There are many bands out there and some waiting to come out claiming they have a new sound. Something never done before, something that will blow your mind. According to Year Long Disaster, that’s bullshit. ~Click Read More for photos and the full interview.
There are many bands out there and some waiting to come out claiming they have a new sound. Something never done before, something that will blow your mind. According to Year Long Disaster, that’s bullshit. Everything that is going on in the world has been done before to a certain extent. Not saying that new music isn’t any good, I’m just saying everyone has been influenced by the past. Listening to Year Long Disaster’s self-titled release on Volcom Entertainment, I began to hear things from classic rock bands my dad listened to and was intrigued by the way the band put a modern spin on the music.
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Lead singer Daniel Davies grew up listening to classic rock right in his living room. His dad Dave Davies was the lead guitarist for The Kinks. The trio of Daniel Davies, Rich Mullins and Brad Hargreaves formed out of pure love of music, and the rock world is about to have its head spun.
After a few self-booked tours, turning down major record labels, and bouts with sobriety, Year Long Disaster found its home with Volcom Entertainment. Staying true to classic rock, their self titled album will be released on vinyl on 8/21/07, and the CD will be released 9/25/07. You can find them on tour with Clutch and also on Volcom Ent.’s Summer Tour, along with record label mates Valient Thorr and ASG.
I had the opportunity to have a conversion with bassist Rich Mullins, and we spoke about everything from live music to expressing yourself. From the conversation, I could tell that he was and his bandmates are true artists in every sense of the word. If you are a fan of rock music, do not hesitate to check these guys out…
Listening to the album, I hear a lot of classic rock influences. The one that sticks out in my mind is on the last song “Swan on Black Lake”. Can you tell me who I might be thinking about?
RM- Led Zeppelin?
JM- Exactly! I heard “Stairway to Heaven” every time I have listened to that song!
RM- Basically, we approach it when we first started writing music, like when you first learn to play guitar, you make up little chord progressions that sound good. Then I went immediately trying to imitate what I like. At first you start imitate it and then you start to learn their songs and the way they progress and do things. For you to even think that just a little bit is the highest compliment we can get.
JM- It’s cool to touch on something like that and put a newer spin on it, but still keep true to classic rock.
Well, what I think developed over the course of time, in the 80’s with the dawn of punk rock which came about to end the tyrannical rule of classic rock, those bands brought in the three to four chord thing back, which is where rock started. Bands started taking it to a grand virtuoso level like Queen and Led Zeppelin, and then it was scaled back. Every once in a while a band will listen to Pink Floyd and will try to put really crazy noises in between their song and make fifteen minute songs with really good parts, but what they really don’t concentrate on is, like Led Zeppelin did, is you have to have 3 or 4 really melodic structures that come together. But then at the same time, music has evolved with punk rock. Turn that into a grand statement, which is a big riff situation and that is how that whole song “Swan on Black Lake” came about. We just tried to combine the older era with what we’ve been listening to our whole lives.
A lot of what is playing on the radio now with the pop rock and emo stuff will hopefully fade. But your music sounds to me like something that has been passed down from generations from people who evolved with rock n’roll.
You get it! That’s what it is. I always envisioned Hank Williams showing up with his guitar and just playing at a place that has no PA, kicking ass! And it’s just the feeling, such knowledge of music, of knowing the roots of everything, like seeing how the blues transpired. One of the things I’ve figured out is if you want to be like Led Zeppelin, you have to go back and listen to what they listened to. You get a feeling from it, and it’s like imitating it, playing it, then adding your own thing. I’m sure we’ll catch a lot of shit, people saying “dude, that sounds just like…” but I don’t care. I learn by going back and revisiting.
It’s like the Salvador Dali quote you guys use in the bio, “Anything that does not spring from tradition is plagiarized. Begin drawing and painting like the old masters; after that always do as you wish, you will be respected.”
Exactly, like if I were to make a film, I would sit down for a couple years and just watch Stanley Kubrick movies, and then say, ok well, I don’t want to be exactly like that, so what if I do this, would it create the same affect.
Can you give me some other bands you’ve been listening to?
We listen to a lot of older blues, like Buddy Guy and Robert Johnson, but when listening to rock, I think the masters are ZZ Top. A lot of people think about them because of “Sharp Dressed Man”, which is a bad ass song, but the older stuff is some of the most incredible rock n’roll ever created. The riffs sound so tempo but are just so bad ass. I had the fortune to have a conversation with Lemmy from Motorhead, and asked him where they come from and he just said “ZZ Top.” Also, I think it’s weird if you don’t like Pink Floyd (laughs). David Bowie, and The Kinks, the Rolling Stones are just a great band. AC/DC is great at writing songs, especially when Bon Scott was in the band, and then also the Rolling Stones.
So how did Year Long Disaster get started? Was it the similarities in the liking the same music…
When Daniel and I met, we spent a week basically getting wasted, I didn’t even know he could really play guitar. And during that time when you get wasted and you’re hanging out with the same people you learn really quickly what kind of music they’re into. Once I figured out he could play, and I knew what he wanted to do, we just kept talking about how organic his father’s band was and just how their conception was so great. With him being like “I know I can do it,” I just believed he could. And once we saw Brad play and we were able to talk him into just jamming with us, the very first time we practiced, we just started playing and I was like “this is good.” You hear about these things all the time, but I’ve never really experienced it. None of us at that time said anything, we were just like let’s keep practicing and see if anybody likes what were doing
So Brad was still playing with his other band Third Eye Blind at this time?
Yeah, they still play shows every once in a while. They are going to do a few shows coming up, but it doesn’t interfere with our schedule. Brad is the hardest working drummer, people don’t even understand he sold 8 million records with his other band and he gets in a van with us and drives crazy distances, carries his own drums, and does the whole thing. They had a show at the Superbowl of the Arena Football League on NBC, they played at halftime, he left the gig and flew to Youngstown, Ohio and played with us at the Emissions of Monolith Festival. People don’t understand how fully dedicated to music Brad is, and he is the definition of loving music and doing anything to play.
I don’t want to pry, but didn’t you and Daniel have issues with sobriety?
Oh, yeah. (laughs). Ask whatever you want.
Were you guys sober when you first started to jam? Or was that a decision after the fact? How long did it take from meeting Brad to saying I think we have something here that will actually go somewhere?
It was crazy, when Daniel and I went to rehab and got out, we both made a year being clean. We were jamming before we went into rehab, and God knows what it sounded like, it was probably horrible. We were really both really bad. I was drinking a fifth of vodka everyday and so would he, just incredible amount of alcohol, so I really don’t remember much. We got clean during that first year when we started figuring out what was going to be our band. Then after a year I started drinking again, I thought it was a really good idea to drink, but that didn’t really work out. What was odd is after I drank again, we had already met Brad and had 5 or 6 songs together, and I started going off the deep end again. We had some friends step in and just say “Rich, you’re really gonna blow it this time” and I managed to stop drinking, and that was 2 years and 2 months ago. I consider right then, the beginning of our band.
When I stopped drinking we went up to a friends house and started making demos, and with 5 songs we booked some shows and drove cross-country in some crappy van. After about a year of being clean and playing, we came back to L.A., and the president of Capitol Records saw us play and said we want to sign you and give you a deal so good, you won’t go around and seek any other offers. But we weren’t ready for any of that yet.
So did you end up signing with Capitol?
No, that ended up not working out, but they did give us some money because we did wait and not sign with anyone else. It was the best thing that could have happened to us. It was a really nice deal, but in the end we just weren’t ready for it. It wasn’t until this past October, when we sat down and made the riffs we have and started turning them into songs. We worked on the chorus and vocals together, cause before that, we just had a collection of riffs. When we played live, people could get the idea, cause you can play loud and push things through, but in the context of a record it would have been nearly as good.
About how long after that did you sign with Volcom Entertainment? And how did you get hooked up with them?
This past March, it went really quickly. Valient Thorr! I booked a couple of tours across the country for us and knew about Valient Thorr, and managed for us to weasel onto like 4 of their shows. I know Phil who works at the Milestone in Charlotte, he helped us get on, and we also got on a show at Cat’s Cradle with them, one in Johnson City, Tenessee. And when they saw us they really liked us and told Volcom about us, and we talked and really liked the situation. At the time we really had to sign because we had more than one major label offer, and in January it really became obvious of who we could trust out there and who was cool. They guys we talked to at Volcom were just badass.
So what are the details of your deal?
I think 2 albums. It’s one of those things you just wait and see. Like here is the first one, and we can see how we do with this and see if they are happy, because we are really happy with them right now. Hopefully, the relationship will just keep progressing.
Line Up focuses a lot on expression; board riding, music, art, etc… Can you talk about expression and how musicians use their riffs and lyrics to express some personal feelings?
I think being an artist is the greatest thing you can do. I always have been, even goi when I was a little kid. Even with athletics, anything you can do with your body that makes the world a better place, makes people want to see it, and you feel really good about it, it’s the greatest feeling. Part of expressing yourself as an artist is something you have to do, you have to live your entire life doing what you are trying to express. Every single second of the day, whether you are replying to someone’s email or sitting down having a discussion with anybody, you kind of relate everything in a graceful manner and try to express your views and turn everything into a more spiritual and better place for humanity. That’s basically the goal of ours.
People have chiseled into cave walls and made them look pretty. In our short time, I just think that’s the highest thing we can do, other than maybe raise kids who have that same attitude. So your expression can’t just happen in one guitar lick, it’s like a riff or lick that has an affect in life, a moment, like part of a storm. The whole overall expression of your day, if you try to be graceful and go through sort of a Devine dignity, you are being artistic. You have to respect it in everything you do. You can’t just say painting is art and that’s it, even on a lower level. Runway model is art, it’s there expressing itself with dignity and looks amazing. It gives a different feel to different people, but if you work on it hard enough, you will eventually appeal to every heart out there, and that’s the idea.
Basically, our take is that the Universe is our canvas, and no matter what you do, you are contributing to it, whether negative or positive, it’s going to have an affect on something.
It’s one living organism, everything on this planet is connected. You can feel it just by the archetypes of your dreams, like why do you have similar dreams as people who lived thousands of years ago? But it’s true, it’s been written down and documented. Things don’t really change that much, but our whole overall attitude can, so we get as much negative out of us, get that element out and everyone tries to live in a positive manner. Things that I think that are really negative is when people want to give awards for things rather than just being like “If you try, it’s great!” Just trying is great, be like, “dude, you win the best short-story song of the millennium”. It’s the act, if you let it go throughout your whole life with everything, like when you’re kid and you think “If I can skate for the next ten minutes, I’m totally going to get that car I want in a year” That whole attitude of just challenging yourself, to me, is just what it’s all about.
With the music culture and the surf/skate cultures, aside from competition, no one is really looking to get judged. Sometimes it’s good to get awards, but some are meaningless.
You got to have the Superbowl. Awards for competition and head to head competition I totally dig, people striving for more. In the sense of art, like an English paper when you turn it in to your English teacher, and you get a C, and some chick gets an A. You know her paper sucks, it’s like who is anyone to judge that? Who is to say, “this person is bad and they need to be in jail.”
With your break from touring, are you relaxing? What do you guys do in your spare time besides write music?
I like to read, but I am really concentrating on writing music. I kind of set my day apart, I play music when I first get up it kind of relaxes me a little bit, then I’ll write for a while during the day and read a little bit. As the day wears on, I’ll write a bit more because it’s most relaxing, then at the end of the day, I will pop in my Adult Swim collection and watch it for the 100th time.
Nice, what type of stuff are you reading these days? Anything that helps influence you with you music?
Yeah, definitely. The last thing I just read was this book Gambara by Balzac, which is just an awesome story about a musician actually. It’s the first book I ever picked up and the review for it was written by Picasso. Balzac wrote 96 novels in 20 years, and eventually collapsed from his caffeine intake(laughs). He really writes a lot about the artistic mind and a lot is just psychological in nature, about the mind games people play on each other. Like the games a selfish individual would play on an unselfish individual.
That’s cool that you get influences from outside sources other than the musicians we spoke about earlier.
It goes along with what I said about it has to go throughout your whole life, and even your friend that stops by for no reason and asks if you got weed, that will have an affect on the rest of your day.
What’s the plan for winter? You finish up touring with Clutch and hop onto the remainder of the Volcom Tour. You’re releasing your record in September, what is in store for Year Long Disaster?
We have a few tours in our sites that look pretty badass, so we want to tour straight through. I believe we are going over seas in November, then we’ll be right back in the states. Our idea is to tour this record non-stop for a year and a half, and at the same time get record two finished. Right about now we’re five songs into record two with writing, and we’re going to try to get about 20 songs together by winter time. That’s our own little personal thing.
Is you first single going to be Leda Atomica?
I don’t know, which one would you pick?
Well, that’s the one I have heard the most on Myspace, but “Sapphire” struck me!
Our producer said “Sapphire” too!
I’ve been to shows where the record sounds one way and the live performance is completely opposite. Is it a similar feel for the music at a live show?
RM- This record was recorded 95% live, just the three of us getting set recorded live. We try to keep it really, really bare. With “Swan on Black Lake,” we played it acoustically, stopped the tape, jumped up and ran to our electric instruments and started playing. That’s how we did that song. So everything sounds really close live as it does on the record. We want to deliver a rock’n’roll show. All the musicians on stage play an instrument and we give 110%.
On that note, I can’t wait to see you live! Thank you for your time and good luck with the rest of the tour!
You’re on the list!
You can check for tour info on the bands website: www.yearlongdisaster.com
www.volcoment.com
www.myspace.com/yearlongdisaster
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