sexta-feira, 19 de maio de 2017

Drowned in a Sea of Sound with The Daysleepers - An Interview


Bem, chegou enfim o momento aqui nas páginas do TBTCI que iremos reverenciar uma das mais apaixonantes bandas que surgiram nos últimos anos, dispensando qualquer tipo de apresentação para os iniciados, estou falando dos mágicos de Buffalo, NY, The Daysleepers.

Dez entre dez amantes de shoegaze, certamente os colocarão entre seus prediletos, também, com um arsenal contendo "Hide Your Eyes", "The Soft Attack" e a obra prima "Drowned in a Sea of Sound" chega a ser desnecessário qualquer argumento maior.

Simplesmente o The Daysleepers é predileto do TBTCI. O único problema é que desde "Drowned in a Sea of Sound" estamos órfãos da maestria deles em criar sofisticadas pérolas de puro delírio gaze com enfoque no pós punk.

Mas, certamente essa espera terá um breve fim, afinal Jeff, explica em detalhes, que "Creation" o tão esperado novo álbum deles estão sendo criado com todo cuidado e zelo, mas antes dele, teremos aperitivos em formatos de singles.

Sugiro não perder nenhum passo, porque o The Daysleepers é absolutamente necessário.

Magistral resume.


***** Interview with The Daysleepers *****


Q. Hello Jeff, how are you? Thanks for doing this interview. It is an honor for TBTCI !!
To begin tell us the story of The Daysleepers, how it all started?
I'm doing great! I wish the story of our formation was a bit more exciting but really it's just that Mario (Drums) & Scott (Bass) were in a post-hardcore band with some of my friends. They recorded at Watchmen Studios with the Producer of our first 3 releases, Doug White, who is also in the band Makara's Pen. When they found out Doug was a big Shoegaze/ambient music fan they told me knowing I was also a big fan of the genre. I started thinking how great it would be to start a shoegaze band and actually record with someone who knows the genre well. It takes a special engineer to understand how to produce shoegaze music and I wanted to work with someone who could get me the sounds I wanted. Long story short, I asked Scott and Mario if they’d like to try making music together and they accepted. Our first practice was a huge success. We warmed up by playing “Souvlaki Space Station” by Slowdive and we thought it sounded amazing! Right after that we wrote our first song which turned out to be “Loved By The Sun” from our first EP “Hide Your Eyes". Also, I asked Mario if he would ask his sister Elizabeth to sing in the band and she joined us as well. I knew she was a lovely singer but I had another motive in that too…I was very attracted to her. It all ended up just working somehow. The rest is history really, we have a bunch of material out there and Elizabeth and I have been married for almost 10 years now.

Q. What are your influences?
So many really, but to name a few: The Cure, Cocteau Twins, The Chameleons, The Smiths, Slowdive, Sade, Swervedriver, Dinosaur Jr., My Bloody Valentine, Interpol, Catherine Wheel, The Verve, Ride, Lush...

Q. Make a list of 5 albums of all time …
Tough question…It changes a bit from time to time but:

1.) The Cure - Disintegration
2.) Slowdive - Souvlaki
3.) Sade - Love Deluxe
4.) The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
5.) My Bloody Valentine - Loveless


Q. How do you feel playing live?
I personally love playing live, but the Daysleepers are really more of a Studio project. We love messing with sounds, creating compositions and producing material, so that is really where we shine. We now have our own small recording studio so we are really enjoying being sound chemists, mixing up some incredible soundscapes. We can’t wait for you to hear what we are doing now…It’s a whole new dimension for us!

Q. How do you describe The Daysleepers sounds?
I would say very melodic, indie pop music wrapped in dense layers of reverb, overdrive, distortion and delay. Our focus is always on atmosphere and melody. I always try to make guitar and vocal hooks that get stuck in your head.

Q: Tell us about the process of recording the songs?
It used to be easy. We’d just write the songs, go to Watchmen Studios and record it. Doug would Mix & master and we’d be off with a new release. Now it’s a bit more complicated. Since the beginning of this year we have our own functioning home studio, and with that there is much more freedom to experiment and create amazing sounds without being pressed for time like we were in a studio. The down side is that there is a tendency to go a bit crazy and never finish anything because we are constantly tweaking, trying to make things better. I must admit I’ve been going a bit Kevin Shields crazy lately…That is, overthinking everything. At some point I have to tell myself, "this is really good so finish it up so you can actually get the material out to the people!” It’s very taxing on me at times. We all get involved in this process but on this new album I am the head producer, head of marketing/design, guitar player and the lead singer. Oh, I write all the lyrics too, which for me is almost the hardest part. It’s all a bit new for me to take on all of this, and I'm still in the process of figuring things out but I’m sure It will get easier as I learn and gain more experience producing our tracks.

Q. Which new bands do you recommend?
Nothing, From Indian Lakes, Drab Majesty, Jay Som, Vibragun, Funeral Advantage, Ducktails, Warpaint, Roosevelt (New Wave/Electronic), Flamingo (The Australian Electronic indie band by that name)...not sure how new some of those are but it's what I've been listening to lately. I listen to DKFM a lot when I want to dive solely into the world of Dreampop/Shoegaze, and there's tons of stuff I love on there but I don't always get the names of the bands.

Q: Which band would you love to cover version of?
Well, we just covered one of our favorite songs by The Smiths “There is a Light That Never Goes Out”. I’ve always loved that song so I’m glad we got to put our spin on it. We probably won’t be doing any more covers for a very long time but a few songs I’d love to take a crack at would be “Dreams” By Fleetwood Mac and “No Ordinary Love” by Sade. Two songs I've always loved, that I think would work well with our sound. I’d love to cover anything by The Cure, maybe one of my favorites like “Same Deep Water as You” or "2 Late", but it's just too intimidating. To me they are a near perfect band and somehow I just feel our version would end up sounding like a not-as-good version of the original...haha! Not a lot I feel I could bring their sound...it's so good as is.

Q. What are the plans for the future (we are all looking forward to the new album)?
Yes, the new album “Creation” is in the process of being written and recorded a we speak. We have 2 songs near completion which we plan on releasing as singles as soon as they are done. We’ve been away so long that I can’t wait to release it as a whole album, so I’ll be feeding out some singles before the whole thing releases. I’m setting Spring 2018 as the latest I'd like the entire album to be released. Ideally I’d love to have it out by Fall or Winter 2017, but at this point I’m just not sure how realistic that is, but It could happen If I pick up the pace with my engineering skills.

Also, I hope to get a new simple website up with a store that will have cool merchandise like shirts, exclusive vinyl releases, art prints and cool stuff like that. Vinyl is another big thing we are pushing for. We are planning on re-releasing all of our previous material on limited edition colored vinyl right up until our new album comes out. That's the plan anyway, don't hold me to every detail!

So, yes we will be very busy right up until the new album is ready. There’s a lot to do and a lot to focus on but we’re going to have fun doing it!


Q. Any parting words?
Just a humongous thank you to folks like you here at TBTCI and others out there who are keeping this scene alive and supported. This dreampop/shoegaze scene would not have lasted to this day without people like you and the passionate fans giving it a push. I also really want to thank our amazing, very patient Daysleepers fans out there. When I decided to get things moving again I wasn’t sure there were many fans of ours left in our absence. I was blown away by how many of our great fans, old and new, came flocking back to contact us on our official Instagram page. That really means a lot to us!

Also, please continue being patient with us as we try to make our best album yet...so far we are on track! We have deadlines we want to hit but ultimately we want to give you the best sounding music we can possibly make. You deserve that.
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Thanks

https://www.facebook.com/The-Daysleepers-275664598095/
https://thedaysleepers.bandcamp.com