I know a lot of people didn't like the last album, and I agree for the most part. There are some good songs, but it just wasn't a "dredg album." Well, Dino gave an interview about a year ago where he touched on it.

quote:
Ok, I understand you write firstly for yourself, but how did you perceive all this criticism, which fell on you after your last album?

It just showed how passionate people were about our music. They were very, very let down. It hurt their feelings sincerely to the point they got angry. We understand their disappointment, but after some time that whole hatred, that was going on and on, got a little bit weird. It’s ok to give your opinion, but it’s never good to be so hurtful, in any context of life. You should never try to hurt somebody’s feelings like that. People don’t really understand what happened with the last record. We put ourselves into a different situation, than we ever had, where producer was more of a composer. Dan the Automator is a composer. Usually he works with a rapper or a singer and when he works with bands, it’s kind of the same way as he does with MCs or singers, where he composes the music and has people just to sing on it. He doesn’t want to work with a bunch of people’s opinions, why should he? It’s not that he didn’t listen to us, but we gave him our songs and it’s almost like he remixed them. We gave him tracks, but he did his own thing on them, so the record was a bit of our control.

But you let it happen, right?

Yes, we let it happen, because we needed to try something different. We thought it’d be awesome to try it. To me there are two things to say about this album. First, if those songs were recorded as a live band as Dredg plays, it could have been a record that Dredg fans would have liked. The other thing I took from it is, that Dredg fans want to hear our musicianship. They want to hear Mark play his guitar, me playing my drum kit, Drew play his bass and Gavin sing. They want to hear personalities come through and on that record the personalities weren’t there and that’s what made them angry.

Do you as a band feel that kind of pressure or at least expectations from fans?

I don’t really care, but when I say that, it doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate them. Of course I do, but I can’t let people, who are fans of Dredg guide us. I can’t do that and that’s not what they want us to do, even though they might think so, that’s really not what they want us to do. And again, when I say that, that’s totally no disrespect to our fans. Much love and respect for our fans, always.

I can totally see it and I'm glad he can see where the reaction came from. I'm also glad to know it probably won't be the last we hear from dredg.

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Posted by SUB

Member since Jan 2001

Member since Jan 2009

20754 posts

Posted on 2/11/16 at 1:06 pm to Jester

Sounds like a load of BS and excuses to me about Dan the Automator. They can do something "different" and not let some idiot change their songs and make them terrible. Lots of bands fire producers if they aren't satisfied with the direction he/she is taking the music. Saying it is "out of our control" is just dumb, unless they signed some ridiculous contract and couldn't afford to fire him.

I haven't paid much attention to them after Catch Without Arms, which was a very good album. They got too damn cheesy with the next one.

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Posted by Jester

Baton Rouge

Member since Feb 2006

34245 posts

Posted on 2/11/16 at 1:27 pm to SUB

quote:
Sounds like a load of BS and excuses to me about Dan the Automator. They can do something "different" and not let some idiot change their songs and make them terrible. Lots of bands fire producers if they aren't satisfied with the direction he/she is taking the music.

I totally agree, but that's who Dan Nakamura is. I think it was a huge misstep, but it's not like they can put the cat back into the bag.