DEATH BY STEREO

Efrem Schulz, Dan Palmer and Chris Dalley talk about their upcoming new album 'Death My Only Friend', going broke for a living, and the amount of "go's", "no's" and "whoahs"...

Taking their name from a line in seminal eighties vampire flick The Lost Boys, DBS stand for 12 years of blistering hardcore under the leadership of frontman Efrem Schulz. Death For Life, their 2005 record for Epitaph, was a thundering statement of intent that garnered them rave reviews across the scene. With a new full-length finally on the horizon, it was high time for RM to track them down again. Sam Page caught up with Efrem Schulz (vox), Dan Palmer (guitar) and Chris Dalley (drums) at the Underworld to talk about their upcoming new album Death My Only Friend, going broke for a living, and the amount of "go's", "no's" and "whoahs"...

Chris: "At the Waldrock festival it was all metal bands... and us."

How did a metal crowd react to you?

Dan: "People in Europe can be a lot more accepting than in the US. We did a tour with Soulfly a few years ago – I love Soulfly, they're a great band – but their audience weren't the best for us, but if we had done that tour [in Europe]; I think the audience would have been a lot more accepting."

Considering that metalcore and the cross over of hardcore and metal started in the US, I would have thought at they would have been a lot more open.

Dan: "The thing is that the genres are so divided [in the US] – you've got metal bands who sound exactly the same, the same with emo and punk - it's kind of hard to find diversity and everybody actually okay with it. I think here and in mainland Europe, it tends to be a lot more open. We really enjoy that, because we can be quirky and ride the line of hardcore, metal, punk, whatever."

What's the difference between festivals and gigs?

Dan: "It's fun doing both – playing festivals, we meet and play to a whole different bunch of people than we would normally play to. Playing our own gigs, it's a bit more gratifying because everybody's there to see you. We enjoy both, we just like playing period."

What's with weirdest place you've played?

Dan: "We played in a Hogan, which is like an American-Indian place."

Efrem: "In my old band, we played in a cave outside of Las Vegas, there aren't a lot of punk shows like that."

Chris: "We played in South America, which was pretty weird. It was outside on a mountain, and the air was pretty thin. I was dying after the first song."

Who's playing bass at the moment?

Dan: "JJ Clark – he's our bass player. He had to learn like 20 songs in two weeks. Our old bass player couldn't come out on this tour, so we've got a new one. It's his first tour, it's kind of a trial run. He's never toured with us, he might think we're assholes. We might hate him, he might hate us."

Is it frustrating to be limited to that set?

Efrem: "It's frustrating. I'd like to play all new songs."

Dan: "No, it's not because it enables us to become a tighter band. We change it up, depending on the time we have. It's something we do pretty much every tour we have anyway, because it makes a simpler set. It's a different audience every night, we want to have it down. Mid-way through a tour, like we are now, it feels really comfortable; I don't have to look at the set list anymore."

Chris: "We like to play songs back to back, and you it's hard to do that when you're looking at a set list."

Do you change the songs much from what their record status?

Dan: "Yeah, sometimes. We add more guitar or vocal stuff."

It must be a bit strange for you (Dan), because there are at least two guitars on all the albums?

Dan: "We've had problems getting second guitar plays. Good guitar players are usually assholes, I don't know. It's hard."

Chris: "It's hard to find someone we can have a rapor with."

Chris: "We're talking about second guitar players."

Efrem: "We don't have one. Nothing to talk about." [laughs]

Have you finished recording the new album?

Dan: "It just needs to be mixed and mastered."

Do you know whose going to do that?

Dan: "We're figuring that out. We're cashing in a lot favours in this record. We don't have a label right now, so we're doing everything on our own."

Efrem: "We didn't re-sign with Epitaph. When you've done something the same for so long, it's kinda rad to do something different. We thought that it'd be cooler this time to do the record ourselves and take it anywhere we want. I think we'll go with whoever is going to do the best job for us."

It seems, in many cases, that with hardcore bands who do go to a major label, eventually get fucked over by the label during that process.

Efrem: "Sort of. If you take a band like Sick of it All who signed to a major, and hated it... but they would never be as big as they are - they f**king exploded."

Dan: "Scratch the Surface was their biggest record: it was on a major label, Warner... but you could say that about anything, really. No one's ever happy with the label they're on. Everybody's got some kind of grievance with the label – enough money, doing the wrong things. I don't think I've ever met a band who have gone, 'this is the best label ever. Perfect!'"

Efrem: "We're friends with a few bands who have signed to major labels. They have quite enjoyed their experience - flourish, have done extremely well and are pretty happy."

If you did sign to a major label, would you be scared of alienating the hardcore crowd?

Efrem: "They said that when we signed to Epitaph from Indecision." [laughs]

Dan: "They're always going to complain about something you do – you can't please everybody all the time."

Did you ever fear that you would alienate yourself with the next record?

Dan: "We don't get scared. We'd rather progress and enjoy what we do."

Efrem: "We try to make different every time we make a new one."

Dan: "We may lose a couple of fans, but we'll gain some new ones, too."

Chris: "It's very diverse: it doesn't sound like the last album."

Does the album have a name yet?

Efrem: "Death My Only Friend."

Dan: "It's a lot more melodic, but it's a lot heavier. More extreme, I guess."

Is there another ballad?

Dan: "Ha, yes. It's the softest thing we've ever done."

Efrem: "But at the same time, we also have the most aggressive bastard song we've ever done."

Dan: "We've got more guitar solos, and more vocal harmonies."

Efrem: "We took everything we did and tried to turn it up."

Chris: "The producer (Jason Freese) [played with Green Day, Queens of the Stone Age, Dr. Dre, Busta Rhymes, Weezer, Jewel, NOFX, Lenny Kravitz, The Goo Goo Dolls - SP] pushed us to the hardest we've ever worked. It came out pretty amazing."

How does the song writing work?

Dan: "We just jammed. Sometimes I'd thrash a couple of riffs, write the out. Tell Chris, 'it needs a beat like this' and jam. Other stuff, we just made on the spot. It all depends."

Did Jim Minor (original guitarist) return for the writing of this album?

Dan: "He helped us writing one of the song."

Efrem: "We had talked about jamming, but live sometimes, it takes on a wild ride. He doesn't have the time right now, though."

Dan: "He's a very important tattoo artist; it's hard to take him away from that. It's unfair on us and him."

Efrem: "He's probably one of the top 30 artists in the States, so he's pretty busy. He wrote a lot of stuff, we just didn't have time to jam together. We have one song with him, and it's f**king killer."

How has Chris changed the sound, compared to the previous three drummers?

Chris: "The one thing I really wanted to is let Dan go nuts on this one. There are songs where I'm doing stuff I could never play, but also try and step back and let them take over – leave room for lots of guitars and/or vocals, at the same time, trying to keep up. I'm replacing three very different and very amazing drummers. They all had their own style."

Dan: "Chris is more straightforward: more hard heating; he just dials in. Each drummer had their own style, but Chris is the heaviest hitter. It's harder on the ears, makes us play louder."

Chris: "It's about the way [Dan] plays, how we play live, and how the crowd reacts, it makes me want to hit harder. Playing with Dan is amazing, he's the best guitarist I've ever played with. It just makes me want to beat the sh*t out my drums.

"I want to live up to the legacy of the Death by Stereo drummer, but I don't want to be a copy cat. It's hard not to be a copy cat with those three drummers. I don't think Jared [Alexander] is human, and Tim [Bender] put in a lot of jazz stuff, and then – who put in a lot of double bass. I do try and give their songs justice. Day of Death is one of my favourite drumming albums. It's not easy task."

What's changed, musically, from the last album?

Dan: "When we did the last album [Death for Life], we were in a dark period on the band where we were just f**king angry all the time."

There were rumours at the time that you had cancelled the European tour because you were told by the label to write a new album.

Dan: "We had a different, bigger manager, we thought: 'Oh, maybe they know what they're doing; what the best thing for us is.' It wasn't the right thing for us, plus we had different issues – drinking issues, whatever. Now we're in a happy period – it's so much fun, I love it. Tourings, recordings..."

Was there ever a point you thought "f**k it, lets do something else"?

Dan: "Not really. Some people felt that way, that's why we changed members so many time. Some people don't want to spend their life in a band for 10 years, tour and not make much money. You can see the world – and that's awesome – but that's not enough for some people."

I would've thought – having been signed to Epitaph, and having that given audience strength in America - would allow you to live off it?

Dan: "We can live off it if we tour all the time, but when we're writing we always have to work. Now I've got three jobs when I go home."

Efrem: "The best thing we did this time – because we didn't have a record label – we could take our time. We so many songs we wrote; we'd scrap the whole thing and keep one part and work around that."

Dan: "Epitaph weren't really strict anyway; they were never saying: 'We need the record now!' They're super cool people, super cool label and were never the label to go, 'you gotta this, you gotta do that.' We pretty much got to do what we want."

Are the long song titles back? And what happened to the "Go's" from the first few records?

Dan: "There a couple of stupidly long ones, but, the 'GO!''s became 'NO''s which became 'Woah''s. Maybe we'll get into 'heys!' eventually. There a lot of 'Woah''s on this album, a couple 'no''s."

How do the vocal lines come about?

Dan: "Efrem is pretty f**king good at what he does. He can sing a lot more than what he does in this band. We did a cover of a song by White Lion, and he sounded exactly like that singer. He's pretty versatile."

Chris: "Since we've been on this tour, I've been doing a lot of the high harmonies. For me, it's a challenge on its own. When I hear other bands do it, it sounds easy, but the way Efrem does it makes me really concentrate."

Dan: "Everything progressed, we all get better at what we do. I feel like I'm a better guitar player than before."

There's a bit of sweep picking...

Dan: "Yeah, the new album has a lot of fancy guitar stuff that I'm pretty proud of. Efrem also wants to challenge himself as well, with the vocal harmonies and vocal melodies, so we all work on it."

Chris: "We worked a lot in rehearsal on the harmonies, but when we went into record, Jared said, 'why don't you try this', and changed it and made it a lot stronger."

Dan: "Jared was great at that. He would introduce an idea which would spark Efrem off and he'd go and develop it."

Is there a chance that you don't have any quality control because you're too close to the album?

Dan: "That's what the producer is for, he's the quality control. He'd herd us in and kept our ego in check. He's produced people like Zebrahead and Green Day, and worked with Dr Dre. He's an amazing musician, and he's a f**king cool guy – it helps when you have someone you like to work with."

Chris: "He really cares about each project, and cares about this one a lot. He makes you excited."

Dan: "We've worked with other producers who haven't had that quality, necessarily, and it's a huge difference."

Is it important to keep the music based in hardcore?

Dan: "I don't think we ever used hardcore as a boundary in which we had to stay. We've always ventured out – we apply more to punk ideals. We're in the hardcore scene with a semi-metal sound. But I don't think we'd ever think, 'oh, we can't do that because of the hardcore scene will f**king hate us.' The softest song on the record doesn't actually have any guitars on it – it's all piano and strings."

Where do you take your influences from?

Efrem: "We all have different influences, and that's one of the best things about us. We turn each other to new sh*t all the time."

Dan: "The most boring thing a band could do is sound exactly like their influences. Progressing and changing is what keeps it interesting for us. We could do a record like the first one, but that's f**king boring. You want to hear five of the same record? A lot of bands do that, and they do well doing that. Some bands are really fucking good at it - like AC/DC - but there are bands that can't pull off longevity and I don't wannabe one of them."

I always thought you had quite an East Coast sound for a West Coast band – that New York groove.

Dan: "We're huge of Sick of it All, Madball, etc, fans so it's a natural thing."

Chris: "Yeah, people don't think 'Orange County' when they hear us."

Do you feel any affiliation with the ethics of hardcore?

Dan: "That's kind of a grey area. What are the ethics of the hardcore scene? If it means playing DIY shows for normal kids, yes we'll do that and we're cool with that. We're an independent type of band, but we're not part of their machine. We try to have a cameraderie with the other bands, but it's not a hardcore thing – we just like hanging out with people!"

Chris, what was the deal with touring with Zebrahead?

Chris: "Their drummer had a motorcycle accident. He's very close friends with Efrem, so I got a call saying, 'they're leaving for London tomorrow, can you fill in?' I don't know any of their songs, but I learnt them on the 9 hours on the plane, on my Ipod. For me, it was a kick – I'm used to playing with [Death by Stereo], so not playing so funky. But, it was just proving that there's another thing that I can now do. Those guys are top notch, amazing guys, it was an honour. I wouldn't have done it if [Efrem and Dan] were uncomfortable, but I think they were happy that I wasn't going to be in their face for, like, ten days."

Efrem, how did your guesting on Buckethead's album Enter the Chicken come about?

Efrem: He's a good dude. Serj Tankian [System of a Down], and his label manager (a good friend of ours), and Buckethead sat down and had a talk about singers they wanted for the album and they bought me up, and I said 'yeah, lets do it'. We jammed a couple of times, we recorded it at his house. He's one of the coolest dudes ever, so prolific.

Who is Buckethead?

Efrem: "Ahhhh... His name is 'Bucket', or 'Mr. Head. He's a good dude. He's probably, hands down, the best guitar player I've ever seen.

"The solo he wrote on the song – Dan asked me to show him how to play the solo – we wanted to play the song live. I played with Buckethead live in LA, and asked him about the solo and he said 'I don't remember.' 'What do you mean?' 'I don't remember. I made it up on the spot.' It's so real, so perfect – one take, done. Incredible.

"I always feel like I have to push myself. I never want to stop pushing. We can do whatever we want at any time. If you stick to a formula, it's not punk. A lot of people forget at the beginning the Dead Kennedy's didn't sound like the Circle Jerks who didn't sound like the Damned who didn't sound like the Cro-Mags. That's what made it so awesome – they're all so different, but the same struggle. But now, people have lost sight of that. A thousand hardcore bands exactly the same, a thousand punk bands sound exactly the same. We don't want to be any other than us."

by Sam Page

Further links

Death By Stereo.com

Official site for the ever-angry US hardcore punks