Tommy and I, and when Flote came on he breathed life into it. He's such a prolific songwriter. His style of music has just been perfect for Damn Right; and so, with him, it's been about six months. The sounds you'll be hearing on our upcoming album will be all from within that time frame."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Funkadelphia: "Can you tell us a bit about each of your roles in the group?"

Matt "Flote": "It's pretty loose at this point. In the studio we all pretty much do everything. We all produce, there's a lot of keyboards and stuff. Johnny's really the only one who does our vocals; he's got an amazing voice, and that's a big forefront to our music. Other than that, it's pretty much everybody, whatevery they bring to the table. [Performing] live I take care of a lot of the live production stuff. Tommy does live drums. Johnny plays keyboard and bass and does vocals."

 

Johnny: "It's become like a collective. We have guests sit in- like our show at the Electric Factory we have Wes Schwartz from Grimace Federation and Jimmy 'The Doc' Dunsten, who plays around with a bunch of different bands. Our ideas is just to make good music, and how we go about that it doesn't really matter at this point; that's the vision. And at this point we're only a three-piece, but we'd like to have an orchestra up there. But we can all sort of do everything. We haven't experimented much switching around yet, but in the future we see deejay sets and really, different takes on performing our music. It's really just an open ended thing."

 

 

Funkadelphia: "What's your live setup look like at this point?"

Tommy: "We have drums, Johnny has a synthesizer and bass, and then Matt has Abelton."

 

Matt "Flote": "Yeah I have Ableton hooked up to an APC, and I have a Korg PadKontrol that's hooked up to Reason, both run separately. Sometimes I'll have an extra controller in there or something, but that's basically it."

 

Johnny: "And then I also cover the vocals. Soon we'll be sending our drums and vocals through Flote, so he'll be live mixing us. That all comes down to logistics, but we're setup for that in our current format."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Funkadelphia: "So you guys have a new album in the works right now.

Does it have a title or release date at this point?"

Johnny: "It will be released by the end of the year hopefully. The title is 'Frozen Sun'. We're rushing to get it done right now. We have pretty much two tracks left to finish mixing, but everything's written. We hope it will be able to get mastered next week. And our previous albums have started out with one style, but through the album you can see us searching and moving; but, this newest album is finally us plannning our music in the vision we have. So this is the first album that really represents who we are as a band. All the others are just us sort of experimenting. The first EP was just me and Tommy in West Philly, running up and down to our cars to see how it sounded. The second album had Flote on it with mixing, so it sounded better; it had some hip-hop tracks, some vocal tracks, and they didn't fully meld. But this album combines all that into a cohesive sound that is just us. The vocals, the beat music, the pop, it all comes together on this release, and we're really excited about that."

 

Matt "Flote": "This is also the first album I had a lot of involvement. As [Johnny] said, I did a lot of mixing and post-production in the past, but this album was where we actually decided to join together."

 

Johnny: "Flote helped out with the last album, and Tommy and I saw something in him we had't experienced in someone before. The other day I was saying, when most people make music it's like Tetris: you see the next piece and where it has to fit in on the board; but, when Flote makes music he plays Tetris with Play-Doh. He can put it down however he wants. When we saw that, we knew we had to make music with him. So this album is a true collaboration featuring each of our styles heavily on each track. Each person pioneered tracks and some were more joined, but every track has so much of each of us represented in it."

 

Matt "Flote": "There's no track where everybody didn't have their spot to make a significant impact."

 

Johnny: "And that's the way we look at Philly and music: we try to make friends with people, and we appreciate art. We don't look at it like a competition; we love other artists. To make art is an amazing thing to us, and it's a really hard thing. We've made a bunch of friends, and we just have everyone help us make this music."

 

 

Funkadelphia: "So one point I'd like to more directly discuss that you touched on with your last answer is how you mentoned coming together to settle on a cohesive sound.

Are you saying this is a sound we can experct to hear more

consistently on future Damn Right releases?"

Johnny: "Yes. We're [also still] always going to change I'd say."

 

Matt "Flote": "This is definitely the building point for us though. In the past, you sometimes hit a cycle where you see a sound come and go. But this, it seems, is that flat spot on which you build, where we'll see other sounds come and go from here. It's more or less going to playing off a sound we've established now. We've laid a foundation as far as where our sound's coming from."

 

Johnny: "We'd love some critical acclaim, whether it's bad or good. We'd just love to get [the new album] to ears somewhere, because it actually has direction. But definitely expect this to be what Damn Right is in full."

 

 

Funkadelphia: "So you mentioned, you have a show coming up at the Electric Factory?"

Tommy: "Yeah it's Friday the 13th with Washed Out."

 

 

Funkadelphia: "Can we expect to hear any of the material

from the new album at that show on Friday?"

Matt "Flote": "Yeah, we'll be debuting a bunch of new stuff. As we said, we've got Jimmy and Wes coming back to play with us."

 

Johnny: "And that sort of plays into our goal. It's future music; it's music in the here and now, which is utilizing all these amazing tools, but you also can't forget about all this amazing musicianship these guys have spent their whole lives developing. When you incorporate that with all the new technology, it puts on a real show."

 

 

Funkadelphia: "Is there a longer tour surrounding thi show,

or any other shows scheduled for the near future?"

Johnny: "It's just this one show for now. We're exploring a lot of options right now with where we go with our live performance. We want to put a lot into it, incorporate visuals. We don't want to jut go play a show and have it just be us up there; we want to have a full experience. So we're definitely hitting the books for that."

 

Matt "Flote": "You should still also expect to see some dates following the release of the album."

 

 

Funkadelphia: "Who would you say are some other musical influences and inspirations for you guys, both within your own musical scope and also completely outside of that?"

Tommy: "We could say anywhere from Animal Collective to Hot Chip or LCD Soundsystem. Always Talking Heads is back in there. And we all love, especially Matt, urban electronica or even hip-hop music. Those influences are definitely tucked back there."

 

Johnny: "We love samples, and hip-hop is heavily built off samples. We're not afraid to sample something, mangle it up, and build a beat off it."

 

Matt "Flote": "My solo project, Flote, is also more or less just hip-hop beats."

 

Johnny: "The older we get, the more we appreciate different pioneers. Someone that's current that's really pushing boundaries and staying true to make awesome art is Trent Reznor. The way he writes music with synthesizers and his vision of how to put on a live show with visuals and everything; he's a guy who represents the total package of a true artist."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Funkadelphia: "In conjunction with the last question, who are some other artists we might catch you listening to; who's frequently playing on your iPod?"

Matt "Flote": "Definitely Bibio for me, that's some of my favorite stuff in the world, just a good mix of modern production, but also that sort of washy sound we go for. I like that kind of stuff. I'm really big on a lot of stuff you might not expect. We all like Burial. Anything that's really rich and experimental, but it's got that emotional aspect to it. We just love music with really good aesthetic."

 

Johnny: "The stuff I've been basing my vocals off of, honestly, and what I go for is sort of like Harry Nilsson, Crosby, Stills and Nash, and The Beatles. I'm chasing that dragon, tose guys knew how to lay harmonies down. So, we're trying to use future music techniques to create that aesthetic of harmony."

 

 

Funkadelphia: "Do any of you have any sort of musical background, either in your family or music education? Otherwise, how'd you come into music?"

Matt "Flote": "I didn't really have any of it in my family, but I went to chool for music production and engineering. So it's kind of a hand in hand thing. I started playing music in fourth grade."

 

Tommy: "Yeah I also started playing music in fourth grade, and it's all history from there."

 

Johnny : "My dad played guitar, and he actually played in the 41st Street Band in Clark Park, and they used to play right there in the 70's. So he always did the rock thing. He built a studio at our house. I never got any classical training."

 

Matt "Flote": "Yeah, I was actually classically trained in jazz. For a long time, mostly all through middle school, I kind of thought that was going to be my career. I though I was going to be a nerdy classical orchestral dude just playing stand up in a big orchestra."

 

Johnny: "Tommy and I have always just sort of done rock. We're too A.D.D. to be taught; we have to do."

 

 

Funkadelphia: "Have there been any particularly enjoyable experiences for you guys;

either working with other musicians or playing a specific show or venue?"

Tommy: "The Brooklyn Bowl has to be one of my favorite venues. Also Ram's Head in Baltimore recently was a great time."

 

Johnny: "In terms of experiences we've had as a band: some of the festivals we've played in the past, we got to churn it up with some heavy-hitters; and those experiences are always cool, because it just gives you perspective on how this whole thing works. And then, a good club day here in Philly, like at Silk City."

 

Matt "Flote": "It's always great to play at home."

 

Johnny: "Silk City is a great place to check out music, great sound system; but, we enjoy every show we play. These days we're just trying to do real fun, awesome shows, so every time we meet someone cool and have a great experience, it's all great."

Matt "Flote": "I also have to say Catskill Chill this summer was really awesome. It was just sort of a dreamy getaway. You saw people you've known since you were a kid starting to get up and running. You look around, and you're startstruck, because there's a lot of big people there; but, at the same time, everyone you know over the years is finally up there doing it. So it was really cool to see everyone and how far they've come. And Boulder Theater was a lot of fun; that was a cool show."

 

 

Funkadelphia: "Does Damn Right have any festival plans

for the upcoming summer that you can disclose?"

Tommy: "It's all being booked now, but you can definitely expect to see us."

 

 

Funkadelphia: "Any last words for the fans?"

Johnny: "Just to bring up and elaborate on an older point. We're sort of in a crossover stage. We used to be known as more of a jam band, but we've been moving in a bit of a different direction. And once you've sort of branded yourself, it's hard to get people to acccept that you're making a new type of music. So this show at the Electric Factory is a big crossover show for us. So that's why we're trying to put together our best set ever; it means so much to us. We want t play music in this scene, with bands like Washed out, and Tycho, and Gold Panda."