THE CUTTING ROOM: Interview with Darling Down

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Every week, I go out and interview a band (or two) and we usually speak for an hour, 90 minutes or more. I fill my notebook with scribbles and/or load up a voice recorder every time. Yet, with the confines of print media, I have to somehow scramble all of that down to about 1,000 words or less. Much of what doesn't make it into print probably wouldn't interest most readers, but a lot of it is interesting for music geeks like me. So, this is some of what didn't make it into print:

DARLING DOWN

Met Darling Down late Wednesday night in Marshall. The foursome were setting up their practice space in the basement of the Masonic Temple on Green Street, where drummer Ryan Hudson operates a studio.

In a large room that doubles as an Irish dance studio's waiting room, the band laid out their gear, getting ready for me to shoot a video of their song for next week's WOW.

They spent a lot of time making sure their levels were set exactly right for the camera to capture: "We're kind of divas," Hudson said. "We've got a chick singer, we have to be divas."

When everything was set up, I pulled my camera to the back of the room to capture the entire band in the same shot, what would be used as my base visual in the video. I had the group play the same song three times, as I do every band, so that I can capture primary and secondary visuals and ensure I record all the right angles...

The group lit into its song "Shatter Your World," an epic-sounding love tragedy delivered through frontwoman Amanda Legault's high-soaring, somewhat operatic vocals. It's a familiar but unique sound, a lovechild of the punk/emo influences Legault and guitarist Dustin Claud picked up on a California Air Force base and the metal, grungy force Hudson and bassist Rick Brott learned from their Midwestern brethren. It's a dropped-tuning, chunky number, sliced with octave-chord melodies and whining-wondering-wistful backup vocals.

Nobody there but me, Darling Down bounced around the room and growled, scowled like playing a stadium; Legault made love to my lens with her eyes. Big-town showmanship from small-town players, I recall a line from Keef, something about the wailing arms in small bars, breaking beer bottles to put on a show for a cramped audience.

Somewhere into the second take, Claud's thumb split open and blood splattered across his strings, dark red arterial artwork across his pick guard. He kept playing, not missing a note, and he kept bleeding.

When the band finished, Legault looked at her band mate's blood and said something like, "That's super-cool, very cool in a very hardcore, gross kind of way."

We thought we had it; Claud was patching up wounds from the half-hour effort, but when we went into playback, some audio levels were missing... Forget it, I said, I'll come back later and try again. No use in you doing it now, we have time.

But no, the band wanted it done and done right, so we set back up and the band kept playing, and Claud kept bleeding, and the last take was better than the first.

NOTE: Click here to listen to my full interview with the band. Click here to watch the video of the band performing "Shatter Your World." See the full story Thursday in WOW.

Comments

[the body shop tattoos]

darling down is in the house! love you guys!