Matt Connarton Unleashed: Dark Rain

And we have a great band who has joined us in studio or most of

the band is with us. Dark Rain is here. Hello, good morning,

Hello, Hello, welcome everybody actually here. We'll start with you if

you can tell us who you are, what you do in the band,

we'll kind of go around and then well and then we'll hear you play.

My name is Kelly. Everybody calls me gh while I'm on stage, and

I am the biggest diva out of the four of us at the moment.

It's yeah, why do they call you g h? It's the way I

spell my name, Kelly. It's k E L L E I g H.

So they just call me for sure. I gotcha, Okay, okay,

And you, sir, Yeah, I'm Dudley. I play guitar and

I'm the other singer in the band. I'll do a lot of the business

end of stuff. Founding member. Yeah, very good, very good,

good stuff. And you, sir, and Brian. I play rhythm guitar,

all right, and a little bit of backing vocals here and there.

Very good, very good. And uh. And we also have are you

the manager? Are you the Yeah? I do their road managing. My

name is Echo. I go by Echo Ray, the Rock and Redhead.

I do their stage managing and I also do merch sales and promotion, booking,

that sort of stuff. Excellent, excellent. How long have you worked

with Dark Ray Dark Rain. I've been working with for just a few months

now. We've we've been friends for half a lifetime. Oh, very good,

Yeah, very good, very good. We should mention too. That

track that we played playing with fire and by the way, but you know,

full disclosure, part of why I picked that is it's six minutes long,

so it's good for the changeover when you all are getting set up.

It's a good, so good long song. But that is because I think

I heard you say that was your favorite. It's one of my favorite,

one of your favorite. I like that too. I like all the tracks,

all the studio tracks you sent me. But yeah, that one,

that that is a that is great. That is really really good. It

punches in the face. Yeah, really good stuff. But we're dying to

hear you play live if you want to. Oh, we should mention too.

So you're missing somebody right base. Our bass players home sick. We

figured we wouldn't bring the disease down from me and appreciate it, well,

appreciate I appreciate it. He's recuperating for the show next week, gotcha go

true? Yeah, we have an amazing show next week, so we want

him to be up and ready to go up, ready for that one.

Where are you playing? We're playing at o'donna Hughes in Brunswick, Maine.

It is a fundraiser that Echo has put on a letter tell you a little

bit more about it, But we just wanted to do something for the survivors

of that Lewiston mouse shooting. Yeah. We have a couple of friends in

the music field with us that have lost close loved ones and it's just our

way to hey, we're here for you. We got you six you know.

Okay, So very cool, very very cool. All right, Well,

we're dying to hear you play. I'll kind of ride the faders as

we go, all but we'll do We'll do a song off the off the

CD, the American Dream, which is we're currently promoting. This is a

one sopho more acoustically, it's called the Shades of August. All right,

dark Rain live in studio. She left it with no choice. She gave

all her time. The boys, what did they was going on swee know

he did nothing wrong. When you're left down on your own, I have

no place to call your No, Mom's not on your phone. Message is

from the unknown chi loggage of argain. We're till on level with a time

nehver had. It's hid. Love's a slight shreds of again. Ship didn't

hurt so bad. She now knows what she's lost. Now that she knows

she's paid a cost, we know she can't come back again. Boy,

Remember every now and there were all left down on your own. I always

to call you no more missed on your phone. Remember it's from video loon

s long as she's some orgy. We'll time at time. My never s

sh Longer's a slight spets of orgy should get in so bad. We know

that along the road and then the lasting a brolliver listens. It's from the

un It's like Chi long sheds of ogy winter time on time, it's a

shed long. It's just like shades of Arck. We shoot. It's all

day, very nice, dark rain live in studio with us, the two

of you singing again there too is really good. There's there's just something really

uh you just you sound really good. Yeah, you guys really do.

I mean that's the first thing that I noticed was your harmony together is really

beautiful. Oh, thank you so much. Almost sound like one voice.

It'll be a new song that makes it, if that makes sense. Do

you do that on a lot of songs where you off on the vocals.

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty much a duality. But it's like I call

it, like the sweet and the melancholy. My voice is done a natural

singing with Kelly's got this beautiful, awesome, powerful voice, but I think

they blend well. Yeah, yeah, there's a contrast there that there really

works. How long has Dark Rain been around? How long have you been

a band? That's question. So we started out Kelly and I and well

it's it's kind of where we we morphed from another band. It was called

Strictly Business. We morphed into Dark Rain. Brian had just stopped playing with

us, and we it was myself, Kelly, a drummer, front of

ours, guitarist and a bass player obviously, and we were around for like

a couple of years. In ninety nine two thousand, did a lot of

shows, got pretty busy and we played played down a mass a lot.

We were doing, getting kind of a good following and had a couple of

record deals on the table, and then Kelly got pregnant, you know,

had a baby. Yeah, so they could kind of full U off track

and we're getting back. Then we went through some lineup changes and stuff.

In about twenty eleven or twelve, I decided to kind of put the band

back together, so to speak, and all the original members came back except

for the bass player, and we were working our stuff and we've been pretty

much consistent since then. Brian came back. Our friend Ben Hersty, who

had been an original member, he'd been over overseas for a while and he'd

come back and he had joined up and eventually decided to leave again. And

that's when Brian came back to us. And we we've been pretty much continuing

on since. We put out two three albums. Three albums right now,

ones out of print, but the two newer ones are there, and we're

working on an acoustic album to be released sometime this next year before we do

our next big follow up. Yeah, and just keep pushing or playing your

eye out for the thirteenth step. Yeah, that's okay, that's that's gonna

be the name event. Okay, I'm horrible. I always steal the naming

game, and I told Kelly she could have this one. She's been pushing

the thirteenth step for a while, so yeah, like everything has a twelve

step program, and I like to go above and beyond. I think you're

the thirteenth step kind of fit for us. Yeah, I like it.

I like it. Now, that's not Thattex. Now these studio tracks?

Are these from a current album that you have out now? The ones?

They center from the American Dream. It's our current CD. Okay, okay,

yeah, the newest one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I really

like uh, I really like these. Where where did you record home?

Yeah? In the last last two c the last two CDs before that.

There is a great guy up in Tops and me and Jerry Paron owns music

store and he owns music studio. We recorded with him and it sounded great.

It's just I really have been working hard to learn the whole crafting of

recording and put myself together a studio at the house so's we had Dark Green

Studios. Now we record other artists as well. Oh excellent, and we

uh, we've been slowly building that and We did the whole CD from start

to finish, except for the mastering I brought back to Jerry so I could

have a fresh set of ears on it. Yeah, and I was pretty

happy with the result. I thought it came up pretty decent for doing it

at home. Yeah, it's amazing. You know, the stuff they used

to do back fifty years ago with like the Beatles and stuff, you can

do it at your home studio now. So yeah, yeah, that's something

that comes up a lot on the show, is you know, you know,

we've got all these different options as far as how you record, and

you know, and there's there's still a ton of studios out there that you

can go to, or you can learn to do it yourself, or you

can learn to do it yourself at home and then bring another artists to record

them. Do have you recorded a lot of artists? I'm just starting.

I've got a few and I'm still going to I went back to going back

to school again too, so getting some more knowledge and on my belt,

and I've taken a few in recently. I'm hoping to get more to come

in once we get to study. We're doing some remodel on the studio too.

So yeah, make it a little nicer. Yeah, excellent, excellent,

and uh, all right, so how did echo how did you come

into this in terms of working with the band? Oh, I'm sorry,

I'm having an issue with your mike. Okay, here we go. I

think I got you. I was there, you are so as I said,

I've been really good friends with these guys for the better part of twenty

years I think now, and just recently, over the spring and summer of

this past year, I decided that I was going to take the leap and

work professionally with musicians because nothing I love more than pushing local music. And

yeah, you know, we wouldn't have national bands if they didn't start somewhere.

So I go around and I scout out all these great bands and if

they need help selling their merch or if they need help pushing their their name

around or whatever, and then I'll step in and do whatever. Girl.

Yeah, yeah, girl, Yeah. So Dudley messaged me up like we've

got a bunch of gigs and we could really help use somebody to help us

with merch and I don't think I've missed a gig since August. She's always

ready to go. I'm like, do you want to get up tomorrow morning

if you're ready to go by seven am to go to the radio. She's

like, sure, I work nights. I don't get out of work until

almost two o'clock in the morning. For seven am is not my jam.

Yeah, well, I do you want to play another song? I'd love

to hear another live song if you're just joining us. We have Dark Rain

with us live in studio and they're going to play something for us. So

this one's off the American Dream as well. It's called It's kind of weird

because we mostly a rock band. This is kind of a little bit of

a country slash, let's say, hip hop flavor of Brian's guitar line.

It's called stay with Me tonight. All right on the person you I was

never got enough, all lost them, all of your time waiting you all

and a way to make you win to stay in me to night? Well

the dancers and naked by the moon line, hope you and my telling is

all right, Just stay with me for a while, Just stay with me

to night. You're dreading a blocking plea. How's them read your mind?

Tistens seem I'm gonna sell your mind? Gold until time. You're stealing me

to welcome the sins and naked d the day. Hope you and I shall

be a sorry just staying me. Just stay away to my nancies and think

about the day only in my sell me a all right, you stay,

just stay with day, Just stay away me, Tony, Oh, that's

awesome. Dark Rain is with us live in studio. I was thinking we

could play another studio track you had mentioned. Well, the name of the

album is American Dream, and of course this title track is is really great

too. I was thinking maybe we could give this a listen and then we'll

come back and talk some more. What are you thinking? All? All

right? Check this out. This is American Dream from the band Dark Rain.

About my dear said the tame way inside, But now the sun you

be the past the last for an adds the bad. That's quite bad right

against the time. So the America. Oh that's good. That is American

Dream and the band is a Dark Rain and we have them live in studio

with us. Now, when when did the album come out? Has it

been out for a while or digitally it dropped? Did I want to say

digitally and physically dropped different times? But so like about a year now we've

been behind it. Yeah, and we just started. We'd like, we

just started releasing videos, like there's an official music video for the American Dream

that you just heard on YouTube, Playing with Fire for Playing with No official

videos we have the one for American Dream, uh walking out of HG Double

Hockey Sticks Part two and uh you can say hell hell yeah, and the

song called the All three of those are released so far. We're still working

on the other new one. It's our new my new passion is doing the

music videos. So oh cool. Creative wise, do you do those?

Are you in charge of that? Yeah? Pretty much most. We're going

to get some pointers, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's another that's another

thing too. You know, we were talking earlier about how we live in

a time where you have all these different options for and also for making music

videos. You know, I mean you can you know, you can use

an iPhone and record, or you can upscale from there. But it's it's

amazing. It's funny too because some people, people who don't know, some

people have this idea that the music videos are dead, you know, because

MTV doesn't doesn't do it anymore, and whatnot, and hasn't for decades actually

now at this point or VH one. But but actually, really there's more

music videos than ever because of YouTube. I mean, some major artists who

have you know, like a gazillion dollars will put out a video for I

remember Beyonce did that at one point, like maybe this might have been like

ten years ago, but she released an album and when the album came out,

a video for every single song. Oh yeah, it came out at

the same time. It was like, wow, that must have been very

expensive. But yeah, I mean, really there's more music videos than ever.

It's it's uh, this is more choices awhere to watch, just like

with your viewing chiv choices, more stuff out there. Yeah, more content

than ever, but also yeah, you're you're competing with more. Yeah,

it's not called straight anywhere, right right. I feel like with a video

too, you can get more context of where your artist is coming from.

Like everybody takes a song differently as to like how the original artist wrote it

and then you read you watch the video or like, oh crap, that's

what they were really talking about, but that's not how I related it to

my life, right right, So I mean it's kind of cool to do

it that way. And that's kind of why I like doing the videos to

it gives them, gives me a kind of a chance to add more to

the interpretation of it. I'm good with people taking a song we write and

making their own and what it means to them, you know, Like playing

with Fire is a good example. Like it's when we talk about a lot,

it's you know, for us, it's about you know, kind of

like you get two really really good friends, you know, did they take

the step and cross the line to make it more than just a friendship?

And do you mess that up? Do you play with because I can hurt

you and you can hurt me too, But I'm kind of willing to take

that chance with you because, right, I like playing with Fire. That's

the song, like like I t help people from stage playing taking the chance

and playing with fires better than and left out in the cold. Yeah,

yes, yes, yeah. If you don't take the step, you don't

know, you can miss out on something good or maybe you're not. I

mean I don't know, right, it could be crap. Only one way

to find out, Yeah, one way to got to take that stuff and

just go with it, right, right, do you want to play another

live song for us, Sure, we do something off the next CD.

We do you. This is called our public service announcement. You're talking about

the harmonies, Yes, And this is we always tell people to worry about

the breast cancer. My mother had breast cancer. I'm a very strong advocate

for women making you know, get get your exam, get checked. Men

too as well, but very very very adamant on you know, save the

tatas. So that's my first and foremost public service announcement announcement. And you

mentioned men too. That's something Jenny talks about a lot of encouraging men to.

You know, I'm a breast cancer survivor. Mothers to congratulations and and

and we know someone who had Yeah, well actually a couple of people had

a couple of friends that are men who have had breast cancer. Yeah,

I mean they want to make friends. Stage four right now, I get

checked, get checked it. It takes the pecks, boys, check the

packs. I like that. Awesome. So that's our serious public service announcement

obviously. Then so Kelly and I have both like different recreational items. I

personally like a good drink every once in a while, so like alcohol.

Yeah, and I like to smoke because it's legal in our state, you

know, not so legal here. I guess so this is this is a

little diddy about about about both of those items. It's called forty outs.

It's on the next we have coming out. All right, very good.

Dark Rain Live in studio with us. Run on the road with a phony

in my head. You're kind of heavy. You tell me where to go

and cast on my ass. Send up something in this bag, well the

grass. Yeah, try to make a somewhere wrong thing. I can make

it have I love this forning, I'm not breaking many years I went by.

He he's that thy? Don't you smiling? Here? Where are me?

Yeah? Willa miss Lee? Never even in my name? Yes,

in a hurry you out of my way? Really is? I went by?

I guess that is the trend, wasn't. Yeah, mors gave me

a bonny ouser. They gave me a bage agreed. Here I go again,

Here I go again, playing the same mon See who I love it?

Dark Rain, Dark Rain Live in study with us. So are you

playing a lot of shows these days? Are you playing out a lot?

Or Yeah? We played almost every week every weekend. We've it's part of

our part of our curse. We've been we've had a really hard time finding

a steady drummer because we'll we'll get somebody on board. We've gone through.

We had we had a study drummer for years and years and years, Chris

Williams, the guy that was originally with us. It's great drummer, and

uh, he eventually left, went to another band, and we got another

guy and he least a little while, and we get another guy he lasted

for We won't go into that discussion, I guess, but we is that

the show we got a plastic one show I was talking about named but that

sounds like a good story. It's a lot of drama. But then we

get another guy named Devin Mallard who was really good and he actually did the

American Dream City with us, and he was good. He just he started

having some some physical issues and stuff. That's why he's not playing with us

now. But so a lot of times we we actually use it little drummer.

Oh it's a little weird, which is really cool. Actually drummer.

I'm like, well, this is Scott Free He's our drummer. It's actual.

It's not like a drum machine. It's actual tracks that people have played

and stuff and so and sometimes we do like a different some shows we have

live drummer. Totally depends what the situation is. So we keep getting a

drummer in, we'll work them. We had a guy last timer we worked

up three months, rehearsed, rehearse, rehearsed, and yeah, totally into

this. I love to play every week and I want to be out there.

I want to be playing, you know. Gave him a list of

of upcoming shows and I can't do that. There's too many. Oh really

yeah, yeah, first he sitting there going, oh wow, I'm like,

we told you this from day one. It happens pretty regularly, so

up front, like if you're not one hundred percent and you don't want to

do this, then don't waste our time please because but so, we had

a group of four of us that play out. We have different drummers that

sit in with us. Sonny Robinson from Twisted Roots a yeah we got from

He's going to be doing tracks on the next CD for us as well.

Yeah, and Christ's us pretty regularly off and on at least a couple of

times a year. Just yeah, We have good friends to do it,

but we would love to find a perminent rummers is. Somebody has to be

able to play all willing to play all the time. Right. We travel

all over New England. Yeah, we've gone as far as New York,

but like we're really like you know, Providence right now. We're a lot

of shows in Rhode Island. We were down there last week. We work

with a guy named Justin mccott from Voltage Voltage and he does he does a

lot of the shows that used to be the booker for and the Vault and

stuff down in Bedford. He's got us some good gets and we're playing down

there and you know, playing Rhode Island and mass in New Hampshire. And

we played with Seis up here a little while ago. Excellent, yeah,

excellent, love them Oh yeah too, yeah, absolutely absolutely, yeah drummers.

That's been a time on the show quite a bit. It seems like

for one thing, every drummer is in like ten bads. That's exactly.

Yeah. And my theory, uh, you know people have heard me say

this a million times, but my theory about drummers is when you're a kid,

when you're growing up and you first start getting interested in playing an instrument,

you got to have the talk with your parents. I want to play

drums. That's the first instrument they were going to try to talk you out

of because they don't want to want all the boys, you know that?

Or maybe the tuba would would they would try to talk you out of that

too. Probably I got his little one playing the drums. Oh really yeah.

Oh he's hooked on music. Yeah, good, good, like even

the oldies too, like not just like current music. Like kid likes Elvis,

yeah, like Buck Cherry, he likes Chuck Berry. Yeah, like

all of them. He's he's got an eclectic taste of music. He likes

to sing kiss with us too. Nice. We have a barbecue every year

and he'll get up there and he was singing, oh god, who's like

two oh there singing kiss with Annie? You know. Oh that's awesome.

Get the little one in there. Yeah, yeah, very good. My

favorite band yeah really yeah, it was the Psycho Circuit Store with kiss Yeah,

excellent, excellent. Well we should we'll play another studio track. Actually,

this song Poison Inside I think is really good. Should we play that

one? That's a good one too. That has to do with that situation

we're talking about with the drummer and the drama. Yes, yeah, is

that the same drummer that didn't want to play any shows or is that no,

No, the drummer that be named God. It was such a rough

It was a rough period for us. I literally had to beg my best

day, like, you are not leaving music over this. This is like

how bad that situation was. Made me play a show, made him I

dragged his butt. Oh, I can say, asked well all the way

down where we're in New Hampshire, mask the Lazy Dog and did a podcast

which freuds. Yeah, Dudley did not want to. I'm like, dude,

we're going down you bringing your guitar. I'm not letting you. We're

gonna have a last And one day we lost like half the band. So

one of those situations and it was a bad situation altogether personally. So yeah,

we got a lot of songs out of it, though, Well there

you go, probably a whole album that situation. Well that's good, you

know, I always say, I mean, if you can take bad things

and create something positive out of them, yeah, come on the other side

of it better. So yeah, exactly, let's give this a listen,

then cool. So this is this is topical Poison inside and the band is

a Dark Rain. Check this out, SI, I now love yet?

When did you like that? Child? I gather my fun next thing get

next. Everything is dam the boy the alright poison inside. The band is

Dark Rain. They are here with us live in studio. I's got a

long fade out. I like it. That's kind of a lot start.

You don't hear long fade outs as much as you used to, but no,

I dig it. Dark Rain a live in studio with us. You'all

want to play one more acoustic song and then we'll and then we'll talk a

little bit more, plug what you got coming up, and then we'll we'll

end with we have one more studio track too that we'll play at the end.

But so the song that we're actually going to do acoustically goes hand in

hand with the one that you want to play that's recorded. So this is

I am a domestic violence survivor, as I was telling you on that little

break, and I decided to write a song about it and kind of make

the story like like, don't keep it hidden, you know, like it.

The more that it's brought out there, the more people come forward and

be like, this is not socially acceptable. So this is my domestic violence

story in a song. This is never more all right. He came out

of nowhere like an inchel before miyes. He was a mystery, but a

trouble dingerous guys like me, like a miestro. And I was locked inside

my mind, perched like a rain van. Never bobble, he be mind,

never side of sack inside this many mane change steve alive. I can

see you right through you before the lies rull out your mouth. Beware of

casting stones when you live in a glasshouse. Through all of your trauma,

you blackened the tell tale heart. I never felt so well day. I

wish we could go back to the snort, forget that never more side sick

you side destry name by when snap lie. If you haven't learned by then,

this is point. I'm buddy. You broke in, absolutely crawled out

of that grave. I was stumbing down then and the lo could not be

saved. So I've patched up my wings and I'm learning how to fly there

like a grave band. I'm gonna pluck up the horse guy forever mo Sad

Sad Inside This d Man b Jeez Alive and what should people know about?

Where to find you online? People want to follow everything that you're doing.

Get your music at Sarah dark rainband dot com. Okay, in dark Rain

dot us. Oh, that's our YouTube channel. You can find us on

YouTube obviously, Spotify, Apple Music, Google, Amazon, Amazon Music.

Yeah, yeah, pretty much anywhere, Shazam that stuff. Friend any of

us we like people, Yeah, excellent, excellent. Like the band page

on Facebook. Yeah, Dark Rain, Echo Ray the Rock and Redhead on

Facebook or just Echo Ray also on Facebook. Okay, very good, very

good. Well, thank you so much. This has been wonderful. We're

gonna play one more studio track to close out the segment. This is another

great song from Dark Rain. This is called Skit and this this relates to

the song you just played, right. It does, of course, literally

talks about you know, I'm tired of playing the games. This is not

a role in my life that I want to play with you. Yeah.

It's almost like the precursor to the other song, because this is when Kelly

and I are both going through really bad parts of bad situations and I don't

want to do this, but I don't want to do it anymore. I'm

still here, you know, it's stuck in that. How do I get

out of it before it turns into you know, the Nevermore songs? So

okay, started out with skit and then went into Nevermore, So it was

like a precursor. Okay, okay, very cool. Oh and thank you

for the CDs. By the way, I should mention, yeah, we're

not on Facebook today, so I can't hold them up for everybody, but

The American dream and The Long Road Home. This came out before The American

Dreamer. Yeah, that's our last CD. That's seventeen tracks, almost like

a doll album. Yeah. Yeah, you can buy them digitally, like

I said, you know any of the digital retailers Apple Music Yeah yeah,

oh very cool. Those are always we always prefer that kind of stuff over

Spotify. Spotify is great to get known, but we actually make money off

cause if they buy him somewhere right or at a local show. Yeah yeah,

support the local musicians. You know. Absolutely not as easy as everyone

thinks it is. No, No, that's that's for sure. That's for

sure. Dark Reign thank you all again so much. This is for having

us absolutely and this is called skit back my battle shore game. The s