Blogs

• Jun 08 2009

  Interview with Drew from November 2008

  posted by evasivetear

  I realize the album is out, so many people probably don't care about this anymore...but here's an interview Drew was nice enough to partake in, with me, back in November 2008...
  
  Scott:
  So the first question I'm going to ask...with the election being last night, what are your thoughts on that and our new President?
  
  Drew:
  I'm happy as hell! Best day in politics in my life. Growing up, I wasn't too into it, but I think it's definitely a good step for the country.
  
  Barack's going to have a hard time, and I'm sure he's going to fuck up...but I'm just so sick of the right-wing, republican, religious freaks....
  
  Scott:
  Yeah...I would imagine his first year or so is going to be just trying to take care of the mess that the last administration left us...but...
  
  Drew:
  Yeah, he has a lot of shit to do, but he's a really intelligent, well-spoken, awesome guy. I'm sure he'll do good for our country.
  
  Scott:
  Thanks for sharing that. Let's move onto dredg's new CD. It's coming out March 24th, I've heard?
  
  Drew:
  March 24th, yup.
  
  Scott:
  Are you going to start promoting it soon? With ads and such?
  
  Drew:
  Yeah, I'm sure we will. Probably not till next year. Maybe around January or February or something, but...I mean at this point, after this tour we're jumping back into the studio for another week to finish it up. So, I mean, it's not even completely done yet and then, we haven't even...I mean, we've only begun to think about the art. We haven't really even started that yet. So we'll try to get that all out of the way, and then we'll figure out how we'll try to promote it, and what to do.
  
  Scott:
  You've done album art for The Sound of Animals Fighting and Envy on the Coast...are you thinking of doing the artwork for the CD, or are you going to get friends to do it again?
  
  Drew:
  Yeah, well this guy we work with, Rohner (Seagnitz), he's actually in that band Division Day, he's the singer. He did most of our web sites, he also did el cielo, he did the Filmore CD. He's definitely on board this time. But I think it's something Gavin and I will start putting stuff together - some artwork - and then once we have a collection of things, we'll hand it over to Rohner and he'll put his twist on it.
  
  Scott:
  That's cool.
  
  Drew:
  Yeah, we really respect Rohner, and what he does. He really makes us...just...it's cool to be able to look at it from a distance, you know? You can judge it easier if it's somebody else's art. But, I mean, anything Rohner does is...fuck it, I think, we all think is brilliant, so, we're just stoked to have him on board this time, again.
  
  Scott:
  Well, on the subject of art, being an artist myself, music would inspire me when creating & developing my paintings and drawings. Being that you're both a musician and visual artist, do you find that it works both ways? I mean, el cielo was partially inspired by a painting (Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bumblebee around a Pomegranate One Second Before Awakening - by Salvador Dali), so when you're creating your own artwork, does what you're creating ever inspire you to create something musically?
  
  Drew:
  I don't know...not anything for dredg really. I mean, I do a lot of my home recordings, on my own. Just weird obscure stuff. So maybe I'll be inspired in that sense, but nothing really has come from my art to inspire dredg at all, I don't think.
  
  Scott:
  What about with your other band, Dark Heavens?
  
  Drew:
  -laughs-
  
  Scott:
  heh....I've heard a little bit about that
  
  Drew:
  Yeah, that's just for fun. Just a little thing I have, with my friend. Just like a fake metal band. Kind of a joke metal band.
  
  Scott:
  -laughs-
  
  Drew:
  But you know, that's just a mild thing. Just for fun. But yeah, art hasn't really inspired that either. I mean, that's just this whole other thing. My friend Donovan does most of the writing and most of the artwork for that, really, so...
  
  Scott:
  Well that's cool. Yeah, I really didn't know that much about it, so thought I'd ask about it, seeing that it seemed like it could be another outlet for you creatively.
  
  Drew:
  Yeah, it's just a fun thing that I do. There's no stress involved, it's not real serious, so it could be anything it wants to be, really.
  
  Scott:
  Well cool. So, let's go back to the new album that's coming out.
  In some of the new songs that you've been playing live, there have been some religious over-tones to the lyrics. Is this any indication of the overall theme of the album. Or are these just some isolated songs?
  
  Drew:
  Yeah, it's definitely a theme. You know its -coughs- it has an agnostic kind of theme. But you know, Gavin writes all the lyrics and we agree to his ideals, so we're all on the same page in that aspect. I don't want to go as far as to say it's anti-religious. And there are some other concepts we have in the works too. It was inspired by a writing this time, by Salman Rushdie. I don't want to go into too much detail about it, but...
  
  Scott:
  Yeah, that's understandable. Thanks for that though!
  
  Drew:
  Yeah, but so that's where some of that record will be coming from.
  
  Scott:
  So then, on traversing.net and some other message boards, there was basically a joke-rumor going around that you guys were going to come out with a double CD...
  
  Drew:
  haha, yah...
  
  Scott:
  and then there was some people saying that they had heard you guys had written just, a whole bunch of songs for it...
  
  Drew:
  Well yeah, fuck, over the last couple of years we've probably written 40 or 50 songs, you know? But I mean, a lot of those have died because we've just been searching for the good ones in all of those, you know? But...we've recorded probably like, well, the albums almost done so we've recorded, I want to say, 12 to 14 songs and then like, umm, probably five instrumentals, and then like four, short-like...uhh...pieces with lyrics on them.
  
  Scott:
  Like Push Away? or is that kinda like a full song?
  
  Drew:
  Yeah yeah. Well, we tried to make it into a full song, but it didn't really work out. But yeah, there's like four or five things like Push Away, then there's five instrumentals and then somewhere between 12 and 14 songs. Definitely not a double album. And I don't think all that material is going to make it, so, we'll just try to pick and choose what we think is best and go from there.
  
  Scott:
  Will you come out with stuff like Stone by Stone. Like a single song could come out somewhere?
  
  Drew:
  Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's always potential B-side avenues. So, yeah, we'll hopefully try to get something in a film or a video game or something like that, you know?
  
  Scott:
  Nice. Yeah, that'd be fun to play a dredg song on Rock Band, or something.
  
  Drew:
  Ha ha, yeah right? Actually, we are doing a song. I think it's Bug Eyes for some kind of Rock Band game, but I forget which one. But yeah, I think Bug Eyes will be on one of those types of games.
  
  Scott:
  Well that'd be interesting. (For the guitar) would they do Mark's part, or Gavin's slide or both?
  
  Drew:
  Yeah, I don't know. That' a good question. They'd probably do the slide, and then when the slide's gone, go into Mark's guitar or something.
  
  Scott:
  (with no segue at all) So I know that a lot of fans have wanted to see a vinyl release of something, el cielo, Leitmotif, Catch Without Arms. Do you guys think that this album might come out on vinyl?
  
  Drew:
  Yeah, I mean, it's up to us, you know? I mean, it's just if we want to make it or not at this point and I think we all do, so. I don't know if we'll release it right away but I think we'll make some vinyl for this one. For sure. I mean, we're not on Interscope, we're on ILG, which is an independent label group, so we basically have the freedom to do whatever we want.
  
  Scott:
  -laughs- You're getting ahead of me in my questions!
  
  Drew:
  Ha. I don't think we'll be seeing el cielo or Catch on vinyl. Interscope still owns the rights to those. It'd be hard to get them to make vinyl of those. But Leitmotif might come out. That's our CD, so, we might put that out on vinyl.
  
  Scott:
  That'd be really nice to see. So I guess that kinda leads me into my next question. You guys were thinking of doing a Making of Catch Without Arms DVD. Was that scrapped or?
  
  Drew:
  I finished that and then, we were going to put it out on this tour, but I found some more footage that I really enjoyed, so I want to try and add that in. And then I also found a bunch of tapes of the el cielo and leitmotif days. And then I filmed this whole, you know, this whole process of our new record. So, my idea is, hopefully I can do it, it'll take a lot of time but, some time next year, release a DVD of the making of all the records. You know?
  
  Yeah, I mean there's like, a good hour or two of footage from Leitmotif and even some Orph footage. So it'd be cool to do like, a chronological DVD of just the making of all the records.
  
  Scott:
  Wow, yeah. That'd be really cool.
  
  Drew:
  Yeah, I mean, some of that el cielo footage is really cool too. We were out in Longview Farms, which is out side of Boston and Worcester or whatever?
  
  Scott:
  Yeah, Worcester.
  
  Drew:
  But umm, yeah, it was like the middle of winter in this barn with horses and shit, so we had some really cool footage of the atmosphere that created. Oh, and the studio stuff
  
  Scott:
  Well that'd be great to see. Hmm...let's see. Well I guess the last question I had about music, releases and stuff was if you guys had ever thought about putting out a B-side or rarity album in the future. I mean, obviously not right now with the new record coming out, but...
  
  Drew:
  Yeah....I don't know, we've never really thought about that, I mean...it'd get really complicated now since we're not on Interscope anymore, to do something like that. But I personally have never been a fan of B-side records, or even remix records. I can't stand those. - laughs -
  
  Scott:
  So then, how'd you guys do the Sang Real remix then?
  
  Drew:
  Well, that was our friend, Dan the Automator, since we knew him, we did it with him.
  
  Scott:
  Yeah? There was talk of an Ode to the Sun remix too? Did that ever...?
  
  Drew:
  Well, yeah Serj from System of a Down played with it. It was more of a rearrangement that he did, it wasn't really like a remix. But I don't know, we never used it. Then he actually wrote a song for us, which was pretty cool, but it just didn't really fit the record so, we're not going to use that. He's a great guy, really fucking cool guy to work with. A really humble person, so that was a good experience in that sense.
  
  Scott:
  That actually reminded me, when Catch Without Arms came out, you guys did that treasure hunt and some of the guys from the Traversing message board won that, and they got to name a song...
  
  Drew:
  Yeah. That's definitely going to be on the record. It's an instrumental piece, but yeah, it will definitely be on there.
  
  Scott:
  Nice. Well I guess my last question is just about random stuff (and really cliche I might add) but touring around the country, you obviously go to a lot of cities and such...so what do you guys do, aside from rehearsing/sound checking before shows, to pass your time? Do you have any particular favorite spots around the country, and in other countries that you visit, as well?
  
  Drew:
  Yeah, I mean it's different for everywhere you go, you know? I definitely have favorite spots in the country. Boston is a great town, and obviously Manhattan. I love Manhattan. We enjoyed Orlando this time Austin, it's fucking amazing there. Chicago is a really good city. Yeah, I don't know. We showed up today and just got something to eat, walked around, went and saw a movie. I think it depends on what's, you know, sometimes you go to clubs and they're in the middle of nowhere. You can't do anything, you're just sitting around. But yeah, it depends on the city. I mean, even in Europe, like, we're not too familiar with the area but you do a little research and can hop on a train, or something. Go see some sites if you want. Just sit in the square and drink coffee and look at the gorgeous women, if you want to do that, haha. It's definitely different every day. There's no routine you have.
  
  Scott:
  Well cool. Thank you very much for this and uh...well I guess I'm...done?
  
  Drew:
  -laughs- awesome
  
  Scott:
  Thanks again!
  
  -------
  
  I then shut off the mic and Drew noticed Strata's latest CD that I had in my car. We talked about that for a bit, and how the Limousines were supposed to come out touring with them, but couldn't do it due to lack of funds and some other stuff.
  
  Later on in the night, I asked Drew about the set list, and if we'd see any other new songs on it. Particularly It's Not Worth It, to which he responded that that particular song might not make the cut for the album, and that they were just playing Ireland and Savoir.