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(Winter 2006) by George Dionne
MusicianConnect
profile
Domeshots released their sophomore effort Reception on March 21,
2005. If you a fan of this website, I'm sure you're very familiar with it.
They say
that
a band's
second album pretty much sets the pace for the rest of their career. Domeshots
need not worry about falling victims to the 'sophomore slump,' because with
Reception (read CD
review)they delivery a strong rock album that
is ripe with maturity and growth, as compared to their debut album Self-Titled.
Domeshots have been touring relentlessly since the day they formed and haven't
looked
back. Rock-Is-Life
was able to nail down frontman Danner Alexander (who prefers to go by just
Danner) during a rare break from the road.
RIL: If I knew absolutely nothing about Domeshots, how would you
describe the band’s music to me?
DA: A hard hitting modern rock group heavily influenced
by rock across the board, contemporary stuff (Mars Volta), the older stuff
(Helmet & Primus);
that range of hard rock.
RIL: Where did the name Domeshots come from?
DA: It’s an East Coast slang term from the 30s and 40s. That’s
all I can divulge at the moment. You’ll get some good answers if you
type it into dictionary.com.
RIL: When and where did the band get together?
DA: We all went to high school together. We jammed
and we played music together, but it really wasn’t until late 2002
that we got serious. At that point we had been playing music together for
about five, six years. It
was just in garages, at community centers, and stuff like that.
RIL: What were the circumstances behind landing your record deal with Rock
Ridge Music?
DA: We had known Tom [Derr] before we started working with [Rock Ridge].
We had already taken the initiative to start touring full time. We had a
record done when we first started working with Rock Ridge. We sort of showed
up with the record just ready to be released. We had a year of touring behind
us before we released Self-Titled.
RIL: How did you know Tom?
DA: We knew him through a booking agent who was a good friend of ours. The
agent passed our music to Tom. He had got in touch with us and just sort
of followed us. I think he liked that we had taken the initiative and just
started doing things on our own. We had no label, no backing, no management,
and we had made the decision to not be just a local band anymore.
RIL: Your first album didn’t really strike a chord with me,
but your latest album Reception is quite an improvement. Do you believe
that Reception surpasses your debut?
DA: Yeah, I would agree with you. I believe that
it surpasses it tenfold. Absolutely! Self-Titled was just a product of
our budget, our expertise,
and our experience. It was basically made by kids that didn’t know
what they were doing; just trying to produce their own record, pay for it
out of pocket, and put it out. We really learned a lot over the last two
years. Reception was self produced too. You’re hearing two years of
growth, songwriting, and production ideas.
RIL: You can definitely hear the maturity between the two.
DA: The songwriting, guitar tones, and the structure of the album itself
has come along way.
RIL: I really did enjoy the album. I was apprehensive when the project was
presented to me by Rock Ridge, based on your last effort.
DA: Thank you. That’s the goal with every band; to make the best record
possible. I know we put in the hours, so I didn’t feel we were shorting
it on that end.
RIL: Sifting through the information on your website, it’s tough to
tell when you’re being serious and when you’re joking around.
Is this how you approach your music?
DA: Yes and no. It comes from the old adage of ‘you can take your music
seriously, but you can’t take yourself too seriously.’ I would
say that we take that statement to heart when we’re touring in a van
and doing over three hundred shows in two years. It’s really hard to
take yourself too seriously. The music itself; we like to think we take that
very seriously.
RIL: So you take the music seriously, but not yourselves?
DA: Right! Otherwise you’ll be done in a year
or less.
RIL: That’s a problem with some bands. It’s good to
really be into your music, but when you start getting a big head…
DA: Yeah. You can’t throw a fit because your clean socks aren’t
around.
RIL: For the next series of questions, I’ll name a song from your
current album Reception, and you comment briefly on what it’s about.
Let’s start with “Shoulder.”
DA: That’s an interesting song. The chorus is
when the message gets across for me. The comment, ‘Our beautiful human
experiences are loosing investors every year’ is a general, very raw
social commentary on people getting very caught up in everything. We’re
caught up in the minute to minute information and the need for entertainment
news; people giving
a shit who Paris Hilton is friends with, stuff like that.
RIL: “Little Bloodnose”
DA: That was sort of my way of dealing with our conflict
in Iraq. I didn’t
want to be to direct in the lyrics of the song, but the verses really deal
with that. With the chorus I just really like how those words came out and
fit over the music. The line ‘we’ve called to say we might be
late, we’re on of way,’ just fit very well there.
RIL: “Crawl”
DA: No comment, next!
RIL: “OMG” is actually my favorite song from the album. I just
couldn’t stop laughing it and its got a great riff.
DA: That was really interesting. I can’t really claim that I wrote
that chorus, because I think our entire American vernacular wrote the chorus.
When we were writing that song I told they guys what I had, but I didn’t
know if it was going to sound too gimmicky. When we tried it, it worked very
well. ‘She’s like oh my God, and I’m like oh my God’ just
stuck there. The statement there is that there is no God anymore. That’s
not anti-religious or anything, it’s just more of; when you dump on
the word so much and you apply it to everything, there isn’t a God
anymore.
RIL: “Sentiment”
DA: That is about a family member of mine that’s dealing with another
person’s suicide in the family.
RIL: “Reception”
DA: That song is about two people who are in a space station. It breaks into
two, and the lovers are in separate parts. One drifts away into space and
the other crashes back to Earth.
RIL: I would have never have guessed that. How about “Our
Last Night on Earth Together?”
DA: Those lyrics were my personal favorite. It was
late at night when I was watching Fox News. I was in and out of sleep,
but there was a story about
that kid in Minnesota who was being overdosed with Prozac. He was getting
four times the amount for adults. I mean, here’s this fifteen year
old high school freshmen, having four times the amount every single day,
and then they follow that up with how happy they were to have Woody Allen
in the studio to play clarinet for them.
RIL: “Ego and Existence”
DA: That was based on a conversation I had with someone
up in Seattle while I was under the influence of drugs. They were arguing
with me about religion.
That’s what that whole thing is about.
RIL: “Call Waiting”
DA: That’s just an old set of lyrics from about two and a half years
ago. I liked how the words fit over that song more than anything. That’s
was just a collection of words that fit well there, nothing direct.
RIL: “Dawn Chemote”
DA: That’s about Benny Hill, you know the guy…
RIL: The British comedian?
DA: No, no, no. This guy is that TV evangelist who was exposed for taking
all the money.
RIL: Jim Baker?
DA: You know; luxurious travel and nice homes all in
the name of God. He totally whores it out, totally whores it out. Hence the
lyrics, 'Christians
are my television telling me everything is fine.'
RIL: “The Hive”
DA: The verses there are really where I connect with
that song, and a lot of that is just my own personal outlook on life. It’s how I ended
up in the place that I’m at. 'Perception of your reality is
your greatest tool to change the world.' 'Helpless isn’t
exactly how you feel.' I have to remind myself a lot about the second
half of that verse. We get so caught up in things that when you stop to
think about it, they’re not truly that important.
RIL: And the last one “Spill the World.”
DA: I really wanted to call that song “Kovorkian Bedtime” because
it’s about assisted suicides.
RIL: I had noticed that in a bunch of the songs you make social
commentaries against television and the media. Is that something that you
personally don’t
care for?
DA: It’s not something I don’t care for, but I think that people
allow it to influence so much of there lives and what they think. Some people
claim that they feel this and they feel that, and they’re really just
agreeing with what the television told them to feel or say. Also the television
tells you what to feel if you’re a Christian living in a red state
etc, etc.
RIL: So you think that television and the media influences people too much?
DA: Way too much, without people realizing it. That’s
the scary part.
RIL: You and the rest of the band put yourselves out there as a band that
opposes corporate music according to your website. What if a big label came
along and offered you a multi-million dollar contract, what would you do?
DA: I would say let’s go for it! (laughs) We’re not trying to
make any sort of statement by just touring and doing what were doing. We
didn’t mean it to, but a lot of this has turned into a DIY project
over the past two and a half years, and one that has become a regional and
possibly national project. Nothing against majors, but when we were young
we didn’t know how a band got signed or paid. Actually a couple of
people…I guess I’ll do some shout outs; Lois Sterns at Capitol
and Miles Lewis at EMI were both really cool to us and said you have to get
out and you have to do it yourselves before anybody will really care about
you. It’s hard for a young band to get that advice.
RIL: I find that some of the better bands are on the independent
labels anyway. I think it’s because bands have more of an input. It’s
rare that the band would get to produce its first album for a major label.
DA: I would have to say that Tom and the entire staff
at Rock Ridge have been awesome. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad thing,
but it’s been great for us.
RIL: Is it true that you have an early demo CD titled
Pineapples Make it Sweeter out there?
DA: Yes, very true.
RIL: What would be on that?
DA: It’s terrible! I shouldn’t say that, but it’s
like musically going through puberty in public.
RIL: Do you know how many were sold or given away?
DA: It’s in the hundreds, somewhere between five
hundred and a thousand.
RIL: Well if the band does really well, it will end up on eBay someday.
DA: Yeah, I think it’s exciting that a fan would want to hear it, but
musically there’s just not much going on there.
RIL: Did anything ever come out those songs? Have you reworked those songs
on any of your albums?
DA: If we did, it’s few and far between. Off the top of my head, I
can’t think of any.
RIL: How important has the Internet been for Domeshots to promote
your music?
DA: Huge, enormous for a band at our level. It really
is the only way for us to be on a level playing field with bands that are
on indie-majors.
That’s the only place where the game is still wide open. People can
get creative regardless of your monetary resources. For example this interview
here, we’re able to work with you, where if it was a magazine, we
probably would not be able to do an interview and stream music for people.
It’s been a huge help.
RIL: What are your thoughts on file sharing?
DA: I’m so torn. I guess I’m supposed to say don’t do it,
go buy a record. But if its going to help get a product out there, if its
going to help bring people out to shows and spread the word about a band,
then I’m all for it. People could make cassette tapes at school or
burn CDs, but [file-sharing] is more convenient. In principal it’s
the same idea.
RIL: Your bio states that you’re constantly on tour. When was
the last time you were home?
DA: Got home yesterday, and for a few days at the end
of January, but you know right when 2006 started, we picked right back up.
We came home in mid
September ‘05 and did the record. We celebrated Christmas, and we were
out on the road again with Five.Bolt.Main all through January. We did a two
week run in the Rocky Mountains of our own. We are actually going to be home
for a few weeks now. We have a CD release party in Seattle and Oakland, then
we hit the road for all of April and through mid May.
RIL: When you head back out, are you going to be touring regionally or West
Coast to East Coast?
DA: April and May is in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. We have a national tour
in the works for June and July.
RIL: What is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done on stage?
DA: Easy; we were playing at a place called Britannia Arms in San Jose, California.
I climbed this wooden pillar, and it was attached to the wall. It looked
sturdy. I had my [microphone] cable wrapped all around me, and this is
a Sunday night for about forty people. I totally tore this wooden pole
off the wall and it just goes crashing down onto the stage and through
some tables, with pitchers of beer and bottles everywhere.
RIL: Do you have any crazy fan stories?
DA: Fans still send snail mail, which doesn’t happen that much anymore,
but we’ve received some…I don’t know whether to call them
flattering or weird collages. Those were fun and from two different people;
in particular one was a girl in Seattle and one was a girl in Denver. I guess
I’m giving away too much right now. I guess I don’t know if this
is going to go verbatim.
RIL: Are they a certain kind of collage?
DA: There are just so many of them that sometimes you think; this a little
creepy and weird. Then you look around.
RIL: At least there not from guys!
DA: Right!
RIL: What did you do before you joined the band?
DA: Nothing, it was right out of high school for me.
I was a student. I did a little bit of college and that was it. We were fortunate
that we had
a group of people that wanted to go forward, and wanted to go forward young.
When I say go forward I mean work really hard. It’s not just play.
We are very serious in thought, and wanted to make a name for ourselves.
RIL: Were your families supportive of this; getting right out of high school
and going into a band?
DA: Actually, yes. It’s not something all parents want to hear, a child
saying I don’t care if we are broke for three or four years, we’re
going to go and do this. All the families are very supportive in what we
were doing.
RIL: That’s good. It’s good that you have that support
system.
DA: The more and more things that come along, it solidifies it more for them.
The fact that people are into the music and get behind what we are doing
helps.
RIL: Describe your worst gig?
DA: Worst gig? Wow, I’m trying to think. They all sort of blend together.
One that quickly comes to mind was in Montana, probably for about zero to
two people. I guess it can’t be that bad if there were that few people,
but we just never got our rhythm. I was sick, we broke strings, we move around
a lot, the bass player totally falls, his bass somehow breaks, and I’m
thinking, ‘when can this end?’ When can this forty minute block
of music be over so that these four people in front of us, that have heard
good things about us, don’t have to sit here and go, ‘this is
it?’ It was just one of those total disaster nights. Sorry I don’t
have anything crazy for you, like throwing up all over the place, all over
the front crowd or…
RIL: I’m sure those crazy days are coming. You don’t
have to worry about that.
DA: Yeah, I’m working on it.
RIL: Soon as the money starts rolling in.
DA: Yeah, then I’ll be jaded.
RIL: Especially when you start getting the free premium liquor.
DA: None of this two drink ticket bullshit!
RIL: Where do you see Domeshots in five years?
DA: Putting out excellent rock records and touring
nationally and internationally for a solid and loyal fan base. How big? I
don’t know, but it will
be big enough to support the machine, keep us going, and to make us a viable
entity on a label. We’re in this for the long haul and we are committed
to building a fan base. We truly are.
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DANNER
ALEXANDER
