Interview: Dryjacket
Washed Up Emo approved band, Dryjacket, have a new album "For Posterity" that just came out on Hopeless Records and we had the chance to ask them a few questions.
Where did everyone meet? Brad, Adam, and myself all went to the same high school. Brad and I grew up playing music together, we played in a pop punk band for years, that we started when we were about 10 or 11. Adam played drums in a band (Heartwell) with Brads brother. Brad met Joe through an ex girl friend, the two of them met up to mess around with some songs Joe wrote. Brad sent me a phone recording of "You're Welcome", that Joe had sent him. I told him I wanted in. The three of us got together with a different drummer (who had no intentions of committing to an active band) but we clicked really well. I told Brad I really felt that we should ask Adam to join us, Brad got a hold of him and after one practice we were all invested.
How did you find out about emo? how about 90s emo? All of the members of Dryjacket have older brothers that got us into 90's emo. We were fortunate to have it passed down to us.
What gravitated you to that sound? That's hard to say, we grew up listening to it so I think it just happened organically.
What bands can everyone agree on? Joe is a big fan of The Appleseed Cast. We are all fans of Death Cab, American Football, The Promise Ring, Into It. Over It.
How was the tour with Yellowcard? What did you learn most? The Yellowcard tour was awesome. We had a great time with both Yellowcard and Like Torches. I think we learned a lot about ourselves as a live band. Playing that many shows in a row allowed us to find our stride and became comfortable with the on stage dynamic. None of us are really pros at talking on stage so usually we end up having to just call out individual audience members and have conversations with them. We were playing for a thousand plus people a night but we were still treating it as if it were an intimate show with friends. I think people liked it for the most part. We kind of just cross our fingers and hope we aren't too awkward up there.
Thoughts on the emo revival? What do you like and dislike being associated with the word emo? We are fans of the genre so we take it as a compliment. The term emo covers a lot of ground for different people, but we kind of pride ourselves in having a mix of the technical aspects of late 90's emo bands like American Football, while incorporating the catchy "hook" parts you'd find in a Motion City Soundtrack song. But the label doesn't matter as much to us as we just hope people enjoy the music.
What new bands do you dig right now? Some bands we listen to right now are Tiny Moving Parts, Tommy Boys, Maritime, A Great Big Pile of Leaves, Foxing, Petal, Weather Box, Julien Baker, and anyone we are touring with. When we were out with Yellowcard we listened to their whole discography spread out over our long drives.
What are your favorite old school bands? Dream tour? Our favorite old school bands are The Promise Ring, Sunny Day Real Estate, The Get Up Kids, Saves the Day, The Appleseed Cast, American Football. But the one band we collectively come back to would be Death Cab, they have unique parts, and manage to capture melodies that stick with you. I think we'd all be ecstatic to watch them play every night.
Is there a band that hasn't reunited that you want to see? Joe says Days Away. I can only think of The Promise Ring, but I know they have already played some reunion shows.
American Football's first self-titled or second? and why? We prefer the first self-titled American Football record. It's hard to compare new records to the ones you grew up with because you associate them with a time and place when music was most influential.