ISSUE #4: NGHBRS

DOWNLOADDOWNLOADBONAVENTURE + DUDDY B + FLATFOOT 56

LIVE SHOTS OF THE FRAY, PARIS, THE WANTED & MORE& MORE

ISSUE: #4AUGUST 2012

* NGHBRSNGHBRS FEATURING:

D O W N L O A D M A G

A SOURCE FOR ALL THINGS MUSIC

PLUS:PLUS:

BEARCATBEARCAT& WARPED TOUR & WARPED TOUR COVERAGECOVERAGE

DM: What were your biggest influences for Cabin By The Sea, both musically and lyrically?Duddy: Biggest influences for Cabin By The Sea? Uhm.. Well, y'know, as far as just inspiration for music, we just kinda pulled it out from everywhere. Everything we like. Touring, bands, uhm, just whatever we're doing at that time. When I'm writing a song, that's where I get my inspiration from. What I'm feeling that day, what kinda mood I'm in, that's the direction I go writing. But I think what really inspired this album was that we released Any Port In A Storm and then we did four years of touring from that album to this album, so we just played so much music, we grew, we found out our sound through playing all these lives shows. Just seeing what people like, and that's kinda what we drew the inspiration for this new album. And uh, the new album is meant to no matter where you are, you could be in Chicago in the middle of the winter on a freezing day, you could put on this album and it could take you away to this cabin by the sea where you can get away from all your troubles, y'know?

DM: So while writing the album, what came first, the music or lyrics?Duddy: Every song comes differently. It could either come with a lyric idea Jared had or a guitar part I have, or one of us might even have almost a full song completed and you bring it to the other one and we work on it together to finish it. But no two songs are ever written the same, they always come in a different way. Some days you write a whole song and finish recording it in that day, or sometimes you start a song and you can't finish it for three months. They all come about their different ways.

DM: What song on the record for you was the most difficult to write or record?Duddy: Hmm..The song “Hipster”. We had the music and we had the first verse done for like a month. And we just couldn't get a chorus to stick. We tried a bunch of different choruses, and we were like “Okay this is cool, this is cool” and then you'd listen to the song for a couple of days and then you're like “Ah, I don't like this.” You know what I mean? From the point that we made the music and the first verse for “Hipster” we didn't use that song for probably two months after that so I would say that one was probably the most challenging.

DM: Speaking of that, what is one hipster trend that you are guilty of?Duddy: None at all. -Laughs- I'm the least hipster guy. I've been wearing the same things. I wear jeans and a t-shirt. A couple of the dudes on this bus wear some hipster trends. We've got some cuffed pants, Jon likes to wear some grandpa sweaters.

DM: So on “Any Port in the Storm” you worked with Billy Preston, correct? What was it like working with “The Fifth Beatle”?Duddy: It was amazing. That was one of those things where we were “Ooh, we wanna get some keys, or we need a little something on a couple of these tracks, who should we get to do this? So let's just shoot for the top. And we know he's going to say no, and we'll keep going down until someone says yes. So of course he says yes. So we're just like, “Wait a second...whaaat?” we couldn't believe he'd just agreed to do this. So we flew out to Arizona , went in the studio with him for the day, and it was just amazing. To see someone of that caliber with that talent and just, and it was just an amazing experience for us. He was such a nice, cool guy and it was just a pleasure having him on the tracks.

DUDDY B OF:DUDDY B OF:

INTERVIEW/FEATURE: Drea RosePHOTO: Courtesy of The Dirty Heads' website

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DM: What is your favorite album at the moment?Duddy: That's a good question. I will say the last couple of weeks I have been going to bed to “The Mirror Conspiracy” by oh my god, I'm having a total brain fart right now. Oh my god, I can't think of the name of this damn band. And I've been listening to the album for the last couple of weeks. Well I know the name of the album is “The Mirror Conspiracy”, I wish I just knew the name of the band. Oh well, we'll go with something else. I've been listening to “Watch The Throne”, the new Jay-Z and Kanye album. It's amazing, some of the beats that they come up with are crazy and we've been doing recording on the road, and I'm jut trying to make beats and stuff. So listening to that album really gets some good ideas. They come up with some cool stuff. DM: That's a phenomenal record.Duddy: Yeah.

DM: On “Cabin By The Sea” which artist was the most fun to collaborate with?Duddy: Well Matisyahu was amazing to collaborate with. We have a relationship with him and it was fun. He came in the studio and we hung out for the day and that was amazing. I think that they were all fun in different days. Like Rome is a buddy of ours and he's probably going to be on every album we ever do. If we're in the studio, then somehow he's gonna make his way in there to hang out. And when he's hanging out, he ends up on one of our tracks. With Marley and Dell we actually didn't go in the studio with them. They just sent us the tracks and we sent it back, but I mean it was such a pleasure having those guys on the album. I mean having one of Bob Marley's sons, and not to mention he's a great artist himself, just super cool. And Dell is a legend when it comes to the rap game so it was just super cool. I feel like every artist we got was able to bring something special to the album and we love working with other people. We love getting inspiration. We're very hip hop I guess in that aspect of our band where every album we do we have a couple guests on it. We love doing that.

DM: So you were in a punk band originally. How do you feel that your punk roots influenced Dirty Heads? Would you have ever guess that one day you'd be in a reggae hip hop group?Duddy: No, not at all. I mean when I was 12 and 13 I would play super fast and put crazy distortion on my guitar and you could barely understand what the guy was saying it was cool. That was it. I want to be able to stage dive, and everything else sucked. And then I grew up and realized “Oh okay, there's other stuff.” But I think it definitely influenced who you are and how you grew up and I think that I'm not playing punk music or gritty fast music, but you still get that energy in our shows. I've been playing the song “Everything I'm Looking For” for instance. It's a slow acoustic love song, and people in our crowd are moshing to it. So I think that, ya know, we're not playing punk but we still have that energy. I think that's where it comes out.

DM: That's awesome that you're able to fuse the two together. What's your favorite song to play live and why?Duddy: My favorite song to play live.. uhm. I love playing “Believe” live. It's a great crowd interacting song. It's easy for the crowd to sing a long to and get into it. And It gives shout outs to all the bands that inspired us to get to where we're at today, so I've always loved playing that song. But then there are songs like “Hip hop misfits” and “Check The Levels” and like “Disguise” just really upbeat huge songs that are obviously fun and when you start playing those the crowd just goes crazy. So I guess believe for the lyrical and emotional feelings, but just for all out having a great time playing it, a little more upbeat.

DM: What is your favorite part of being on the road as a touring band?Duddy: Just getting a chance to see all these cool places, going to all these cities. You get to see all the cool spots all over the world, ya know? That's one of the things that we're very lucky. We get an opportunity that not a lot of people get. And you wake up in a different state every single day, and that's pretty cool. You get to see a lot of cool stuff.

DM: Does it have any negative effects on your relationships with friends and family?Duddy: I'm married and have two kids so yeah. When I leave, that's the hardest part. I miss my family, my kids like crazy, you know? When we were touring before I had kids and I could tour forever, it was no big deal. But now it's a lot different. That's probably the only downfall of touring for me is that I miss my family a lot. But, obviously it effects relationships but I think in a good way. I think sometimes when you don't see them a lot it makes you miss them and love them more.DM: Absence makes the heart grow fonder.Duddy: Exactly.

SCAN THE CODE TO THE LEFT ON YOUR SMARTPHONE TO VIEW OFFICIAL TOUR DATES FOR THE DIRTY HEADS TOUR WITH MATISYAHU

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DM: So if you could pick any artist to collaborate with on the next album, who would you pick?Duddy: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... well I've always wanted to do a song with all three Beastie Boys but I will settle for two. That's always been a dream of mine.

DM: What do the Dirty Heads stand for? Duddy: We just want to have a good time, we want everyone to have a good time. Come to our shows, we don't want it to be like you're just there with the group you came with. We want everyone that comes to our shows to feel like we're all part of this big family and everyone is together, it's a big party and everyone enjoying themselves, and having a good time. That's what we stand for.

DM: So do you guys have any big plans for the future? Any single path you're headed for right now?Duddy: We just want to keep touring and keep touring and keep touring and as long as people are willing to come to the shows we'll be playing and we just want to be a band that 20 years from now even if we're not putting out anymore albums we'll still be touring. We just want to make that solid fan base we have forever and keep doing this for as long as we can.

DM: Your newest single is “Dance All Night, correct?”Duddy: YesDM: Which of the two singles in your personal favorite, “Spread Too Thin” or “Dance All Night”?Duddy: I would probably say I like “Dance All Night” more it's a very upbeat cool vibe. All of our songs are very happy and I feel like “Dance All Night” is edgier than the singles we chose in the past. And it's cool. I think it's going to be fun making the video for this one, and all that stuff. It's just got a cool vibe and Matisyahu, and it's pretty awesome.

DM: Earlier you mentioned that you listened to a lot of punk music when you were younger. What are some of the artists you listened to growing up?Duddy: Oh man, so many. NOFX and Bad Religion, I listened to those guys. Obviously I loved the Dead Kennedy's and Gorilla Biscuits, so many good ones. That was a long time ago, I mean, I can't even remember the name of the band I was listening to last night! -laughs- So yeah, so many. Pennywise is obviously very cool, No Use For A Name, which is horrible, their lead singer just passed away a couple of days ago. All of them. There was that patch of bands for like 10 years I guess back in the 90's all those punk bands. I listened to them all.

DM: Do you have any advice for aspiring artists and those trying to break out of the local scene?Duddy: Yeah, just stay positive and just remember that you're doing this because you enjoy it and it's fun. Don't put pressure on yourself. You're not just gonna wake up and be a millionaire, it just doesn't happen that way. You just have to stick with it and stay positive and just enjoy it. And the second you forget that, you're done.

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The guys that make up The Wanted have become the next big thing in the states. With good looks and talent like theirs, how could they not? Oh, and their British? I got the chance to catch up with them at Jet Blue's Terminal 5 for a special VIP performance.

While I was skeptical at first, I have to admit they put on a great performance. They had the girls going CRAZY. Given, they are handsome, talented, and charming guys with foreign accents so how could you not go crazy over them? The Wanted played a bunch of crowd favorites including their hit "Glad You Came", "All Time Low" and "Chasing The Sun". Even after about five songs they still had the crowd singing along to every word.

WE'RE GLAD YOU CAME

PHOTO/FEATURE: Audrey Lew

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ISSUE #4: NGHBRS

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