Cuesta Drive’s Dane Drewis Plays Favorites

Sacramento’s own rock/pop/funk outfit Cuesta Drive is gearing up for the release of their sophomore album, Distractions. The diverse 15-track record is surely something to be proud of and lead singer/guitarist Dane Drewis confessed it was tough to choose his favorite track. “I have to admit, we have had a really hard time picking our single,” Drewis recently shared with Submerge.

“So, we decided to let the fans decide,” he continued. “We want them to listen and e-mail, Myspace or text us with their favorite choice.”

So, Sacramento, here is your chance to put your two cents in and let your voice be heard. Cuesta Drive will officially release Distractions on Saturday Dec. 27 at Marilyn’s on K. The show starts at 9:30 p.m. and the $15 cover charge includes a copy of the new record. After you cure your hangover the next morning from a fun-filled party night, listen to the CD in its entirety, choose your favorite track and let the band know! You might just hear your choice on local radio stations and think to yourself, “I chose that one!”

Despite his busy schedule getting ready for the release show, Submerge recently caught up with Drewis to talk about some of his favorite (and least favorite) things in life. Be sure to check out www.cuestadrive.com for more details about the band, tour dates and links to buy their music.

Favorite records of all time:
1. The Beatles: I’m not going to narrow it down to a single album, that’s not fair.
2. Songs in the Key of Life – Stevie (the 8th) Wonder of the World: His genius and talent drop my jaw on a daily basis. I still can’t believe someone can have so many incredible pieces of music.
3. Thriller – Michael Jackson: In today’s world we lose track of the art of “albums,” myself included, because of MP3s and song downloading etc., so you rarely sit down and listen to an entire album from front to back. Thriller is amazing; even today’s generation would think that it’s a “best of” compilation, but it’s not. That album was and still is that strong.

Favorite concerts you’ve attended:
1. Steely Dan: Holy jeez, some of the most ridiculous musicians I’ve ever heard/seen in my life. I think it’s cool as hell that the old guys still throw it down.
2. Tower of Power: My dad raised me on East Bay Grease, among other things. But seeing Tower play live, from a musician’s standpoint, it doesn’t get any better than that. They are what every band’s chops should strive to be.
3. Amos Lee: I just recently started getting into him. I do have to admit Mike [Camilleri, Cuesta Drive guitarist] introduced me to his music over a year ago, but I wasn’t quite ready yet for some reason. I went recently to see him at the Fillmore and he blew my mind. His songwriting and vocals are so strong; I don’t think I blinked, just stood there mesmerized for the entire show.

Least favorite concerts you’ve attended:
1. I don’t think I’ve never been to a concert that I severely disliked. If that happens, I usually find a way to distract myself. I’m pretty picky when it comes to choosing concerts, and even if it is not what I was hoping for, I always can focus on something else like the sound engineers, lighting, stage crew etc; that stuff always interests me.

Favorite shows you played in ’08:
1. Crawdad’s on the River on Memorial Day weekend: This is our second year in a row doing it, and the crowd is wild. The show is always great because everyone is feeling good and ready to party, all we have to do is plug in.
2. Our bass player was out of town for a couple weeks this summer, so we had a string of about five gigs with my dad on bass. He’s a guitar player by trade, so bass was relatively new to him, but he did an incredible job. Jamming on stage with my dad for those shows was something I will never forget.
3. Marylin’s on K, Thanksgiving weekend: This was our “pre-CD release show” and it turned out great. Tons of people came out to support and it was the first big show for our new drummer Jason Weed. We had been on a little hiatus while finishing up the new album, so it felt really good to get back on stage and turn up. I’m pretty sure the crowd enjoyed it as much as we did.

Favorites things to write songs about:
1. Love or lack thereof: Someone the other day told me we are like Romantic Funk Rock (haha), which made me finally realize that most of our songs are based on females. At first I thought that was a bad thing, and that we needed to start focusing on other topics. But you can only write about what you’re feeling at the moment, you have to capture the “now” inspiration, and for both Mike and I, that’s what comes out.
2. Miscommunication.
3. The trials and tribulations of getting through everyday life: That may sound cliché, but it’s the truth. Give the album a listen and you can decide for yourself.

Favorite things to do in and around Sac:
1. Playing shows is our favorite thing to do by far. I don’t think there is anything else we would rather be doing. I like to get out and play/jam every night if possible. I try to invade local open mics and sit in with people whenever they let me.
2. Drink profusely. Is that bad?
3. Barbecue in the summer: Nothing like sitting around on a lazy Sunday with friends, not having a care in the world. We definitely did a lot of that in San Luis Obispo, and if things go right, we’ll never stop.
4. I love to golf, but haven’t found enough time lately.

Favorite local watering hole:
1. The Dirty Bird, baby: I used to live about 50 yards from Club Raven. Big ups to Jimmy and Brad!
2. 2me is my new watering hole. Can never go wrong there.
3. Old Ironsides: I love going to open mic night with Lare Crawley and listening to him entertain the crowd. Good times.

Favorite movies:
1. Dumb and Dumber: Comedic genius. Anyone who is friends with us on Myspace knows I quote it regularly.
2. The new Batman: Awesome”¦.except when he talks.
3. Forgetting Sarah Marshall: I wish Aldous Snow was real.

Favorite TV shows:
1. Entourage: But I don’t have cable so I’ve watched season one on DVD about 20 times.
2. 30 Rock: Genius.
3. I know Mike wants me to say It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and he’s right, that shit is funny.
4. Flight of the Conchords: It’s business time.

Favorite gifts you’ve gotten for Christmas:
1. Uggs: Say what you will about a guy in Uggs. Just know this: It’s like foot sex.
2. My 1982 Gibson 335: My dad bought it the year I was born. It has yet to be showcased at a live show. I want to make sure I’m worthy of it before I bust it out. That guitar is an absolute masterpiece, sonically and aesthetically.
3. My Vintage pre-CBS Fender Vibrolux amp: My dad held on to it for a long time and gave it to me last Christmas. I’m afraid to play it, because it sounds so good and everything inside is original. I’m kind of afraid to wear out the original tubes you know? You can hear it all over Distractions, it’s pretty much on every song somewhere.

Sacramento’s Far Comes Home

By Mark Lore | Photos by Jeff Gros

They say you always want to go out on top. If that’s the case, then Sacramento’s Far did everything right. In the mid-’90s Sacramento was on the radar as bands like Cake and Deftones were signing to majors (remember those days?), while post-hardcore was bubbling underneath the city’s surface.

Submerge caught up with Matranga and Lopez, who filled us in on the not-so-elaborate Hot Little Pony marketing scheme, what the future holds, and why they don’t want to be blamed for Fall Out Boy.

The music climate has changed quite a bit in the last 10 years. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Shaun Lopez: It’s good for us, because we’re in a unique position in being able to go out on tour and be self-sufficient, and be able to make a little money on top of that. I feel for new bands starting up right now because it is tough out there. Record deals being offered to young new bands are not so great; they’re almost better off doing it on their own. For us it’s been OK. Luckily we’re in a position that we do have fans that are pretty dedicated—it’s something we’re very thankful for and very surprised.

Whose idea was it to start playing together again?
SL: It came close when we did the re-release of Water & Solutions [in 2004]. It never came to, and I think in all honesty it probably wasn’t the right time and it wasn’t for the right reasons. Chris [Robyn] and I had been talking about it off and on and then Jonah called me about a year ago and brought the idea of just showing up at a club and playing. I liked the idea of playing again, but I wanted to do it more professionally and go out on a tour.
Jonah Matranga: He always tries to be more professional than me; I’m always the guy that wants to go out and just bang it out. And he’s like, “No dude, gotta rehearse; make it good.” So we balance each other out that way.

There was this semi-elaborate scheme with the Hot Little Pony concept. Whose idea was that? And who decided to record a Ginuwine song?
JM: What looks complex from the outside is just us fucking around on the inside. We wanted to play a couple of shows, and I just really wanted to take the hype away from it because a) I don’t like it, and b) I wanted us to be as unstressed as possible. I think our friend Jeff jokingly thought of the name Hot Little Pony. And we just all laughed when he said it and thought, “Ah that would be really fucking funny.” “Pony” is a tune that we’d always play before shows back in the day. And it’s just a simple song, and so Shaun and Chris laid it down [in Los Angeles] and I came down and sang it. Shaun added his magic dust to it. I don’t know, it just came out; it was a fun, very quick thing.

Now you have your homecoming show in Sacramento. Is that going to be a gauge of whether this continues?
JM: I think it’s all a gauge. There’s nothing official on the books, but there’s a lot being talked about. I think we’re all just trying to take it as it comes. The first two Hot Little Pony shows were like, “OK, can we do this well?” Because it was really important to all of us to not go up there and suck. And then we did the L.A. shows and thought we pretty much ripped it. Then we thought, “OK, can we tour together? Can we not drive each other insane?” The whole “Pony” thing has definitely thrown it into a different gear. We’ve never had any sort of radio play like this so we’ll sort of look at that and see what that means, if anything.

Any shows beyond Sacramento?
JM: Just Sacto. We’re very excited about that. It’s a big enough show where I think it will be fun and exciting, but it still feels like home. We got some friends’ bands on there. I feel pretty sure that more shows will happen, but we have nothing on the books. And then we’re looking at trying to do a little recording together, see what happens with that. My particular take is just trying to do a couple of covers that suggest where we came from as a band. I’m very reticent to do original songs. I don’t want to do an original song just to have a new song, and have it not be as good as the old shit. Because all of our favorite old bands do that and it blows.

Water & Solutions has been touted as your masterpiece. Does that put more pressure on you to record?
SL: I realize that no matter what we do, people are always going to love that record. That’s going to be the record.
JM: Yeah, but some people, frankly, like Tin Cans“¦ more, which I don’t understand. That’s the thing with putting out records”¦I don’t get to control what other people think. But for me, there’s no pressure with people, there’s just pressure for me… I just want to know it kicks ass. We could put something out as good as Nevermind, and people will still be like, “Yeah, you know, I kinda like ‘Bury White.'” But I would just want to feel in myself that it came from an inspired place, and that I could go out with confidence and play it live and feel as strong as I do playing “Bury White” or “Mother Mary” or “Man Overboard.” Those songs, I just feel good playing them. And I don’t feel good playing them because I’m used to them; I feel good because they’re good, and they’re good 10 years later.

Far has influenced a style of music that is looked down on, although you sound nothing like those bands. Do you guys think about that?
JM: I’ve been asked that question a gazillion times in interviews, and my stock answer that sort of makes me laugh, that I totally believe is: I don’t blame Led Zeppelin for Whitesnake and I don’t want to be blamed for Fall Out Boy. We just came around trying to play rock ‘n’ roll that was less dressed up and more human, and mixing heavy shit and more anthemic shit we liked from big rock with this sort of humble, straight in-your-face element of punk. A lot of bands at the time were doing that. And as it happened, when that sort of caught on, there were a lot of bands that traded in their leopard jeans and whatever else the fuck for horn rims and tight pants. They took all the cheap parts and tried to make money off of it, and forgot the important part, which was the humanness of it.

You’ve all changed as people in the last 10 years. How is Far different today than it was in ’98?
JM: The funny thing is that we’ve all changed as people, but the personality balance still to me is working out relatively similarly. I think Shaun and I are better at recognizing that we’re different people, and talking it through, which rules.
SL: Yeah, the communication is much better. In the past a lot of the problem was that when shit would piss people off, they wouldn’t say anything.
JM: It feels good now to come in with a little more time to breathe. And I do think we’ve all, through our individual experiences, learned a little about how important it is to clear the air before shit gets crazy.

Being in a band is like being in a relationship “¦
JM: I liken it to a relationship where the sex is really good, but everything else is weird [laughs]. To me that’s the closest analogy I could come up with without sounding creepy.

Up, Up And Away

If Early States ought to have been intimidated by the traditionally aggressive cauldron of hardcore and metal bands bubbling out of the greater Sacramento area, they seem not to have noticed. In fact, they seem downright indifferent to the fabled demographic of their immediate proximity; a place where bands like Tera Melos shattered the glass ceilings of post-punk with dizzying mathematical permutations and broken instruments; a place where spatial metal heavyweights Deftones and Far ignited the tinder of disenfranchised Central Valley denizens and went knock, knock, knockin’ on Billboard‘s door; a place where the sheer strip-mallian essence floats so pungently in the humid troposphere, you’re damn near required to bleed Orange Julius should you be so unfortunate as to be shanked in the citywide food court. It’s this kind of focused apathy that seems to be setting the band apart from its peers in the local music scene, and it’s definitely getting it noticed outside of it as well.

Early States is fronted by 18-year-old Zack Gray. His affluence in songwriting has yielded the band (also including Shaun O’Brien, 20, on guitar and keyboard; Brandon Lee, 22, on drums; with recent additions Tom Hatch, 18, on bass; and Nick Silva, 18, on lead guitar) a fluffy bed of uber-pop melodicism and expansive indie-rock pomp.

“We weren’t apprehensive,” says Gray with regard to the divisiveness of the band’s sound. “If anything we looked forward to introducing people to something new. We want to be one of the bands that takes [the scene] in a new direction.”

While the band boasts an average age of 19, their focus remains steadfastly on the progression of their still fledgling career. Having just finished recording their debut EP Powerlines, Early States is forging ahead with not only their CD release show at Club Retro, but also with the spoils of their headway with major Los Angeles-based music licensing firm Immediate Music. The band was recently signed a licensing contract with the company, who is responsible for the composing and licensing of music cues and pieces for television and in the promotional campaigns of 70 to 80 percent of the top 50 highest-grossing films seeping out of Hollywood’s glistening underbelly, including the entire Harry Potter series, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and even ­Spider-man. Not a bad spot to be for a band that only formed about a year ago.

“Being the first band to sign with Immediate Music hasn’t changed our direction. It has only made us more driven and ambitious,” notes Gray. “We’re honored that a company as prestigious as I.M. wants to work with us. It’s definitely some great validation.”

The band is planning on shopping their music to proper record labels come January 2009, and figures to utilize the time in the interim to “tighten up any loose screws” and to focus on the release of their EP.

Powerlines was officially release at the Nov. 21 CD release show, but the album hit Purevolume a week prior for free (with the band on the front page), and has made its way on over to music Mecca iTunes, then Amazon, then to basically wherever music is sold on the wild wild Web. Additionally, the band has acquired an endorsement from Dickies clothing.

“Our band is our number one priority and we look forward to being able to give it our full, undivided attention,” explains Gray. And the drive with which he’s espoused his songwriting couldn’t cut closer to the quick of the proverbial angst-loaded post-grad.

Powerlines ushers in atmospheric nodes in all the right places, begging here and there for a unique thread to tether, but still maintains an unmistakable knack for hook-y transitions and guitar-smothered verve. Gray’s adolescent renderings of universal themes such as “love and conflict, to wanting to get away, to finding happiness in yourself instead of looking for it in other people,” while prudent, don’t belie the vastness of his visionary palate.

“Although those are the main themes that can be found on Powerlines, I really enjoy listening to people’s interpretations of what they think the songs are about and how they relate them to their own life,” says Gray.

Early States are hoping to tour in Spring 2009, but will be working on new material and playing local and regional venues to begin the arduous task of getting their name plastered in the fertile minds of show goers; more importantly, the quintet has already eschewed the reticence of the young band syndrome, and expects nothing but great things in the future.

“We believe that we’re a very hard working band, especially for our age,” says Gray. “We think we share the same focus as the bands we look up to and aspire to be like.”