Catching Up With The Dont's

posted in: Features

Last year indie rockers The Dont’s won Sidecho Media‘s promotional package which was loaded with over $5,000 worth of online promotion and consulting services”from distribution and editorial solicitation to bio composition and mentoring with label reps. Now the band is getting ready to release Those Delicate Chemicals on June 22nd, and we figured what better time to chat up The Dont’s (Jonny, Ken, JJ and Joey) to see how working with Sidecho has been as well as what went into making their third record.

OS: First off, congratulations on getting ready to release Those Delicate Chemicals! We can’t wait to hear it. When we spoke to you last, you said the collection of songs were “sometimes improvised, sometimes written, sometimes recorded on extinct cell phones and answering machines.” Tell us what you mean by that.

Joey:  I think Bob Dylan once said something to the extent of “the songs wrote themselves, and they found me”. That said, I don’t think we or Jonny (our lyricist) have ever sat down and thought “ok, now what rhymes with love”.

Ken:  The Dont’s experience is basically, arrive, imbibe, turn on the pretty lights and create…the beauty of the experience is that songs emerge in a way that makes you understand that when the paramecium crawled out from the slime and grew legs and put on blue jeans, they did it so they could plug in and rock out.

Jonny: Dont’s songs are never written, they are always spontaneous combustion events.  We go off on bizarre tangents, recorded on our trusty binaural headphone rig, then review it all and refine the best stuff into songs. Usually this means rearranging sonic freak-outs into tight songs, but on our latest record, three of the tracks are unaltered studio recordings of these spontaneous flashes.  I would be curious to know how they stand up under psychiatric analysis.

OS: When describing TDC, you use words like “madness,” “haze” and “reckless.” In an album that is almost 3 years in the making, what exactly was the environment in writing/recording it like?

Joey: TDC is a “Night in the Life” ” it is the arrival at the party, the euphoria that ensues and ultimately a cathartic reckoning.

Ken: Life got rather involved with the process and we made choices to sway with the breeze rather than rigidly breaking…this prolonged the experience, which was frustrating because we wanted to finish and share the record, but also was interesting because all the minutia that slowed us down ended up crawling into the nooks and crannies of the music and inevitably had a positive effect on the sound of the record.  That being said, the environment was frequently reckless as we stumbled through the madness in a haze.

OS: You’re music is typically pretty groovy and upbeat. What vibe are you going for in your live performances?

Joey:  Our motto is usually quite simple:  “Play good.” You never know when that the bus is gonna run you or anyone else down, so you want these people you love or the new friends you make that evening to think, “Wow, I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun.”

Ken: We’re pretty focused on the party when we’re playing live.  Like a good host making sure your drink is full, but in your ear.

Jonny: Live music is always unpredictable, as each venue has different sound equipment, different acoustics, a different feel.  Playing a gig is a real-time reaction to taking the known into an unknown environment.  We don’t try to sound just like the recordings ” otherwise you could just stay home and listen, right? ” instead, we try to welcome the chaos of a live show, and fight chaos with more chaos.  We usually win.

OS: So can we expect any touring in the near future to go along with TDC?
JJ: Hopefully we get big in Japan and Germany.

Joey:  We’re road testing the release material and even some brand spanking unreleased material at Ranch Fest, a weekend festival in Idaho. Then, likely, we’ll be all over the west coast from the summer to year’s end, and hopefully a stint in and around CMJ in New York in the fall.

Ken: Build it and we will come.

Jonny: We’ll visit fans throughout California and the Pacific Northwest, and hopefully NY again, because last time we got to play to a crowd of hundreds of zombie-crawlers, which was a real treat.  And we’d love to be a part of a regional tour with a national act.

You guys have won some fairly significant prizes on OurStage. What kind of advice do you have for other OurStage artists?

Joey:  Have fun with your material ”the music, photos, and videos. Don’t try to out-cool your fans. I think people like a band they can relate to. Like, “Hey, I could see myself kicking back a few cans of shitty beer with those guys.”

Ken: Try to out-cool yourself.

Jonny: OurStage has been awesome, so I guess my advice would be: Submit!  You can’t win if you don’t play.  And this is important: embrace weirdness.  Find what you do that’s different ”not just a little bit different, but a LOT different ” and hone in on that.  It takes a lot to stand out, and if your sound is easily comparable to other artists, then you’re not pushing yourself hard enough.

OS: What have you found to be the most important factor in getting your music heard?

Ken: Ear candles.

Jonny: I gotta go with Woody Allen on this one, “90% of success is just showing up.”  These days there are so many opportunities for exposure ”podcasts, internet radio, traditional radio, blogs, zines, venue shows, festivals, events, house parties, music videos, etc. ”you really have a wide spectrum of media outlets to get your music out there.  The other 10% is making sure that what you’re doing is so different that it stands out.

OS: Most played songs on your iPod right now?

Joey:  Lots of Deerhunter and Dr. Dog.

Ken: Led Zeppelin, Can, The Sea and Cake.

Jonny: The artists who are on my upcoming movie soundtrack ”Tartufi, Finn Riggins, Birds & Batteries, Harbours, Andy Tisdall, Jaunting Martyrs…

OS: Favorite sound(s)?

Joey:  Tongue Drums. They are amazing.

Ken: The fountains in my groovy plant store.  They make me special.

Jonny: The squelchy love between my Radio Shack bullhorn and my Casio PG380 synth-guitar.  Get a room!