth are fake because the Louisville Outlaw bikers knocked them out at the Iron Maiden concert in Louisville, KY in 1983. It was their ‘Piece of Mind’ tour and Fastway and Saxon opened. It must have been their first tour with their new drummer, Nicko McBrain. Fuck you.
• My first band was a metal/hardcore crossover band called ‘Maurice’. We did a tour opening for Samhain in 85? 86? I think ‘Unholy Passion’ had just come out. Glenn called my parents house months after the tour because he was forming a solo band called Danzig and he liked my guitar playing (I could shred way better then). I never called him back because we had just started Slint and I didn’t want to play show-off guitar anymore. FUCK you.
• I was playing Malmsteen licks when he was in Alcatraz – Rising Force hadn’t started yet. I saw Metallica with Cliff and they slayed. Fuck you and YOU.
• FUCK YALL.

Continue reading “Dead Child – David Pajo proves he’s “metal””

The cult-favorite Seattle band Clarissa’s Wierd has spawned quite a large number of post-band projects which former member Mat Brooke jokes makes up half of Sub Pop’s current roster (he’s not that far off the mark). Brooke, Creighton Barrett and Ben Bridwell formed Band of Horses in 2004, Jenn Ghetto started a solo project under the name S, and Sera Cahoone also started her own solo project (her new album, Only as the Day is Long, comes out next week).

In 2006, Brooke left Band of Horses to dedicate his time to his own band, Grand Archives which he insists isn’t an ego-driven solo project with backing musicians helping out. “The first goal in forming this band was to try to get a group of guys together where no one was the hero and everybody was doing the same amount of work, the same amount of songwriting,” Brooke told me earlier this week.

I wanted to get to know Brooke a little better, so I fired off, in rapid succession, a few questions aimed at getting to know him as a person rather than a musician. Here’s what he had to say.

MP3: Torn Blue Foam Couch

It’s Friday night. Where do I find you?
At home, hiding from the masses. I own a bar so it’s almost a full time job. I spend a lot of time fixing it up and bartending a day shift if I have to. Mostly I do office work and all that good stuff.

If I come in and you’re bartending, what topic can I introduce to a conversation to keep you talking for an hour?
If you came into the bar you could talk about any kind of Seattle sports and that would keep me talking for a full hour. A lot of people want to talk at great length about how they love Everything All the Time by Band of Horses and sometimes that conversation gets a little old.

Do you collect CDs, DVDs, books?
I’m addicted to that stuff. They have a place here in Seattle called Silver Platters that has an amazing selection. You’ll usually find just about everything you’re looking for. Just like every other touring band, whenever we get to San Francisco we go to Amoeba Records and walk out $500 poorer. I could stay there all day long.

Ever been starstruck?
I’ve never been too starstruck with actors or musicians. I’d probably be really starstruck with an athlete but I’ve never met anybody from the Mariners or the Sonics or the Seahawks. That would be the level that I think would make them a celebrity.

What song/album/band makes you remember back to a very specific moment in your life?
Probably Disintegration by The Cure. I was 16 and had it playing out of my car. I was on a little Goth date. I was a little bit terrified of this girl because I had a huge crush on her and she finally agreed to go on a date with me. We went to the park and listened to the Cure. So I think whenever I hear that record, I feel kind of young and scared again.

Have you ever had a religious experience while watching a band play?
You know, the first thing that came to my mind was about a year ago catching The Fleet Foxes at the Crocodile and just being stunned and instantly know that these kids are going to be on the cover of Rolling Stone some day. Their live show is better than the album, it’s just breathtaking.

If you could relive one night of your life, what night would it be?
Off the top of my head, when we did our farewell show for Carissa’s Weird, we sold out the Crocodile. We did two shows in one night. Just the amount of folks that came out and what an emotional time it was breaking up the band and playing one last show. I’d like to do that night over again. It was great. It was a lot of whiskey, a lot of tears, a lot of dancing around. All in all it was just a perfect evening.