Garrett Rothman & Dave Smalley On The Benefits of Not Sleeping, Don't Sleep's New Album See Change & Calling Hours (The Witzard Interview)
Whoever said "lightning only strikes once" clearly has not met Dave Smalley. From being right in the middle at the birth of US Hardcore Punk with D.Y.S. to creating the blueprint of Melodic Hardcore with Dag Nasty, from helping to invent Pop-punk as we know it with ALL to finding himself in the middle of the West Coast Punk explosion of the 90's with Down By Law: Smalley was always on the forefront every time Hardcore Punk stretched its envelope. While others may use a legacy like that as an excuse to take it a little slower, Dave Smalley has no intention to rest on his laurels and keeps writing new music and releasing records. When he founded Don't Sleep with fellow East Coast Punk Rockers Garrett Rothman, Tony Bavaria, Jim Bedorf, and Tom McGrath in 2017, the world was more than excited about seeing him front a fast yet melodic Hardcore band again.
Being motivated by the immense positive feedback, Don't Sleep was finally ready to release its debut album, Turn The Tide, in 2020. And, then, the world came to a grinding halt... but after the dust settled, all five members decided that Don't Sleep was too important to not overcome all obstacles thrown in their way. The five-piece went back into the rehearsal room, finished eight original songs and added an amazing Tom Petty cover to the mix. The result is Don't Sleep's second full-length, See Change, which was released earlier this summer world-wide compliments of End Hits Records. It's a record that combines all elements you have liked about Dave Smalley's music in the past while sounding incredibly contemporary in the here and now.
"Don't Sleep is very much a combination of five distinct friends coming together and making a unique sound," Smalley says. "It is a rare thing to have such cool synergy and energy and end up focused like a laser beam. It is powerful, melodic, and purposeful. We respect and love the common roots we all grew up in and are coming together to make a sound with that as our foundation, but, also, looking to the future and growing." Big help to make See Change sound so fresh and current came from an unlikely pair of producers, the GRAMMY Award-winning team of Carson Slovak & Grant McFarland.
Guitarist Tony Bavaria explains the unusual choice: "while they've worked a lot in the Metalcore world (i.e. August Burns Red, Polaris,) they've, also, done some really great sounding Rock records for bands like LĪVE, Candlebox, and Everclear. But they are, also, local Hardcore/Punk guys we knew for almost 20 years. Knowing how talented they are and the diversity of their work, we really wanted to see what they would be able to bring to the table. It was awesome to have the opportunity to work with them in a world-class studio that would probably not be available to a Hardcore band like us!" We recently got a chance to conduct a comprehensive emailed interview with Don't Sleep's Garrett Rothman & Dave Smalley. It's been lightly edited for general clarity and you can check it out now below the break. See Change is now available on End Hits Records on limited colored vinyl with two different cover options (one for North America and one for Europe/UK.) The digi-pack CD version will contain eight bonus songs that have not been available on CD previously.
I. Who are the current members of Don't Sleep and what is each member's role within the band?
Garrett Rothman: Dave Smalley - vocals
Garrett Rothman - bass
Tom McGrath - guitar
Tony Bavaria - guitar
Jim Bedorf - drums
II. How would you say Don't Sleep's sound has changed, evolved, and progressed as heard on your new album, See Change, since your last full-length effort, 2020's Turn The Tide?
Rothman: That's an interesting question because we, actually, recorded all the songs for Turn The Tide & See Change in the same [sessions]. This requires me to give some backstory: we signed a two-record deal with Victory Records and we had written two albums-worth of songs. So, we decided to record two records-worth of material at the same time with the plan to release them about 18 months apart from each other.
Just prior to the release of Turn The Tide, Victory sold to Concord [Records, which is a catalogue-only label. So, things were a little up-in-the-air regarding who would release the record, but Tony Brummel from Victory decided to start a new label called Mission Two [Entertainment] and had already signed Cro-Mags & INSIGHT, so it had all the makings of being a "cool" label. So, we went with Mission Two. Mission Two released Turn The Tide in fall 2020, but pretty shortly thereafter, they shut things down and Tony Brummel gave us the songs that had been recorded for the second album. Fortunately, we hooked up with End Hits Records for the release of See Change.
So, there's a lot of crossover of sound and energy between Turn The Tide & See Change. One difference between the two records, though, is that See Change has a couple of songs that are heavier than any of the songs on Turn The Tide, like "Time to Fight" and "Outside In." We all like heavy music and that sound hadn't, necessarily, reared its head in our previous recordings. Dave, especially, loves Motörhead, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden. So, it felt good to veer (a little) into that territory. Also, we broke some new ground as far as Don't Sleep goes with the song "Love Is The Suture," which definitely has some influence from The Jam & The Buzzcocks.
III. What did the typical writing, recording, production, creation, etc. processes behind See Change generally entail?
Rothman: In terms of writing, all the "musicians" in Don't Sleep live in the smallish town of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. So, generally, when we are in writing mode, we get together weekly to jam, hang out, and work through songs. Our guitarist, Tom [McGarth], is the Riff Master in the band. So, most of the songs start with a riff that he shows us and, then, we structure the rest of the song from there. Once we've worked out a song that we feel pretty good about, we demo it and send it to Dave [Smalley] to develop the vocals and lyrics and, then, we're ready to take it into the studio.
As far as recording goes, most of the music for See Change was tracked at a studio called Think Loud [Studios] in York, Pennsylvania, about 30 minutes from our town. The studio was built and owned by the band LĪVE, which was a Grunge [Lite] band in the 90's from our area that sold, like, 20 million albums back in the day! So, they had the budget to build a proper, plush studio. The studio was incredible—it had a massive drum room and even had one of Kanye [West]'s old vocal booths in it! It, also, had two gourmet-style kitchens, a sick living room area, and a couple of guest rooms that looked like they were in fancy hotels. Needless to say, when you’re in a studio like that, you feel super-comfortable and, sometimes, you don’t even feel like leaving at the end of the session. What an experience!
The musical tracking on See Change was done by Carson Slovak & Grant McFarland—two über talented producers and engineers, who we've known for a long time. They have produced GRAMMY-nominated records for August Burns Red and worked with other big bands, like Everclear & LĪVE and even recently did some tracking for Justin Bieber & Mariah Carey, but they come from the Hardcore world and understand the sound and aesthetic we were looking for. Those guys are very cool and very professional. They have since moved their studio to Lititz, Pennsylvania on The Rock Lititz Campus and it's now called Atrium Audio. It's a great studio!
Dave tracked his vocals with Pedro Aida at [Audio] Verite [Recording Studio] in Richmond, Virginia. Pedro created a very laidback and positive environment for tracking and it was really fun to watch his process. Pedro & James Menefee, who both play in the band Fun Size, did some of the cool harmonies on the record. Thanks, guys!
IV. Who or what would you readily cite as some of your greatest sources of inspiration and influence while creating See Change?
Rothman: That's a great question! We are all Hardcore lifers, so it would be impossible to list all of the bands and music that inspire us and influence our song-writing, but definitely the foundation of our sound is influenced by our favorite bands from Dischord [Records], Epitaph, and Revelation [Records] and, also, some pioneering Punk bands, like The Clash, [The] Buzzcocks, and The Jam. One obvious influence on Don't Sleep is Dag Nasty, especially, the Can I Say (1986) era. That record will always loom over the sound of Don't Sleep. Can I Say is, personally, one of my favorite records of all time and I think the songs, the vocals, and the aesthetic changed Hardcore music forever and really spoke to and inspired me. Dave's vocals on that record are genius, and I think we've at least tried to capture that same energy with Don't Sleep.
V. How did the band come to meet and commission UK graphic designer Simon Tripcony (@onetricpony) to create the album art, screen-printed cover, and T-shirt for the See Change album cycle?
Rothman: I became aware of Simon's design work a couple of years ago when I started noticing the re-makes of classic show flyers that he was making. His aesthetic was so cool and I loved his use of bright colors and repeating graphics. Brian McTernan's name will be coming up a lot in this interview... but Simon designed the cover art for Brian's band, BE WELL's Hello Sun EP and some of the T-shirts, tour flyers, and stuff like that for BE WELL and it all looked fantastic. In conversation, we asked Brian what his experience had been with Simon and he had nothing but glowing things to say about Simon. So, we hit him up and asked if he'd be interested in working with us on designing the various versions of See Change and some T-shirt designs and luckily he said "yes."
The biggest challenge in working with Simon is he's very prolific and will send several different options for the artwork and they're ALL good! We loved pretty much everything that Simon sent to us, so the hard part was figuring out which one to use. Thanks, Simon!
VI. What inspired you guys to decide to record a cover of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' "Runnin' Down A Dream" and include in within See Change?
Rothman: We are all big Tom Petty fans and, actually, recorded "Runnin' Down A Dream" shortly before he passed away. Personally, I don't like cover songs that sound exactly like the original, so we consciously tried to spice the song up with some heavier drums and guitars and even a little Hardcore breakdown part. Dave's rendition of the vocals are really interesting because he resisted the natural tendency to just do a screamier, Punker version of the vocals and, instead, lays back a little, which I think sounds amazing and in some ways, kinda soothing. We were, of course, very saddened to find out about Tom Petty's passing and hope that this cover, in our own very small way, adds something to his legacy.
VII. What can you tell us about the making-of and concept behind Don't Sleep's latest "Promise Made" music video?
Rothman: The lyrics to "Promise Made" are about being Hardcore & Punk Rock lifers, so we thought it would be fun to make a video with a storyline about a typical band experience. So, the video follows a quintessential day-of-show experience for a scrappy young Hardcore band. So, it follows a fictional band called Fear of Failure as they run around town putting up flyers and handing out flyers to random people on the street—in fact, Tony from Don't Sleep & I make a cameo appearance in the video where we're handed flyers and, to the dismay of the guys who handed us the flyers, we throw them in the trash—then, we see the band practicing in the basement before the show (that was filmed in our actual practice space in our guitarist Tom's basement!) Next, we see the band loading their equipment into the venue and, finally, they rock out on stage giving it all of their energy and enthusiasm and there's twist at the end that every band can relate to. Check out the video!
Just wanted to mention that the band in the video is played by some amazing teenagers, including my son, Theo, on bass and our guitarist, Tom's son, Evan, on guitar. All of the kids did a great job and really made the video cool! Also, check out the videos we made for "Dead On The Inside" and "20/20." The "Dead On The Inside" video follows a few young pro skaters around Arlington, Virginia at a skate park and hanging out in front of a landmark Punk house in that town. The video came out great!
VIII. How did guys end up linking up and deciding to go with End Hits Records to release See Change?
Rothman: We are so psyched to be on End Hits! When it became apparent that Mission Two was wrapping up as a label, we began to think about who we'd like to release See Change and End Hits was definitely on the short list. We were lucky to record some of our previous album, Turn The Tide, with Brian McTernan (BE WELL, Battery, Salad Days Studio) and, in the process, got to know Brian not just as a producer and musician, but as a great friend and someone who we trust and respect implicitly. End Hits released the European version of BE WELL's Hello Sun [EP] record. We talked with Brian to get some feedback from him on his experience with End Hits and Brian had nothing but great feedback. Also, End Hits has released a ton of great records from bands we love, like TERROR, Shelter, Hot Water Music, and As Friends Rust. So, we knew we'd be in great company!
Luckily, [End Hits' CEO and founder] Oise [Ronsberger] loved the songs and was already a fan of the band, so he approached us about releasing the record. Oise has been amazing to work with—he's super-supportive of Don't Sleep and has had some fantastic ideas about how to promote our record, cool packaging ideas, etc. We feel super-fortunate to be working with End Hits.
IX. What is the significance behind or intended meaning of the title of the latest Don't Sleep album, See Change?
Rothman: Hardcore music means different things for different people, but for us, we love the Hardcore tradition of "personal politics"—music being an inspiration to change yourself first, in order to, also, [in] effect, change in your community and, ultimately, the world. Bands that approached their music in a similar way that come to mind include 7Seconds, Embrace, Youth of Today, [and] Gorilla Biscuits. So, in keeping with this tradition, the title See Change is a reference to visualizing how you'd like to make positive change in your life and, then, taking the steps to actualize those changes.
X. What can you tell us about your other project, Calling Hours, which features all of you along with Michael "Popeye" Vogelsang (Farside, Ice)? When can we expect to hear a taste of your upcoming Revelation Records debut?
Rothman: Calling Hours is made up of Tom, Tony, Jim & [I] from Don't Sleep and Popeye from Farside on vocals. It has a different vibe than Don't Sleep and allows us to "scratch an itch" that we have had for a long time, but wouldn't really fit in with the Don't Sleep sound. A few years ago, Popeye moved from Orange County, California to a town in Pennsylvania about two hours away from us. So, logistically, we're able to write and record music pretty easily with him. We recorded an EP called Say Less with Brian McTernan and it’s going to be released by Revelation Records in fall 2023. We should be releasing some singles for the record starting [in] late summer 2023.
XI. What's planned next for Don't Sleep?
Rothman: We are having a lot of fun introducing See Change to the world—we love this record and are so proud of these songs. We're looking forward to very soon making a tour announcement and having the opportunity to play the See Change songs live on stage, catching up with some old friends on tour, and making some new friends! We'll see you in the pit!
XII. Dave Smalley, What's the likelihood of you recording, making, and releasing music and/or touring again with Bill Stevenson, Stephen Egerton & Karl Alvarez (Descendents) together as ALL?
Dave Smalley: You never know! I'd love to play or record [with] ALL any time. No, ALL!
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