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Room To Breathe With JORDAN DREYER From LA DISPUTE · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my name is Jordan Dryer and I sing in
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: a band called Lightest Few and we got a show
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: coming up in Sydney on the twenty second of November, the.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Beautiful John Thanks for joining us to Sathurnoon this evening
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: for you.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for having me, oh rise brother.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: So largest fute hit Australia on November twenty second as
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: part of the five Nights Only tour, which is celebrating
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: the tenth anniversary of your twenty fourteen album Rooms of
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: the House where you're going to be playing the album
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: in full, plus the colection of other songs. Mate. So
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: we know pretty much what to expect musically in song wise,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: But what can fans expect from the show otherwise.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I think fans can expect, or I
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: would hope they can expect a feeling of catharsis a
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: feeling of shared grief and celebration that sounds really dramatic,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: but the Rector deals with pretty intense themes and I
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: think that we're pretty committed to me making our shows
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: feel like a dialogue between performer and artists or performer
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: and audience. So really just hoping to engage with people
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: and connect over the different reasons we all connect to
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: the record.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Fancastic as the name suggests, Mate, Like, you're only playing
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: five shows in total around the world, with Australia being
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: the final show. So firstly, why did you decide to
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: just do five shows in five different countries? Would have
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: been a lot easier doing if you and knee one country.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: True. True, you know, it's kind of manifold answers to
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: this question. For starters, We spent our first two years
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: out of COVID post shutdown touring for an anniversary that
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: we missed during said shutdowns. So we came out of
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: COVID and did a two years late, ten year anniversary
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: for the record that preceded Rooms of the House, which
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: was really rewarding and I think a really excellent way
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: to come out of not having the opportunity to play
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: shows for the longest period of time that we've had
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: since we started almost twenty years.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: Ago, but.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Made us a little wary of running it back with
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: a different record and just doing back to back nostalgia
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: tours felt a little cheap, but we also wanted to
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: play some shows because it's a record that means a
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: lot to us, So this was kind of the happy medium.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: We're also working on a new record, so I think
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: we decided it was more beneficial to dedicate our time
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: to moving to the next chapter in our band's history
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: and to not dwell too much on the past, and
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: to celebrate this in an intimate way and to kind
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: of say thank you to some of the places that
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: have meant the most to us over the years. So
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: just decided we'd limit it to five, which was hard
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: to do because once you add five, you start thinking, well,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: what about this sixth city, what about this seventh city,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: And eventually just had to like cut it off and say,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: this is what we're doing, and this will give us
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to work on new music and still get
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: to celebrate a milestone.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Cool so Edite actually picked the five countries, like was
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: it where the album sold best or is best received
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: or was it more random than that.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: No, I mean it was pretty clear from the beginning
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: that we would I mean, obviously we would play a
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: show in the US, and decided to do that in
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the city that's meant the most to us in our history,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: the city that we're from, a place in Michigan called
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Grand Raptid. So that was an easy one. Germany and
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the UK have always been really great for us and
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: to us, and we have a lot of friends in
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: both countries, so those two are pretty easy. Always had
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: a really great relationship with our bands in the Netherlands
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  Speaker 1: and the venue that we played as one of our
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: absolute favorites in the world, and Australia has been a
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: massive part of our band's history. It's the first country
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: we toured outside of the US and Cana. We did
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Australia before we did Europe, which is pretty unconventional for
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: American touring bands, and really fostered a strong relationship with
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: the people that we toured with early on in Australia,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: and I would say outside of the US, Australia has
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: kind of been the country that's really been the best
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: to us and where we have the most friends. So
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: it was hard to not do more than one show
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: in Australia, but ultimately had to think about the time
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: we had to work on the new record and so,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: but Australia was it was pretty easy to pick. We
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: were going to do a Sydney show, on Melbourne show,
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  Speaker 1: our a Brisbane show, and we weren't sure which and
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: this is just how it worked out logistically, but fucking stoked.
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  Speaker 3: Cool.
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  Speaker 2: You've already done the shows in London, Amsterdam and Berlin
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  Speaker 2: with Grand Rapids USA on September twenty eighth before you
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: come to Australia.
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  Speaker 1: So how the show's been gone?
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Have those three shows gone down?
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's been great, it's been really excellent. You know,
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  Speaker 1: the record we toured before is kind of of I guess,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: the one for a lot of people, but I think
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: the people who connect most directly to this record, to
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: rooms of the house, have a really special connection to it.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: So all three of the shows that we've played so
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: far have just felt very connected and very intimate. And
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: it seems like people really the people who, like I said,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: the people who love this record, I think, really connect
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: to specific aspects of it and they really feel powerfully
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: about it and in the way that we do also,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: And it's the beautiful thing about writing music that speaks
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: to the human experience and to these kind of grandiose
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: themes of life and death and love and what have you.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: So they've just felt really good, they felt really like grounding.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Is it difficult actually playing the whole album? Made like
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: when you write it initially a kind of imagine you
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: ever thought that you'd have to play the whole lot
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: one day. So was it difficult getting it down?
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  Speaker 1: I would say, I mean, speaking personally as the vocalist
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: of a band and somebody who has a tendency to
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: write a lot more words than he should. This record's
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: been a little bit easier than the one previous to it.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: It's shorter, for one, and there's more low moments, there's
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: more quiet moments, so in the from a fitness perspective,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: it's been easier to play these songs, and this record
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I think is just kind of built for it. I mean,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: I think all records we try to conceive of a
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: whole piece. You know, we're not like a write songs
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: and stick them together kind of band, so much as
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: we plot things out and kind of work off a template.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: So every record we have we intend to flow as
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: a whole piece. So even if we're not actively thinking
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: that we're going to have to play up front to back,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: although I'm sure it was in the back of our heads,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I think, because we just think of how the record
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: is going to flow song to song, section to section,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: and of course it's like a little it's almost it's
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: almost easier when we have the transitions already built in
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  Speaker 1: than if we have to think about how we're going
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: to move from us on off one record to a
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: song off another record. So it's kind of like takes
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: a little bit of the thought out of it, which
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: is not a bad thing.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Sure, sure true. So ten years on myt like, what
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: what does Rooms of the House mean to you? Still personally.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: It means a lot more than I expected it too,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: if I'm to be honest, I keep mentioning it. But
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: just doing back to back anniversary stuff you really like,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: especially getting to ten years when you never really thought
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: a year ahead of you when you were younger, and
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: reaching that milestone, I guess sort of makes you think
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: more about what the record means to you and what
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: it's meant to you your history and your career, and
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: so there's like a way in which you dive deeper
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: then you did since the time you spent putting the
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: songs down and writing them. So like this one in particular,
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  Speaker 1: I think, deals with a lot of themes that maybe
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: we hadn't even experienced directly at the age that we
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: wrote it, and in the time between have experienced them.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: So there's a way in which rooms of the house
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  Speaker 1: playing these songs again thinking about them has been pretty
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: therapeutic because there are songs that deal with collapse and
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: relationships collapsing, and to have you know, lived complicated and
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: difficult personal experiences in the time between has like made
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: this record resonate in a way that I don't think
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  Speaker 1: it really even did when we wrote it.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Right Cool, Now.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: There's also another reason why you're finishing the tour in
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Australiers because you planned to actually stay in Sydney and
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: record album number five. Mates, what Chase Sydney to record on?
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: You had brought? What else you got on? Amsterdam, Berlin, London?
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Like they're pretty cool places. What Chase Sydney?
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: You know. So we have a bandmate who lives in
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Australia and has for quite a few years met his
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: wife in Australia. They're married and have a kid. So
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: and he's sort of, I would say, are in house
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: producer and kind of always has been. So you know,
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  Speaker 1: there was part of it was working out how much
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: time we would need to record the record when we
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: were going to be playing which country, So there was
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: some logistical consideration to the fact that we kind of
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: knew we'd have to do the European shows earlier on.
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  Speaker 1: But we also had connections in Australia, and because Brad
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: is kind of you know, the disas maker or not.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: And I wouldn't say that we all collectively make the decision,
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  Speaker 1: but I think because we trust Brad's judgment and he
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: had connections and access to a great facility and a
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: great location. And you know, we also like try to
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: alter external variables when we're writing and recording to see
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: how it affects the end products. So it was a
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: new experience and it was that was part of the
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: decision too. It's just like, let's try being somewhere else
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: in a different country and in a different environment, in
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: different weathers, et cetera. So like, there are a lot
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: of things that went into playing it to doing it,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: but yeah, we just also, you know, I keep saying it,
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  Speaker 1: but we love Australia, so it'll be fun to have
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: a record we wrote all over the world and then
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: recorded in Australia.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: All right, Colin, you guys are always a band that
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: experiments with your sound from record to record, So what's
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: this one going to sound like if you got a
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: direction of the inter or is that sort of more
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: come in the studio.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: No, We've got We've been working pretty full bore for
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: a while when possible, So every show we've played, we've
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: tacked on additional time in the last year and change,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: so we've been We're pretty far along the process, so
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: I think we have a decent idea of what the
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: sonic profile will be. I think having the opportunity to
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: go back and revisit some things that worked really well
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: for us in the past has influenced how we've approached
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: things on this record. So I think there's a little
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: bit of sort of every record that we've done has
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the kind of thing we we intentionally pursued, and I
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: think you'll see a little bit of each of them
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: on this record. I do think that this record is going.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: To be.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Maybe comparatively more bleak, which sounds real dire because there's
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: some bleakness throughout our catalogue. But I think that, you know,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: again speaking the environmental influences, just you sort of inevitably
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: absorb the tension of the world, and I think that's
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: kind of pushed us in a heavier direction, and then
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe more dark direction. So we'll see there's still
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: you know, we've got some time left in some writing
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: to do to get across the finish line, so we'll
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: see how things change going forward. I think the big
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: thing is that we're really like keeping everything on the table,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: trying to do some new things, not just sonically but
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: production wise and instrumentally, and just trying to like tap
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: into some things that I've worked but put new spins
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: on it and maybe fuck around a little more, maybe
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: be a little more experimental.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: So do you think, like, even maybe on a subliminal level,
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: but the fact that you've been playing Rooms at the
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: House for these shows and you're actually living with that
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: album at the moment, like, do you think that's going
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: to seep into the next one a bit?
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean I think that there's a
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: possibility ability in some ways. Like I said, I think
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: because we have been thinking about like, oh, this is
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: really well in Wildlife, and this worked really well on
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Rooms of the House, and this works really well on Panorama,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: there's going to be some of that. And maybe because
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: we've been more immediately interacting with rooms, you'll see some
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: kind of rooms fingerprints. But I think just because we're
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: in a very different place in our life, and because
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: the concepts and the record are substantially different, I think
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: that it's going to be its own thing for sure.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Now, before we let you go, right, I've started a
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: new little segment up in my interviews where I've gone
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: trolling through your Facebook accounts and dug up some old photos.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Am I going to suck up on the screen and
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: just ask you to let me know what's going on there?
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: So this is the first one I found. Did you
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: guys have a big night the night before that time?
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: No, I think we're well, you know, we're generally pretty
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: sleepy guys, but we also, you know, we love each
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: other clearly, so we're just we're just snuzzling up.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Ah, that's a beautiful thing. Well this one sort of
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: guy's one step further than that.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: But oh my goodness, you know, I think that is
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: on the way to Brazil. I want to say, there
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: have been a lot of days like that in this
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: band's history.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Nineteen okay, so yeah, that might have been that. I think,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: you know, we probably were coming from one country to
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: another country, and we were even more sleepy in that
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: one than we were in the last photo.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: It doesn't look comfortable at all.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Bright No, I think that explains a lot of the
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: pain I feel at thirty seven.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: What's the worst place you ever slept in?
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Worst place?
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Goodness, how much time do you have? I mean, for
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: the first I don't know how many years, uh, we
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: toured in you know, playing basement shows, passing the hat
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: around for donations. So we slept on a lot of
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: pretty seedy punk house floors and a lot of places
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: that were full of people who were not ready to
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: go to bed when we were. So we've slept among
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: you know, thralls of partygoers and under ping pong tables
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: and what have you. So we slept in some pretty
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: terrible places. We've avoided most I think more than a
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: lot of bands sleeping in the van, which I really appreciate.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: We had some nights like that, but for the most
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: part we actually found somebody who was willing to put
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: us up for the night. But that leads to some
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: pretty awful sleeping situations, for sure.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: I can imagine that's the story for another day of
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: my friend. Yeah, beautiful Jorda, Well, thanks very much for
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: guitar Rod. A lot of dispute is in Australia Friday
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: November twenty second, playing at the Roundhouse in Sydney, the
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: very final with a five nights only tor so. I'm
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: going to do my best to get down there and
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: have a beer with your brother, but if not, take
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: it easy and best of luck.