Deardarkhead’s founding member and drummer, Rob Weiss, give up all the secrets.
South Jersey’s Deardarkhead started as a band shortly after I had started doing this very zine, DAGGER (my first issue was March of 1987 and they began in ‘88). I had met drummer and founding member (and the only original member left) as kids as he grew up down the street from me on the mean streets of Linwood, NJ. Fast forward several years later and Rob is into underground music and forming a band (and working at Sound Odyssey, our local record store in the Shore Mall).
The band was really a breath of fresh air in the South Jersey scene back then as most bands in the scene were either metal or by-the-numbers punk. DDH went across the pond for their influence and gathered it in bands like the Jesus & Mary Chain, Echo & the Bunnymen, Joy Division and many more (many years ago our friendship was further solidified when he told me he was a huge Naked Raygun fan). The band were able to take these influences and create something truly unique.
Through a myriad of ups and downs and band members, Rob (drums) and guitarist Kevin Harrington (longtime vocalist Michael Amper left nearly a decade ago) hooked up with a bassist last summer, John Bennett and began playing out again and the band is excited about recording new music.
All of the band’s releases had been on their own Fertile Crescent Records, but nearly a decade ago the band got a serious boost when NYC indie label, Captured Track released a compilation of the band’s early days (Oceanside- 1991-1993). It’s a superb compilation and a great place to start for newcomers (of course DDH completists need it as well). In 2016 Texas shoegaze label Saint Marie Records released an EP, Strange Weather. I was a bit hesitant as the EP was their first record as all instrumental, but the songs were so good that I needn’t worry.
As you’ll read below, Rob’s anxious to record more music and hit the stage as well. That makes me excited as I really hope DDH have lots of gas left in the tank.
When did you first start playing drums? Did you pick up any other instruments?
I started playing drums in 2nd grade, but I had always wanted to play drums since I was in kindergarten. We had a piano in my house and all of my family played, so I grudgingly agreed to take lessons. A friend of my mother’s, who was a piano teacher, would come to our house for the lessons. After about three weeks in, during a lesson, I was asked to repeat a song. I asked my teacher if I could use the bathroom first. Minutes and minutes go by, and my mother comes to the bathroom door asking “Rob are you coming out?” My reply was “I want to play drums!” Lesson over, and the rest is history as they say. I started learning to play other instruments when DDH formed in 1988. I got a 4 track and experimented, until I got good enough to write songs on guitar and bass. If you give me an instrument, I’ll make music with it.
What do you remember as the first indie/alternative bands that you began listening to?
I was really getting into New Wave during the last few years of junior high school. Stuff like Blondie, Devo, The Police, The Cars, and The B-52’s. I mostly rejected classic rock at the time, as I wasn’t too interested in bands that were no longer around. By high school (1982-1986), I was getting into bands like U2, The Cure, Echo and The Bunnymen, Duran Duran, Public Image Limited and INXS.
When did you get hired at (South Jersey record store) Sound Odyssey? How long did your tenure there last and what was it like?
I started at Sound Odyssey in 1987. I was going to Stockton State College at the time and had started hanging around WLFR, the college radio station. While I wasn’t a DJ myself, I met a lot of like minded people there, including our mutual friend DJ Bob Portella, who was working at Sound Odyssey then. He put in a good word for me and I got the job. Sound Odyssey was a great record store and I’d probably still work there now if it existed! It was a small chain of about seven stores, owned by the Richman Brothers, and for a mall record store it was amazing. We had a bit of everything: vinyl, tapes, cds, imports, 12"s, 45’s, videos, t-shirts, posters, guitars, effect pedals, small amps etc. I bought so many records at that store and it was an important, formative period in my musical education. I made a lot of great friends there (both employees and customers). It was definitely a social hub of the time, as there weren’t too many record stores in our area. I came in right at the end of the era, and sometime in 1989 it was sold to the British company, W.H. Smith, which turned it into a Wee Three Records and then The Wall. Although it had changed into an average mainstream record store, I continued working there until they shut it down in 1998, but it had moved to the other end of the mall a few years before. After that, I worked at another local record store, CD Warehouse/Exchange, for a few years.
Had you been in any bands before Deardarkhead?
Prior to DDH around 1987-1988, I had started a short-lived band called Aslan’s Pride. We were very U2-esque and only played a handful of shows. Blakely Parent, who had recently moved from Baton Rouge to Ocean City, was our bass player and he would go on to be in the initial line up of DDH.
Tell me about some of your influences. I know you loved a lot of UK stuff like Echo & the Bunnymen and Jesus & Mary Chain but you also loved Naked Raygun.
I’m definitely an Anglophile, as most of my favorite bands are British or from the UK. In terms of my major influences when I started DDH, I’d list: The Cure, U2, Echo and The Bunnymen, The Beatles, Bauhaus, The Police, Joy Division/New Order, The Church, The Psychedelic Furs, The House of Love, The Cocteau Twins, The Jesus and Mary Chain and 4AD/Factory Records/Creation Records in general. While DDH was definitely on the post-punk side of things, we also liked a lot of punk bands: The Dead Kennedys, The Sex Pistols, The Dead Milkmen, The Ramones, The Buzzcocks, Agent Orange etc. I never really got into the hardcore scene, and preferred bands that were more melodic, which is something I’ve always loved about Naked Raygun. They are totally kick ass, but the songs are very anthemic and super melodic.
Tell me about the beginnings of DDH? Was it 1987 (same year I started Dagger)? Was it you, Mike and Kurt early on?
DDH actually started in 1988, after Aslan’s Pride broke up. The original lineup that recorded our first demo “Greetings From The Infernal Village”, was Blakely Parent (vocals, rhythm guitar), Kurt Douglass (guitar), Josh Minor (bass), and me (drums and ebow). So Dagger started a year earlier. Frances Avenue, the street you and I both lived on, was pretty happening for South Jersey!
Tell me about the revolving lineups? I know Blakely Parent came aboard pretty early on. Who else?
We’ve had fairly stable lineups over long periods of time, although at this point I’m the only original member. After the initial lineup, Josh Minor left and Michael Amper came onboard in 1990, as our vocalist and rhythm guitarist, with Blakely Parent moving to bass. Kurt Douglass left in 1992, and was replaced by Kevin Harrington, who is our guitarist to date and is a defining element of our sound. Blakely left in 1994 and we continued on as a three piece. The next major change was Amper’s departure in 2009. Unable to find a suitable vocalist, Kevin McCauley joined us in 2010 on bass and we became an all instrumental three piece. McCauley departed in early 2019 due to family obligations. We had been on a hiatus for a few years before that, as my mother was sick with Alzheimer’s and I was completely overwhelmed dealing with that. She passed in June 2018. Around the end of summer 2019, John Bennett joined us as our bassist, and we’ve done three shows together since the beginning of 2020.
Were the early recordings collaborative or was one person doing a bulk of the writing?
Every DDH record and lineup has been about collaboration. I’ve always encouraged everyone to contribute ideas. We don’t really have one standard way of writing our songs. Sometimes one person will bring in a mostly finished idea or maybe just a few sections and other times we’ve written tunes after jamming on a riff out of the blue. We tend to spend a lot of time arranging the song structures, so it’s definitely a group effort for us.
Was there a specific studio where you did most of the recording?
Every recording was done in a different studio:
Greetings from the Infernal Village - my house Linwood, New Jersey
Spiral Down and Vibrate - Dekar Studio, Northfield New Jersey
Melt Away Too Soon - Audio Plus, Northfield, New Jersey
Ultraviolet - The Catbox, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Unlock the Valves of Feeling - The Churchbox, Lancaster, Columbia, Pennsylvania
Strange Weather - Miner Street Recordings, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The Catbox and The Churchbox were both run by Ken Heitmueller and Jay Sorrentino of Suddenly, Tammy!
Did the band tour back them (or now)? What’s the furthest away you’ve played?
We’ve pretty much stuck to the East Coast, as we’ve never had any label support. We mainly concentrated on putting out our own records.
Who are some of the bigger names you’ve opened up for?
The Psychedelic Furs, Supergrass, The Lilys, Everclear.
How do you feel about the early recordings? I still think the Melt Away Too Soon EP is really great.
We’ve always tried to make the best recordings we could, with what we had at the moment. Since we never really had any record label money behind us, we had to pay for all the studio time out of pocket. Most songs were done in a few takes with minimal overdubs. Constraints are a good thing, as you can get lost in infinite possibilities. I think we always sound like DDH, no matter what the lineup is, but I do feel there has been a continuous evolution of our sound over time. I’m proud of every record we have released, and feel lucky to have worked with so many talented people.
Tell me about the Captured Tracks collection, Oceanside: 1991-1993. What year was that and how did it come about?
That came out in 2011. I was at home one summer day, when I got a call from Mike Sniper from Captured Tracks. He wanted to know if we would be interested in having our early recordings released as a compilation, which would be part of a series called The Shoegaze Archives. The idea was to shine a light on American bands, from the late 80’s to early 90’s, that were working in a similar vein as their British contemporaries, (eg. Lush, Ride etc.), but never got the same attention. We were the second release in the series and all of the tracks were remastered with sleeve artwork featuring photography I took, that we used to project on stage when playing. Overall, it was a great experience in terms of exposing an entirely new crowd of people to what DDH has been doing all along. Mike Sniper and the entire Captured Tracks staff were wonderful to work with and we are big fans of many of the bands on the label. Thanks again for contributing liner notes, we were honored!
Your most recent EP is the vocal-less Strange Weather EP Saint Marie Records, the Texas shoegaze label. How did that come about? Will you do more stuff with that label?
After we finished the recording, I shopped it around for the better part of a year with some labels I thought might be a good fit. Wyatt Parkins, from Saint Marie Records, responded favorably and we worked together to get the release out in March 2016. We’d love to do another record with Saint Marie, but that’s up to the label. Strange Weather, certainly got some of the best reviews we’ve ever had, however being a instrumental, shoegazer/dreampop/post-punk/indie rock three piece is a hard sell for a lot of folks. That said, DDH always finds a way to keep doing our thing.
Bring us up to what the band is doing currently. Is there a new vocalist yet? Any new recordings? Shows?
As I mentioned in the lineup question, we played three shows in Atlantic City during January and February 2020, with our new bassist. We played out one new tune and had started working on more material when the Coronavirus pandemic hit. Everything is up in the air until that blows over, but ideally we’d like to write new songs, play more shows, and hopefully make another record sooner than later.
Who are some of your current favorite bands?
There is always a ton of stuff I’m checking out every day, but some of my heavy rotation lately includes: Ringo Deathstarr, Cigarettes After Sex, Khruangbin, Wild Nothing, Tycho, DIIV, Washed Out, The Horrors, Destroyer, Arctic Monkeys, Pinkshinyultrablast, The Wants, Tara, Seablite, Sulk, Feet, Hatchie, Southpacific, Beabadoobee, Slowdive, Ride.
What are your top 10 desert island discs?
Let me just say, as a hard core music junkie, narrowing it down to only 10 choices is next to impossible! This is the hardest question ever, and on any given day you might get a slightly different list. Here are ten records I adore, and still listen to regularly, in no specific order:
The Police, Zenyatta Mondatta
The La’s, The La’s
My Bloody Valentine, Loveless
The Cure, Disintegration
Miles Davis, Kind of Blue
Echo and the Bunnymen, Songs to Learn and Sing
The Dukes of Stratosphear, Chips from the Chocolate Fireball
U2, War
Slowdive, Souvlaki
The Cocteau Twins, Treasure
Final thoughts? Closing comments? Anything you wanted to mention that I didn’t ask?
Thanks for asking me to do the interview. I feel like it could easily go on as long as Jack Rabid's Big Takeover interviews with The Chameleons! For those of you who have never heard of us, please check us out at: www.deardarkhead.com
Bonus questions; What’s the weirdest fan letter or strangest thing you have ever received in the mail regarding the band?
We never got any super weird fan letters, however since we put out the majority of our recordings on our own label, Fertile Crescent Records, we’d get a demo submission now and then. I recall getting a tape from a rap artist in our area early on. I of course politely replied saying that we were in no position to sign any artists and even if we were, rap certainly wasn’t our area of expertise. For all I know it was one of my smart ass friends winding me up, as it was pretty bad. If that was the case, they never let me in on the joke!
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