Theory of a Deadman’s latest effort, The Truth Is… is in stores today. We had the opportunity to sit down with guitarist Dave Brenner and chat about the new album, touring, and the Canadian music scene. Check back later this week for an exclusive playlist from him!
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asapmusicblog.ca: Scars and Souvenirs was a huge success for you guys. When you sat down to write songs for the new album, The Truth Is…, did you feel any pressure to relive that success?
Dave Brenner: Yeah I think there’s always pressure, I think that the more success you have, the more eyes on you, the more of everything. So yeah, more pressure but, and I draw parallels with athletes, because if you can’t perform under the pressure, then you’re just playing at home. So we like the pressure because we feel it pushes us to be a better band, so it works like that. It’s like a professional soccer player, who’s playing in wherever, in the World Cup, and there’s probably some other athletes that are just as good as him, but just can’t play under the pressure that they play under. So I feel like that it’s the same way as separates a signed band from a garage band. We look forward to the pressure, it pushes us and it makes us a better band.
A: In your own words, how would you say this new album is different from anything you guys have done in the past?
D: It’s actually identical to the last record, we just copied it and tried to build off of it (laughs). No, for us every time we release a record, you want to build on it, you want to improve on it, and it hadn’t been that hard after the first record and the second record because you know we sold decent record sales, but it was never something that was hard to re-achieve. Now that we’ve actually had a platinum record in the States, there’s pressure on us to have another platinum record otherwise we don’t improve on our last record. It’s sort of a natural progression in the music industry, as you grow and age, you just realize certain things. I think when you’re a young band, you’re easier to push around, and the record label takes advantage. Now that we’re older guys, we know what to expect from our label, and the people we’re recording records with, we know what to expect from each other and from ourselves, so I think it’s just natural progression to grow into a record, and again with pressure, those things they just come together.
A: In the last ten years or so, so many Canadian bands, especially rock bands have made it so far it seems, what are your thoughts on the Canadian music scene today?
D: Canadians like rock and roll., that’s well known about Canada. You’ll see bands like Airbourne, which is an Australian band, and they’ll struggle to make it in the States, and then they’ll come to Canada and do sold-out tours across the country and sell tons of records. It’s just because Canadians like no-frills, no-gimmicks rock music. As far as bands that are coming out of Canada, I think Canada has done well for itself by CanCon laws and what not, and in doing so it’s almost like, they have to play a certain amount of Canadian music on radio, so it really helps develop Canadian artists in Canada. It’s almost like a farm team for like a hockey team, you have a farm team and they’re developing the players and then they go up to the ‘big club,’ it’s almost like that. You get a chance to build a following and a fan base in Canada, and then have an opportunity to build on that in the rest of the world, in the States or in Europe or whatever. So I think that Canada’s really smart in the way that they look after their home-grown artists. I think that really helps the Canadian artists achieve success outside of Canada.
A: You guys are getting ready to head out on the Carnival of Madness tour, starting in August, with bands like Adelitas Way…
D: AlterBridge, Black Stone Cherry, yep
A: What’s it like when you go out on a giant tour like that, with all the guys?
D: It’s awesome actually, we did a tour similar to this tour just recently, called the Avalanche tour with Stone Sour, Hail Storm, and Skillet. It’s fun when you’re with just your band, but when you’re with a bunch of other bands, it’s just a bunch of other groups just like you. And some bands they’re not social, or they don’t like hanging out with people or they don’t like you in general or something, but for the most part, everybody’s cool and hanging out and having fun, and you’re doing barbeques and listening to music and throwing frisbees, and it’s just fun. For me that’s just what the whole industry is about, the things that I like the most is playing live shows and being on tour and hanging out with the guys. It’s like being a kid really, it’s just always play dates every day with a bunch of guys just like you, so I really love the atmosphere of a big tour like this.
A: You guys have so far announced dates in the USA and Europe, any chance of Canada after that?
D: I don’t know, I’ve been asked a few times. You know we are a Canadian band, and we love to play in Canada. It’s almost a shame that in trying so hard to achieve success in America, it’s almost like we left Canada behind a bit just because America requires so much work and energy. We feel like the success we’ve had in America has helped our band in Canada as well. I think we’re going to do some Canadian dates, I don’t think there will be any on the Carnival of Madness tour, but potentially after that. We’ve got a few Canadian shows coming up this week actually in Sarnia and Ottawa, some festivals. But yeah it’s tough, we don’t have anything scheduled and we’ve been trying to work out something and we do want to play in Canada, but it’s just a matter of timing. It’s so hard when you’re trying to develop your band, and build your band, and you want to play here and there, and we want to go to Europe and play in the U.K again. So you’re always stretching yourself, but you never want to forget where you came from and how you got there. Canada is definitely high on our priority list.
A: And being a BC-based band, what’s it like after all that touring to come back home again?
D: I love it. I always say to people that never is the air as fresh when you step off the plane in Vancouver. You fly so many places but man when I come back to Vancouver, whether it’s pouring rain or beautiful like it is today, it just smells like home. It’s the best air you can put in your lungs, it feels so great. So I love it, I’ve lived here my whole life and I think I’ll live here the rest of my life.
A: I went to the States the other day and I just passed the border and felt so much better as soon as I passed through.
D: It’s true, it’s the air here. We have a fricken rain forest here in BC. That’s what you pay for, that’s why it costs so much to freaking live here, but it’s worth it, it’s a beautiful place to live.
A: On the record you’ve got a song called “Hurricane,” there’s a lot more instrumentals that you guys seemed to use on that song. Is that something you want to explore more in future writing?
D: Yeah it’s something that we’ve always kind of done too. When we record records, part of the fun of being in the studio is experimenting and trying different things, things you normally wouldn’t do, that you have access to things you normally wouldn’t have access to. So in our second record, we put sitar on the record and all these cool things. Same with Scars and Souvenirs, we did some strings on a few songs and keyboards. It just keeps it fresh for us I think, so we did the same kind of thing. We put horns on the new record, more strings, sound effects like in “Hurricane,” there’s a big storm. And that’s just fun stuff for us and sometimes it’s cheesy but it’s cool because it sort of sets a mood almost for a song. Stuff that’s cheesy doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, cheesy stuff has got a place in this world too.
A: That’s true. We were listening to the new album and it’s got a good mix of hard rock and then there’s some ballads on there, and some acoustic type stuff. Is that something you consciously think about when you’re writing or does it just happen?
D: I think it kind of happens, but I also think it’s something we consciously think about. Anytime you’re in a band and you’ve got four guys in the band, you’ve got a lot of musical influences and everybody is into certain things, I think it just happens naturally, but it’s something that we like. For me I grew up and my favourite band was Alice In Chains, and they would put out a record like Face Lift, which was this heavy, dirty, nasty record and then they’d follow it up with a four song acoustic EP, and I think it’s cool when a band can show that they’re not just a one-trick pony. It’s nice to have something that almost is cross genres of music. And I also think as a musician, it’s more satisfying to not play a show and play an hour and twenty minutes of the same sounding stuff. You want to be able to change it up and make it a ride as opposed to just a straight arrow. So I think that it’s not something that we really consciously go for, but I think if we weren’t doing it naturally, we would consciously try to do it, but it just seems to happen naturally.
A: What would you say is your favourite song off the album?
D: I like a song called, “We Were Men,” and I also like a song called, “Gentlemen,” those are my two favourites.
A: I was actually going to ask you about “We Were Men,” because that’s my favourite song off the album. Where did the inspiration come from and what’s the song about?
D: We tour in the States a lot and they’re very patriotic, and we play shows and we have a ton of military people come out. Sometimes it’s not the military, it’s the families and they’re like, ‘Will you sign this? So and so is in Afghanistan and we’re going to send it to them.’ And so we get this and it’s this crazy feeling, there’s so many people and families affected by it. “We Were Men,” is a song we tried to write for Scars and Souvenirs but we didn’t finish it, and we recorded 9 songs on this record, and we were working on 5 more, and so I said, ‘man let’s work on We Were Men again, let’s get that one happening,’ because I knew it was just going to be such a great song. It’s just one of those songs, to me it stands out because it’s one of the rare songs on the record that isn’t relationship-based lyrically. When you listen to a song and it gives you little goosebumps and stuff and I think about the people that come out to the shows and the military people I think are just going to love that song to death I think. It’s just about soldiers and what they do, and the fact that they do it regardless of whether they think they’re being sent over for the right reasons or not. They do it because there’s a need for it and they do it to protect their country, and I think that’s a respectable thing, and worthy of writing a song about.
