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Q1 Please introduce yourself.
My name is Kevin, and I play the drums in Division Day.
Q2 How did you meet with your band members?
Rohner, Seb and I are childhood friends, and I met Ryan (guitar) in college.
Q3 Would you tell us your career as a musician?
Division Day began in the late 90's when Rohner, Seb, and I were in high school together, before I'd met Ryan. In college, Ryan came on board, and we played in the summers, but the we didn't make a focused effort on the band until we all graduated, about 3 and a half years ago. At that point, we all moved to LA and started playing shows, and the rest is history.
Q4 Where do you live?
We live in Los Angeles. |
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Q5 Would you tell us your latest album?
Our first full-length, "Beartrap Island", just came out on Eenie Meenie Records. We recorded most of it over the course of 2005, working in San Francisco with engineer Scott Solter, who's done a lot of work for Mountain Goats and John Vanderslice, among others. We made BTI on our own dime, which forced us to record it in pieces- we'd track 3 songs, go home to make more money, and come north again a few months later to continue tracking. For the Eenie Meenie release, we added two more songs, which were tracked this year. Adding those songs has pissed some people off who were accustomed to the original version of BTI (which we'd been selling on our own since early '06), but for us adding these new songs has breathed new life into the record- we don’t do well if we go too long without making something new.
Q6 What are your long term goals as a musician?
To make records that excite us, and to see the world! |
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Q11 Who is your favorite musician?
Rohner might say David Sylvian. Personally, I can never pick a favorite, too many that I love, but I'm really into artists who can make powerful music with simple ingredients, whose appeal is more of a guttural than a cerebral phenomenon. I think that's the reason I'm so into more straight-forward, often scrappy 90's music lately. If you must get a name from me, however, I will say that my current favorite musician is Frost from Satyricon.
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Q12 What have you been listening to lately?
On this tour, we've been jamming on lots of David Sylvian (which Rohner listened to almost exclusively for about 3 months earlier this year), a lot of metal, particularly black metal and death metal a la Immortal, Behemoth, Gojira, Catemania, etc., and 90's music, both pop and "sub-pop" as it were (Love Battery, Seaweed, Dino Jr., Hole, Garbage, etc). Oh, and Roky Erikson! Plus, we played Scott Walker's "The Drift" while driving at night in the desert, no light around- it was terrifying!
Q13 What was your early music influences?
We all grew up on the Beatles. In junior high, I discovered both grunge and "indie" music, bands that you couldn't hear on the radio in the U.S., and that changed me forever. Rohner and Seb had more or less the same experience as myself, but Ryan, who grew up in southern California, listened to less grunge/indie rock stuff at that point, and more old-school punk and British rock, like the Clash, Stiff Little Fingers, Blur, and Oasis. |
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Ricky
-Beartrap Island-
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Division Day: a fitting name for a young band unafraid of leaping into uncharted musical terrain to challenge same-old rock's timid complacence. The L.A.-based foursome's debut full-length Beartrap Island stands as a wildly diverse combination of both supremely hard-hitting and finely-shaded exploratory tracks. Like its rather portentous title might suggest, the album takes the listener on a tour of a mysterious and ultra-moody place, where they will find scenes of both utter exhilaration and fearsome foreboding. It's a place that might, just might, refer in passing to the band's adopted hometown of Los Angeles. Division Day songs, for which Rohner writes the lyrics, often feature strange creatures or bizarre characters, and lush, dense settings. "There's a host of natural phenomena in these songs," explains Rohner. "Bugs, jackals, snakes, trees, sparrows, crows, rivers, oceans, mud, fire, tar, blood. And then there's a human presence within this environment- paths moving through forest, sky, water."
Rohner Segnitz -- Casio/keys/vocals
Kevin Lenhart -- drums
Ryan Wilson – guitar
Seb Bailey -- bass/second guitar/second vocals
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Q7 What gives you the inspiration when you making songs?
Musically we are influenced by a very broad range of artists. The influences at play during the making of BTI changed as the year-long recording process went on, and a lot of them don't really apply to us any more. Scott Solter turned us on to dub music in a major way, and some of that influence crept into our songs. We were very into shoegaze music a la My Bloody Valentine, Jesus and Mary Chain, electronic stuff like Fennesz and Boards of Canada, early 90's indie rock like Unwound, Polvo, and Pavement. Notable mention also goes to Gary Numan, Christian Death, and Public Image Ltd, all of whom we were really digging at the time.
Q8 When is the most important time of your day?
For me, it is definitely morning! It's the most peaceful, optimistic point of the day. |
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Tigers
-Beartrap Island-
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Q9 How did you describe your music?
We tend to jump around stylistically, but I'd say that everything we've made so far falls under the large umbrella of rock music. We are particularly focused on melody, and try to make room in our songs for the melody to present itself uninhibited, whatever the "style" of the particular song may be.
Q10 What is your favorite food?
Pastries, I live off baked goods!
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Q14 Would you tell us your live schedules?
We just finished a national tour, save for two California shows coming up in the next couple weeks. We plan to head out on tour again in January for another U.S. tour, but hopefully we make it to Japan sooner than later, we all are dying to get over there!
Q15 Any last words for Japanese fans?
We hope to see you soon!
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