RECOVERED: Dusted Angel Interview: Into the Fire
When I called Dusted Angel frontman, Clifford Dinsmore, for the following interview, the Santa Cruz singer was out riding his bike. As he’d shortly inform me, he was about a block away from raging wildfires that were, as he put it, “Like riding your bike in the middle of a camp fire.” I was largely unable to imagine the heat, discomfort and threatened feelings such a situation might produce.
Nonetheless, the former BL’AST and Gargantula frontman was willing to give up some of his time to discuss his latest project, Dusted Angel, who recently issued their self-titled debut 7″ (review here) through Corruption Recordings. Rooted in doomed-out, old school simplicity and foreboding riff-led atmospheres, the five-piece has already amassed a considerable following taking into account their still-nascent status.
After the jump, the veteran vocalist discusses the formation of Dusted Angel, their recording process with the much-revered Billy Anderson, and what they have planned for the future. Followers of a traditional doom aesthetic and a new school sensibility will want to take note. Enjoy.
Give me the background on how Dusted Angel got together.
We?ve only been together since like October/November of last year, and it?s Bill Torgeson playing drums who I was in BL?AST with years ago. We?ve been friends ever since and we?ve spent a lot of time together, but I?d never heard those guys jam. And they?d just jammed for nine or 10 months without a singer, then all of a sudden I heard from another friend they wanted me to come do it and I went and checked it out. They made me a CD and when I got the CD, I just couldn?t believe what was happening. I?d never heard it and when I heard it, I was like, ?Holy shit, count me in.? I went on a surf trip to Mexico for three weeks when I first joined the band, took the CD down there and wrote all the songs to it and then came back. Within a month we recorded that stuff for the 7? with Billy Anderson. That was before we even played any shows. We?ve still only played like eight shows. We?ve managed to play a lot of cool shows. We?ve played with Kylesa, Saviours, Black Cobra. Lot of good bands. It?s just been really fun. The way I could describe the music, it?s the funnest band I?ve ever been in because we?re all old friends. We?ve all known each other since we were teenagers. It?s just been really fun to do and everyone has been in all kinds of different bands in Santa Cruz at least and it?s the first time we?ve all ended up in the same place. It just feels really good.
What happened with Gargantula? Is that still going on?
It?s just sort of resting, I think. We need to find a bass player and we?ve just gotten to that thing where we finished the last record. We have a whole unreleased record that?s mastered and everything that we definitely need to get out. The last thing we did was a small tour with Pelican that went incredibly well, and that?s when we started having problems internally. It kind of just got to the point where we definitely need to find another bass player and the drummer, Chris G., he?s in a really great new band called Future Skulls with Josh Smith from The Fucking Champs. Everyone?s just gotten distracted with these other bands and it?s still on our minds to do Gargantula, but with our drummer living up in San Francisco, which is about an hour and a half away and needing a bassist, we need to just focus on finding a bass player and doing it (laughs). That?s easier said than done a lot of times.
You mentioned Bill being in this band. How is it playing with him again?
It?s just incredible. It?s so rad, because even when we did the BL?AST reunion about 10 or so years ago — I guess it wasn?t that long, more like four or five years ago (laughs) — that was the first time we played together in like 10 years, and coming back, I was like, ?Is anyone going to be able to do this stuff?? and Bill was the first one to set it, and it was just super-rad to play with him on that level, and then to be in a band with him again, it just feels great. It?s so rad. He?s such a great drummer. He?s always been one of my favorite drummers. Everyone in the band is great and brings their own unique thing. Elliot [Young]?s a great bass player. Scott [Stevens] and Eric [Fieber] are great guitar players. I?m really stoked to be where I?m at right now, for sure. I feel like we?re really hyped on it.
Have you had the chance to write as a part of the band, aside from getting the CD and doing your thing that way? Have you had a chance to work on songs with the guys yet?
Yeah. There?s a couple songs that had lyrics that I kept, and then, they?re just like, ?Do whatever you want to these other songs,? and we did that. We?ve been working closely on a lot of newer songs. It?s really come together in a good way. It?s a really good, productive feeling. When you?re in bands and it starts to stagnate and it feels like the motivation dwindles, when you get involved in a project where everyone?s really gung ho (laughs) — it?s been rad. We?ve been working on a lot of new stuff and we?re definitely ready to do a full-length record at this point in time and we?re looking forward to it. We definitely want to do it with Billy Anderson, so we?re just trying to get that happening at this point. We?ll see what this 7? does, just get it out there. It?s definitely an interesting experience to record a month after being in the band (laughs). For a while, me and Elliot, the bass player, we were on totally different schedules for practice. I was practicing without him, he had never practiced with me singing. I think we practiced three times all together before we went and did the recording. The songs have really progressed in a way radder way and I think at this point it?d be great to re-record it. We could definitely salvage what we have and make it a good record, but I think it would be a lot better if we just stepped back from it and completely re-recorded it.
That makes sense, but at the same time, on the 7?, it all sounds really fresh and new. Maybe it?s that vibe that, ?This did just happen.? I guess it?s kind of a tradeoff to go into the full-length having played together for more than two practices.
(Laughs) Definitely. It?s cool. It?s got its technical parts, but to play in bands that were so overly technical like BL?AST and Spaceboy and Gargantula, it?s nice to be in a band where there?s not that anxiety of the parts being so complex. It?s just, get out there and do it and have fun playing it. It?s slightly different than any of us would have imagined, but it just happened that way and we just stumbled on some kind of good formula, because the songs keep happening. All of a sudden there?s a new song every time I go to practice. We?ve just got to keep that vibe fresh, like you said. Keep it new and worthwhile (laughs).
The thing too is that if the music, like you said, is less technical and more about the overall vibe, then that makes jamming more laid back.
Yeah. Definitely just a lot easier. A lot. It?s really good, comfortable music to play, and I think it carries over when we play live, because it?s written in a way to where even if we do mess up, it?s easy to get back on track and it?s just a good, tight live experience.
How was it working with Billy Anderson? I?ve never met him, but it seems like he does so much and so much in this genre that I?d almost be afraid to email him and ask him to mix a CD because he?d be like, ?Oh god, another one.?
He?s not like that at all. He?s just all about it, and that?s the weird thing about Billy. His attention span is so far beyond any human?s that I?ve ever met. If you get into the studio and listen to some of that Mr. Bungle stuff he?s done — just some unbelievable recordings. Each band that he does is an entirely different world and he gives it 100 percent of his attention and makes it its own thing. He?s just gonna give you what you want. He?s easy to communicate with. He?s super-fun, hilarious to work with, and like I said, he?s just got this eternal attention span. He does a lot of stuff, he helps out a lot of bands that might not be able to record with him because they don?t have label support or whatever, and he gives people a really good deal. And he?ll do the long haul in a short period of time. If you book a few days with him, that last day a lot of times?ll end up a 20-hour day and he?ll just keep powering somehow, charging it till the end and making it what it is in the limited time you get to work with. All the bands I?ve been in that have recorded with him, we?ve been on a really limited budget and I can?t imagine what it would be like to have even just two straight weeks of time to work with him. That?s what we?re looking forward to, just to see if we can?t do a really good, relaxed recording with him with plenty of time to make it completely as good as it can be.
For the full-length, you mean.
Yeah.
Do you have any idea when that?s going to happen?
It?s all something that we?re really talking about. A lot of it depends on how busy Billy is and the whole issue with the money (laughs). But basically we?re ready. It?s gonna happen on some level no matter what, but we?re gonna try to get some stuff around and see if we can get some label support and then see what happens with that. I know Jason, who did the 7? from Corruption, it?s been really good working with him. It?s been a great label to work with, even though it?s just a 7?. He definitely wants to do the full-length and we?re probably gonna end up doing it there, but I guess it?s the money thing. He?s not used to forking out that kind of money for full-lengths, he?s mostly into 7?s and stuff like that. We?ll see where it goes, but it could easily end up there.
How has making music changed since you started out with BL?AST?
I think in that BL?AST era, that was just a really, really, really interesting, fun time to be playing music. From 1981 on. The mid-?80s is when that music peaked. The shows were huge. You were playing at Fenders Ballroom, which is 1,100 capacity, and there?d be 3,500 people crammed in. It was so chaotic back then, it was all punk rock gangs. L.A. was all these different factions of punk rock gangs. And Golden Voice, who was putting on the shows, tried to integrate them by letting them work security, and most of the time that would work, but sometimes you?d be playing and there?d be this fight and there?d be 300 or 400 people involved, and there?d be another 900 or 1,000 who didn?t even know what was going on. It was just chaotic like that. They were doing shows at the Olympic Auditorium, all these giant venues, and it was during the metal crossover era. We would play mostly with Corrosion of Conformity, D.R.I. Those were our really close, brother bands. Good friends, good music. Cro-Mags. I met the Cro-Mags for the first time at Gillman St. in Berkeley and they were trying to score weed and I think we hooked them up and The Age of Quarrel had just come out and The Power of Expression had just come out, so they were on the West Coast and we were heading to the East Coast and we?d run into each other here and there. They were just an incredible band. Like Corrosion of Conformity, at that point in time, the Animosity-era, they?re just an incredible band, and at that time period, they were on fire. They were so rad to play with and one of those bands I had no problem seeing every night (laughs).
Do you feel that way about the bands you play with now?
Definitely, yeah. Seeing a band like Black Cobra progress to the point that they have. We played with them with Gargantula a couple years ago and I went a while without seeing them play, and when we played with them the last couple times, they?ve accelerated to this level that?s just amazing. They?re so incredible. And Future Skulls, like I said, that?s Chris, the drummer from Gargantula and Josh from the Champs. They?re just incredible. There?s a lot of good stuff happening out here right now. A lot of really rad bands to check out. Saviours. They?re a really fun band to play with.
Yeah, they?re doing the three East Coast shows with Saint Vitus.
Yeah, I saw those guys at the Heaven and Hell thing. That?s gonna be insane. I wish they were doing it out here. I think the last time I saw them was the mid to late ?80s. They were such a rad band. When they started what they were doing, it was really not the popular thing to do. Their whole look, their whole approach was so unbelievable and so completely loyal to what they were. They never compromised on their sound or their whole deal and created a phenomenal thing that no one has matched since.
Thinking of the new Dusted Angel material, is there anything you guys are trying to do differently?
It?s all got a really natural feeling to it. Even if you heard the songs on the 7? now, they just keep progressing as we get tighter, and the new stuff is really along the same lines. The instrumental song on there is kind of uncharacteristic of what we do, so I would say it?s more like ?The Thorn? and ?Valium 5.? Those are two good examples of a representation of what the new stuff sounds like. We have a couple new ones, one?s pretty technical and one called ?Earthsick Mind? that sounds like it could be off a BL?AST record or something. It really has that feel to it. If it?s going anywhere, it?s just accelerating into a higher-energy thing. It?s just a trip. It?s just so cool. We all ended up in this band together and we?re all great friends and everyone?s got something really unique to bring to it. Scott and Eric had never really played together and they were just surprised at how well they played together. Everyone was telling me these guys were insane, but they were just practicing at Bill?s house on Sundays and I worked Sundays, so I never saw it for practically a whole year it was going on, and all of a sudden I was like, ?Yeah, I?ll come down and jam, can you put some stuff on a tape or CD?? Then I got it and was like, ?Jesus, is this the lost Kyuss record?? (laughs) Before I?d even joined, they became my favorite band to listen to, and then it came down to doing it, thinking of a name. Once we started doing it, we got really excited. ?Now we gotta do this for real. We gotta play shows and get this recorded.? There?s a lot of enthusiasm for sure.
Tags: California, Corruption, Dusted Angel, Santa Cruz
