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Drop Dead, Gorgeous
Posted by Steven Robertshaw on 13-Feb-08 @ 05:54 PM|
HQ: Denver, CO NOW PLAYING: Worse Than A Fairy Tale (RISE/SURETONE) WHY YOU SHOULD KNOW 'EM: Among a sea of screamo wannabes, Drop Dead, Gorgeous have dared to be different with a brilliantly brutal concept album that makes Eli Roth look tame. YOU LIKE? YOU'LL LIKE: Heavy Heavy Low Low / Fear Before The March Of Flames / Pierce The Veil STORY: Chris French PHOTO: Keaton Coblentz Between 1978 and 1979, a madman ravaged the sleepy town of Saylor Lake, Colorado, savagely killing 12 people. The murders were gruesome and often sexually charged-one victim was raped shortly before being disemboweled, her entrails strewn across the bedroom floor-and the city was soon abandoned. By September, the killer disappeared, and the only ones who now know his identity are a bunch of college-aged musicians. But they should: It's their story. Before Drop Dead, Gorgeous hit the studio to make their sophomore album, Danny Stillman had an idea. "I really wanted to write an album about a serial killer," the frontman says. "I thought [the concept] would fit our style of music really well-the schizo and the madness of the whole thing." So the band sat down with super-producer Ross Robinson (At The Drive-In, From First To Last) and cranked out Worse Than A Fairy Tale, an album that not only defines their sound, but redefines the meaning of "concept album." "We decided to make a website to explain all the murders-show pictures and have videos, stuff like that-so people could get a comprehensive outline of the whole story," Stillman says. For the past four years, Drop Dead, Gorgeous, have been thinking five steps ahead of their contemporaries and are earning serious cred for it. Just a year after their inception in 2005, DDG signed to Rise Records and released both the Be Mine, Valentine EP and the band's debut full-length In Vogue. Although the quintet-Stillman, keyboardist Aaron Rothe, guitarist Kyle Browning, bassist Jake Hansen and drummer Danny Cooper-are making waves with their unprecedented claustrophobic and utterly demented sound-a mesh of grinding guitars and totally irrational drum patterns, topped with Stillman's half-wailing, half-whining vocals-they're also changing the way people experience hardcore music. Worse Than A Fairy Tale is much more than the soundtrack to a Stephen King thriller-it's an interactive cold case that begs listeners to play detective. There are even fan discussion boards dedicated to solving the crime. (But despite dozens of guesses, Stillman and Rothe say no one has unraveled the mystery yet, though some fans have been close.) "That was one of the main things we wanted to do was not reveal who the killer was," says Rothe. "We got so into the whole concept of the album and getting into the head of a serial killer, and we wanted the fans to have kind of the same experience." Crime-busting aside, Drop Dead, Gorgeous also strived to make a record, which, musically, complimented the fictitious plot. "Even if you didn't understand the words, you could still kind of feel what was going on," Rothe continues. "If you lived in this Saylor Lake town, and these murders were going on, I mean, [think about] how disgusted you'd feel inside and scared and panicked. We wanted to capture that and have that shock element to it." With such an advantageous album as Worse Than A Fairy Tale, how can the members of Drop Dead, Gorgeous possibly top themselves? Thankfully, most of the members are still under 21, so there's plenty of time. But don't let their age fool you: Sure, the new album is a blitzkrieg of perverted fantasies, but these boys' maturity far supersedes their youth. "We started this band because we wanted to play music that made us happy and [was what] we wanted to hear," Stillman says. "At least for me, personally, anything I wanted to accomplish in music I've already done." ALT UNDER THE INFLUENCE: What album's had the most influence on you? "For me it would be GOO GOO DOLLS' DIZZY UP THE GIRL. I grew up in a very Christian home and never really listened to any kind of secular music until that album came out," says Drop Dead, Gorgeous piano man Aaron Rothe. "I still listen to that album like once a week or once every two weeks." ALT |
