DIE YOUNG - Veteran Hardcore with Revitalized Inspiration

Interview with vocalist Daniel

Your band is a lasting name not only in Houston but the world. Back in 2009 when the band went on a hiatus it seemed like you had some great momentum going. What was the cause of the lay off? 
It was the classic case of doing something you love so much that you start to dread it. We had gotten to a point where we actually toured so much that we primarily got by on money from the band, as little money as it was. We had no booking agent in America, and did everything ourselves, and at the time we were committed to only doing things that way, but we seemed to have reached a plateau as far as our audience goes and what our options to keep touring were if we weren’t going to adopt a more “business-oriented” approach to everything. Everything just started to feel stagnant. We had changed members so many times I couldn't count, and then our bassist and guitarist at the time eventually decided they need to go home and go back to school. I decided the time had come to throw in the towel at that point and start talking exit strategy. I remember on our final European tour, just a month before the band broke up, Die Young was literally me, two guys filling in from California on guitar and drums, and for half of the tour we had two separate friends from Austria alternating as fill-ins on bass. When you have that many people coming in and out of the mix, I feel it will usually compromise the quality of the performance—even when the guys are perfectly capable musicians. There is a magic that comes from the same musicians playing together for a long time that you can’t get from musicians getting together for just a couple practices to get things down “good enough” to go on tour. I remember in Berlin on that tour the crowd was chanting for us to play one more song at the end of the set, but I was so furious about the band’s poor performance, I couldn’t carry on—despite people being totally okay with our performance--and I walked off stage. I felt like what we were doing was a joke. Some people told me they thought I was a dickhead for doing that, like I was being a rockstar or something, but I was really just trying to maintain the band’s integrity. I realized I had probably compromised it too much over the years with my ambition to tour in such circumstances. Looking back, I blame myself for the situation we ended up in. All the member changes had gotten out of hand. But at the same time, we achieved a lot in those years, and perhaps we wouldn't have "a lasting name" as you say had the band not done whatever it took to play those hundreds of shows that we did, so I don’t necessarily regret the sacrifices that were made to make all that happen. 

Now the band is active again, what new goals are on the horizon? 
When we got back together it was all about having fun and writing new music, and it still is. As much as I would like to take our new songs to new crowds all over the world sometimes, my life isn't set up to be on the road all the time anymore. None of us have that sort of desperate, nihilistic, young aimlessness that can be fulfilled by touring at this point. Just about all of us have serious jobs, relationships, families (dogs, cats or kids), and other adult-level commitments that keep us tethered to the domestic life, which I have grown accustomed to and enjoy. Even when we go out on the road for 3 or 4 days now, it drains me, and I feel like I have had my fill of it for a couple months’ worth of time. So band goals now consist more of being more selective about when and where we play, and we get to spend way more time writing new material, which I think helps make it the best it can be. In years prior, we’d be writing on the road and spend very little time practicing the material before we went into the studio. We’d still be feeling the songs out in the studio, and honestly, when I listen to most of our old records, I cringe and think of how much I would do it better now, had I only had that objectivity and ability to be critical of our own work back then. I know I am my own worst critic in regards to that, but now we get to be more objective about what we’re making, and I enjoy that a lot. We’re working on a new full-length to record late this year and release in 2016. We’re about 10 songs in so far. There will be some shows sprinkled in here or there between now and then too. Some east coast stuff, west coast, and close to home, too. We still want to try to get out when we can. It’s just much, much harder now.



I also see that you recently filmed a video with Dennis Polk. Judging from his previous work, I would expect that he will be creating something great. How was the shooting process? Are there any comical stories worth mentioning? 
I just saw the finished video last night, and I am really happy with it. Dennis is a great creative mind, and it was a lot of fun to work with him. I didn't want to do a “live” or typical music video of a band playing, so I came up with this idea for our song “Return to the Earth” to find a good, swampy or wooded spot, roll around in the mud and yell the song lyrics. I told Dennis some of my inspirations for the vision I had of the video, and he got really amped up and excited to work on the project. He found the perfect backdrop to record in, down in Angleton, Texas. We have a mutual friend whose family has a house on a large plot of land complete with mossy trees and lots of secluded space. So Dennis and I went out there on a rainy day by ourselves. I rolled around in the mud, yelled and posed for a while, and then our friend’s dad blasted me with their hose so I could clean up enough to get back in my car. Dennis and I went out to Brazos Bend State Park afterwards to try and film wildlife for more material. We filmed several alligators while we were there. That park is great. It’s crazy how close you can get to alligators in some spots because they are so used to people walking on the trails there. All in all, making the video was a fun adventure, and I am really grateful that Dennis was so supportive and enthusiastic about the project. His hard work on it helped to make it something I am really excited to share with everyone.  

You have a lengthy discography with releases on many labels. Looking back, which are your favorites? What fond memories do you have? 
I always felt we progressed on each record, so each time we did a new record it became my favorite. That’s how I feel about our latest record, Chosen Path, and I already know the new one we are working on now is going to top Chosen Path, too. I think we achieved some cool new twists on Loss, too, when we had our friend Steph contribute a more feminine element to the record with her backing vocal harmonies, and also on the instrumental track we did with her playing cello over a 12-string guitar. It was only a 4 song EP, but when we finished it I felt we were going out on a triumphant note as a band, being that Loss was supposed to be the last record we would ever do. I think having those elements on the record helped captured the dynamic power of the emotions that went in to those making songs more potently than we had ever done before. It was all as sad as it was angry, and I think conveying sadness has always been an important part of Die Young, but we had never really been that dynamic in our delivery of it before.

Die Young has had quite a touring career both in the states and abroad. Do you have any upcoming road dates planned? 
We are going to do a short east coast run with one of our all-time favorite bands, Catharsis, in August. And we’re got some random southern/Dirty South stuff lining up for the Fall. We'll hit the west coast as soon as we can, too, but it may not be til early next year unfortunately.

The Houston hardcore scene seemed to peak in the early 2000’s then lost some steam at the end of the decade. Here the last few years there has been a resurgence of new bands. What are your thoughts? 
Then and now are definitely different times with different attitudes, sounds, trends, and ethos. I remember when there were only a handful of Houston hardcore bands, and Fallcore would be lucky to have 10 bands on it total, and perhaps the only criteria to get on Fallcore was to be a hardcore band from Texas. There was enough room for nearly every band back then. But now there are literally dozens in each Texas city, and it is hard to keep up with everyone, as it seems like everyone in a band has at least one or two other sidebands going on too. Even the frequency of shows now is so much greater than it used to be, and that is also hard to keep up with. I am really glad, though, that there is a resurgence going on. I have taken up the project of the Houston Hardcore Mixtape, which is a free download “mixtape” on Bandcamp which showcases the variety of bands playing in the Houston scene right now, and when you listen to it, you can’t deny that right now Houston has a great mix of bands, young and older, playing styles all across the spectrum of hardcore. Part of my motivation for doing the mixtape is just to be able to get myself acquainted with as many current bands as possible, because it's actually hard for me to keep up with everything and everyone being that I'm just not available to play or go to as many shows as I used to years ago. I think I want to do a throwback volume of the mixtape too, maybe 1998-2004 or something like that. That was a really special time to be involved in Houston hardcore—for me personally, and for so many people I grew up with in this scene.

Do you have anything you would like to add?
Thanks for the interview, thanks for reading, and check out our new video for Return to the Earth.