Michael Akira Yoshida Pacific Lutheran University: The Mast for September 2002 “We had shotguns pulled on us earlier today by the police” laughs Dredg vocalist Gavin Hayes crossing the normally busy intersection between 3rd and Burnside in Downtown Portland. “We had a toy gun in the van and the whole thing got blown out of proportion.“ A few moments later, the soft spoken band front-man, accompanied by a small entourage of friends and family land at a small trendy nightclub adjacent to Berbatis Pan. One hour before, Hayes alongside guitarist Mark Engles, bassist Drew Roulette and drummer Dino Campanella steam through a short but intriguing forty minute set showcasing new material from their forthcoming Interscope debut “El Cielo. ”. After the show, the band are in seemingly great spirits. Embarking upon an all but never-ending string of concert dates, the band trades its time between the monotony of freeway life, sleazy motel rooms, and inevitably the gerbil like confines of an incredibly modest tour van. And while their incessant tour schedule allots little time away from any nationwide on-ramp, a family connection in the area allows the band at least one night off the road. Not the rock and roll lifestyle you normally dream about? Well, when it comes to Dredg, normal is a word I might avoid using altogether. For their growing number of admirers, the band both as a unit and as individuals has remained an imageless enigma. As Drew Roulette commented on a highly frequented web page “We want people to listen, not judge by appearance. Please listen, that’s what our ears are for. Music has no eyes. It’s true, Dredg are among but a handful of musicians who have put artistic integrity before fame, compromise, or money . Not surprisingly, the band has consciously withdrawn from the stereotypical promotions which currently plagues the music business. There are no sexy label photos, no concert posters, no Rolling Stone “Style” pictorials, no ambiguously homo-erotic layouts in Maxim, and certainly no visits to TRL. Instead, Dredg’s path toward musical recognition will be a road rarely traveled. In a massive leap of faith aimed at complete artistic integrity, their music is all that remains. Fifteen minutes later, Gavin and Mark join myself and a friend in the quietest possible corner of the bar. It might be noted that based on appearance, the two aren’t exactly model standouts. There’s no leather pants, no dreadlocks, no adidas jump suits, no gimmicks. They are for all intensive purposes, just two more faces trying to get a drink on a Saturday night. But beneath the immediate surface, it becomes strikingly apparent that the two simply might not be normal. And while they would most likely argue against that notion, it is clear that the band might think just a little offscue to the average, cookie-cutter outfit. All the while, forsaking fame and fortune for a 21st century version of the starving artist, there is something clearly nobel to their approach of creating art. Intelligent and complicated, they are influenced as much by a call to originality as a diverse residency in the Bay Area. And while they will only reluctantly accept any form of notoriety, they may have just made the best rock album of the year..... Q: So, that was a great performance tonight. How did it feel? Mark: I had fun! I don’t know if it was good or bad but I definitely had fun. Q: What did you think of the sound? Mark: It was really loud, which can either be a good or bad thing. Q: When I was attempting to research the band, I couldn’t find a good bio. Is there a back-story to the creation of the band. Did you meet in high school? Mark: Yea, we’ve all just been friends for a long time and we’ve all enjoyed the same types of music so it all just came together you know. Q: You speak of influences, any overwhelming inspirations? Gavin: A lot of movie soundtracks or scores. Starting with hard music- a lot of heavy stuff. Mark: Starting with heavy stuff and moving forward toward more visually oriented stuff. But, still having that heavy formation. Q: Yea, your music seems to have a real cinematic feel to it Mark: The best movies always have the amazing scores. There’s not a good movie out there that has a crappy score. You have to go along with the visuals. So I think that when we make music we just strive to create something that could be a soundtrack to anything your doing you know. Q: Could you ever picture yourselves scoring a film? Gavin: OH yea we’d love to Q: Any particular directors? Gavin: Yea, there’s a lot Mark: David Lynch for one. Stanley Kubrick if he were still alive Q: So do you guys have the DVD player in the van? Gavin: X-Box Q: So what have you been watching lately? Mark: We just saw Bully the other day Q: How was that? Isn’t that from the guy who did Kids? Mark: Yea, Larry Clark. It was pretty good. Gavin: The film was based on a true story so the reality really adds to its effect. Mark: What else have we watched? God, every time someone asks me that question I can never remember. Oh, we watched Mulholland Drive. Um, Waking Life- a very good film. Q: Back on track, has the band purposefully made music that isn’t necessarily conventional sounding. Mark: Um, I would say yes but mostly that has been for ourselves, not for the sake of being different just to be different. I think that just to live with ourselves, the last thing we want to be is just like everyone else. So, when we write music we really want to challenge ourselves. Q: What does compromise mean to you. Would you ever compromise your sound for commercial-mainstream success. A: Yea, that would suck. Q: So you wouldn’t? Mark: Well it depends on what your talking about. A lot of people think if you sign to a major label your just automatically going to compromise your artistic integrity. So, it matters what level your talking about. Are you talking about one part of a song? Are you talking about your image? Are you talking about the bigger picture? I mean no, we’re not gonna do anything stupid. Gavin: Even if we don’t people will always think that you are compromising because your on a major label. But for us, Interscope is really open to who and what we are. Their good like that for all their bands. They let them be themselves. A: Look at someone like Eminem. As commercial as that guy is, has that guy compromised whatsoever. No, he’s sold millions of records and you could say that he’s now pop, but that guy has probably always been the same. I’m sure when you saw him back in the day in clubs he did the same fucking act. So, it ’s interesting. Even though we’re not like Eminem or No Doubt or any of those big Interscope bands, they still let those bands do what they do. And that’s the beauty of it. Q: Speaking of being what you are, I know you guys were pretty influential in the production of your last release. Did you have a similar experience with the new record in terms of production? Mark: Yea, definitely. We worked with some great producers. Ross DeGermaine (?) was fucking awesome, a great guy and we did some good stuff with him. And Tim Palmer and Jim Scott. We got to work with three great producers who were very open minded, and really let us put our input in. Q: What about the recording process. Is it true that you isolated yourselves in the desert? Mark: That was just to write. We got a house on the hills above Palm Springs. A really cheap and affordable place where we could all just live together with no distractions and just drink a lot and create music. Q: Was there a daily plan. Did you wake up at a certain time or anything of those measures? Mark: We would wake up and we knew we had ideas just floating around. We had big butcher paper plastered on the walls where we had our ideas written down so when we woke up, we would just go. And you know if you didn’t feel like writing- cause you don’t want to force it, you just chill. Do something else. Q: So was a part of the creative process just isolating yourselves from the rest of the world or relying strictly on each other? Mark: Kind of. A little bit. I think it was more of just focusing. I think our writing could have worked in different ways. You know maybe next time we’ll try something else. But it worked and I’m really happy with how it turned out Gavin : Two of the songs on the record were done in a warehouse in San Jose spontaneously. When writing and recording, we wanted to get away and look at the album like a project. I think when you move somewhere else with that idea it makes you focus. Q: What is the purpose of creating a concept album? Is it to create the most possible textures and feels as possible? Gavin: It certainly helps visualize things Mark: Yea it helps wrap it up as a package. I love albums as albums. Songs are great too but I love an album that you can put on and the whole thing is just nicely there. It’s great. Q: What about in terms of your image. It certainly seems that you’ve consciously let the music speak for itself. Was that your plan? Mark: Um, no I don’t think we really sat down and said lets do this because we don’t want an image. We just hate that shit. I hate when I see cheesy band photos. It’s like come on, it has nothing to do with how good or how bad the band is. So we just started from that point 4 or 5 years ago and we just didn’t do them. That’s not to say there are not pictures of us. But, I think we’re just kind of shy when it comes to stuff like that so we just don’t do it. Gavin: We’re fucking ugly people (laughs) Mark: Yea, we’re pretty unattractive too Q: Kind of how Tool avoids an image because Maynard is a five foot nothing ugly bastard. Mark: I’m 5 foot 6, hairy! Gavin : I’m old, have a hairy back. Q (friend of mine): That’s funny because even though you guys seem intensely original, when I first heard you it reminded me of like Octone baby era U2 and Tool. Were they influences to you guys? Mark: Sure, somewhere down the way. I mean its hard. I could just sit here and list it out but people always ask that question. Q: Ok, but what’s your take on mainstream music today. Does that shit just make you sick to your stomach? A: It doesn’t really make me sick to my stomach because i’ve never been big into bands on the radio. Every now and then a really good band makes it on the radio and its just like, that’s great. But it doesn’t make me sick because it doesn’t surprise me. When I was younger I didn’t listen to the radio and now I still don’t. Q: I keep hearing that the new material is more focused but to me that could mean any number of different things. Could you expand? Mark: I’d say we became better songwriters. I mean maybe we got worse to someone else but personally, I think the songs are better within themselves. There’s more experimentation when it comes to sounds so its more experimental in that sense but its more focused in terms of what we sought out to do. Q: Yea, it seems like you’ve really added a cool experimental feel in terms of what’s typically on a rock album. The use of the trumpet was great. Gavin: A lot of that sprouts from boredom. The monotony of life, its true. Q: So do you guys still have to have other jobs? Mark: This is it. Travel from city to city every night and play music Gavin: Playing video games, movies, reading, X-Box, Discovery Channel, sometimes Sportscenter Mark: (Laughs) Pornography Gavin: Yea, lots of porn Mark: We’re just like anyone else. Alcohol, lots of fucking driving Q: So let me ask you the hard question. Are you ready for what’s about to happen? Mark: I don’t know, what’s about to happen? Q: Well, the release of your first major label debut for one thing? Mark: Yea, I have been really ready for that for a long time but I don’t think anything crazy is gonna happen. You know, we’re gonna continue to play live, travel from city to city and make records Gavin: I don’t think we have as high of expectations as other people do. In terms of our music we’re proud of it and that to us is plenty. I think there’s going to be plenty of people who will like it but I don’t think its gonna be this enormous thing. We’ll simply be happy if we continue to get better every time. Q: That’s interesting because it seems like your music is constructed in such a way that it can’t be categorized or boxed in. You could play to different groups or get on different bills. I would think it would appeal to anyone who has like half a fucking brain? A: Is that a compliment? Q: Yes Mark: (laughs) I’m just fucking around Gavin: We hope people enjoy it you know. But we’re not gonna have a major radio hit or a video which today is what sells a lot records. Bands that don’t have that and do sell a lot of records are very established and we’re primarily just starting. Q: So that’s to say your not making a video Mark: We’re making a video, you just won’t see it on MTV Gavin: (laughs) I doubt they’ll even play it at all. We’re doing it because we have the opportunity to and it sounds like a lot of fun. Mark: A guy named American Magee is going to do it. I wouldn’t call him a director exactly. He’s more of a creative coordinator who works in animation. Gavin: He works for electronic arts. Does video games and lately he’s branched off and started his own company. He did Alice in Wonderland which is just called Alice. He does more demented versions of stories. He creates all his characters and kind of redoes it Mark; He’s fucked up. He has a great mind, a really cool guy. Q: So am I to assume you won’t be in the video Mark: Of course not! You don’t want to see my ugly face in that shit.