Interview: When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth [Beerland / Thursday]
Some may classify When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth’s sound as an aimless racket serving only to damage healthy ear drums and scare innocent children. But that would be a tad unfair. On closer listen, it becomes apparent that there is indeed order within the cacophony, and the ridiculously loud commotion can be quite exhilarating when welcomed into your ears with an open mind (and perhaps, a pair of ear plugs). These local noise-brokers have causing a ruckus in town for half a decade now; Peaced, set for release this summer, is the latest chapter in their book of blistering post-punk mayhem. Throughout the 20 plus minutes of bedlam, the band churns out throbbing reverberations of high magnitude, complete with maniacal howls and yowls aplenty and screeching guitars galore. It may not serve as a backdrop for your next blissful dream but it could very well power that outlandish nightmare you can’t wrap your head around.
We caught up with WDRTE last week to learn more about their influences, their recording process, and the band members’ other projects. Pick up Peaced tonight at WDRTE’s tour kickoff show at Beerland.
When did When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth form? What is the current make-up of the band? Many of the members play in various other bands as well -- can you give us the lowdown?
We started in late 2005. Originally we had seven members. Now we are a five piece with four original members and Chris Stephenson (he's also in Dikes of Holland). Three dinos (George Dishner, Cory Plump, and Nate Cross) are in Expensive Shit, one (Cross) is also in Flowers, one (Stephenson) in Dikes of Holland, and two (Plump and Cross) in New Drugs (Huey Lewis and The News cover band available for parties, weddings, etc). Marc Voorhees is only in WDRTE…a.k.a. lazy!
As for the original members no longer in the band, Jesse Hodges moved to NY and sings and guitars in Pterodactyl. Daniel Francis Doyle is currently touring as Daniel Francis Doyle. Brandon Crowe drums in Cause for Applause.
Can you list the band’s discography for us? Where was Peaced recorded? How did you connect with Monofonus here in town and Riot Season in Europe? Are you planning on touring Europe this summer?
Discography:
Snacks - Emperor Jones 2006
Not Noiice - Chalk Circle 2008
Houston Voice 7" - Us Two Records 2009
Jandek Cat 7" - 2009
Peaced-Monofonus Press - 2010
I recorded Peaced in our practice space on my 16 track digital recorder with a few SM57s. We got tired of having to pay for recording.
Morgan (Coy) from Monofonus and I have been friends for a while. We knew we would do a project of some sort together at some point, and it just worked this time. The Riot Season thing happened when I booked Shit and Shine for a SXSW show. They turned the label on to our music, and they liked it. They will do small scale European distribution for this release, and most likely put out our next recording. No rock solid plans to tour Europe as of now, but we are shooting for early 2011.
Where can a fan pick up Peaced?
We will be selling a limited number of Peaced LPs at our tour kickoff show on Thursday at Beerland. Otherwise, it won’t be available until it's official release in June. Then it will be available locally in stores, through Monofonus or from us.
What are some bands that have inspired WDRTE?
Well, to be honest we tried to make the album sound like Mainliner, but I kind of missed on the drum sound. On accident I ripped off that Yung Joc song “It's Goin Down” -- it was my ring tone when I made up the riff for “Conjurin'.” Definitely some Drunkdriver and Mayyors ripoffs in there also. I will say that I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to recording, and I was drunk when I did it.
Take us behind the scenes in the studio -- how exactly do you generate all the sounds that create this deafening din?
We’re big fans of the SUNN Beta series amps. Also the four guitars and one drummer is a factor. On two of the guitars we tune all the strings to E. We try not to over think it, and use pretty standard rock instrumentation. We ran the vocals through delay pedals and overdubbed them. The rest of the album is pretty much a live take. A couple little technical tricks, but Imma hold on to those.
What are some of your favorite venues to see shows at, and to perform at, in town? What other bands in Austin do you relate to, in terms of sound?
We pretty much call Beerland our home. As far as Austin bands off the top of my head, I would have to say.... Daniel Francis Doyle, Dikes of Holland, Expensive $hit, Cruddy, Total Abuse, Ralph White, Headdress, The Young, The Golden Boys.
And finally, how would a WDRTE fan decipher the lyrics to their favorite WDRTE song?
The lyrics are mostly inane repetitive babble run through a delay pedal and lowered in the mix to prevent them from being upfront and pretending they are profound. Mostly they are about our friends or random things like getting in awful car wrecks, Jah, being high, cats, swimming, whatever. Usually we come up with song titles and concepts and make lyrics semi-relevant to them. Lyrics are arbitrary in this band; we prefer to treat them as simply another instrument. In all reality there's no deciphering them because they are meaningless.
Thank you for speaking with Austinist.
[When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth MySpace]
[Horse+Donkey MySpace]
[Cruddy MySpace]
