DecoyMusic.com

Interview: Dredg

Posted 06/07/2009 08:20PM by Decoy Staff as Interview

06/07/2009 08:20PM

An interview with Mark Engles.
Your European tour starts soon, anywhere you’re particularly excited to visit?

All of it. I love going over there. Actually tomorrow at 5 am I have a Super Shuttle coming to my house, which doesn’t sound that exciting, but the actual trip is great. I love Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Holland, England, and Wales are all on this tour, but I think anything different is always fun. America is great, but being outside of your culture and outside of your comfort zone is something very important.

You album comes out on the 9th and you’re playing Berlin that night. Any reason you chose to play there in particular, or was it just the next stop?

No, that was actually an accident. We tried to make it happen so that San Francisco was our release date, but it didn’t work out that day because of distribution and marketing and all of that stuff that happens. We wanted to be on tour here and have the album come out when we were in our home town of San Francisco and it didn’t happen, so the album will come out when we’re in Germany and that’s fine. It was not on purpose.

Do you have any pre-release rituals or pre-tour rituals that you guys go through as a band?

Besides rehearsing to try to be better than we are, no. I like to buy the record when it comes out. Besides that, just try to make sure our live set is new and different and hopefully people will feel like it’s a next version of this old band, but besides that not really any rituals ever. We’re all four individuals with our own lives and do our own thing, and then we get together on stage to play music.

What’s the meaning behind the title of the album The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion?

Gavin came up with that, so the meaning I give you would be paraphrased from him, but a pariah is someone that is basically an outcast, normally a religious outcast, which would be us, or someone who’s going against the grain. The parrot is obviously a flock of parrots that just go with whatever is told to them and also just repeats things they don’t really understand. A delusion is kind of self-explanatory; a lot of people are deluded in this world, they don’t really understand how things actually work and they take action without that understanding. I think Gavin had in mind those ideas when he named it. It was actually the name of the first song on the record and we decided it was such a great title that we named the record that.

Pariah sees the return of instrumental tracks, as well as the themed tracks that run through the album, labelled by “Origin,” two styles that were on your first two albums but not on Catch Without Arms. What brought this about?

We missed it on the last record. On the last record we just wanted to make a rock record that had songs and I think once it came out then we lived with it for a year or two on tour, we really missed having the trade of interludes and ideas that give you a break from vocals and make the record flow a bit better. For us a record should flow in a sense, it shouldn’t just be song-song-song, so we wanted to get some sort of fluidity. Our favorite instrumentals we’ve had in the last three or four years are on the record.

Rohner Segnitz, of Division Day, did the artwork for the new release. What drew you to choose him?

I grew up on the same street as Rohner, I’ve known Rohner for many, many years and he did our first website. I think almost all of the websites, the Filmore record, and El Cielo. He’s just one of those people that you don’t need to approve anything; he’s so brilliant that when he sends you something you know that you’re going to approve it. We’ve never been happier with any product than this, especially the vinyl. The way the vinyl has turned out has been absolutely extraordinary.

This is your first full-length that’s getting the vinyl treatment. How come?

We’ve always wanted to; unfortunately when we were on Interscope we didn’t have a voice. This time, now that we’re in power the way we should be, we wanted to do vinyl and that’s going to happen. On Interscope we wanted to do it, and it just didn’t happen. I think we’ll probably do a Leitmotif vinyl at some point, a re-release since it’s been ten years. Vinyl is amazing, the way the artwork looks, the aesthetic of actually putting a record down on a turntable. It’s kind of unmatchable. Now that we have the chance, we might as well. It turned out great, and I think this vinyl packaging that Rohner did is probably my favourite product we’ve released.

You mentioned the label issues; you guys have started your own now, with support from Warner I believe?

It’s not really that simple. We’re with ILG, which is helping us with marketing and distribution and promotion and all the things that is tough for us to do without capital, so through ILG, what they do is they take your own label and help you out with that. For now it’s just releasing our record, but we’ll see what happens after that.

How has owning and being on your own label made this album different from your previous releases?

Complete freedom.

Any big plans for the new label? Any plans to sign more bands, or was the label more a means of creative control?

For now it’s just for us, to get this record out and propagate this record as much as we can and to be 100 percent in charge of it. For now it’s just about this record.

What’s the writing process like for this album, and what’s it usually like for Dredg?

This one was really long, I think we just felt like we had a lot in us, but it’s normally a jam session that has a stereo mic in the middle of a room and we jam for three, four hours a day, five days a week and Dino is normally the one who would sift through it and filters out the highlights and what we should keep and throw away. He would be great about bringing us CDs. Normally it’s just a jam process, just kind of an improv process and when things hit they hit and when they don’t, they don’t. The other part of it was mainly Gavin and Dino would bring in parts that they had on their own that they felt that were strong. Every time you walked into the studio someone would say “I feel this is something we should work on,” so that’s a big part of it as well, but a lot of it is just us in a room.

Does your live show influence how you write songs?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, us in a room playing is live, so it’s definitely similar to being on stage. I guess when you get to the studio things change because you have production ideas. Production ideas can always change everything, but us four individuals in a room playing is definitely live, so there should be a similar feeling.

Have you ever written a song because it would be fun to play onstage?

Yeah, I wouldn’t say it’s all the time but every now and then you think about it. I would think about “Pariah” as being the song that when we wrote it, Gavin came up with that riff, and we thought that would be something that would be really fun live.

Especially on “Mourning this Morning” there are a lot of dance and synth rhythms on the new album. What influenced that?

It just happened in the studio. Matt Radosevich, the producer, did the record with us and Dino came up with this drum sound that was just incredible, we loved it. Those are real drums in a studio, and the way that Matt recorded it and affected the sound of it just really excited us, so we went from there. We had our friends Terry Forgette and Ben Perkoff run some sax, and then Anton Patzner from Judgement Day do some violin and it just went from there. We always leave a couple songs on the record to just unfold on their own. We knew we didn’t want it to be a hard rock song, so you just let it happen as it happens; whatever it takes on it takes on. It was never said ‘let’s make a 80s dance song.’ That’s actually me on bass, Drew did the synth pads. In the studio, you might as well do what you want to do.

“Quotes” carries a very pro-drug tone. What’s the message behind the song?

I wouldn’t say it’s pro-drug. This is another point where I don’t want to quote Gavin, but it’s come to our understanding that doing certain drugs can open your mind up to certain ideas in life. You don’t have to, a lot of people can understand those things without doing drugs and that’s fine. [The song] is not pro-drug in the sense that we should never say that you have to do them to be intelligent or to understand the world, but let’s be honest, there are certain people who have never done drugs who probably don’t understand what we understand. It doesn’t mean you have to do it, like I’ve said, but we’ve found it beneficial to ourselves.

How would you describe your sound now compared to when Dredg first began?

Gavin is an amazing singer now, we’re better songwriters, and we’re more aware of what’s going with every track and every part of every song. We’re a lot less spontaneous, for better or worse, but we’re much more comfortable in our own skin now.

As I’m sure you’re aware, Pariah leaked onto the internet a full month ahead of the release date. How do you feel this impacts the album, and how does this affect you?

We’re fine with it. We’re fine with leaking; the only thing we’re upset about was that it was a poor quality leak, so we were bummed about that. We spent so much time on the quality and the sound on this record. In my opinion this is the best sounding record we’ve ever made, so when it leaked, we weren’t upset, but when we heard it was thin, shitty quality internet version, we were bummed about that. People’s first impression of the new Dredg record should be ‘wow, this sounds really great’ because we spent a lot of time on it, us and our producer Matt; it was a huge project that we wanted to make sure was up to our standards, but if a great quality version leaked, like what came out after a couple days, we’re okay with that. We’re not anti-internet whatsoever.

You don’t feel it’s going to have a huge impact on sales?

Of course it will, but we’re with that. I download records, we all do that. To me it’s not something to get upset about anymore. I just want it to sound good.

You have an upcoming “Game with Fame” promotion with Xbox Live. Would you consider yourselves gamers?

Not really. I know Gavin and I probably game the most, Drew’s into some Star Wars games. The one thing I do is soccer, Pro Evolution, I’m the one actually taking on people if they want to join. I’m a huge soccer fan. But no, we’re not gamers in the big sense that we’ll go home and play World of Warcraft or anything like that.

Are we ever going to see any Dredg on Rock Band or Guitar Hero?

I think so. We almost made the newest Guitar Hero. We almost made the final cut, they signed a bunch of bands and they cut in what they want and what they don’t want, but I think we’ll be on one of those soon. I wouldn’t be surprised, hopefully. What’s funny is I wouldn’t even be able to do it; I’d probably fail at my own song. I can’t play that game at all. I play video games, and I play guitar, but guitar in a video game? No.

You’ve headlined your fair share of tours, but who’s been your favourite bands to tour in support of?

I think Deftones for us was very special because we grew up… I remember standing in line in 1995 when Adrenaline came out. That was really special. They ended up being great guys and good friends of ours; that one stands out for me. Of course what’s going on with Chi right now is an absolute tragedy. Drew and I are going to go visit him after we get back from this next tour. We’ve dedicated our album to him.

What’s been your favourite album released this year?

The new Mewithoutyou.

Anything else you want to add about the new album?

Yeah, listen to it on headphones.

Last question, a two parter: Lakers or Magic, and Red Wings or Penguins?

Lakers, because they always find a way to pull it off. I hate ‘em, I’m a Warriors fan, but I feel like the Lakers will always pull it off somehow; and then Red Wings of course, because they’re just the masters.

--Greg Burchell

Comments

Aaron Yarborough

06/07/2009

08:28PM

Age: 28

Location
San Luis Obispo, CA

wow this interview turned out amazing. loved the drug question about how it opens up your mind. so true.

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/aarontroy
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BlakeW

06/07/2009

09:21PM

Location
Oklahoma

Yeah, this was an interesting read. It's always nice when artists actually give substantial, thoughtful answers during interviews. Helps to ask good questions too. Kudos to all!