Gavin Hayes at The Great American Music Hall - San Francisco 8-6-11
Progressive art-rock masters Dredg and the wildly imaginative hip-hop producer extrodinaire Dan the Automator have come together to create a stunning album and clear front-runner for most ambitious record of 2011.
It’s a dream team of sorts; two artists from very different backgrounds combine forces to deliver a truly unique record. Dredg played a sold out show here in their hometown of San Francisco last weekend and lead singer Gavin Hayes chatted with The Vinyl District beforehand to discuss the band’s new sound, the inevitable backlash, and share a fun story or two.
Dredg and Dan the Automater met years ago when Dan did a remix for one of the band’s songs which led to them later becoming good friends. They had always talked about doing an entire record together and in 2010 the timing was right for everyone involved. The result would be strangely but appropriately titled “Chuckles and Mr. Squeezy”.
The album’s title started off as a joke, says frontman Gavin Hayes. “We were all going to dinner, Dan, the band, and our engineer on the record (Tim Carter). We were talking about old jobs, and Tim mentioned how he used to be part of a rodeo clown duo named Chuckles and Mr Squeezy. I said that’s a great album title! Dan replied enthusiastically, ‘you should do it, that’s awesome.’ When it came time to name the record, we had a lot of titles out there but this is the one that everbody agreed on. What started as a joke became fitting”, Hayes continues. “It symbolizes two separate people coming from different backgrounds and creating one piece of art. It had this parallel similar to a Jeckyl and Hyde type split personality; one being dan and the other Dredg.”
Dredg performing on 8-8-11 at The Great American Music Hall
Dredg is taking one of the biggest risks of their 17 year career. They have made a record that is much different than their previous releases. Remember when Dylan went electric; it’s sort of like that but of course on a much smaller level. If you are hearing the band for the first time with this record you will immediately notice the slick production, polished songwriting, an unmatched ability to create a workflow of instrumentation that fits each track perfectly. At times it sounds like New Order at their peak in the 80’s; synth fueled with lush orchestration. Other times it’s a downbeat mesmerizer. In the end, it’s simply a modern masterpiece of a record battling uphill in a world of single track downloads.
I asked Hayes if he considered the new album a pop record. He replies, “No, pop is short for popular, and this record’s not very popular. (Touche’) I don’t really consider it a pop record, I know a lot of people view it that way. I have a hard time viewing it that way as the person writing it because I feel the lyrical content isn’t very poppy. This record is more of a risk for us which isn’t what pops about.” He continues, “Our songs are based on big choruses, we’ve always tried to write good songs by finding a balance between relevance, interesting ideas and production.”
And the reaction from the fans? Hayes says, “There definitely was a lot of backlash, most of it before it was even out . It’s pretty mixed , there’s a lot of people who love it and then there are some people who said, I didn’t even like your band before but now I do.”
Hayes continues, “I was a little taken back, I mean some of the fan mail was pretty harsh; like we came over and beat up their grandmother or something. I actually replied to all of the hate mail that I got and explained that it (the new sound) shouldn’t be surprising. To me it sounds like our band mixed with Dan The Automater (that’s exactly what the record is). I also received a lot of follow up emails apologizing for the initial hate mail now that they’ve let it sink in they enjoy it more. We’ve been a band for 17 years and we were due for a little, you know, throw a wrench in the gears, try something, take a chance.”
If you’ve been a long time fan of the band none of their records are too similar to one another. “You always see progression with this band and that’s what we are about”, says Hayes. “We want to keep moving forward and not be stagnant with our career. I think that’s part of why we’ve been a band for so long. We have never been scared of evolving as people, it’s inevitable.”
The new album is available as a double gate-fold on beautiful colored 180g vinyl. “I like collecting vinyl and I think it’s important that fans have something tangible”, says Hayes. “Collecting music is a great thing and I don’t think that will ever die.”
Although the band’s music and lyrical content are pretty serious, the band itself is not always. I asked Hayes about his most memorable moment while touring. “In Berlin we had been blamed for some vandalism at a club which we didn’t even play, but had parked our bus in front of”, says Hayes. “We had been contacted by the Berlin police saying that they could prove it was us and we would be fined x amount of Euros. Next time we were in Berlin our bass player set up a prank on Dino and I. He hired 2 actors to dress as Berlin PD, which looked very authentic, they actually came on stage and shut down the show.”
7 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Gavin Hayes of Dredg
- At one point he owned a Poison record.
- He and his band mates are big fans of Falafel’s Drive In in San Jose.
- In 5th grade he started listening to Sabbath, Slayer, and Megadeth.
- He met his guitar player in junior high school. They started chatting because they both had on Testament T-shirts.
- The first album he ever bought was Raising Hell by Run DMC
- His babysitter took him to see Ozzy Osbourne on the Bark At The Moon tour.
- He saw Milli Vanilli in concert open for Paula Abdul in 6th grade.
Dredg’s brilliant new album Mr Chuckles and Squeezy is available now. Do yourself a favor and listen to this album daily, it is incredible. You can view all of the photos from the Dredg show at The Great American Music Hall here.
