 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| ::Interviews:: |
 |
|
| review & interview content, as well as web site graphics & design, copywrite 2003-2004 Euphonia Online. use of materials granted only with reasonable purposes. |
 |
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
| interviewed by robby sumner |
 |
|
| Interview with Dave and Charlie March 3rd, 2006 |
Dave Cortez - Vocals, Guitar Simon Alexander - Guitar, Vocals Robert Godinez - Bass, Vocals Phillip Chairez - Keyboards, Guitar Charlie Vela - Drums |
| E: So you guys released your last album back in 2003, which was fairly well received. Since then, you've only been letting a small amount of material trickle out online... do you think that a band like yours has a responsibility to constantly self-promote all the time, or are there times where a band can let themselves fade from the public eye for a brief period of time before coming back with new material?
Charlie: When we released the album, I don't think we really understood everything that it took to really promote an album and do tours, and what was really necessary and what was needed of us to make it successful. Like, when you said the album was well received, I was about to say... "Really?" Dave: Yeah... really? *Laughs* Charlie: Because we were a lot younger when we wrote those songs and when we were at that stage, and we've done a lot of growing in understanding what's required of us in order to do anything that's even marginally successful. I think that since then we've been trying to step up, gradually, the work that we've been doing. And still releasing a song here and a song there, and not really completely fading away and saying, "Oh, we're going to sequester ourselves for, like, four months and work, and not play shows and not do anything." So we're trying to keep recording, in between doing all that stuff. Dave: You know when we come home, some of us go to school still or are taking courses, and I guess those are our little breaks... and we've taken the past couple months and been working on the new record, and at the same time... still working the myspace, as always... actually, other members of the band like to put up videos, and you know, send those out on the filesharing servers�they put up videos that people want to see, and then attach our name to them. In some form. And, you know, even when some of us are in school we do short little stints around Texas, which is huge enough to still keep a buzz going just by playing a couple cities. And we just keep in touch with the people we feel will keep our buzz going, but we definitely will admit that since the last record came out, we've done stuff and we've toured a lot� Charlie: A lot more, yeah. Dave: �a lot more than we did before that record, but that we're still not where we want to be, and we feel that this next record is a big chance for us to kind of turn that around, and we're all much more confident and much more on the same page as far as the band goes. So we feel like this is our first real chance to get somewhere with this record and do the most that we possibly can. So we actually glad if people have kind of forgotten about us... we're kind of glad to almost get a second chance to make a name for ourselves. E: Is the recording process for this album a lot different from your first time? Charlie: Yeah, actually, it has been a lot different. The last album, we did maybe.. 95% of it in my living room at my parents' house. And we did it over a really long period of time, with a lot of false starts, where we'd be working on it, but then we'd scrap it and start over. It was a lot more tedious... it was more of an arts and crafts project. Dave: *Laughs* Yeah. Charlie: Because it didn't really feel like we were working from something from beginning to end�it felt like we just doing a little bit here and a little bit there. This time around, we've been recording at an actual studio, and we dedicate a lot more continuous time with the goal of finishing it within a time frame. Because when we worked on the other album, we didn't have a deadline... we didn't have a label. We were kind kind of doing it to do it. And then towards the end of the process, somebody came along and was like, "Hey, I'd like to put it out... can you have it done by this day?" And we actually had a goal to work towards. And this time we gave ourselves a self-imposed goal. It's been going a lot faster, and the process is a lot more focused, I guess you would say. We go in in the morning, and get out really late at night, and we work that whole time. I don't know... it feels a lot more like we're making an album, and there's an end in sight, and it's going to be done and we'll all be happy with it, instead of "oh, this might get done eventually." Dave: You know, I think also, there's a certain level of passion that will show through on this record, as opposed to the last, just because we'd been playing that material on the last record for three years before we actually sat down and got definitive versions of them. So by the time the record came out and we were ready to tour on it, we weren't wanting to really play any material off it but two songs, and play new material. And with this record, we're all excited to be recording it, and we can't wait to start playing a lot of the material on it. We just added a couple of the songs to our recent sets, just to kind of boost some enthusiasm with the local kids here and around Texas, just so they hear some of this new material, because for us, we can't wait to get out on the road and just play this material. There was a long time in between the two records where we wrote about an album's worth of material, and that was all scrapped, and it's gotten to the point where we've continued writing up until halfway through everything was done. I've been doing vocals for the past couple weeks, and we actually stopped the day before yesterday to actually do guitars on a newer song we're still hoping will make it on the record. So there's a lot more excitement on this record than I think there was on the last one. Charlie: It feels a lot fresher. Like Dave said, one of the songs... it got finished being written while we were already recording, so we've never had a chance to play it in front of people or anything like that, so it's all very brand new. E: Do the songs still take a while to write? Dave: Not really... I've gotten to a point where I'm actually able to demo songs at home by myself, which is really nice, and then Charlie definitely helps out a lot in helping me craft the songs, because there's only so much I can do by myself when my only criticism at home is my girlfriend, and anything I show her she says is wonderful, you know? So Charlie has a lot more fresh ideas when I'm tapped out because I've been working on it and hearing it only in a certain way. But it's nice to be able to knock out stuff at home, and then come and present it to the rest of the guys, and have them put their input, and be able to change it in a way that everybody's happy with it, you know? So they don't take very long... it's just a matter of getting them to a point where we're all pretty much happy with them. E: It's easily understood that the writing process is best done communally as a group... but when it comes to recording, and an individual band member is laying down his own instrument, is it difficult for the inactive members to feel involved? What is there to do during the recording process when it isn't your turn to record? Do you just sit around and eat fruit or something? Dave: *Laughs* Well, I'd probably say it's not fruit... we all kind of take turns. Some of us aren't always there at the studio�a lot of us have jobs... Rob, our bass player, actually lives an hour away from where we're recording. So somedays, when it's a little bit of a lighter schedule, we let him know, "You don't have to come up today�you don't have to put gas in your car and make a 2-hour round trip for what we're going to be doing today." But Phil, our keyboard player/guitar, is a drummer as well, and really, it's a lot of back and forth... Charlie, as much as we all believe in his ideas and everything, he still asks us: "What do you think of this? Should I do it closed high-hat or open high-hat?" Even the things you would deem insignificant or minuscule, he still does ask us what we think, because he can go either way. Charlie: Yeah. Dave: So we try and give the most input that we possibly can, but ultimately, I think all of us are comfortable with each other, and we believe that everyone knows their instrument well enough, and we trust everybody to make their own decisions for the good of the band, not for their own selfish needs. Charlie: Yeah, that's what I was gonna say... nobody should ever play anything just to satisfy your own ego. You know? Just to feel like you did something. Because you're doing a disservice to the song, and you're doing a disservice to everybody who has to play the song with you. And that's an attitude I've kind of picked up over the course of working with a lot of different bands, and seeing that over and over again where it's just like, yeah, you don't want to tell them not to play that just 'cause they're your buddy... but, you know. When it's like an Eddie Van Halen solo in the middle of the song, it really doesn't go. Dave: *Laughs* Charlie: You know? Somebody has to say something. E: Have you been using a producer for this session? Charlie: Nah. We've never worked with a producer before... I mean, I don't even know how you define that role, because we've played most of the songs and worked with them enough to have a reasonable idea of how it all should be put together and stuff. I don't know... like... we've never worked with anybody outside. Let me put it that way. Like, I've recorded everything that we've done, but I wouldn't say I've produced all of it. I've produced some of it. Just because, no matter who's recording, I have to be there, in the chair. And that means that if there's ever a feedback loop or somebody's asking, "How does this go?" or "Is there another idea that we can do here?" I'm usually the only other person in the room. So that usually just comes from me. But we've never really had a producer. Dave: Yeah, we don't want to lock that down and cause any trouble, either... like Charlie said, we've run with these songs. Even if we aren't playing them live, we've done a lot of work with them in our practice space, and before we went into the studio with this record, we took about a week and worked on pre-production in the studio�recording rough demos and cutting up, trimming down songs, extending songs, or just working out parts that didn't really seem to work as well as when we wrote them. So it's nice to kind of take a step back from the writing process... take a little bit of time in between the writing process and the recording process, and really kind of mull over those songs, and think, "Okay, well, we did this when we wrote it, we wrote it this way, or is it really working? Or we were just in the ultra-creative mind set, and were we just filling it with things for the sake of filling it?" You know, doing certain things that don't seem to fit. So we kind of all have a hand in it, which is really nice. We actually can put on the record, "Produced by the December Drive"... we all had some sort of input in it. Charlie: Actually, on our last album, it says "Produced by Anthony Perez"... and I don't know if you've seen the linear notes or anything like that, but that was our guitar player at the time, and the reason that's in there is he asked if we could put that in there because he had it in his head at the time that he wanted to start producing bands, so he asked if we could do that and maybe it could be a kick-start. But in reality, that album was us, and we were left to our own devices. And I don't know if that was good or bad. Dave: I'd probably venture to say, though, that this record is produced a lot better than our last one. *Laughs* Charlie: *Laughs* Yeah. Dave: We were like nineteen or something. Charlie: But not to say that we would be opposed to working with a producer in the future... I personally would love that, because that means that all I have to do is go in there and worry about playing drums, which is pretty neat, instead of, "Oh, is that mic broken?" and running back and forth between the control room and the tracking room, and doing that whole number, which can get kind of tedious after a while. Dave: Yeah, Charlie is definitely the most hardworking person in this band. E: Do you guys already have plans for what you'll do as soon as the album comes out? Dave: Well, what we've done within the last week is make sure that the tracks that we believe are the strongest, I went in and finished the vocals for those and tried to hit those hard first, just so we can start getting some rough mixes out and start pitching the record around to a couple of people�actually to anyone, really, that we can�and hopefully start to get some responses back before we're really set to put it out. But otherwise, we have our Plan B, which is to have it out by May, and if we have to release it our ourselves, then we will, you know? Charlie: Yeah, and then tour starts in the middle of May and lightens up at the end of August, or maybe even longer than that, depending on how it goes. Dave: We're used to booking our own tours, promoting ourselves... working with Enrique [their publicist] has been really nice, because he's actually taken some of that load and helped get more people to hear about us. But otherwise we're used to doing everything ourselves, so if we have to, we will. We think at this point that it's a strong release, and that if somebody was there to back us up, then we could go further with it than doing it ourselves. Or at least it would take less time to get to a point where we're happy, you know? And where we want to be. So basically that's the idea... if nobody wants to help us, then we're going to do it anyway. I think that's the way we've always looked at things, and if anybody knows about us, anywhere other than home... pretty much one of the only reasons that people do know about us is because we've always taken it into our own hands. We signed up to MP3.com when it was still up, and promoted ourselves and sent out mass e-mails, and now we're on Myspace constantly, working with that, and "band spamming" if you will. But we've always wanted to get somewhere, even if nobody is willing to help us, and we know the odds we have against us�being from where we're from, such a small place in the country. And we know how many other bands are out there, and what everybody else sounds like, so we're definitely trying to do it, but we'd definitely love some help. Charlie: So yes, definitely a lot of touring after this record�right before, and then soon as it's released. And we haven't really decided when that's going to wind up, but if it's going really well after a month of touring, then we'll just keep going. E: So I'm not sure just how you guys got your name, but have you ever stopped and really thought... gee, how many bands are out there with a month as part of their name? Are you still happy with the band name, or do you ever wonder if maybe you should have gone with something less cliche for this scene? Charlie: The December Drive... well, at the time, I think we were maybe juniors in high school. I know that I, at least, was very ignorant about any kind of greater music scene going on out there... Dave: I'll admit to that, too. Charlie: I know I didn't realize that the name would stick for so long. Our old guitarist was the one who originally came up with it, because of the Sunny Day Real Estate song. E: Oh, it is from the Sunny Day Real Estate song? "Seven" is one of my favorites. Charlie: So it was taken from that lyric, and he wanted to do the direct quote ("December's tragic drive..."), but then the Appleseed Cast used to be called that, so he said, "Okay, that's out." E: I didn't know the Appleseed Cast used to be called that. This is such a learning experience for me. Charlie: Yeah, the Appleseed Cast used to be called "December's Tragic Drive," so he said "Okay, I guess that's out, so we'll just shorten it." And I remember at the time going, "I don't know if I really like that at all..." But he was the kind of guy where if he was for something, he would not stop until he got his way. So eventually I kind of relented, and I said "Okay, fine, whatever. I just want to play." And then however many years later� Dave: Five. Charlie: �like five years later, there are few things that would please me more than having a different band name, but we figure that since we've worked so hard and done a respectable amount of stuff under this name... playing our music and whatever, if we changed the name today, the music that we were doing probably wouldn't change at all. But I think all those name trends or whatever? That goes away. I mean, what would be the cool thing to name your band today? To have an exclamation point in it, probably. Dave: And have a dancing reference in there. Charlie: I don't know�it's secondary to what we're doing. The music is the important thing. It's just kind of an embarrassing spot for us. Dave: We get pigeonholed, I guess. Some people told us when we drive into a new city, after we're done playing, they say "I'm glad I stayed, because when I saw your name on the flyer, I figured, 'Oh, this is a crappy band.'" They lock us into certain things... and we did it for ourselves, but that makes us work even harder to show people that we're not just like every other band. We're not one of those bands that you can pass off, hopefully. We believe that we're not. But we're hoping that maybe we'll have a little bit of life left in us once the that name trend has passed a little bit�like Charlie says. I doubt when the numbers come around again, we'll add a 182 to the end of our name or anything. We've had four guys in the band now since the original line-up... you know, it would have been nice to change the name, but that's what I always say. With that record and with all the work we've done to make people know us, it would be a little bit of a shot in the foot to do that, you know? At this point... even though we'd like to. Charlie: It might be a good online contest later. Dave: Yeah. *Laughs* Charlie: "Name our band." *Laughs* Dave: Yeah, "Name our band." Charlie: *Laughs* E: So do you guys think you have anything specific you're hoping to accomplish? Charlie: Anybody who does this on any other level besides just hanging out with your friends on the weekend once in a while has certain goals. Like, we all enjoy doing this�making music and making records and touring and playing shows and stuff. And nothing would make us happier than to be able to do that more months of the year and not have to worry about losing our apartment because we're gone. We'd love to have that record get out to a lot of people, and a lot of people would get the chance to enjoy it, and to be able to go and play in cities and venues where more people get to come and enjoy the music... it's not like our goal is, "Man, I really want a golden jet." Dave: "Yeah, I want to be on 'Cribs' someday." It's not anything like that, I don't think. Charlie: But we definitely would feel very rewarded and happy if we felt like our songs were getting out to more people, and more people were sharing it. Dave: I don't think any of us are really aspiring to be millionaires or anything like that... I think it's something everybody, no matter what profession you're in or what kind of background you have or what you're good at... I think it's something everybody feels. They'd love to do what they love doing, and be able to just do that. Survive and live a normal life doing what you love to do. And we all loving this. I personally would love if we could get to a point where we show up to a town and people actually know who we are when we show up. It happens sometimes, but that would be the most gratifying thing. And it's starting to happen, where we show up into towns and people actually know who we are, or at least have heard our name and are excited to see us. And I say me, personally, but I think we'd all like to have that instead of showing up to a town and hearing "There's no show here tonight." I think it all just goes back to being able to do this as much as we possibly want, and not have any fear of coming home to nothing. Charlie: Wouldn't mind playing overseas. Dave: Yeah. Charlie: Wouldn't mind doing that. I dunno. I wouldn't be opposed to a golden toilet seat. Dave: *Laughs* Or a golden ashtray. Charlie: There you go. But yeah. We definitely have some goals like that. We would like the chance to do some of those things, and they're not even that outlandish. Doing something like that's not unheard of. Playing a big tour, playing a supporting spot for a band we really like... that'd be awesome. Things like that, which I don't think are totally out of the question or unattainable. E: So just before we finish this interview, let's go ahead and ask: any great stories from the month of December? Charlie: Well. We live in about the most temperate place in the planet. Dave: Yeah, I think we got about a sixteenth of an inch the other day? And that's the first rain we've had in month. Charlie: I think it was about 85 degrees Christmas Eve. Which is another dimension of irony on the band name. Dave: We know nothing of it. Charlie: But funny story about snow! Actually, last Christmas�not this past year, the one before�we were on tour, and we were coming home Christmas Eve. We went out to the west coast, and we were driving home. And it was the first time it had snowed in Texas in, like, a hundred years or something like that. Dave: At least so far south in Texas. Charlie: It was like a hundred and something years. So when we hit El Paso, coming back into Texas, it was snowing, so we had to stop for the night. And the next day, we continued driving home. And it couldn't have been that much at all... it couldn't have been more than two inches of snow. Dave: Yeah. Charlie: But it was enough so that all the people who drove here and had never driven in Texas before were getting into accidents all over the road. Nobody had any experience driving in snow. And we're driving, and at some point we hit a little patch of ice or something, and we start drifting on the highway. And an eighteen-wheeler takes off our sideview mirror. And it was like air hockey, you know? The cars sliding as we got hit and started going off the other way. And we pull off onto the side of the road, but a cop comes and tells us "You can't park here, you're gonna hit, you've gotta go to a rest stop." So we were trying to find a gas station or something, and when we were pulling off of the highway, all of the exit ramps, they go up, they don't go down. So we got stuck on this little hill. So we had to kind of get the van over into the dirt a little bit, and then had to abandon the van and walk to a gas station. Dave: The only gas station that was closed that night, apparently. Charlie: Yeah, it was a Mom & Pop gas station on Christmas Eve, so they were home. So there was a little community of people huddled under the tarp for the gas pumps, and that's how we spent Christmas. Dave: Christmas 2004. Charlie: We managed to get home the next day, but it was quite a Christmas adventure. E: Well thanks a whole lot. This interview went on kind of forever, but it was a great one. Charlie: Thanks, Robby! Thanks to you! Dave: Thank you so much. |
|