Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / The Power Of Belief With JOSH GROVE From DARK BELOW
Transcript
- 0:17Jaffrey. Yeah, this is Josh Grove with Dark below make Believe. It
- 0:28is our latest single here and it's been spinning on the radio here pretty recently.
- 0:32You can check that out on Spotify, YouTube, iTunes, Pandora,
- 0:37anywhere where you get your streaming services. So I'm go on ahead and check
- 0:41out make Believes. Beautiful. J just thanks for joining us today. Of
- 0:45course, thanks for having me pleasure. So, as you say, Doc
- 0:48recently released the song make Believes. That's the other reception made for it.
- 0:52It's been fantastic so with our latest uh single recordings that we've done working on
- 0:59this newest album. Essentially we just started pushing our album towards like the SMR
- 1:06charts here in the US, and you know, make Believe has been our
- 1:10third single, our most recent release, and it hit number ten. So
- 1:14our goal has always been to break the top ten from the get go,
- 1:18so to be up top there with bands that you know, I mean,
- 1:21we've grown up listening to idolized like Metallica and food Fighters like to get up
- 1:26there with names like that, it's been pretty phenomenal just to kind of work
- 1:30our way there. You know, good audio, right, tell us a
- 1:34bit more about the song from a musical standpoint, what you've gone for with
- 1:37it? Yeah, yeah, I mean from a musical standpoint. Are you
- 1:42referring more to like the meaning of it or just how we came about from
- 1:46the musical side of the first the instrumentalization, and then tell us about the
- 1:49lyrics. Sure? Sure. So this is make Believe. Has been a
- 1:53song that you know, we actually wrote a long while back, like in
- 1:57a more basic format I'd say maybe five or six years ago, and the
- 2:02lead singer kind of came up with a riff. He also plays guitar since
- 2:06we're three piece, and basically it just kind of started from there and took
- 2:09off. So we had our drummer come in after the fact and kind of
- 2:15lay down the track for it, and then we went out to Nashville and
- 2:19started working on the newest album and they were like, hey, you guys
- 2:22have been playing this song for quite a bit, why don't we take it
- 2:24from that more garage band type version that you've got and make it a little
- 2:29bit more modernized, a little bit more upbeat, and you know, kind
- 2:31of bring it into I mean, we've developed We've been at this for about
- 2:36ten years and over the last couple of years we've kind of grown quite a
- 2:38bit, so our producer Malcolm Springer and Jason Schrick, they were like,
- 2:42you guys can kind of put a little bit more of a finesse spin on
- 2:46this from the musical standpoint than the garage band version you had before. So
- 2:50that was kind of the approach when we were in the studio of let's take
- 2:53this older song you've got, let's modernize it, let's make it a new
- 2:58single. You know worth some of the folks there and as you say,
- 3:02you pretty much answered this for me already. But it follows from the singles
- 3:06Tense and Hate Being Human. So are they part of a bigger album picture?
- 3:10Yeah? So we actually we tracked ten songs in Nashville over at Universal
- 3:16there in Barry Hill, So we have ten full songs completed at this point.
- 3:22You know, we're talking about maybe rolling with a couple more. But
- 3:25we have another single in the works ready to rock and roll for a next
- 3:30radio release. But I mean the idea is that we will likely release a
- 3:34full ten song record at some point, or release a couple more singles and
- 3:38maybe do a large EP something along those lines. There are there are these
- 3:43three songs indicative of what you expect musically from level, I would say overall,
- 3:50yes, there are a few additional tracks on the song or tracks on
- 3:53the record that take a little bit more of a different stylistic approach, But
- 3:58overall, I mean it's still hard rock. It's still you know, at
- 4:01our core what we're all about, you know, just being a straightforward hard
- 4:05rock band. But I mean we do have a little bit of a slower
- 4:09song, a little bit of a maybe a poppier song. But I mean,
- 4:13overall, if you like the three songs, the three singles that you've
- 4:15heard so far, the rest of the stuff is still very much going to
- 4:18resonate with you. You know, We're not doing some sort of experimental stuff
- 4:23on the other tracks or anything like that by any means. Just so write
- 4:28a bit further on that, mate, like, how does this new material
- 4:30differ to the stuffs on your self titled epay that came out in two thousand
- 4:33and seven eight, I would say that just so, like me and the
- 4:39original leads, like me and the lead singer guitar player, we were,
- 4:43we're the only we started as a three piece, were the only two members
- 4:46from that initial three piece when that EP was released, and to be honest
- 4:50with you, I mean we were just like, I'm gonna turn thirty next
- 4:55month. He's turning thirty four somewhere in there. So we've just grown and
- 4:59developed so much much more from the you know, younger dudes that had no
- 5:04idea what the hell they were doing. So I mean, from from then
- 5:10to now, it's just a whole lot of experience, a whole lot of
- 5:12playing shows, and a whole lot of developing writing. Like our writing style
- 5:17back then was just making shit up as we go, and now it's more
- 5:21experienced, and you know, I just feel like we have a much better
- 5:26grasp on what the hell we're doing versus back then, where we were just
- 5:29throwing shit at the wall to see what would stick, if that makes sense.
- 5:31So I mean this time around, it's like we're working with the same
- 5:35producers we worked with back back in those days as well, so they've got
- 5:40a better grasp on us. We know what they look for, what they
- 5:43want out of us, how they can draw things out of us. So
- 5:46I would just say, overall, it's just going from like middle school to
- 5:49high school. It's like trying to figure out who you are, versus developing
- 5:54into the person that you want to be. I mean, that's that's kind
- 5:57of the difference from that self titled VP of just what the hell are we
- 6:00doing to now it's like, all right, this is what we're trying to
- 6:03do a lot of those lines, bro Like it starts a band in twenty
- 6:08sixteen. So what was your early vision for Dark Below and what were your
- 6:12early goals and how have they changed since? So? I mean back then,
- 6:16I was like, either freshmen in college are still in college. The
- 6:19other dudes are young. So, to be honest with you, it was
- 6:23about playing shows, grabbing an ass, you know, getting free drinks,
- 6:27stuff like that. You know, it was just, hey, let's get
- 6:30together, write some songs, go out and play some shows and have a
- 6:32good time. During that period of us going out and falling around, we
- 6:39met our current manager, who is very experienced on the musical side of things.
- 6:45He played in a sign band with Universal back in the day, and
- 6:46he was like, hey, you know, us whole's have some potential.
- 6:50Let's get together, let's start writing some songs. Let's actually get you on
- 6:55a path towards success. If that's something you're interested in doing. So for
- 7:00me and the guitar singer or the guitar player slash lead singer there the other
- 7:02Josh the band, we were like hell yeah. And our drummer at the
- 7:06time, we love him. He still comes all of our shows. He
- 7:10just was interested in, you know, kind of doing his day job.
- 7:14So we got him replaced. And then from that point on it was dialing
- 7:16in, like going and you know, playing shows, being more serious,
- 7:23being professional, establishing a business. Uh. And I mean the long story
- 7:29short, we didn't have goals to begin with. It was just go have
- 7:31fun. Now we've got goals of you know, doing this interview right now
- 7:35and going to play shows with bands that we love to hang out with,
- 7:41listen to and play. I mean, we want to grow our brand.
- 7:44We want to get our music out there in front of everybody. It's something
- 7:46that we're proud of versus something we were doing just for fun. I believed
- 7:54you guys actually started from m craigs Stadt life have you here in Astralian We
- 7:58don't. He's too much about Craigs. You see anything I know about it?
- 8:00It is a Netflix TV series about the Craigslist kill. Yep, so
- 8:07that is kind of the running joke of the band, so like when it
- 8:09started the guitar singing, the guitar players last lead singer in the original Drummer.
- 8:16They met on Craigslist back before the Craigslist Killer was a thing. It
- 8:20was one of those things where you'd buy people to use shit or like dry
- 8:24meet up with like hookers or whatever. I mean, back when Craigslist was
- 8:26a wild wild West, before people were dying. So basically the way it
- 8:31went is the drummer who I went to high school with, we were good
- 8:33buddies. He posted an ad like on Craigslist, and the other Josh responded,
- 8:39and basically the way it went was something along the lines of like,
- 8:41hey, come around to the back door in the basement. I swear I
- 8:46won't kill you. Is basically the joke. And then it turns out the
- 8:48Craigslist Killer came not too long after that, so I mean, this was
- 8:52like twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, before all that shit went down. So
- 8:56I mean that's how they got together. And then I was a freshman in
- 9:01college that year. He was like, hey, man, you should come
- 9:03and hang out while we practice, and so I show up, you know,
- 9:09sitting there eighteen years old drinking beers listening to them do their thing,
- 9:13and they're like, you know how to play guitar? Right? I was
- 9:15like, not really. He's like, well, here's a bass guitar.
- 9:18Figure it out. So that's kind of how it started. I just showed
- 9:22up one day hanging out with my buddy, and next thing you know,
- 9:24I got a bass guitar that I don't know how to play. Uh.
- 9:28And that was the start of down Phase, our original our original band.
- 9:31Uh. So we switched to Dark Below as we released that initial self titled
- 9:35VP, and then obviously part of ways with the drummer moved on towards the
- 9:39more serious accents we've been taking over the last few years. But Praig,
- 9:45that's what how they go. Stay clear of that. I'll me in enough
- 9:48trouble as it is fair enough. Hopel If you guys have recently started a
- 9:54tour to or yeah, so I wouldn't say that it's like a full ledge
- 10:00tour, but we're doing like weekend Warrior shows where like I've got a full
- 10:03day job, the other Josh has a full day job, and our drummer
- 10:07also works pretty regularly, so I mean we typically are doing Thursday Friday,
- 10:11Saturday, Sunday somewhere in that range. As much as we can, we
- 10:15still have to hold down the day job for the finances, because you know,
- 10:18the band doesn't quite support itself at the moment to where it's paying our
- 10:22bills, but it keeps us going. So I mean we're just jumping on
- 10:26anything and everything that we can. We just played with the band Rehab.
- 10:28I'm not sure if you're familiar with those dudes, but they're awesome. And
- 10:33then Scottie Austin was a former front man of Saving Abel. We've been going
- 10:37out with him quite a bit as well. And then Buck Cherry recently came
- 10:41to town. So I mean, anything local with a big headliner, we're
- 10:45trying to jump on that at all times too. But long story short,
- 10:48yeah, I mean we're playing as many shows as we can every weekend.
- 10:52We can beautiful all right, Joshua, thanks very much for I being a
- 10:56pleasure chatting radio single Make Believe is out now. She's a crack of man
- 10:58to look forward to here? When do you come up with this? Later?
- 11:13Inside the Sweet were watching carayon So what's left to call me? One?
- 11:28Two scene free day consert time time last day stopping, tell me Gossa
- 12:07my ball, I don't believe so, same breach going up. So what's
- 12:24left? You call me? Once you've seen everthing concerts tside was grad Sky
- 12:58team me my man, t feel consoles and time and nine and side.
- 13:45These walls will scad trying to please