Des Rocs Live From Queens New York

There is something special about being in the space where an artist creates their music. And in this week's episode, that's what I did! 

I headed  to Des Rocs Queens New York studio to celebrate the release of his third album - TO HELL AND BACK - (Out  6/12) on Sumarian Records  and we album deep dive, discuss how Danny became Des, staying true to your art, opening for your heroes  and more. 

AND with all the guitars and gear around, Des treats us to an acoustic version of "This Land" and plays us out with his electric magic.

It's a special "Record Release Edition" of The Carr Stereo Podcast-  Enjoy. 

TC Out! Tune in next week! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:30

And I'd have to find guitar stores to find out. If you listen to my favorite screen and start to talk to that version too, we'll get the full visual as we overlook New York City. And don't forget to like and subscribe. The Car Stereo Podcast is live from Queens with Dez Rocks. The Car Stereo Podcast is live, and I am with Des Rocks. And this is so exciting because it's album release day. Des Rock's third release, To Hell and Back, is out today. And what an honor to be with you on release day. I feel like it's so special. It's so cool that you invited me. Not out to just like a place. Like we're in your Desrocide environment here. So talk to me about this super cool space that we are at in Queens, New York. This is where all the magic happens.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Oh, yeah. This is like everything Desrocks. This is like our headquarters where we rehearse, where I write, where I record a lot. And uh we're currently on a rooftop in Long Island City, Queens, facing out at Manhattan.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Let's get a little b-roll. We've gotta get a view here. This has to be like so inspiring to come here and work. We're here on a beautiful day, but I would imagine, like in the winter and in the fall, when things are just really quiet and crisp, it has to be somewhat magical to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Without a doubt, because it's so quiet up here, but you're looking out at just like pure chaos. And like the just the majesty of New York City is kind of laid out before you in a way that's immensely inspiring. And even when we're rehearsing, like I'll be out there rehearsing with the band and we'll rehearse out there and just kind of like on the rooftop? On the rooftop, and like take in like the grandiosity of the city, which is so inspiring to all things desrocks.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Well, you are, I feel like a heart of the city kind of performer. There's something very interesting about you that I love. There's a grit and there's a polish, which I want to talk about. But let's get into the meat and potatoes of this third record. Now, this is your third release, your second on Sumerian Records, and I feel like it's a full circle kind of feel for you. I feel like this is the record you've always been meant to make. Although you've said that Helen Back is, I think I'm gonna quote here, for the fighters, for the dreamers, for anybody who's kind of been pushed down and rising back up. Was there a certain something that happened in life where all of a sudden you got inspired to write these 11 songs?

SPEAKER_00 2:59

No, it's not a sudden moment. I think it's just the culmination of everything leading up till now. Like it's been such a marathon, and now because it's been a couple years of Des Rocks, for the first time ever, I have this level of perspective and hindsight that you don't have when you're first starting out, you know? So in the early days, like the struggle is so present. And then today that struggle is part of a greater journey, and you can kind of reflect on it and write an album that embodies that.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Yeah. This is a journey record, it's sequenced perfectly.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

And it's so cool. Like, I'm gonna really hit up Des with something, and he doesn't know I'm gonna hit him up with this, so I hope he's cool with this. There's so many guitars around. Yeah, you have acoustic guitars, electric guitars. Like, this is like I feel the magic. Can we get some kind of performance today? Like a little something. We'll do something for this.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Absolutely. Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

I love that. And you know what I think you've been so generous with? And I I mean there is acoustic, so this was kind of unplanned, so I don't know what we're gonna perform, but I want to talk about the acoustic performance before we do a little deep dive into the album. And you kind of brought up having perspective. So I think you and I probably met during COVID-ish time when everybody was zooming and people said, Oh, there's this great new artist. Now, I had seen you before because you were the guy that I remember had brass balls to get on stage at the Rolling Stones Stadium tour. I think I saw you Philadelphia. You did the Philly date, right? And I'm saying, Who is this guy? And who are these players in this band? Like, this guy is freaking amazing. You were unknown. People didn't know who you are. The Rolling Stones have always picked personally amazing bands to take out on the road. I saw them take an early incarnation of the pretenders and Prince and Living Color. How did you get picked to be on the Stone Stadium tour?

SPEAKER_00 4:54

I mean, it's really like unbelievable. You know, we were playing a show at the Roxy on one of our first tours, and somebody from their team saw it and then passed it along to the band, and the band picked us, which is a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

They saw your show.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Yeah, yeah. Somebody from their team saw the show at The Roxy.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

And said, now imagine how many artists that people from the Rolling Stones team see, like in bars and blah blah blah. And they saw you and said, We we gotta get this guy on the on a on a show or a few shows. That's that's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

And we like sounded like shit, and uh, you know, it was like show 30 of a really long grilling tour. Um, and we were just kind of like figuring out what we were doing. It was still so scrappy and so DIY.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

What was that day like for you? Like the day where you unloaded your gear at the stadium and looked out onto the stadium and did like a sound check. And what was that day like for you in your head?

SPEAKER_00 5:46

It's surreal and it's like the most Desrox thing ever, where we show up in a 1987 Volkswagen Vanigon with the door painted the wrong color. They don't believe that we're there to play.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Of course not.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

So we get like yeah, we get held up and they have to make all these calls and the bomb-stiffing dogs come out and make sure we're kosher, and then we finally go back there, and then we're also like the crew, you know, we don't really have a crew, so we're just like setting up our own gear on a stadium stage, and then the next day I took like the $12 bulk bus back home. So it was like insane. It's like, and that's still like that's the most des rocking thing ever.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

That is insane. And the rolling stuff, did you actually like meet the guys?

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah, we did, yeah. It was really special, really special. So cool.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

So and that's kind of like at really the beginning of di this kind of trajectory of your career. Wow, that's what a s what a story.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Oh, it was crazy. It was crazy. And then like that was right before everything shut down. So we've been grinding really hard for about a year and a half up until that point. We're like, yes, we finally reached some place, and then everything shut down for two years.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

And what ends up happening too, and you've always been a really generous artist. You came to radio, radio stations. I remember you coming to my radio station multiple times, taking an acoustic guitar, because that's what artists do. We have the artists in, they talk a little bit about who they are. Acoustic is always easier. And record labels say, Oh, well, he'll play acoustic. So I think you went out and you did so many of these performances. You you did things with me for Animal Rescue, and you did uh parking lot parties that we used to do where fans can connect with artists. And I love that. I think it's brilliant, and it was so generous of you. But you are such an electrifying performer that I want people to know if you did not see Des yet in concert. It's totally different than those performances. So, what was that like for you scaling, having to scale back so much?

SPEAKER_00 7:37

It's challenging because also, like, part of you wants to give a disclaimer before the set where it's like, this is not what I usually do, but then you don't want to do that because it puts the audience in a bad headspace. So I'm like thinking I want to give this disclaimer, but then I don't. And there's also like for me, what's challenging, there's so many acoustic artists out there who are like, that's what they do. Yeah. And they excel in this format and it's beautiful and it's incredible. So I feel like I'm almost like visiting in their world and being a little bit of an imposter. And uh that's always a little challenging for me. But it's like it's like if I spoke Spanish fluently and I'd like dabbled a little bit in Italian, and somebody was like, We're gonna send you on a tour, you're gonna be speaking only Italian. I was like, but man, I speak Spanish fluently. Like, don't you want me to do some Spanish stuff? I love that perspective.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

I wanted your perspective on that. First of all, when you did it at my radio station at the time, I've got to say, you could hear a pin drop. Like, people were so into you. So you did it so incredibly well, but I don't want to take away from who you really are as the artist I saw a few weeks ago at a sold-out Grammarcy Theater in New York City where I was literally, and I'm a big mouth Jersey girl, and I was literally sitting there like this at the show because you are so amazing on stage. And you do get that, like Des is one of the most electrifying performers, you know, and then you know, you're doing an acoustic performance, and you want really people to see, I think, the meat and potatoes of who you are and the incredible three-piece power trio band that you have. So let's get into some tracks. Where do I start? I've got some of my favorite tracks here written down, so I think you kind of come out of the gate with people really getting a feel for what this record is gonna be with When the Love Is Gone, and then you kind of careen towards Fall Together, which when I heard these two songs back to back, they were almost it almost told me a story a little bit together. Um, so talk to me about why you decided to have When the Love Is Gone be the introduction to the record.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

I always want to open big. You know what I mean? I want to make a statement. And for me, like, I feel like rock is so sterile today in the mainstream. Where like I'm opening the song with DJ Cool from 1994's Let Me Clear My Throat. He's so cool. Who I just DM'd on Instagram. I said, Can you record a bunch of stuff for me and send it to me and I'll chop it up? He was like, Yeah, I'll do it for 25 bucks. I was like, 25 bucks. I was like, I gotta give you more than that. And uh he just sent me all this stuff. I gave him a whole script of things I wanted to say. He didn't say any of the things, and then he sent me back all his own stuff, and it was 10 times better than anything I had written for him. And I dropped it in the beginning, and then we just go into this like big explosive song, but it's not just rocking, it's like very emotional and has a lot of tenderness and pain and pathos underneath it all. And I was like, this is just a great way to kick it off. And then going into Fall Together, it's like, okay, now we've done the establishing shot of the film. Now we're like in the heart and the uh emotional journey of the record. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

That's exactly what it was like for me. And I can feel that emotional journey. I had a massive emotional journey this last year, so this record really connected with me, but it's not just an emotional journey, it's a record of really empowerment, I think. Of recognizing things and saying, you know what? I see these things now, and they're in my rear view mirror, and now it's time to forge forward. So it's a very liberating, freeing kind of record as well.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Oh, for sure. Like anything I've been through personally and professionally, like I never want to dwell on it. I never want to have this like, oh, woe is me attitude. Like, I'm always a forward-facing person. You can address the past and talk about the experiences, but never want to like wallow in it. Like, I want this record to have an inspirational message at the end of it. You know, it's not like these horrible things have happened, period, end of sentence. It's like these horrible things have happened, and this is how we're gonna get through it together.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

When we talk about you as an artist, and you're such an authentic artist, you know, it's so hard to be super authentic these days because artists want success. It's lovely to do it just for the creativity, but then you get to a point where you say, I have a life, I have a family, like I wanna be successful at this, and I want people to want to consume who I am as an artist. So it's very easy to ebb and flow and change and have record labels or management or booking agents, or everybody's kind of weighing in saying, You should sound like this person, you should sound like that person. You have never let that noise get into your head.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

I probably should have at some point.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

You should not, you should not, you should not have, because we need artists like Des Rox. Now, Des Rox starts out as a young kid, Long Island kid, Danny Rocco. Now, Danny Rocco still has guys that he knew in high school in the Dez Rocks bands. Oh yeah. So when did Dez become, you know, somebody in your mind that you wanted to create? When did Danny become Des? Because I speak with artists about this a lot, name changes. I just had Rachel Bolin on, and he said, you know what? I grew up a kiss kid. So I wanted I wanted a stage name. I wanted to morph into that person who who I was on stage. And when did that happen for you?

SPEAKER_00 12:58

I think it's always been there. It just didn't have a name, you know what I mean? I was always the guitar player in other bands, and I very much wanted to impose my vision creatively on the whole band in a way that was totally unsuccessful. So it got to a point where I was really just kind of forced to do my own thing. There was really nobody left to make music with, and then that's when I embraced a name that wasn't my own name because my name is very on the nose. You know what I mean? It's like Danny Rocco. It's just like that's what my mother calls me, that's what my grandmother calls me. You know what I mean? So I needed not a mask, but almost like a safe place to embrace who I am in a more even more authentic way than just my own personal name. You know what I mean? Like, I think the personal name has more like professional and societal expectations on it than if you just create your own identity, then you get to be as free as you possibly can.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

And you feel fearless. There's a fearless kind of feeling about being Des Rox, and well, this is what Des Rox does. Yeah, I I love that. And I wanted to make sure that we circled back to that. So let's talk about, you know, because there's so many bangers on this record. There's a banger of a record, uh, some really amazing guitar work, too. The phenomenal fuzz-I'm such a sucker for the fuzz. I'm such a sucker for fuzz.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

A lot of that in here, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

And that incredible kind of distortion. The way is another song that is so spoke to me. I won't let you get in the way. When I'm coming in close, you better move because I'm gonna break through. It finishes this record so strong, it opens with this really kind of haunting kind of vocal from you. The sequencing must have been tough. Because all of these songs you want up front. So, how did you decide what goes where? Because there's uh such a story through this record, and a lot of artists sometimes feel like, oh, these songs might not get heard if I put them, you know. So, how did you do that?

SPEAKER_00 14:49

I had to like throw that expectation totally out of the window of like what is best goes up front because that's so easy to do today. And I'm like, what is the journey I want to curate? You know, where do I really want to take people? Like, if I'm up high, I don't want to stay up high for too long. Like, there's an art to keeping you up high for just the right amount of time before we like bring it back down again. And I don't want you to be sonically fatigued by anything, so you can just go banger, banger, banger, ballad, ballad, ballad, that's easy. But I really want it to to be dynamic, and that's just like an art form, you know. Like I spent more time sequencing this album than I probably did recording it. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I went through like a couple months and a whole bunch of different sequences. This thing was probably all backwards at one point.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Wow. And you can feel that because it's perfectly sequenced. You are not only a great guitar player, and I think this is also what happens sometimes with somebody who's so dynamic on stage and such a great guitar player. You're a really phenomenal vocalist.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Oh, thank you. Appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Every time I've seen you, whether electric, whether acoustic, the your vocals are always spot on. You never seem to be struggling, and I think that sometimes that gets lost when there's all that energy on stage and the guitar and people are lost in the guitar. Uh talk to me about delivering the songs. And when did you know you could be a deliverer? When did you know that you were a great vocalist?

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Oh, I think I'm so I'm so working at it. You know what I mean? It's all about just finding your voice. And I think like whether or not I'm technically singing in tune has nothing to do with it. I think people react to what they consider a great vocalist to be someone who's like completely inhabiting who they are and embracing their voice and doing it at the highest level. You know what I mean? Like, even when you see Broadway cats, like you're like, this is an incredible vocalist because they're like a Broadway singer, that's what they do, that's what they're good at, and they're doing it at the highest level. But you see people who aren't like traditionally great vocalists, and they're just doing their thing so well that it's mesmerizing and makes you feel something. Like, I mean, I I don't think anybody would be like, oh, Anthony Kidas is like just such a incredible belter singer. It's like, no, but he does what he does in such an authentic way that he's one of the greatest singers in the world. You know what I mean? And like Jagger. A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

You know, Jagger's the deliverer of those songs, and you look at the that early, early footage of him and sang very differently than a Robert Plant or Janice Joplin, but Jagger is still like to me one of the greatest things.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Same thing. Same thing with guitar playing. Like, you don't have to be good to be good. You know what I mean? Like, I just think of like the solo from Smells Like Teen Spirits, just do, and that's it. It's just two notes, but it makes me feel ten times more emotion than like something Joe Satriani would do. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 17:28

No, how important though is it for you to make sure that in a time of auto-tune and uh going back and listening, and let's fix this, and let's fix this, and let's fix this, to have the feel overtake what you can fix in Pro Tools.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

It's immensely important. Something I struggle with a lot because it's so easy, it's right there. You can take that vocal take and within a fraction of a second put it in tune. You know, within a fraction of a second. And this album was especially challenging because I sang it so much. I sang it over and over again, like right here on this couch and right over there. And I really struggled a lot because these songs were high and they were painful and they were intense, and I kept so many of those imperfect takes in there. You know what I mean? I didn't tune them up, I didn't move them around, I embraced a lot of the pain because also it like it relates to what the songs are about.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

That's what I love about it.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Oh, thanks.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

Because I think that the emotion is there. Because I think when you have to fix everything, every fix you lose a little bit of the emotion. For sure. You lose a little bit of that spontaneity and um and you can feel that. I I think it is the difference between something that you just oh, I have to listen to this over and over and over because I feel it. And we don't I think we as listeners don't even realize it. I don't think it's you know something that's in our subconscious. I think it's just the way we connect with the music. So before we get into any more from the record, shall we play something? Would you play? Let's do it. I know I'm really putting him on the spot, but we're in this creative space, and I would just hate not to pick up one of these beautiful guitars. Okay. All right, let's do it. We'll be back.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

All right, here we go. I'll do what others don't. Got no fear, I'll ride alone. Laid waste the bit of bones. The more you see, the less you know. Show me your best, I show you my best. I'm never nothing to prove. There's a man who was cursed. Not wanna stop me now, cause there's one way in and way out. There's one way in and way out. Break free, we'll bother. Here we go again, I style the split. Break free, real. Here we come again. I'm a mama, I was raised a lover. But hot times put hair on my chest, so red old schools that I said who's next. Don't trust even parentice. Food you once, fooled you twice. Shaman snakes until they shout. There's one way in and a way out. There's one way in and a way out. Break free, we don't want to reset. Here we come again, must still this way, take it on my cold and head, break free, real one we said, here we come again Master that followed the slam, take him from my cold hands, bread free, rewrite, reset. Here we go again.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

See, this is why a creative space is where I love to do the car stereo podcast. I don't think I can ever do another zoom after that. No more zooms.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Death to Zoom.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

No more zooms. When Des said to me, Yeah, I'm in New York, I'm in like Queens, and I've got these places that I work and stuff. I was like, We're coming to you. Car Stereo Podcast is back. I am with someone who I just adore. Not only musically, but personally. It's Des Rocks. Thank you so much for hosting us and having us today.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Oh my god. Has any

SPEAKER_02 22:00

But nobody's recorded here or anything?

SPEAKER_00 22:01

No, no, no. It's just you.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Oh, I love this. And I want to get out on that patio space as well. Let's talk about the band. The band. When I saw you at the Grammarcy for that show, the band is incredible. It is, I love a power trio. I love three people on stage making so much great mad noise. So talk to me about your band.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

My band and I go way back. We've known each other for well over 10, 15 years. We've all played in really horrendous local bands around New York, Queens, and Long Island, and New Jersey together. We are people who live and breathe a shared dream and a shared language and a shared history. And we are just so grateful to be on stage every night given how much we've all been through personally and professionally. And it just like pours out. Like we play every show like it could be our last because you never know when it will be. And we just like have that ineffable chemistry that defines so many of the bands that I grew up worshiping, and especially in an era of just like solo artists and hired guns. To have a real band like really playing the songs and really working out things off stage, on stage, like living and breathing it, it's more important to me now than ever.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

They are not just your rhythm section, too, because they're so charismatic on stage. Oh, yeah. There's a presence. Eric Mendelssohn, who's your bassist, and uh Will Tully who's the drummer. They are so incredible on stage with you that that energy, the energy is just off the roof. It's very for those who may not have experienced a Dezrock show yet, dare I say it Springsteen-esque. Because I can really take, I know you're a Springsteen fan. I can really take away that energy that you bring to the performance. When I saw you most recently headlining, you were off the stage, and then you were back on the stage with very James Brown. I'm waiting for him to like come and put the cape on you, and then Des is off, and then we're just like, oh, the house lights are gonna come on, and then Des is like dancing back on again. Like there's just that performance is just insane. So, Springsteen, who else did you take from as a kid? Who did you look at and say, like, wowza?

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Prince, Queen, Springsteen. Yeah, Tina. Now I get it. And you know, a lot of those guys look to Tina. Um, she's kind of like the like the source code for a lot of the stuff that I worship from a performance perspective. And yeah, like going back to Springsteen, like these are all people from a same, a shared place and a shared background. And I feel like that's like just so important with bands and kind of missing. Like people with hired guns, like they're just from all different places. And sometimes it's beautiful, they could bring these different backgrounds to it. But for us, like I feel like you just live and breathe who we are and where we're from.

SPEAKER_02 24:51

It's hard to get chemistry with people. Sometimes you don't have chemistry right away, and then all of a sudden you develop chemistry because you guys have been working together for so long, and I think when band members are interchangeable, you know, you're constantly chasing the chemistry.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

For sure. Or you just don't value the chemistry. Right. You know, and a lot of people don't value that. They value like things being perfect. And for us, like there's so much, there's so much polish, and there's also so much imperfection that makes a Des Rock show what it is. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

Track number six, by the way, was a favorite of mine. It's called The King. Who who is The King?

SPEAKER_00 25:24

The King is very much like a um a symbol of the duality of the performer, you know? Because for me, it's something that I always not struggle with, but always work through is like the duality of the performer on stage and the person off stage, you know, someone who is so larger than life and charismatic, but then who embraces lyrics that tend to be a lot more personal and a lot more tender. And it's just kind of like a commentary on this theme.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

And war is also a song that I really, really connected with. There's a kind of a little bit of a pop, a little bit of a pop sensibility on that song. Talk to me a little bit about that song.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

War is kind of like the inverse of the king, and a lot of these songs flow into each other um very intentionally. Whereas War talks about very much like that internal struggle, and that's also the internal struggle in many ways, not just with identity, but other things, is very much like a theme that I explore in a lot of my songs.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Yeah, yeah. And you can really hear that, really hear that in that song. So you worked with uh a gentleman named Joe Chiccarelli. I I love him as a producer because he's produced a lot of records that I really love. One especially, I'm thinking, where do I know that name from? Where do I know that name? And I'm going, The Shins. That record, by the way, from The Shins is 20 years old, which is impossible for me to believe. He has such an interesting perspective. He's done the white stripes and was very responsible in bringing Tori Amos to the forefront of music, just a real incredible get the artist kind of musical guy, because not all those records, icky thump does not sound like the Shins record, does not sound like the Des Rock's record. So, how did you and Joe hook up and how did you know that he was the right person to take this vision to the next level?

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Well, we were actually gonna go with somebody else uh for a while, and I I've produced a lot of the songs myself or with my production partner Jerry Lang, and you know, it's it's such an insular camp that it's tough to bring other people into that creative process. So we were gonna go with somebody else. At the last second, somebody recommended I talk to Joe. And Joe just came in with such like a tsunami of enthusiasm for the work, and he had a lot of, I don't want to say criticism, but he had a lot of hard truths that he felt about some of my previous work. And I really appreciated his candor with respect to those comments and the way he handled it. Um and when we finally started working together, like his enthusiasm matched, if not rivaled, mine. And I can be like really crazy when I'm working on music, like just so manic in a good way, in a productive way. And he was like right there with me. And sonically, he's just on another level because we did this whole record live as a band. And that was unbelievably challenging for many different reasons. But Joe was able to just guide that process because he was so experienced at doing it.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Yeah, he brought something just slightly different without taking away from who you are.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

For sure. And like usually I'm playing a lot of the parts myself in the Des Rocks records, especially the much older stuff. And it was just so important to embrace that electricity of the brand the band that you're talking about, you know? Yeah. To have that push and pull of these people playing off each other, and it just made for a very different sonic experience and one that you definitely don't feel a lot today in modern rock music.

SPEAKER_02 28:39

Yeah. I agree, I agree. And you've really carved a path for yourself in rock music and modern rock music because we were discussing earlier, you know, a lot of the music that we hear today and we are consuming sounds the same. A lot of the tours have bands that sound very similar. I love going to a tour where there's five bands and nobody's doing the same thing. Like that's like a tour for me. I love that. We're getting away from that, unfortunately. And I feel like you are the artist that's gonna no pressure. You're gonna save us. Des you're gonna save us.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

I'm trying to fight the good fight.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

You're you are fighting the good fight. And that's not always easy. I mean, you know that. You've and you've said too to me in other interviews that we've done in the past, you're like, I'm always getting ideas like at two and three and five in the morning, and I'll get up and I'll put these ideas down because it's so important for me as an artist.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

Oh, for sure. And it's funny you go back to like tour packages and stuff. And for me, like the best food, right, is like salty and crunchy and sweet, and has all these like varying textures and dynamic elements to it that make like the best bite of a teramizoo you ever had, or whatever it is. And for me, like I think in rock bands, like that's especially true. Like, you would see bills from the 60s and 70s with just like iconic artists who are very different, very different musically, and it was like a variety show. And today it's like a package is what bands sound the most the same that we can put together. And I feel like the audience is really robbed of a special experience that way.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Yeah, I agree, I agree, and that's why I think you should be on so many different bills because we need Desro performers. I also want to talk about Sing Me Back to Sleep. There's a very Beatles-esque kind of feel. I feel a Beatles-esque feel, I feel a queen vibe in there. The guitar almost was like Brian Mayish to me.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Wow, I'll definitely take that any day.

SPEAKER_02 30:32

Yeah, there was something very magical about that song when I listened to it. That's like one of my favorites from the record.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Oh, thank you. I wrote that with Jerry Lang, who's been my writing partner for many years now, and we went to high school together. So that even tells you that Des Rocks is more of like a local thing, you know. It's it's very, it's very much like a mom and pop universe that we inhabit. And Sing Me Back to Sleep is a deeply emotional record. For us, it was really important to push musically in far in terms of what we could do. So there's like multiple key changes, there's multiple BPM changes. Um, and that that Beatles reference is so interesting because I never thought about that. But now that you say it, you're just citing artists who were like creatively risk-taking. And to me, that's like immensely inspired and to just be even thought of in the same category at all when it comes to the sonics of the record. Um, but yeah, it's it's like a really beautiful song. It's another one that was just super hard to sing, not in my vocal range at all, you know, and I hope that kind of came through though, and the fact that it was a struggle to sing.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

Yeah. But I was like listening to that, and I was like, wait, I gotta put that one on again. Yeah. I gotta put that one on again, gotta put that one on again. By the way, To Hell and Back is out today. We are with Des Rocks on record release day. You've been on so many cool tours too, with so many different types of bands. I mean, we talked about the Stones, and you've been out with the Struts, and you were out with Bad Flower, and you were out with Muse, and you've been What has being on all of those tours brought for you? What tour moments do you remember? And you thought, wow, this was just such a magical moment for me.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Definitely opening for Muse in Europe, you know. That was wild because for me, I was such a big Muse fan growing up. It's also a band that like really didn't belong to a scene and very much had its own sound and its own lane. And, you know, I really just like had to have a couple pinch-me moments because I spent so much time in the crowd, you know, not only just in the crowd of muse concerts, but in like the last row of MSG or the last role of the Nassau Coliseum, where like your head hits the ceiling because it's like that high up, you know what I mean? So for me, it was it was really special to be on that tour.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

Oh, I can imagine. And you're right, that's so perfect what you said, because yeah, they were a band that they have their own lane. They were never a band that just said, yeah, we're gonna do a record and we're gonna try to sound like more of what's happening, or that's why they've been, I think, such an influential band to so many.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

For sure. And like to be to be anti-sene, because now everything is like so scene-based, so genre-based, like, especially in this algorithmic world that we live in. An algorithm is to sort things into predefined buckets. And so much of my intention as an artist is to not belong in any one bucket, you know what I mean? Just to be myself. And that often involves like spreading yourself across multiple different genres and sounds within your own sound. So it's it's challenging, but like it's very inspiring to draw on bands like that from the past.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

And you're speaking a lot about the challenges. What advice would you give to someone who's coming into the music business today, which was very different than five years ago, certainly significantly different than 20 years ago, and actually even different than it was five weeks ago. Like things are just changing where we can't, you know, keep up.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Because the pace of change is so rapid, you can only focus on what's in your control. And what's in your control is to make music that you love and believe in and would die for. And then whatever the marketing and promotion tools that happen to be available to you at the time are when you're getting ready to release it, you're gonna have to play that game, and that's that. But like you can't chase anything artistically and you can't compromise the art because that's the only thing you can control. Everything else is out of your control. You know what I mean? So you have to be kind of like a little stoic, maybe a little nihilistic about it, um, and just be or maybe fatalistic is a better word. You know, it is what it is. You just made the greatest thing you can, and you did everything you could possibly do to get it heard by as many people as possible.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

So Helen back is out. So the day that the baby is being born, as I've often said to artists, what does release day feel like for you?

SPEAKER_00 34:31

It used to be really uh challenging for me because now it's like, ugh, like it riddled anxiety. I think as I've gotten older, I'm just more at peace with it being it is what it is, and I know that I've left my best work on the table and I've left all my best efforts to promote it on the table. I'll go city by city, brick by brick, night after night, showing up in your town, telling you about this album and playing it for you in full. And like I just know that I'm leaving that good work out there, and like that it to me is very satisfying. And also, like the validation and the feeling of achievement is really really takes place when I make the album. You know what I mean? I saw a prince talking about this one time and it was immensely inspiring. He's like, whether it's out, not whatever, like the achievement is upon finishing it.

SPEAKER_02 35:15

I love that. We're gonna leave it at that. I am going to ask you if you'll do one more for us, if we can just get like a little bit of a feel to kind of play us out. Is that cool? Yeah, of course. Is that cool? Desrocks release day to Helen Back, 11 amazing tracks. I would imagine this year is gonna be really busy for you two out on the road. Very busy, yeah. Delivering the music to the masses. I love you. Thank you so much for that.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

I love you too. Thanks for coming out here.