BandNation

I got a chance to catch up with MCA recording artists Darwin’s Waiting Room at the Culture Room in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl, on July 3rd, 2002. Here is an interview that may give you an idea of this talented and influential band.
Darwin’s Waiting Room 7/3/02
BN Lucia: Please state your name and what instrument you play for the band.
Joe, drums
I’m Alex, I play bass

BN Lucia: What is it like to go on tour for so long and come back to play for your local fans.
Alex: Going on tour was a blast, like going around the country meeting a whole bunch of new people, getting to play our music for new friends that we meet out on the road. Coming home is always a good time ‘cuz you get to see the people who were there from the beginning. You know, all your friends and family that have come out and supported you for all the years.
Joe: We’ve been playing shows and hanging out with all the people here for how many years now, you know what I mean, so musically speaking it feels like home when you play a hometown show. All these people have been coming to party with us since we were even more crappy than now, when we were just trying to figure out what the hell we were doing, and like they’ve supported us forever, and like, there’s something special about playing at home that just isn’t the same elsewhere. Not that the road isn’t cool, ‘cuz it is, but there’s something special about home.

BN Lucia: What is it like to know that as a result of all your efforts you have a growing fan base all over the U.S.?
Alex: It boggles my mind sometimes, we’ll roll up into a town that we’ve never been and there’d be people there waiting for us. We went to this one town, I can’t remember where we were but uh, we pulled up and there was a kid on the sidewalk waiting to get in with a home-made t-shirt that said Alex is my favorite bass player, and that tripped me out it was so cool. And like, last year we were really lucky and got the chance to go out to Japan and play a show there, and like, this is my first time even on that side of the globe let alone as the band, and there were people waiting at our hotel for autographs!
Joe: You can’t even describe the feeling, you know what I mean, we’re a small band, you know, it’s a select few that know who we are, and we’re cool with that, but it makes you feel that even on an underground level, just like massiveness, you know what I mean, it’s so cool to just be wherever the hell you are and have people that are into what you’re into and dig what you’re doing. It’s definitely a very cool feeling, it’s hard to describe. It’s cool.
BN Lucia: Yeah, I remember seeing you guys at the Chili Pepper in the Grove, a million times, so going to Japan must be incredible.

BN Lucia: On your debut album “Orphan,” you have a track called “Innosense,” which was recorded with Shaggy, what was it like to mix the two genres of music and work with him?
Alex: Umm it was pretty natural mixing the genres because Grimm originally did the reggae skat type vibe on that part that we had Shaggy record for. But when we got signed to MCA we knew that Shaggy was a part of MCA and we always talk about, you know wouldn’t it be cool of we got Shaggy on the track to do that part, and our A&R guy at MCA was actually Shaggy’s too. So we got to go meet with him and talk about it and…
Joe: Super cool guy too.
Alex: Yeah awesome guy, everything worked out and we’re very proud of that song.

Joe: Very down to earth too, when we sat down with him it was, you know, his new album had like just come out, and it was in the baby stages and it hadn’t blown up yet, you know, I mean it was still cool as hell to be sitting down with Shaggy, you know. But by the time it came to do the track he had like the biggest selling album in the world, you know what I mean, it was like all over the place and he still took the time out to come back, and record the track with us, which is like, being as busy as he was, we thought it was super, super, cool of him, you know, just to stay true to that and it was very cool.

BN Lucia: Are there any plans to release “Innosense” as a single sometime in the future?

Alex: Umm, there were some plans but we kind of wanted to just start fresh, sometimes if you just hound different radio stations with your singles a lot, sometimes you get burned out, and we didn’t wanna put that much pressure on the radio stations without having new material to follow it up with. So we though it would be probably a wiser bet to just re-group and concentrate on getting some really strong new material out and that way we can just hit the scene really fresh next year. So that’s pretty much what we’ve been doing for the past 3 months, is just locking ourselves up in a practice room writing the best stuff we can.

Joe: “Feel so stupid,” didn’t get crazy exposure, so if “Innosence” went out big, it would be our first single to a lot of people, and as much as we like the song and it’s a part of who we are, we weren’t sure if it was the best first impression. You know, you don’t necessarily get a feel for who we are as a band by that track, so we were a little hesitant.
BN Lucia: You would get a lot of exposure though…
Alex: Yeah but a lot of exposure can be good and bad. I wouldn’t wanna overexpose ourselves on a song that doesn’t really represent our sound you know.
Joe: We wanna musically be able to stay true to what we enjoy doing and what we enjoy writing you know if you get locked in, if something happens, I won’t wanna have to conform what I’m doing because this is happening at the radio stations, you know what I mean. We play what we play because we love to do it. If it happens to blow up, cool, if not, as long as we get to come out and play for people who are having a good time, it’s all good.
Alex: The last thing we wanted to do is write an album with 12 “Inosences” in it you know.
BN Lucia: Yeah, that’s true.

Joe: Depending on what’s going on you can get a lot of pressure coming from different angles once people are investing money, so you walk a fine line with that, we wouldn’t wanna lose how we feel about what we’re doing.

BN Lucia: You recently recorded a song for the Nascar compilation, how did the writing process for that song go?
Alex: Umm, it was interesting, we got an opportunity to be on this album, but it was an album primarily comprised of cover tunes, so we were all brainstorming on what cover we wanted to do. We had a couple of ideas and we finally settled on the Tracy Chapman song “Fast Car,” and we met with some people from the label to talk about it and they said that Tracy Chapman was really particular about covering her songs and you had to stick pretty much to the arrangement, like the exact lyrics and stuff of the song. So we were like, oh well, that’s ok, what kinda sucks is we were gonna be forced to write pretty much exactly the way the song was, so we had our version prepared that was almost identical to her version, just with our flavor on it, and we got into the studio and played it, and all the people from the label were like, well that doesn’t sound like you guys. And we misunderstood; we just had to have the lyrics exactly like it. So we wrote that song literally in like a half an hour

Joe: We were like screw this we’re making it heavy! [Laughs].
Alex: The funny thing is that it was right after we got off the freakin’ Machinehead tour so you can definitely tell there was a lot of $3>$3>$3>$3>$3>$3>l in the background.
Joe: There was a little $3>$3>$3>$3>$3>$3>l flavor in there. So it ended up being really fun we just jammed out for about a half hour in the studio. The riffs with Eddie were just like whoa, he just walks in the room and started playing that riff and we all started jamming on it and Jabe had to completely re-write the melody line ‘cuz it was like none of the same notes and whatnot. It just kinda happened really fast in the studio in the blink of an eye and we dig it.

Alex: Yeah, it was fun!

BN Lucia: Who does the majority of the songwriting in the band?

Alex: Pretty much everybody, it’s uhh a really like, I dunno I guess a cooperative process. Some people might come in, like Joe might come in and say “hey dude I have this cool rhythm idea” and maybe hum us a riff, or Jabe might come in with a vocal pattern, Eddie will have a riff prepared. Like a lot of different people will get the ball rolling but as far as the finished product goes, everybody has their…
Joe: Yeah, everyone throws in their two cents and you know, we constantly go back and forth back and forth, until it ends up being what it ends up.

Alex: A really cool thing about our writing process too, in my opinion is that everybody is really open with their own instrument. Like if I have a vocal idea for Grimm he’s very open to it, or a lyrical idea or Joe has a cool idea for the bass, I’ll listen to it and incorporate that in what I’m doing.
Joe: We’re not like “yo, I’m not gonna play what you tell me!” We all have ideas for different things and we try them all, stuff comes out better when you have an open mind and respect the opinions of your band mates you know what I mean.

BN Lucia: Who were your musical influences growing up? Or now?
Alex: Growing up I always dug Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Flea was always a big inspiration for me, he’s just such a great player and uh, some of the older cats like Jaco Pastorius and the original bass players. As we really got started with Darwin's Waiting Room and I became a member in the band, I was really into old school Incubus and that was a pretty big influence on uh, the way that I used to write lines and stuff like that.

Joe: We listen to a lot of different stuff. Each individual in the band comes from a completely different background of what they listen to. I grew up on a lot of weird stuff, I listen to, when I was younger I got into a lot of jazz fusion stuff just because the drummers were so sick. You know and umm, I was into that and just all kinds of punk and whatnot was my thing, and then I spread out to everything from there.

Alex: Yeah, but we jam out to anything from Soul Coughing to Portishead to Rage Against the Machine, to NWA, to whoever.
Joe: There’s all kinds of good stuff you know what I mean.

BN Lucia: Who is the coolest band that you’ve shared the stage with?
Joe: Oh that’s tough man, we got to tour with a lot of cool bands that are just … I dunno, really one of the coolest parts about touring as well as playing with a lot of bands that you respect as musicians is that you get to meet these guys and see that they’re just really cool people and you hang out and have a good time. I really couldn’t narrow it down. Nonpoint was awesome because it was like touring with our boys form home you know…

Alex: And we used to play shows with them back in ’98.
Joe: So that was a lot of fun because it was like being home but on the road. Literally all the bands we’ve toured with have been really really cool.

Alex: Some that stick out in my mind are like, touring with Papa Roach and Alien Ant Farm, that was like our first big tour. And like, you see these guys on MTV and you listen to their records and you go and meet them and they’re just like normal guys and they’re so cool and open and really just happy to have us there and very generous.

Joe: They didn’t even have an ounce of any kind of rock star attitude whatsoever you know, they welcomed us on the tour. We didn’t even have a record coming out for months and months, no one knew who we were and they gave us above and beyond what any opening band could ask for, you know, they really took care of us and treated us well and were super cool. That was a really cool experience.

Alex: And getting to tour with Godsmack and Deftones and Puddle of Mudd, that was just incredible.
Joe: yeah, that was a good time [laughs].
Alex: yeah, getting to watch Deftones play every night from the side of the stage and hang out with them after the show was just unreal sometimes.

BN Lucia: what can we expect from your sophomore album?
Joe: ummm, really cool stuff.

Alex: We’ve just been stuck in writing mode for so long now and uh, just over this last weekend we sat back and took all the songs that we have so far and just compiled them down to a CD. I just got to chill for the first time and actually listen to it and it turned out even better than I thought it had.
Joe: we’re hoping other people will dig it too. You’re gonna hear some tonight. We’re gonna do four new songs tonight, see how you like ‘em. It’s gonna definitely be an evolution from the last record but it all maintains the same kinda Darwin’s vibe about it, and it’s not one-sided by any stretch. I mean, and we got criticized a little bit for it too as far as having kind of a wide variety of songs on our album, but we enjoy playing like, you know we like getting into a mellow jam, or like a really heavy… you know, we like doing different things and it kinda shows on the record that it’s not like “wait didn’t I just hear that song?” You know, we don’t wanna have an album of songs that just sound the same, it’s just not something we’re interested in, so there’s gonna be that range of diversity on the record but uh, it definitely all maintains a Darwin’s flavor throughout. I dunno, we’re enjoying writing it, so we’ll just have to see if the people who dig us dig it.

BN Lucia: If you could use one word to describe each one of you band mates what would it be?
Alex and Joe: [laughing].
Alex: Man, on the record? [laughs].
Joe: Uhh, Alex, I would say quiet. Nerd pimp for Eddie. Uhh, Grimm, dirty. [Laughter], what else are you gonna use? [More laughter].
Alex: hey, they’re not here for the interview.
Joe: yeah, If he wanted to say something different he should have been here [laughter]. Jabe is French. And if you’re allowed to print wherever you’re doing it you can put marijuana for me.

BN Lucia: [laughs] Well thank you guys so much and good luck!