ARCHIVE
DAYER INTERVIEW
DW: Hello and welcome to Distant Warning, how are you?
Guy - Thanks for having us! I think we’re all well at the moment.
Craig - Well, I’m fine thanks – feeling quite chilled at the moment.
Rich - Very good thanks. A bit tired after a couple of hectic weekends but feeling good about them.
DW: How do you feel the line up changes over the years have affected your music and sound?
Guy - We have had one or two line ups over the years! With each change of line up, we grew a little, we learnt something new and, the changes as well as the new influences from the new guys, really helped us find our sound. I guess we were lucky that they never held us back at all.Rich E - We were VERY lucky in that respect. I would agree, each line up change happened for very good reasons, and we grew with each one and became a better band.
DW: Talking of line up changes I believe we can exclusively reveal a line-up change here, can you tell us about that?Guy - That’s right! We have just parted ways with the bass player, Richard Oakes.
DW: Please introduce to the newest member of Dayer and what you think his contribution will be?Guy - A bass player from our home town (Caerphilly) named Kameron Perry will be joining us for some jamming sessions with view to replacing Rich Oakes.
I’ve seen Kam play gigs with his previous band, and I know he will bring in a harder edge to the bass, lots of stage presence and energy. He’s a little younger than the rest of us, but I remember the impact on the band when “Number 4” (ex drummer, Richard Haines’ nickname) joined the band aged 16. Kam could well have a similar effect.
DW: You have recently put a brand new song up for the world to hear at your myspace page, can you tell us a bit about it?
Craig - ‘Blissed’ is a song that Rich E. sent us a rough demo for a while back. It took us a couple of attempts in the rehearsal room to get it to feel and sound like a Dayer song but eventually we nailed it and it seems to have gone down really well with the crowds - although the live version of the song is slightly different in its arrangement, compared with the new demo version we’ve just put onto the myspace page.Rich - Yeah Blissed, it’s kind of about the potential of knowing you’re heading towards a breakdown but you realise it before it happens and that makes you feel really good, the ‘Breathe all’ references, taking in more CO2 when you’re having a stressful moment!
DW: What effect has myspace had on your return to music?
Rich - My Space has been an astounding revolution for our comeback, in the first five years that the band was alive, we could never have dreamt of getting our music to so many people in so many places over the world. That combined with making a number of great connections and friends to the band is really cool. Keep it alive!
Craig - Yeah, it’s REALLY helped us to get our music out to people and places we never would have thought would hear it – especially within the time frame that we’ve been using myspace. Some of our biggest fans are people that have never seen the band live – due to geographical distance - but yet they still get excited about what we’re doing.
Guy - Like the boys just said, it’s given a chance to reach out directly to people who are into what we do! Myspace has worked for us better than our old website (Dayer.net) EVER did
Craig - The other thing it has done is presented us with opportunities that we may not have had otherwise – such as the independent movie soundtrack in the States and some of the gigs that we have played recently have come about thanks to people seeing the band on myspace.
DW: For those who don’t know you have recently returned from a five year absence, what made now the right time to return?
Rich - It’s a tricky one to answer this, even though we’ve been asked a few times already; I guess it simply just felt right, songs were entering my head and if I didn’t let ‘em out I’d explode.
Guy - It was an idea in the back of my mind from the moment we split! Every time Rich and I got together, “The Comeback” was never far from the conversation, but it never felt right! Late last year, after some friendly coaxing and persuasion from friends in other bands, we thought we would give it a go! People were interested again, and there was local demand for the old recordings!
Craig - Some would call it an alignment of the stars or fate or an act of God or whatever but everything just seemed to fit into place.
Speaking personally I had kept an eye on what the band was doing after I left (back in 1998) and even after the band split I still went on the ‘net to see if I could find anything Dayer related.
Last September I just happened to type “Dayer” into Google to see if anything came up and the first entry was for a myspace page. When I clicked on it, it became apparent that it was my old buddies – Rich E and Guy – with a new bass player. Not only that but the first thing I read was a blog entitled ‘DRUMMER WANTED’. Around about this time I had been looking to get back to playing in a band again and this was almost too perfect to be true – a band looking for a drummer that just happened to be the band that I left 9 years ago!DW: How do you feel the music industry has changed over the time you have been a band?
Craig - I think that the music industry has become less satisfying than it was before. Before you had to climb the ladder to chart success – form a band, tour relentlessly in the back of a battered van, build a following, scrape the money together to record a demo, (and then if you were lucky), get signed, release a single, release an album, (and very lucky) get both in the charts, tour some more, repeat until the band splits.
Now, with the advancement in home recording technology and advent of downloadable music you don’t even need to form a band anymore. Without the hard graft to try and get your band’s name on a shiny silver disc with a number 1 by it there doesn’t seem to be any real sense of achievement now.
While the wave of internet-communities, such as myspace, Facebook and bebo, mean that a lot of really good bands have the chance to be heard by people who might not have had the chance to hear them otherwise, it also allows a large amount of rubbish to also get heard. Don’t get me wrong – people may say the same about us and that’s cool if that’s their opinion, but I just think that a lot of really good music that deserves to be heard is getting lost amid the ‘one hit wonders’ and ‘novelty trash’ that are clogging up download charts.Guy - For me, the recording and music industry, in particular the “Big Boys”, were born bastards, and they will die bastards! The only thing they are interested in is “units”, once you stop shifting units you’re out of the door! “Here today, gone this afternoon, another tune we almost remember” to quote someone who knows!
I hate to disagree with Craig, but I think things have actually improved now, the internet revolution has really kicked the industry in the arse! The artists and independent labels are getting more and more power! It’s too late for the likes of Bad Finger though!
DW: Does coming from Wales have any influence on your music?
Craig - I suppose naturally coming from the ‘land of song’ should have some influence on us but in all seriousness we write from what we know and experience of our own culture. We all have diverse tastes in music and, while music from Wales is within our influences I wouldn’t say it directly influences how or what we write other than writing from within our own cultural context. Having said that we have over the years been compared to other Welsh bands such as Feeder and the Manic Street Preachers – Rich E’s voice in particular has been compared to James Dean Bradfield by a few – but while these bands can be found in our record collections, collectively as a band there are far greater influences than these in particular, although personally I am influenced by many of the bands that formed the ‘Welsh invasion’ during the mid-late nineties (Manics, Stereophonics, Catatonia, Super Furries, etc.).Rich - I ‘m not sure it does directly, but I guess that fact that we play rock is driven by the local scene, the fact that there’s a lot of people out there into rock and punk music means there’s an audience for it, that’s a common theme I think, in a lot of working towns.
Guy - For me, nto really, but then again, I’m English! I liked the Manics, Stereophonics and Super Furry Animals when they came out, I would say they inspired me, but don’t really influence me or the way I play.
DW: Who are you main musical influences?
Craig - There are seriously too many to mention, but I suppose if I had to name a few it would be the likes of Jeff Buckley, Metallica, Genesis, the Manics, Marillion… it really depends on my mood as well. At the moment I’m listening to a lot of Brian Wilson, Metallica, Foo Fighters but that could all change by next week.Guy - My personal influences haven’t really changed much over the years. Billy Duffy (The Cult), Keith Richards (The Stones) and Jeff Buckley have influenced me as a guitarist. The Stranglers, The Who, The Cult, The Stones, Brian Wilson & Marillion, among others, have been the bands that left a huge impression on me & my record collection.
Rich - For me it’s great music, great melodies and great song writing. I love everything from old school punk, thrash metal and even folk. It’s about music influencing you rather than tags and genres at the end of the day.
DW: Can you tell us a little about how you came together in the first place?
Craig - When I went to high school I was introduced to Rich E. by one of the music teachers. He played guitar and I played drums. Very soon we had formed a band together and had written a few songs. Eventually every Thursday Rich would come over to my house to write and record some demos on an old 4-track tape machine that I had bought.Rich - When it comes to Dayer, we all stumbled across each other in the pub really! I guess you could label it fate or something like that, for me it was a couple of like minded guy’s who just happened to be in the right place at the right time!
Guy - Yeah, it was a simple thing of I had half a band, Rich had half a band, and a mutual friend introduced his half to my half and away we went!
DW: What are you top five Dayer Songs to perform?
Rich - no particular order, Slowly Under, Neon, Blissed, Breathe and Headache
Craig - Mine personally are: Slowly Under; Headache; Vicar’s Daughter; Incomplete; Blissed
Guy - For me it would be Blissed, Breathe, Headache, Slowly Under & Neon, but that could change tomorrow!
DW: Have any of your lyrics ever gotten you into trouble?
Rich - Not that I know of! I am aware that some resentment was aimed at The Vicars Daughter, potential blasphemous content etc but at the end of the day that’s from someone who hasn’t heard the song. It could just as easily be called the Dentist’s daughter.
Guy - There was a fuss over the lyrics to “No Cure For Cancerians”
Rich - I’d forgotten about that!
Guy - The chorus sounds like we are singing “No Cure For CANCER” and our debut gig, where we played it, was to raise funds for…
Rich - Although we DIDN’T know it at the time…
Guy …a children’s cancer charity. It was a storm in a teacup really, a misunderstanding and nothing more. If you listened to the rest of the lyrics it was clearly about how stupid horoscopes are!
Rich - We also changed the lines about sex with hamsters in the same song!
DW: You made a video for Vicar's Daughter can you tell us about it? How it came about and who had the idea behind it?
Guy - The re was a TV show to highlight up coming musical talent. We had just released our mini-album “Urban Gorillas” and thought we would be stupid not to give it a go!Rich - We sent a CD to the local TV station that was putting together the series and we’d kinda forgotten about it, when we heard from the Director saying he wanted to make a video for Vicars, the concept was largely driven by Daffydd Wyn the director and it was a blast to make and even more of a blast to see it on the TV.
Guy - It really was a great day. People treating us like rock stars, fetching us drinks…
Rich - …production assistants waking us up to tell us to be on set in 5 minuets etc etc. A GREAT day!
DW: Any plans for anymore videos or a live dvd?
Craig - It would be really cool to do a live DVD or some videos at some point but no plans at the moment, although there is a video clip of the world premier of one of our newer songs (‘Breathe’) on our myspace page.Rich - No specific plans at the moment, although I’d love to produce a live DVD some day, being stuck behind a mic on stage means I don’t really get to see the whole ‘performance’ so that would be pretty cool.
DW: Are there any plans to record and release new music other than via myspace?
Guy - Well, in ANOTHER exclusive for you (how good are we to you, eh?), I can tell you there is a chance we could be working again with the producer of “The Rehab Up” & “Urban Gorillas”. Just before we started this interview, I had an email from him saying he heard we were back and would like to work with us again, in his new studios!In all honesty, at the moment, we are only at the planning stage, but there will be a full release, sometime SOON!
Rich - We plan to be in the studio December or January time, and as Guy just said, we could be going back in with the producer of our last two releases, which will be fantastic. We will be including new songs that we’ve written since re-forming, and maybe some older ones. Anything could happen, we’re still planning…DW: How have your recent gigs gone do you feel, what has the crowd response been like, mainly new fans, old fans or a mix?
Craig - Overall the recent gigs have gone better than I think any of us could have expected or even hoped for! The response from the crowds has been phenomenal and we’re really appreciative of all of the people – both old and new fans of the band - who have made the effort to come and see us. We’ve even had one person choosing to spend her birthday at a Dayer show and then inviting the band out after to celebrate.Guy - It’s been fantastic to look out and see faces that were there “back in the old days”! We must have made an impression!
Rich - It has been quite a mix really, a lot has changed in our lives in five years so new friends have come along, and old friends have brought their new friends along and so on…. I’m well impressed with the vibe that’s around us at the moment and can’t get wait to get back out and play more shows.
Guy - Gig wise, we’ve just finished our “Summer Blissed Tour” with an appearance at The Waterfront Festival in Barry, South Wales which was a truly amazing day. A big crowd who seemed to really enjoy our performance, was for me the high point of the shows we have played. They just keep getting better and better!
Added to that, as Craig mentioned the loyalty that has sprung up already with new friends has knocked me out. For me, they have made the gigs so good. It’s nothing to do with us!
DW: If you could play support to any band who would it be and why, and if you could have any band support you who would it be and why?
Guy - I would LOVE to tour, or just gig with The Cult. The Stones would be cool as well.Rich - This is a really tough question!! I’d love to support the Who or maybe The Pixies that would be groovy, as for supporting us? I’d love to get Brian Wilson supporting us so I could watch his set and chill out before we rock out!
Guy - I wouldn’t say no to a stint with The Who either!
Craig - I guess just any band that has been an influence to us – as long as our music complemented each other. While I love heavy metal, I’m not sure how a large number of heavy metal fans would take to what we do, in the same way that I don’t think we would probably appeal to the jazz market either.
DW: What are your touring plans for the rest of the year? (Any chance of a US tour?)
Rich - It’s probably going to be reasonably quiet for the rest of the year, rehearsing, writing new stuff and recording the E.P. As for the US tour, I’d bloody love to, but until some record company or rich Thailand businessman picks us up the chances are very slim…
Guy - We would love to tour the US! We did a recent promotion, and a large number of the winners were in Canada and the USA!
Want to pay for us to come over?
There’s nothing booked at the moment!!!!
We’re cheap!!! :0)
Craig - Not much in the way of touring planned for the remainder of the year at the moment but we are in discussions with a few venues about some potential dates, and we have the recording planned for December/January too so there will be some time preparing for that.
As for us coming to the US – like the guys said, we’d seriously love the chance to come out and visit you guys but we can’t see it happening just yet. You’ll have to be patient I guess, but we will be out there as soon as we possibly can. Who knows?
DW: What question would you like to be asked that you never have been and what would the answer be?
Rich - Good question. Um……would you like a Double Vodka and Red Bull while you complete this interview? My answer would be why didn’t you ask this question at the start of the interview!!! Hell Yeah, I’d love one….
Craig - The question would have to be: ‘Would you like to make a living making music for the rest of your life?’ and the answer would be: ‘Yes’!
Guy - I really can’t think of anything! How boring is that?
DW: What else would you like to tell us?
Guy - Just that, for me, it’s fantastic to have this band back together, to be playing our songs again and to be going down so well. I LOVE IT!
Craig - That I love being in this band and that I’m just happy to have the chance to play cool music – as long as we’ve got a gig I don’t care I just love playing music in Dayer.
Rich - I’d just like to add a massive sincere thank you to all the fans, both my space and the gig regulars, your faith and support makes it all worthwhile. You guys Rock!
Richard Evans