I recently had a chance to sit down for a romantic meal with Daniel Greer
of The Daniel Greer Band. After a healthy serving of crow we talked
of love, life and music... Here is our interview...
- My first thought when I heard this album is that it's really complete.
Really layered. What contributed to this sound?
- A lot of layering. All the guitars were doubled, and we had a lot of different
parts going down at the same time. It's a bit of a
departure from the straight-up sound of our first CD, but I think it is for
the better.
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I think it is for the better
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- Jeff Gutteridge (of Looking For Heather) produced and recorded this record
for you. What was it like working with him? Was he a constant
nagging bitch of control or a easy going producer of freedom?
- Jeff was great, there is no one I would have rather worked with. He was
helpful when we needed him to be, but we made all the final decisions. He
just gave us a lot of good ideas. It was nice also because he was concentrating
fully on our project, he wasn’t recording any other bands at the
same time. He got really into the record, and that helped make it a better
record overall.
- Where would you say the majority of your lyrical content lies? Songs
about girls? Songs about politics? Songs about depression? Songs about
the
X-Files?
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Where would you say the majority of your....
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- Well, I do write a lot of depressing songs about girls. I think the first
CD was very depressing, but that I've moved slightly away from
that. I still write sad lyrics, but I always try to throw an upside in. I
write some political style songs too, but more in a personal way. Other than
the song "Tear Away", which is obviously anti-war, the rest of the album
is more just a mix up of thoughts, and more just my personal opinion of the
world. I like to write about being stoned too.
- Two part question. Lyrically who influences the content on "Move
For Thought" and musically, same question?
- I think a lot of my lyrics are very original, but I suppose they are influenced
by Kurt Cobain quite a bit, Billy Corgan, and Thom Yorke (Radiohead). Musically
I could go on forever, but I'll try to keep it short…most definitely
Nirvana, Radiohead, and the Pumpkins, but also the Goo Goo Dolls, Refused,
Ben Harper, Nine Inch Nails…I listen to a lot heavier music then
I play, but I think the aggression is shown, just in a mellower sense.
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Agression is shown, just in a
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- As far as I know, you're the first artist from our area to put poetry/spoken
word on an album. What was in the decision to do that (for the first
album) and why didn't you do it for the second album?
- It wasn't really a planned thing to put spoken word on the 1st album, I
just had a notebook full of song ideas, and I realized I had some words that
would sound really good just read as a poem. One of the big differences between
this album and our first in the way I write words. Last album, I just had
notebooks full of poems, nad when we wrote music, I would search through
the notebook and found something that fit. This album I wrote a lot more
to the flow, and I liked how it turned out. I didn't have a lot of stuff
left over to do spoken word though. It looks bad to repeat oneself anyways…maybe
on the 3rd album we'll do
something like that again.
- Musically, you've carved yourself a sound, there's no doubt about that.
In the future where do you see yourself going? Heavier? Lighter?
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Heavier? Lighter?
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- I could see it going both ways. There is a lot of medium songs on this
record, ;not to heavy, but not really slow either. I think in the future,
we will have some songs that are quite heavy, but maybe get back to doing
some real straight-up stuff too. I like what we've done with this album too,
but I like to change things up.
- A few of these songs seem to be about a girl. What's her name, address,
telephone number and which window is hers on her house?
- I could go into a lot of detail about the girls I wrote these songs about,
but the problem is, everybody would know them, and it would be
weird. It might freak the girls out a lot too. A lot of these songs do have
to do with specific girls though. I could make an album, and name every song
after a different girl. I get my heart broke easy, and when I do, I drink,
and write a song.
- How much of an influence was Rush in the making of this album? Did
Geddy Lee stop by the studio to record any tracks? Did you record a
cover
of "Closer to the Heart"?
- Actually, I've never really listen to a lot of Rush. I like what I've heard,
but I only have one of there albums. I'll get more eventually, I just haven't
rushed into it. Mark (Bassist on the album) was listening to a lot of Rush
when were doing this, maybe he rushed it up.
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Maybe he rushed it up...
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- When you're done high school, what's going to happen to you? What's
going to happen to the DGB?
- Hopefully, it is only going to get bigger and better. I'm not doing any
secondary school right off the bat, so I'm going to work a day job, and concentrate
fully on music. My brother will be around for a few more years, before he
has to decide school or music, and I'm going to get at least another year
out of my drummer too. The great thing is though, no matter what I do, I
can always use the band name, so The Daniel Greer Band can never really break
up…it's in existence till I die.
- Who's doing the harmonies on the song "Tear Away"? It sounds like Jeff
(of LFH) but I'm not sure.
- Yeah, that's Jeff. He through them in one night for the fun of it, to see
what we thought, and we really liked it, so we left them.
- Define "emo". Someone's got to give an official definition, it may
as well be you. Don't you think it'd be neat if there was "hip-hop
emo". Hardcore gangsta's that whine about relationships? That'd be
pretty rad.
- I think Jay Spectra touched a bit on the hip-hop emo idea. His first track
on the Outloud CD isn't a relationship song, but it's emotional. To me though,
it's pretty difficult to define emo, because it has come to mean something
different then it should. Emo stands for emotional, so it should mean emotional
music. But it has come more to define heavy bands like Thursday, and then
Dashboard gets the "acoustic emo" title. It's a word kind of like alternative.
Alternative should mean music alternative to the mainstream. Bands like Radiohead,
or Nine Inch Nails, are a couple more popular bands that deserve that title.
But it has come to simply define any act that sounds similar to Nirvana,
or mainstream rock after Nirvana. That's why Bush and Matchbox 20 are labeled
alternative. Nothing against those bands, I like them, but they aren't alternative,
they are the mainstream. But if I was to define what Emo should be, it would
be emotional music…so in a perfect world, The Daniel Greer Band
would be defined as Emo for sure.
- Any last words?
- No
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No
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- I don't believe you
- I know, I'm a loud mouth. I never know what to do in last words though.
I could go the self-promotion route, and tell everyone to buy my CD, or I
could go the more thought provoking route, and sound all smart. Or I could
just say FUCK GEORGE BUSH. But, by discussing all my options, I've killed
three birds with one stone. But most important of all, don't do drugs kids,
drugs are bad. Or is it good? I can never remember...damn pot screwed my
brain.
- If you could submissively-sleep (a.k.a- you're the bitch) with one person
in the local music scene, who would it be?
- Well, being the Lindsay music scene is almost all guys (Excluding Natalie
Harries I guess; but I don't want to mess with Hayden), I guess I've had
my work set out for me. I guess if I'm the bitch, it would have to be umm
maybe that guy who used to sing for "Ensonic", whatever the hell his name
is. He was pretty hot.
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I want to be your bitch.. command me master.
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- If you could dominantly-sleep (a.k.a- you're the boss) with one person
in the local music scene, who would it be?
- Chris Rider. He's an up and coming little punker, who would probably be
a good bitch for me.
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Chris Rider.. He'd make a good bitch for me.
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- What do you think of forwards? You know when people forward you stupid
shitty jokes in the e-mail as if they're suppose to make your life
all the brighter? What the fuck is up with that? If someone invented
an e-mail program that eliminated the button "Forward" and didn't even make
it an option? I'd be all up in that shit.
- Forwards piss the hell out of me. It bugs me because everybody knows everyone
hates forwards, yet everyone continues to send them. It really
pisses me when you get so many, they fill your inbox, and you miss real mail
because of it. In my last band e-mail, I asked people to please not send
me forwards because of lack of storage space, and I haven't been getting
too many since then. I never have time to read them anyway, I just delete
them on the spot.
