Field Dispatch
Matt Connarton Unleashed 7-25-26 hour 1
Game Plan
Speaker 1: You're listening to Matt Connorton Unleashed on WU M and
Speaker 1: H ninety five point.
Speaker 2: Three Right now on w m n H ninety five
Speaker 2: point three f M and Matt Connorton Unleashed, we have
Speaker 2: an exclusive world radio premiere. This isn't coming out until
Speaker 2: July thirty first, but you heard it here first, the
Speaker 2: brand new single from yon Man, Summertime Love.
Speaker 3: Wig.
Speaker 1: Can you can you feel.
Speaker 3: Guys?
Speaker 4: Small stuff?
Speaker 3: Can bet can see.
Speaker 5: So so.
Speaker 4: So so.
Speaker 5: So so.
Speaker 3: Fine, I.
Speaker 6: Can see, can see feel.
Speaker 4: No shot snow small stuff and be getting feel.
Speaker 6: So must sound.
Speaker 4: So sound.
Speaker 6: Times sound songs.
Speaker 2: So I love it. That is a summertime love by
Speaker 2: yon Man and hopefully we'll get yon Man on the
Speaker 2: show soon. But that track officially comes out July thirty first,
Speaker 2: So you heard it here first, right here on WMNH
Speaker 2: and ninety five point three and of course here on
Speaker 2: Matt Connorton Unleashed. And welcome to the show everybody. We
Speaker 2: got an exciting show for are you this week from
Speaker 2: the WM and H ninety five point three FM studio
Speaker 2: here in glorious Manchester, New Hampshire, And of course you
Speaker 2: can stream the show from anywhere. Go to Matt connorton
Speaker 2: dot com slash Unleashed for your updated list of live
Speaker 2: streaming options. Hello to our friends in Australia who are
Speaker 2: tuning in. By the way, talked about that with Charles Richardson.
Speaker 2: I was on the Charles Richardson Show this week on
Speaker 2: Wednesday night. You can find that on YouTube just do
Speaker 2: a quick search for the Charles Richardson Show and I
Speaker 2: was on the most recent episode with him. We talked
Speaker 2: about a lot of interesting stuff, to say the least,
Speaker 2: but that was that was a lot of fun and
Speaker 2: all of it, all of it things I won't get
Speaker 2: into here, but yeah, check out the latest edition of
Speaker 2: The Charles Richardson Show. Charles Richardson. Also, by the way,
Speaker 2: now one of my colleagues over at Dere Media Group
Speaker 2: on Radio X so that's exciting. So but yeah, we
Speaker 2: had a pretty in depth conversation. I was on with
Speaker 2: them for the entire two hours, so it was a
Speaker 2: lot of fun. We did do some wrestling talk at
Speaker 2: the end too, so if that is not your thing,
Speaker 2: I would caution you to maybe avoid that part of
Speaker 2: the show, but that was at the very end. Not
Speaker 2: everyone likes the wrestling, but yeah, so it's been quite
Speaker 2: a week, a very busy week. And of course it
Speaker 2: is July twenty five, twenty twenty six. As we are
Speaker 2: getting toward toward the end of July. July is kind
Speaker 2: of my favorite month because summer is my favorite time
Speaker 2: of year, although I really liked June as well, because June,
Speaker 2: you're just getting into summer and it's like, oh, we
Speaker 2: still have the whole summer. You get toward the end
Speaker 2: of July, it's like, uh oh, even though we still
Speaker 2: have you know, I mean, there's August. But the thing
Speaker 2: about August is you get about midway through August and
Speaker 2: you start to have those days where it'll still be
Speaker 2: really hot during the day. You might have a ninety
Speaker 2: degree day in the middle of August, but something changes
Speaker 2: at night, like you get these these wild temperature swings
Speaker 2: where it might be ninety degrees in the day and
Speaker 2: then as soon as the sun goes down, the temperature
Speaker 2: just plummets, and all of a sudden, it doesn't feel
Speaker 2: like summer at night, and then you think, well, this
Speaker 2: is slipping away. So but part of why that's on
Speaker 2: my mind is as a certain individual who does a
Speaker 2: podcast and although he's old, so he continues to use
Speaker 2: the term internet radio, even though that's that's become very
Speaker 2: arcane and antiquated term. But he was talking about the
Speaker 2: other day on his show, Yeah, you know, Summer's almost over,
Speaker 2: trying to Yeah, I guess he's gonna take a break.
Speaker 2: He's gonna take another break. He takes many many breaks
Speaker 2: from his show, many hiatuses, but he's like, yeah, summer's
Speaker 2: almost over. You know, got to enjoy the last rows
Speaker 2: of summer. It's like, dude, it's not even the end
Speaker 2: of July yet. Don't say that. But I do so
Speaker 2: love the summer. So it was cool to be able
Speaker 2: to play Summertime Love by yon Man as we enjoy.
Speaker 2: I like anything related to my favorite time of a year.
Speaker 2: Although then again, I'm not particularly a big fan of
Speaker 2: sort of like, you know, beach music and that type
Speaker 2: of type of stuff. But anyway, so because I don't
Speaker 2: go to the beach, that's not what I like about summer.
Speaker 2: I don't go to the beach. I don't like to
Speaker 2: be out in the sun. I burn easily. There's a
Speaker 2: history of melanoma in my family. Plus I get bored easily.
Speaker 2: So it's not that it's not like I do. I
Speaker 2: don't even do anything outdoorsy. I don't do outdoorsy summer things.
Speaker 2: If you're a regular listener of the show, you've heard
Speaker 2: me talking about my paralyzing fear of deer ticks, for example.
Speaker 2: So it's not even that that's not what I love
Speaker 2: about summer. I just love that it's hot. I like
Speaker 2: the heat. I don't like the cold. I love the heat.
Speaker 2: So needless to say, I'm not a fan of winter,
Speaker 2: but summer is my time. But we do have an
Speaker 2: exciting show again. It was fun to do the premiere
Speaker 2: of the new track from Yon Mine, and we will
Speaker 2: do that, of course, later on in the show, probably
Speaker 2: in the second hour. In the third hour, we'll get
Speaker 2: that in as well. Coming up in just a few minutes,
Speaker 2: we're gonna be joined via phone by Rob Weiss of
Speaker 2: the band Deerarad. Really looking forward to talking to Rob.
Speaker 2: In the second hour. Today we have the return of
Speaker 2: Nikolai kine Or, also known as his The name of
Speaker 2: his project is No Seva. I can never remember is
Speaker 2: it no Siva or Nosiva? But we will find out
Speaker 2: when nikola is here with us. We've got a brand
Speaker 2: new single that we're gonna play just came out, and
Speaker 2: that also will be a world radio premiere. I promise
Speaker 2: you you have not heard this anywhere else. And then
Speaker 2: in the third hour we have the return of Superbug,
Speaker 2: such a great band. They've got a new release, they've
Speaker 2: got a bunch of new tracks. We're gonna feature on
Speaker 2: the show today. Cannot wait to talk with them as well.
Speaker 2: So we've got a fun show for you today. But
Speaker 2: I think what we should do right now is we're
Speaker 2: gonna go ahead and play one of these songs from
Speaker 2: Dear Darkhead, and then if all goes according to plan,
Speaker 2: which sometimes it does, we will have not always live
Speaker 2: radio is an adventure, you just never know. But we
Speaker 2: should have Rob Weise from the band Dear Darkhead on
Speaker 2: the studio line with us. Can't wait to talk to him.
Speaker 2: I really like this project. We're gonna play right now
Speaker 2: the idol track from the album The Pendulum Swings. So
Speaker 2: this is called the Pendulum Swings. And again the band
Speaker 2: is Dear Dark Head.
Speaker 4: In any.
Speaker 6: Anything, I don't in anything.
Speaker 2: Doing that is the Pendulum Swings. That is the title
Speaker 2: track from the album The Pendulum Swings from Dear Dark Head,
Speaker 2: and Rob Wise is going to be joining us from
Speaker 2: the band just a moment. But while we wait where
Speaker 2: he calls us, I want to play one more Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's play this track, letting Go. This is kind of
Speaker 2: the focus track, as we say in the industry. This
Speaker 2: is really good too. I want to seek this in
Speaker 2: before we talk to Rob. That is letting Go from
Speaker 2: Dear Dark Head. The album is called The Pendulum Swings.
Speaker 2: Just came out July tenth, so it's very new. And
Speaker 2: let's see. We've got Rob Weiss on the phone line,
Speaker 2: I believe, with us on the studio line. Hey, Rob,
Speaker 2: Hey there, how you doing? Is it just your Are
Speaker 2: any other band members with.
Speaker 7: You that we have Kevin Harrington here the guitar player
Speaker 7: as well.
Speaker 2: Oh awesome, Hi Kevin? You doing good?
Speaker 6: Good?
Speaker 2: Welcome guys. So I really like this. I was surprised
Speaker 2: to learn you guys have been around for a hell
Speaker 2: of a long time. So is this true that The
Speaker 2: Pendulum Swings is your first new full length album in
Speaker 2: twenty five years? Is that accurate?
Speaker 7: Yeah? Actually, yeah, I mean we have. We did put
Speaker 7: an EP out back in twenty sixteen that was instrumental,
Speaker 7: but in terms of a full length album, the last
Speaker 7: thing we did was an album called Unlocked the Valve
Speaker 7: the Feeling when we had a vocalist. So it's been
Speaker 7: a while for a full length.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, I gotcha. So this album obviously is all
Speaker 2: it's all instrumentals, correct, yep, correct, So you did have
Speaker 2: a vocalist at one at one time. So for the
Speaker 2: EP you said, so, I mean, how does that What
Speaker 2: goes into the decision whether or not to work with
Speaker 2: a vocalist or record an album of instrumentals? And this
Speaker 2: is by the way, you know, it's a full length album,
Speaker 2: but for people who haven't listened to it, who are
Speaker 2: skeptical of instrumentals, it's really good. And my you know,
Speaker 2: in listening to it, my perception is it's kind of
Speaker 2: like as you can hear with those songs, you know,
Speaker 2: the lead guitar kind of fills that that space that
Speaker 2: a vocalist might, right, But what goes into that decision
Speaker 2: to do instrumentals.
Speaker 8: We haven't really made a decision to be instrumental. We
Speaker 8: just ended up being instrumental once are there are formal
Speaker 8: singer left. Yeah, So it's basically we carry on until
Speaker 8: we find a vocalist or we stopped. So we basically
Speaker 8: always wrote instrumentals, even when we had the singer, So
Speaker 8: now we just are instrumental and it's just because of
Speaker 8: having to move forward versus stop.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. Is it a challenge to do it that
Speaker 2: way or does it because it almost sounds like it's
Speaker 2: probably pretty organic, right you don't you know, you didn't
Speaker 2: decide to approach it this way. This is just how
Speaker 2: you're doing it out of Really it sounds like out
Speaker 2: of necessity more than anything else. I mean, is that
Speaker 2: a challenge to make these songs work as instrumentals or
Speaker 2: is it pretty pretty simple?
Speaker 8: Not necessarily at all anymore? This is just the way
Speaker 8: we write.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I will I will say I think it puts
Speaker 7: a little more pressure on cavit because easy since there
Speaker 7: is no vocal as you point out, melodically, he's carrying
Speaker 7: the weight of the song and the emotion and you know,
Speaker 7: the effects, and so he puts a lot of time
Speaker 7: and effort. So I think it would be nice to
Speaker 7: have a vocalist sometimes if we found the right person,
Speaker 7: but we don't really rely on it and we're pretty
Speaker 7: comfortable doing it and Kevin does a great job handling
Speaker 7: that role.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 8: Interaction with a live show. I think a singer would
Speaker 8: be nice, because it always was great to have a
Speaker 8: dedicated singer, a dedicated person to interact with the crowd.
Speaker 8: But we're so used to doing it this way that
Speaker 8: this is really just the.
Speaker 2: Way we think, right, No, that makes sense, and uh yeah,
Speaker 2: and Rob, as you pointed out Kevin, you know, is
Speaker 2: able to you know, really kind of carry the weight
Speaker 2: of what a vocalist does in these songs and it
Speaker 2: it just works. I'm curious live, I mean, do you
Speaker 2: approach these any differently when you play them live than
Speaker 2: versus how you recorded them? Is there a little bit
Speaker 2: extra pressure, uh when you're doing these live or or
Speaker 2: how does that work? What's your approach live?
Speaker 7: I mean, I don't think really we change things up
Speaker 7: too much. Occasionally there'll be a song where we did
Speaker 7: something in the studio and we've had to adapt it
Speaker 7: slightly differently live just because you know, we wanted to
Speaker 7: spend a little more time in the studio. We can
Speaker 7: do more or track more guitars. We might do a
Speaker 7: slightly different version of the song, but in general, it's
Speaker 7: pretty much what you hear is the way we found live.
Speaker 8: Okay, not have a rhythm guitar track live because it
Speaker 8: doesn't really well, we can't do it, but we do
Speaker 8: things in a way that you really probably wouldn't even
Speaker 8: notice that it's not there. Yeah, that's accurate because we
Speaker 8: fill the space.
Speaker 2: Right, So right, that makes sense. And you know, for
Speaker 2: me personally, and some people will disagree with me on this,
Speaker 2: and I know that to a lot of people, it's
Speaker 2: very important that when they go to see a band
Speaker 2: live that they hear things as close as possible to
Speaker 2: what they did in the studio. And I've always looked
Speaker 2: at that a little bit differently. If I go to
Speaker 2: see a band live and there's something different because you know,
Speaker 2: as you guys pointed out, you know, maybe there's not
Speaker 2: that rhythm guitar track there because you can't do that live,
Speaker 2: you know, unless you were to bring in an extra guitarist. Right,
Speaker 2: If that means that it sounds a little bit different,
Speaker 2: and maybe live it sounds a little bit a little
Speaker 2: bit raw, it sounds a little bit uh you know, Uh,
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly the term I'm looking for, but
Speaker 2: but I think you get what I'm saying. If it
Speaker 2: changes a little bit live, that's that's actually to me,
Speaker 2: that's a good thing. I find that interesting. I know
Speaker 2: not everyone, not everyone looks at it that way, but
Speaker 2: that's how I've always looked at it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I get that. I think you know, in the past,
Speaker 7: we've kind of just performed things as we did things
Speaker 7: on the record, and I think we've loosened up a
Speaker 7: little bit more and kind of try to find different
Speaker 7: ways of doing things. When you're instrumentally, you have to
Speaker 7: find new ways of sort of entertaining yourself and making
Speaker 7: the songs very accessible even though.
Speaker 8: There's no vocal.
Speaker 7: So we spent a lot of time doing that, and
Speaker 7: I think we've been really happy so far with the
Speaker 7: reviews we've been getting back. It seems like people really
Speaker 7: are getting it as an instrumental record and not feeling
Speaker 7: like not having vocals is a detriment.
Speaker 2: Right right When when the singer left, was it like,
Speaker 2: did you guys kind of make some I guess I'm wondering,
Speaker 2: because it sounds like it was just a very organic thing. Okay,
Speaker 2: we're going to do this live until we find a singer.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're going to do this instrumental until we
Speaker 2: find a singer. If we don't find a singer, you know,
Speaker 2: we'll just keep doing what we're doing. Was that your
Speaker 2: initial reaction to when the singer departed, or was there
Speaker 2: ever a moment where you guys kind of talked about
Speaker 2: it and said, well, we have to find a singer
Speaker 2: because if we don't, we can't continue, And then maybe
Speaker 2: your mindset shifted. I don't know, I mean, what was
Speaker 2: your initial thought when the singer left.
Speaker 5: I think we just.
Speaker 8: Expected to find a singer, But then once we started
Speaker 8: auditioning a few people, we just realized how hard it
Speaker 8: was going to be to find someone that was the
Speaker 8: right fit. And eventually we realized that, well, we're not
Speaker 8: fighting the right fit. But at this point, like I said,
Speaker 8: we've always done an instrumental or two on our previous
Speaker 8: work prior to Mike leaving. But we were really accustomed
Speaker 8: to just playing you know what we've played, whether it's
Speaker 8: a song with vocals or not. And the more time
Speaker 8: that passed, we just really got used to it, and
Speaker 8: we started writing around it, and here we are now, yeah,
Speaker 8: many years later.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I think also Mike, we were really accustomed. Mike had
Speaker 7: been in the band for a very long time, and
Speaker 7: you know, he played, he sang and he also played guitar,
Speaker 7: and he also played bass, and he was just a
Speaker 7: really great composer and he'd been with us a long time.
Speaker 7: So it was kind of a hard act to follow,
Speaker 7: you know. We just, like Kevin said, we thought we'd
Speaker 7: find somebody. We just were disappointed with any budy that
Speaker 7: we actually you know, auditioned, and we didn't sort of
Speaker 7: want to ruin our legacy of what we'd done with
Speaker 7: a vocalist right past. So going instrumental felt the kind
Speaker 7: like organic.
Speaker 8: Ya Okay, I think having another input maybe not that
Speaker 8: it would jeopardize what we were used to, but when
Speaker 8: Mike was with the band, the three of us were
Speaker 8: all songwriters that contributed relatively equally. So then Rob and
Speaker 8: I took over, and we maybe were a little reluctant
Speaker 8: to add a third party in that didn't share the
Speaker 8: same direction, though, Yeah, for reasons of control. It's sort
Speaker 8: of I mean, I was always pleased that we maintained
Speaker 8: just the two of us without an outside source that
Speaker 8: I really didn't follow the same vision.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's always the hard part when you have to
Speaker 2: replace somebody or try to replace somebody, you know, there's
Speaker 2: always that worry, Well, what if we bring somebody in
Speaker 2: and what if they seem like they fit in the beginning,
Speaker 2: but then a turn out, the chemistry isn't there. They
Speaker 2: don't quite fit as you refer to, you know, fit
Speaker 2: the vision of what you're doing. That can be very challenging.
Speaker 2: And so for you guys to be able to make
Speaker 2: this work as well as you do, and it works
Speaker 2: really well without even having to necessarily worry about having
Speaker 2: a singer, I mean, that's that's excellent, and I think
Speaker 2: it says a lot about what you're doing and what
Speaker 2: you know, what the chemistry is that you guys have.
Speaker 2: Obviously you guys have incredible chemistry together to be able
Speaker 2: to pull this off. I'm curious about the title, the
Speaker 2: Pendulum Swings, if that has anything to do with kind
Speaker 2: of the history of the band or maybe I'm reading
Speaker 2: too much into it. But and I also noticed too
Speaker 2: that it closes the album, which is unusual. You know
Speaker 2: a lot of times the title track from an album
Speaker 2: will be the opener, but in this case it's it's
Speaker 2: the closer. But tell me about that, and tell me
Speaker 2: about why you chose the title the Pendulum Swings.
Speaker 8: It was really the title of the song because it
Speaker 8: just felt like something relevant to time when I was
Speaker 8: writing it. Yeah, and Rob liked this for a closer. Yeah,
Speaker 8: Kevin's could.
Speaker 7: He often is very good at openers or closers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it matters. I mean, that's you know, the
Speaker 2: way you sequence the album, and that's something people don't
Speaker 2: don't necessarily think about. But if you, uh, it matters
Speaker 2: a lot. You know, because you're trying to with an album,
Speaker 2: you know, you're you're sort of trying to tell a story,
Speaker 2: even if it's not, even if you don't necessarily think
Speaker 2: of it that way, there has to be a in
Speaker 2: order for the album to be cohesive, there has to
Speaker 2: be a certain flow to how the songs are ordered,
Speaker 2: so that that matters a lot. But yeah, I do
Speaker 2: think it's the perfect closer for the album. I did
Speaker 2: listen to the whole thing and I really like it.
Speaker 2: I'm also so, you know, I'm curious about some of
Speaker 2: these songs. Are these all relatively new or because you
Speaker 2: guys have been around for so long, or any of
Speaker 2: these songs that maybe go back to an earlier period
Speaker 2: of the time period of time, or did any of
Speaker 2: them maybe even you had recorded before with a vocal
Speaker 2: and now we're getting an instrumental version of them. I'm
Speaker 2: curious about the actual songs that are on the album.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so it's kind of range of stuff. For instance,
Speaker 7: some Tears, that was a track we were doing when
Speaker 7: Mike was in the band, so that was an instrumental okay.
Speaker 7: And also Sad Songs in Better Days. That one actually
Speaker 7: had vocals and was one of the last songs we
Speaker 7: did with Mike vocally as a new song at that
Speaker 7: time period. And then there's a lot of new songs
Speaker 7: on the record too, like the Pendulum Swings and Black
Speaker 7: Pearls and In Another Life Letting Go. They're all relatively
Speaker 7: new songs.
Speaker 8: It's really a split five relatively older they're reaching back,
Speaker 8: and five relatively new ones as to much more new
Speaker 8: ones or brand new. Yeah, we did the last three
Speaker 8: songs on the record after we recorded the first seven, Okay,
Speaker 8: you just wanted to round it out and spend a
Speaker 8: little bit more time, So those were brand new.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay. I'm also curious about this. So you recorded
Speaker 2: at minor street recordings in Philadelphia, is that correct? That's right,
Speaker 2: and you worked with this, says Brian mctair. I hope
Speaker 2: I'm saying the name correctly and Amy Morrissey, and I'm
Speaker 2: really I'm really interested because again, you know, certain genres
Speaker 2: of bands, you know, they're they're everywhere, but there's not
Speaker 2: a lot of instrumental bands that do what you do,
Speaker 2: you know, truly instrumental in terms of this album. What
Speaker 2: went into deciding to work with them and them deciding
Speaker 2: to work with you, because I would imagine because this
Speaker 2: project is unique because it is all instrumentals. You know,
Speaker 2: that probably wasn't you know, It's not like you were
Speaker 2: throwing throwing darts at a board in terms of who
Speaker 2: you wanted to produce the album, right, Yeah, I'm sure
Speaker 2: a lot went into this decision to record at Minor
Speaker 2: Street Recordings. But tell me about that and how you
Speaker 2: came to work with Brian and Amy.
Speaker 7: So, actually this is the second time we've worked with them.
Speaker 7: We did an EP called Strange Weather, and we recorded
Speaker 7: that there at Minor Street. Although they weren't behind the deck.
Speaker 7: There was another gentleman there named Jonathan Love who was
Speaker 7: working out of the studio. But that's we did record
Speaker 7: in the studio for those six songs.
Speaker 2: Okay, So it's kind of we.
Speaker 7: Really are pleased with the way that EP came out,
Speaker 7: so it was just a no brainer to go back
Speaker 7: there again. But this time Amy and Brian were, you know,
Speaker 7: engineering everything. They're the owners of the studio and we
Speaker 7: actually just we had our record release party last week
Speaker 7: in Atlantic City and their band Bitter Bitter Weeks came
Speaker 7: and played with us, so it was a really great night.
Speaker 7: But they're just they've done a lot of really great
Speaker 7: artists in Philly, like people like Were On Drugs, Dead Milkman,
Speaker 7: Kurt Vile. They're just like one of the best studios
Speaker 7: in Philly and in the fish Town area and kind
Speaker 7: of like we're just very comfortable there and.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like home excellent. Yeah, so it was
Speaker 2: you know, obviously everyone was happy to work together. That's
Speaker 2: that's good. Do you think that? I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: know how far ahead you're thinking. I understand this album
Speaker 2: is very new, it just came out July tenth, but
Speaker 2: are you thinking of going back there in the future
Speaker 2: to work on the next one. It sounds like you
Speaker 2: guys are always writing, so I assume there's going to
Speaker 2: be more recording in the future.
Speaker 7: We have a handful of new things and I mean.
Speaker 8: It's time to start working on new stuff. We've been
Speaker 8: well acquainted with these throughout the recording process and playing
Speaker 8: them live. Yeah, so I'm really ready to start working
Speaker 8: on some new stuff. Of course, to push this as well.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, i'd like to.
Speaker 7: Ideally, i'd like to get in there sooner than later
Speaker 7: and maybe do like a four song EP, just to
Speaker 7: rather than try to get a whole new album out
Speaker 7: and you know, get something out quickly on the tail
Speaker 7: of this, cause while we're riding, you know, the press
Speaker 7: wave of this, and you know, keep keep the momentum
Speaker 7: going right right.
Speaker 2: No, that makes sense, That makes sense. So I have
Speaker 2: not asked you the obvious question yet. I try not
Speaker 2: to open the interview with the obvious question. But what
Speaker 2: does the name mean? Dear head? And I should say
Speaker 2: too for people who don't know, it's it's one word.
Speaker 2: It's it's stylized as one word. But what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Dear darkhead?
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So when we started the band nineteen eighty eight, we
Speaker 7: used to rehearse at my house and nobody could at
Speaker 7: the time, nobody could decide, you know, on a name.
Speaker 7: So I went through all the books I had this
Speaker 7: giant bookshelf behind my drum kit, and I went through
Speaker 7: all the books and I literally wrote down like two
Speaker 7: hundred names, and I would just run through the names,
Speaker 7: and you know, I just looked through the books and
Speaker 7: out of context, anything that caught my eye, you know,
Speaker 7: whether it's a book an architecture, or airplanes or the
Speaker 7: encyclopedia or poetry, I would write down anything that caught
Speaker 7: my eye. And so I'd reaped through the list, and
Speaker 7: everybody's like, no, no, no no, And I got the
Speaker 7: deer ark hid and everybod raised their hand. I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 7: that's it. That's the name. We all agree. It was
Speaker 7: the only name that we all liked. And it's just
Speaker 7: the It's an Irish poem from like the eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 7: and it just like a love poem about a woman
Speaker 7: with like, you know, a beautiful woman with dark hair.
Speaker 7: But we kind of liked it out of context, uh,
Speaker 7: and we wasn't something that wouldn't be like a name
Speaker 7: that anybody else would come up with. And it actually
Speaker 7: kind of worked in our benefit benefit because later on
Speaker 7: when the Internet came about, you know, if you google it,
Speaker 7: the only two things that come up are that poem
Speaker 7: and us, so it makes it edis for us.
Speaker 8: To be found.
Speaker 2: You were ahead of your time in that sense. That's great.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we pre con you know, we prefigured the Internet.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. No, that's great. Also, I'm curious to ask
Speaker 2: you about Fertile Cress and Records because this is a
Speaker 2: label that you guys, you guys run, correct, this is
Speaker 2: your label.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's just for us to put our own things out.
Speaker 7: I mean, the last EP came out on a small
Speaker 7: label in Texas called Saint Marie Records that kind of
Speaker 7: focused on Shoegay's music, but they kind of morphed into
Speaker 7: a brick and mortar mail order record store, so they
Speaker 7: stopped putting out records.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we to side.
Speaker 7: We shopped it around and you know, let's be honest,
Speaker 7: when you've been in a band for thirty eight years,
Speaker 7: in your instrumental Shoegates band, it's a tough sell and
Speaker 7: music industry isn't as strong as it used to be,
Speaker 7: so we don't.
Speaker 8: Really get any bytes.
Speaker 7: So we put it out ourselves and we're we're very
Speaker 7: happy with the way it came out.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's excellent. Yeah, and you know, of course, because
Speaker 2: it's your own label. It gives you, you know, total
Speaker 2: control over everything. That's that's that's excellent. And this is
Speaker 2: the album too. Obviously it's available digitally. It's on band
Speaker 2: camp and you know, I love band camp. I encourage
Speaker 2: everyone to support band camping very artist friendly and so forth.
Speaker 2: On CD, and you've also released us on vinyl, correct, Yeah,
Speaker 2: just a short.
Speaker 7: Run one hundred and eighty grand black vinyl. You know,
Speaker 7: if we sell out, we'll do another. We'll do another
Speaker 7: run of it. Yeah, you know, there's definitely a We
Speaker 7: definitely sold more copies of that than we did on
Speaker 7: the CD at the record release, So there's definitely a
Speaker 7: h an appetite for vinyl out there.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: My theory is too, I think a lot of people
Speaker 2: who purchased vinyl i'll never actually play it. They I
Speaker 2: think that. I think that a lot of people purchase
Speaker 2: vinyl because if you're a fan, you know, so if
Speaker 2: you're a big fan of Dear Darkhead, it's cool too.
Speaker 2: Even if you don't have a record player at home,
Speaker 2: it's cool to just have it, you know. And and
Speaker 2: you know, I've seen people, you know, they they'll mount
Speaker 2: the the album covers on the wall or something, whether
Speaker 2: the actual record is left in it or not. But
Speaker 2: but yeah, vinyl is the resurgence of vinyl, and of
Speaker 2: course it never actually went away, which is something people
Speaker 2: don't realize. But the incredible resurgence of it, you know,
Speaker 2: that that's happened in the last several years is amazing.
Speaker 2: And digital and physical media in general too. You know,
Speaker 2: CDs people are still releasing CDs. A lot of people
Speaker 2: thought those would be gone by now, you know, by
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six, but now CDs are still being released.
Speaker 2: And I mean, is it important to you guys to
Speaker 2: have that physical media? I mean, obviously vinyl, nothing sounds
Speaker 2: better than vinyl, But is that something that's important to
Speaker 2: you guys? And was there ever a point, because again,
Speaker 2: you guys have been around a while, was there ever
Speaker 2: a point where you guys said, yeah, we're just going
Speaker 2: to release things digitally for right now, because that seems
Speaker 2: to be because if we were having this conversation ten
Speaker 2: years ago, that seemed to be where everything was going.
Speaker 2: And you know, it turned out again physical media is
Speaker 2: still very important. But has that always been important to
Speaker 2: you guys, or was there ever a point over your
Speaker 2: career where you've thought, nah, maybe we will just release
Speaker 2: things digitally.
Speaker 8: I'd say that.
Speaker 7: We've always put out physical media. I think it's important
Speaker 7: has physical media. I think one of the biggest issues
Speaker 7: is like, if you're the Beatles, nobody worries about that
Speaker 7: record disappearing, like digitally or physically. But if you're a
Speaker 7: smaller band, like how many times have you gone to
Speaker 7: Spotify or any streaming site and something you was listening
Speaker 7: to is no longer on there right if you don't
Speaker 7: have a physical copy of it.
Speaker 8: It disappears.
Speaker 7: So I would encourage people if you like something from
Speaker 7: a band that's maybe not as you know, big as
Speaker 7: the Beatles, you might want to purchase the record and
Speaker 7: it's just nice to have a physical you know, keepsake
Speaker 7: of that, whether you went to a show or I
Speaker 7: worked in a record store.
Speaker 8: So I'm a little biased, and you know same.
Speaker 7: I'm a bit of a record junkie, So yeah, I'm
Speaker 7: a little biased. We've always done me and I think
Speaker 7: it's I think you see people like to support fans
Speaker 7: when they go to the show, and I just think
Speaker 7: that's the way to go. Digital is nice, but it's
Speaker 7: kind of like it's kind of it's just kind of
Speaker 7: empty people, I think when tangible experiences.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah. You know, when I was growing up,
Speaker 2: I always loved looking at especially if I was a
Speaker 2: really big fan of an artist, looking at liner notes,
Speaker 2: and you know, I would geek out on all that stuff.
Speaker 2: And I was so happy if I opened something up
Speaker 2: and the lyrics were actually printed in there, I was
Speaker 2: in heaven. So yeah, I absolutely get that. By the way,
Speaker 2: So you brought up a really interesting point too, as
Speaker 2: many conversations as I've had about this very subject on
Speaker 2: the show, something no one's ever brought up before, but
Speaker 2: it's a fantastic point. If you are depending only on
Speaker 2: digital media, you're right. You know, something that's on Spotify
Speaker 2: today for whatever reason, might not be there tomorrow. Maybe
Speaker 2: the artists or the label or somebody decides to pull
Speaker 2: it off of Spotify for some reason, or you know,
Speaker 2: something happens that causes it to disappear. And if that's
Speaker 2: where you were depending on, if that's the platform you
Speaker 2: were depending on to get that particular release, and now
Speaker 2: it's gone and you don't have a you don't have
Speaker 2: a physical copy of it, Well now you've got to
Speaker 2: go digging, you know, maybe it's on YouTube, maybe it's not.
Speaker 2: You know. So that's a really great point that you
Speaker 2: brought up. And so the one thing you can depend
Speaker 2: on if you have a physical copy of something is
Speaker 2: that you have it and it's never going anywhere and
Speaker 2: no one can take it away from you.
Speaker 8: Absolutely, your friends might steal our records, but right, yeah,
Speaker 8: maybe they weren't friends.
Speaker 2: Anyway exactly, So what's or it just.
Speaker 8: Proves that they were friends with better musical case than
Speaker 8: you thought.
Speaker 2: Well, there you go, class half full. You have this record, yes, yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 8: Hang it on your walls. They make great artwork, just
Speaker 8: like you said earlier.
Speaker 2: So, uh, circling back just quickly to the live aspect.
Speaker 2: Do you guys playing a lot of shows? I would
Speaker 2: imagine you're you're doing shows to uh just support the album.
Speaker 2: But what's what's that like? What's your touring schedule?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 2: Right now, we've just got.
Speaker 7: We just finished this record release party. We don't really
Speaker 7: have anything lined up at the moment. We're kind of
Speaker 7: taking a little time to regroup, work on some new material,
Speaker 7: and then book a bunch more shows. So you know,
Speaker 7: we kind of do it.
Speaker 1: We can.
Speaker 7: It's not our we don't do this as a full
Speaker 7: time thing. It's more of a lifestyle and we've been
Speaker 7: at it for a long time. Longevity is sort of
Speaker 7: our goal for success and being able to do what
Speaker 7: we want. So we try to play when we can
Speaker 7: fit it around our schedules and whatnot. But we do
Speaker 7: spend a lot of time on it and we try
Speaker 7: to do it to the best level that we can
Speaker 7: do and get ads to as many people as we can.
Speaker 8: We'd love to play anywhere.
Speaker 2: Absolutely excellent, excellent in a moment. Well, we're going to
Speaker 2: play another track from the album at the end of
Speaker 2: our conversation, but before we start to wrap up, And
Speaker 2: by the way, I want to thank both of you
Speaker 2: very much for joining us today. This has been a
Speaker 2: wonderful conversation. Rob Wis and Kevin Harrington of course from
Speaker 2: the band Dear Darkhead. But let me ask you this,
Speaker 2: where is the best place Well, as we discuss you,
Speaker 2: it's very easy to google you, but where's the best
Speaker 2: place for people to go online to keep up with
Speaker 2: everything that Dear Darkhead is doing.
Speaker 7: So deardarkhead dot com. If you go there, you can
Speaker 7: get to all our social media and stream platforms pretty
Speaker 7: much sets the main place to get get our stuff.
Speaker 7: But we're on all the you know, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, whatever.
Speaker 7: But if you go to our website gardarkhead dot com,
Speaker 7: it has all the latest news and links to other.
Speaker 2: Places outstanding, outstanding. Well, okay, so one more question, guys,
Speaker 2: I'm going to kind of put you on the spot here.
Speaker 2: What song I'm gonna let you pick? I did open
Speaker 2: today with I played the Pendulum Swings and I played
Speaker 2: Letting Go. I was able to sneak into what song
Speaker 2: should I play at the end of our conversation from
Speaker 2: the album I'll let you guys pick told you I
Speaker 2: was going to put you on the spot the right
Speaker 2: exactly exactly.
Speaker 8: How about sad songs in better days?
Speaker 2: Sad songs and better days? Let's see, let me just
Speaker 2: make sure yep, there it is boom, all right. Any
Speaker 2: particular reason for does a song anything we should know
Speaker 2: about it? Any any particular meaning that we should know about?
Speaker 2: And why you chose the song?
Speaker 8: I like this one because of the energy. It always
Speaker 8: has a great live presentation.
Speaker 2: Okay, perfect, It's just yeah, it's just got good energy
Speaker 2: to it. Perfect.
Speaker 7: And this one was, as I said, this one used
Speaker 7: to have vocals. It was like the last the last
Speaker 7: song we did vocally with our old singer.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, interesting, gotcha, Okay, well, so we will close
Speaker 2: our conversation with that. We're gonna hit that track, Sad
Speaker 2: Songs in Better Days. But again, Rob and Kevin, guys,
Speaker 2: thank you so much. It sounds like you've got a
Speaker 2: lot of good stuff coming up, so we will definitely
Speaker 2: do this in the future again, and congratulations on the album.
Speaker 2: And I'm sure we'll talk again soon.
Speaker 8: Thank you very much.
Speaker 7: Thank you for having us.
Speaker 8: We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: All right, anytime, guys, thank you, take care, bye bye
Speaker 2: ye bye bye. All right. That was Rob Wis and
Speaker 2: Kevin Harrington from the band Dear Darkhead. And let's give
Speaker 2: this a spin. This is from the new album and
Speaker 2: again it just came out July tenth, very new. This
Speaker 2: is called Sad Songs in Better Days.
Speaker 3: Sh S.
Speaker 5: S S S S S S S S S S.
Speaker 3: S S.
Speaker 5: S s.
Speaker 3: S.
Speaker 2: That is Sad Songs and Better Days. The band is
Speaker 2: Dear dark Head. New album, The Pendulum Swings, just came
Speaker 2: out on July ten. Thank you again to Rob Weiss
Speaker 2: and Kevin Harrington from the band Dear Darkhead. Really enjoyed
Speaker 2: talking with them, and I think we're gonna sneak in
Speaker 2: one more track from the new album in just a moment,
Speaker 2: but again, check it out the full album. It is
Speaker 2: up on band camp if you want to get it digitally.
Speaker 2: And as I refer to too during our conversation, I
Speaker 2: love band camp. It's very artist friendly. So I'm a
Speaker 2: big proponent of band camp. And what a lot of
Speaker 2: people don't know, and if you're a regular listener, you've
Speaker 2: heard me say this before, but with band Camp, if
Speaker 2: you get the tracks from there, you actually get a
Speaker 2: higher quality file then you'd get if say you're just
Speaker 2: streaming the music on YouTube or whatever it may be.
Speaker 2: So I recommend band Camp. I like it a lot
Speaker 2: if you are listening live. Of course, today is a Saturday,
Speaker 2: July twenty five, twenty twenty six. Coming up in the
Speaker 2: second hour, Nikolai Kine from the project No Siva or Nosva.
Speaker 2: I gotta get a refresher from him on how to
Speaker 2: say it. He's gonna be with us in studio and
Speaker 2: we're gonna do a world radio premiere for him brand
Speaker 2: new single. Cannot wait to talk to him. And then
Speaker 2: in the third hour, we have the return of Superbug.
Speaker 2: They've got some new songs as well. Really looking forward.
Speaker 2: I cannot wait to see those guys. So we've got
Speaker 2: a fun show for you today. By the way, I
Speaker 2: don't know if he's listening, but Rob from Verizon at
Speaker 2: the Mall of New Hampshire here in Manchester, thank you
Speaker 2: for helping me out. Yesterday. I got a brand new
Speaker 2: phone and I had an incident. I was at the
Speaker 2: mall and it's a good thing I was where I
Speaker 2: was where there happened to be a Verizon store because
Speaker 2: my phone I had a Samsung was it Galaxy S
Speaker 2: twenty one something, I don't know. I'd had it for
Speaker 2: a long time, probably too long, and it just stopped.
Speaker 2: It just stopped working. It blue screened or whatever the
Speaker 2: cell phone whatever the Android equivalent is to a blue screen.
Speaker 2: He just did some weird thing on the screen and
Speaker 2: then just turned itself off, even though I had plenty
Speaker 2: of battery. And then I turned it back on. So
Speaker 2: I got the phone restarted and it seemed to be
Speaker 2: fine for maybe five minutes, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: that was just a weird flukish, freaky thing.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: Then it did it again and it wouldn't stay on,
Speaker 2: and so they they hooked me up. They couldn't fix
Speaker 2: it and it wasn't worth fixing anyway. Phone had to
Speaker 2: be five years old. Maybe not that long, maybe four years,
Speaker 2: but it was an old phone. So I got a
Speaker 2: brand new phone. And again thank you to Rob at Verizon.
Speaker 2: They are not a sponsor of the show. They're not
Speaker 2: a sponsor of the station at all. You know, no
Speaker 2: one's giving me money to say that, but but the
Speaker 2: service that I got there was excellent and I really
Speaker 2: really appreciate it and they were able to help me out.
Speaker 2: So again, that's the Verizon store at the Steeple. I'm
Speaker 2: not at the Steeplegate Mall. That's from when I lived
Speaker 2: in Conquered at the Mall of New Hampshire here in Manchester,
Speaker 2: New Hampshire, so I recommend going there. On that note,
Speaker 2: let's play one more Yeah, let's sneak this in coming undone.
Speaker 2: We're gonna seek in one more track from Dear Darkhead
Speaker 2: because I really like these guys a lot. After that,
Speaker 2: we're gonna show some love to our amazing sp sponsors
Speaker 2: here at wm n H ninety five point three FM.
Speaker 2: And then when we come back in the second hour
Speaker 2: New Marrow Dose. Nikolai Kine will be here with us
Speaker 2: so again. This is called Coming Undone. This is from
Speaker 2: the new album just came out July ten from Dear Darkhead,
Speaker 2: called The Pendulum Swings.
Speaker 4: At.
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