Barry I think to me is definitely the “singer/songwriter” of the band where he comes up with the most of the song ideas. I tend to write very slow, sometimes only 2-3 songs a year where Barry will come up with sometimes 10-12 and dammit, they are all good ideas (laughs). Plus all of the funny You Tube clips and video you see about us online, that all comes from Barry. He is like the “documentarian” of the band where he always has a video camera running capturing all of the comedy that goes on during the recording process.
Myself? I think where Darrell is the high-tech aspect to the band I bring in that low-fi, almost punk rock swagger to the music and attitude. This is in no way a jab at my band brothers, but where they are tweeting pics of their fancy meals they are making or eating and talking about Apple programs or software, I am in the corner eating 7-11 nachos, drinking cheap beer, cutting my hair in a Mohawk and trying to fix my bass with duct-tape and spit (laughs). I cut my teeth playing in hardcore, punk and metal bands for decades and although I love this type of music and like a lot of the same artists as Barry and Darrell, I still inflict that percussive, heavy thumping attitude to my playing and persona on stage. Plus I love coming up with concepts and ideas for the band whether it’s an album title, artwork, stage look and promotion/booking shows. Also, I love to make those two laugh. I’m always cracking jokes and being a goofball.
ANTHONY: Have you ever just roundly rejected a song because it “wasn’t Dalliance enough?”
DARRELL: Yes. I think when we were first writing the EP and the subsequent singles this happened more. There are no hard feelings – One day, we’ll probably all release solo music like KISS did in 1978 and that’s not entirely tongue in cheek… But, yes, there’s plenty of music we’ve either tried and rejected or rejected outright. It rarely means we don’t like those songs – just that we feel we have a pretty good handle on our aesthetic and what works. As we grow more as a band, future releases will not all sound like Birth Love Death, but there will still be that glue that makes them a part of this band.
ANTHONY: A lot of the songs on BLD are very dark subject matter. Will we ever get to hear a “shiny happy” Dalliance song?
DARRELL: Don’t rule it out. The songs come from real places and real experiences. Dark is not our shtick – its where some of us were when we wrote a lot of the material and lives and experiences tend to evolve. I think that if one of us writes music about a positive life experience, you’ll get that shiny happy song. We wouldn’t write dark for the sake of darkness and we won’t write happy and shiny without a tangible experience that matches those emotions.
ANTHONY: What’s the most unusual instrument that’s made its way into a Dalliance song?
DARRELL: I think this depends on your musical experiences before listening to us. To me, nothing is out of bounds, so I don’t find too much unusual. Some people might listen and pick out the ukulele, but so many bands have used it and artists like Amanda Palmer brought it to the fore long before we wrote anything on uke. I picked up my ukulele on EBay because I wanted a portable instrument and it was shaped like a Gibson Explorer guitar. Barry added a pick-up and guitar strings and the ‘rock-ele’ was born. It shaped the sound of some recordings, but in the end, we actually recorded with a more traditional uke to get back to a more organic sound. We use glockenspiel in Broken Ballerina – That’s also something being used and sometimes overused by a lot of bands, although, Los Campesinos are a great example of a band using that sound to perfection. I think that we sometimes have more unusual ways of recording than unusual instruments. I’ve made a tent with moving blankets and had Barry sit on the floor, inside the tent, in the dark, to record vocals. We used the smallest guitar amp we own to track those big guitars you hear on Leave it All Behind. We tracked Drown With Me almost completely live and in one take, just to see if we could do it and, in my opinion, it’s a much better version than the studio version we did with Brady Bastards that took more than a day to complete. Yes: that song is the bridge between the two bands – Its our Beethoven’s 9th, but with only 3 chords I think we like to experiment when we can’t get something to work the way the book says that it should, but we’re not going out of our way to bring in unusual instruments.
ANTHONY: Where will you be performing in the near future?
DARRELL: We’ll be at Red Star in Brooklyn on September 8th and there will be some more show announcements in the next few weeks. We’re trying to play out about one or two times per month, so that we can continue to write new music AND we’re very excited about starting a regular podcast where we will talk with anyone who is an independent artist about anything as long as its got more depth than promotion only. We are actually looking for guests – With the magic of Skype, this doesn’t mean they need to come to our studio, so, dear readers, if you want to join us as we get this thing off the ground, contact us and we’ll make it happen. Please be interesting and articulate.
ANTHONY: Possibly the most important question of the interview: When will the video for “Minor Disturbance” get made?
DARRELL: We had hoped to start getting this going this Summer, but there may be a few obstacles to making that happen right now. That said, we really WANT to do it and we will. We may use the podcast, as well as this interview, to reach more people who have the expertise we need. We could do this ourselves, but if someone has access to better cameras, can edit better than we can, can direct, etc. we’d love to talk to you. Of course the issue is always money, but nothing rules out the possibility of crowd funding it. To this point, we’re proud of the fact that we have made everything with our own hands and our own money, but there’s no reason to explore all avenues to get the video made, as well as future recordings, promotion, etc if there’s a good fit.
ANTHONY: And my usual closing question: What are your favorite books, and what would you say to someone who hasn’t read them to convince them that they should?
BARRY: I have a lot of books that I love. I don’t often read fiction, but when I do… I read Chuck Palahniuk. Fight Club is amazing, and Haunted is a great read if you want your guts wrenched. I enjoy reading anything by Russell Simmons. He has a unique mix of spirituality, social responsiblity and business savvy. I read a lot, I mean a LOT of Deepak Chopra. My most recent favorite is The Shadow Effect, which he wrote with Marianne Williamson and Debbie Ford. I think everyone should read it, but especially anyone who struggles with their “dark side” like I did for many years (those Dalliance lyrics had to come from somewhere, folks). It’s about accepting yourself as a whole, shadow and all, and learning to live as a complete, loving human being. The Seven Spiritual Laws of Super Heroes was also a great read. If I knew anyone who was into super heroes, I would highly recommend it. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. Against the Stream by Noah Levine was also an important book for me. Noah Levine is a former skate punk/addict who got himself clean & sober through Buddhism, and he presents the principles of Buddhism in a language and style that’s accessible to people who’ve lived hard or self-abusive lifestyles. The book I’m currently reading is The Laws of the Ring, by Urijah Faber. He’s a former world champion MMA fighter who also has a degree in human development. It’s an inspirational/motivational book made up of many short chapters that are easy, quick reads. I try to read one every day as a tool to motivate and inspire me.
DARRELL: Favorite Books as in, of all time, is far too daunting a question for me to take up. In terms of recent reads, I would recommend just about anything from Malcolm Gladwell. No one makes sociology, psychology and social psychology an incredible journey like this guy. Examining unexpected outcomes in experiments, understanding why people born in a certain year or month are more successful than their peers, and exploring the adaptive unconscious was never this much fun. I’ve read every book, every New Yorker Article, repeatedly watched his two TED Talks and seen him speak live at the 92nd Street Y. I am that into him.
GREGRY: I really don’t read as much as I like or used to, but when I do I love to read autobiographies especially on musicians because it really gives you a detailed look into how they got to where they are and how it is to be a famous working musician. Boy George’s Take it Like A Man was an amazing account of what he dealt with from being not only a famous musician out of nothing, but his descent into heroin addiction, his relationship with the drummer and how he dealt with his image and sexuality in the 80’s. I read that from a recommendation from a friend and literally bought every Culture Club and Boy George solo album during and after reading so I had a soundtrack while I was reading.
On the other spectrum was David Lee Roth’s Crazy From The Heat. When you are reading it the chapters are all over the place (meaning in real no chronological order) and the way it’s written you can literally hear him in your head because it’s written exactly how he talks in almost that scatting type of rhythm. People take him for a nut-job, which he kind of is but he was sooo important in making that band as big as they became because he was the flashy front man and was responsible for a lot of the image and attitude of Van Halen.
Last big one for me was Henry Rollins’ Get In The Van. I read this while on tour with one of my former bands in the 90’s and it was an awesome account on the early days of his band Black Flag and the touring they used to do. These guys were a major influence on myself and punk rock/hardcore in general and these guys never had a massive tour bus, groupies or stadium arena tours it was all DIY and hard living. It was a very good read and the fact that I was reading about Rollins toughing it out, sleeping in a Ryder truck with the equipment going to the next dive bar while I was doing the exact same thing while reading was amazing.
I can go on and on with others, but those three along were the biggest. Plus I’ve always loved the overall works by Hunter S Thompson, William S. Burroughs, Nic Cave and I hear that guy who wrote The Firflake is quite the humdinger J
ANTHONY: Well, if Gregry doesn’t know how to end an interview on a good note (sucking up to the interviewer), no one does! Thanks again, guys, for taking time out to give such detailed answers. Now, let’s get going on that “Minor Disturbance” video, shall we? The guy who wrote the script isn’t expecting to be paid, but he’d like to be able to show it to people….
You can find The Dalliance on their own website and on Facebook. You can stream or purchase their music on Bandcamp. You can follow them on Twitter collectively (@thedalliance) or individually (Darrell – @floopjack; Gregry – @Gregry13; Barry – @BarryMangione). For general inquiries, email Info@thedalliance.org and for booking email Booking@thedalliance.com.
And of course they have a Youtube channel, where you can find concert videos as well as the official video for LEAVE IT ALL BEHIND:
