Die Young TX
Interview with Daniel Albaugh
by hutch - 10/2016, via email
Thanks to Curran Reynolds for the hook up @thechainworld @CurranReynolds
*** I was a big fan of these dudes immediately. In 2007 they dropped their impressive debut full length, Graven Images. It had been a long time since I had heard anything so fast, so heavy, and so urgent. With the energy and spirit of the Cro-Mags, Die Young TX creams for pushing rebellion against injustices. These dire warnings are screamed over a blend of hardcore sounding like the music of Integrity, Mushmouth/Out to Win, and Slayer. They are not just heavy, bust fast as Hell, too. I was driving home tonight playing these dues with their bomb-ass return with No Illusions. I realized this interview was so long, it never found a home. It felt shitty to chop it up since vocalist, Daniel Albaugh, is so articulate and intelligent. Die Young TX tells of specific issues in their lyrics, but their lay outs also have paragraphs. They have a sense of the 90s hardcore bands with social messages, that would give a reading list and reasons for the youth to rage in unison. So hear it is. Buy a hard copy of this record:
2016. Why was this time right for the return?
After the Chosen Path 7" in 2014, we never went on a hiatus or anything. We played shows steadily through 2014 and 2015, though not as often as before the 2009 breakup. It's just that we're still a relatively obscure band. So even our own fans from ten years ago are just now waking up to the fact that we've been back at it for a while.
Short of that 7” a few years ago; what have the members been doing during the hiatus?
The only time we were officially on hiatus or broken up was from 2009-2013. Since reuniting in late 2013 and putting out Chosen Path in 2014, we've been doing what we can to play as much as we can. but it is so much more difficult to do than when we were younger and the band was the moving center of our lives. Now, though, most of us are in our thirties and have to prioritize jobs or relationships over this band that makes us no money. Even through the hiatus years, Eric, Mike, and I stayed active with Will To Live. On occasion we did some Band of Mercy records or shows too. Those are our main side projects. Band of Mercy just put out a new record, Veganocracy, earlier this year as well. That's me on vocals and guitar, Eric on bass, and Tommy from Axis on drums. At any rate, despite being busy with other projects, Die Young has still stayed semi-busy in the last couple years. We did two short runs with Catharsis last year, an Eastern US tour with Madball earlier this year, and all kinds of other regional weekends here or there in between.
How do you feel this album is different in sound? Or is it? *essentially it isn’t, but I hear some nuances.
I like to think of No Illusions not being different so much as it is the next step in the evolution of Die Young. All the distinguishable elements that Die Young was founded on are still present in our sound and attitude, but we got more eclectic with the range of influences we brought to this record. We have never once tried to emulate something we've done before. I am always interested in making our new best record ever. If that wasn't our goal, I don't know what the point of making a new record would be. There is definitely more metal and death metal influence on this album. Bands like Crowbar, Behemoth, Carcass, Paradise Lost, or even At the Gates had huge influence on the kinds of melodies we incorporated, and even the kinds of drum lines Mike played. I am of the opinion that, musically speaking, hardcore punk can often be a stagnant genre. Musically and conceptually, metal is the forum of broader creativity. So, that really informed out songwriting approach to this record. Overall, I'd say the result is our most dynamic and interesting record by far, but by and large it is still a hardcore record.
The recording has a thicker fuller sound. Tell me about recording this – producer? Duration? Location? Approach?The biggest difference in the recording process was the budget which allowed us more time to get things right. Good Fight Music helped us with that. We were never able to spend as much time getting things right on any record before. Every other recording session we ever did for any album was rushed due to having limited funds and therefore limited time. Granted, we did have limited funds here, too, but Origin Sound is on the outskirts of our hometown. We spent a lot of half-days out there after work. When we needed to go back out to fix something, Craig was flexible and it was no big deal. We have done two previous Die Young EPs with Craig Douglas at Origin Sound, as well as the three Band of Mercy EPs, and even one full length for Will To Live. So, it is safe to say Craig is our friend. We very much understand what to expect from him, and likewise him from us. In the end, we spent three and a half weeks tracking, two and a half days of which were for drums, more than a week of half days for guitars, a few days for bass, and we spliced in vocals wherever we could so that I wouldn't have to do too many songs at one time. It probably took a couple weeks for Craig to complete the mix how we wanted it, as he had a lot of other projects and a flood disaster going on at the time.
How is the response to No Illusions?
Hard to say. I always full expect everyone to ignore everything we do, which usually happens. Some people have told me they love it though, so that's cool, but I can't take internet compliments all too seriously. People can talk big about loving something or supporting their friends. But, in the end, if people aren't buying the album one way or another; I don't think they really connect with it much. It's hard these days to get people to give a shit about anything or connect with music that makes demands of them. What I mean by that is that when people listen to Die Young or see Die Young at a show, I really want to engage them with the emotions and perspectives that inspired me to write the lyrics I wrote. I don't mean that in convert-everyone-to-my-view kind of way, but more so an attempt-to-engage-everyone kind of way that is cathartic and thought provoking on some level. And I've got no illusions (LOL) about the fact that most people really hate that. They don't want to be bothered to think. They want to mosh and hit people and buy t-shirts that match their sneakers. It is what it is, and I am sure Die Young will be eternally relegated to the dustbin of consumer waste because of it.
What are plans for shows?We'll continue to do what we can when we can. We have a west coast tour with Wake of Humanity in October. An appearance at Sound on Sound Fest near Austin, TX in November, then Fallcore fest in Houston in December. Who knows after that. We're always open to what comes our way. "If the deal is right then respect is where it should be"...ya know?
So… there has been much unrest and disturbance in the US and globally; many atrocities. What are some subjects of this record?
I've come to be of the opinion that all the unrest and violence we're witnessing is nothing new, and even that the degree of these atrocities was arguably worse in the past than it is now--which some will argue is proof that we're evolving as a species for the better. Maybe so, but I do think it is very possible we are living in The Last Good Age, where life is good enough for many of us, but consequently a living hell for even more of us. I am personally skeptical about our ability as a species, collectively, to transcend all this suffering we're in. People may acknowledge their suffering, and sometimes the suffering of others, quite often, but rarely will they take it upon themselves to make a step towards changing anything. In a world with an exploding human population, I don't see any economic system or system of government as being capable of being able to fully mitigate the sheer force of numbers we're going to be dealing with in the next fifty years. That's a big umbrella of conversation to open up, as it deals with an innumerable amount of smaller topics that in and of themselves often feel hopeless. I mean we could easily spend all day talking about race and class disparity and the way it relates to police brutality and government corruption, or we could spend two days talking about the sheer volume of resources wasted on raising livestock to feed people and all the environmental consequences of doing so, and in the end I have no doubts we'd all feel hopeless, as I most often do, yet most people would literally blink, shrug their shoulders, and not consider doing anything different in their daily lives. There's a viral article going around about how Earth just passed the carbon tipping point. It's funny, for lack of a better word, to see meat eaters I know blaming humanity for contributing to the planet's slow suffocation. LOL, right? In some ways all the change that needs to happen to save our species in the next 100 years revolves around entire cultures embracing scientific data in an objective way, and then rationally implementing wide scale behavior change. I don't know about you, but I'm not getting my hopes up. I'll do my best to strive for change, and I am hoping for the best, but I am totally prepared for the worst. That's pretty much what this new record is: an exercise in disillusionment, knowing to expect the worst from human creation. Every song is some variation of that concept.
Has anything changed in your opinions or perspective since Graven Images? (I see a song title “I Repent”)
I'm really glad you mentioned "I Repent", as I think it is one of the funniest Die Young songs I have ever written, yet no one has even brought it up to me. (back to what I said about the futility of engaging people). It is told from the perspective of the Old Testament God--the one of Abraham or Moses that the world's major monotheistic religions are based on--looking down on his creation, human beings specifically, and all the mess we've made--and it makes God say "Whoops." He repents for being so lonely and humanly fallible for feeling the need to create us, and at last he wishes he'd never done it.
As for my views changing, I would say yes, they have, but perhaps not in the way I think you are suggesting. In 2007, I was naive enough to have big expectations for the release of the Graven Images record. I spent two years leading up to that album traveling with Die Young, reading, conversing, and learning about the world and different cultures, and struggles around the world every step of the way. It was my intention then to put out music that was tied to information that may help generate the kinds of conversations in our community that could inspire more of us to become activists in some way or another--to collectively work for big changes in the world. To make a long story short, that naive dream of mine was obviously crushed. The 2008 EP, Loss, was a major reflection of that. Very few people cared about Graven Images despite it being held up as a solid record by a few people. Of course, for those who do care about it and who have connected with us because of it, I am very grateful, but in the big picture, no one cares about anything other than their own instinctual drive to survive--by whatever means, and most people can't be bothered to talk about personal responsibility and behavior change. For me, the situation is so hopeless because I can't even engage my peers about vital topics effectively. In fairness, maybe that is my own personal shortcoming--being an intolerable, idealistic asshole. I don't know. At any rate, everyone just wants you to give the player a pass while we all hate the game instead. Because of things like this, I've developed the view that life, for the most part, and human consciousness particularly, is a mistake--that we as people are mistakes, and that suffering is the crux of our problem which we have no realistic coping mechanism for. Religions fail in this regard and often lead us into more violence. Governments can't regulate or enforce the kinds of policies that will alleviate our suffering. There is no adequate infrastructure anywhere, except for a few remote places of unusually low population density, that can provide the education or cultural insulation necessary for most people to adequately cope with the ubiquitous problems posed by the human condition. I don't kill myself because, truly, my own life could be a LOT worse, and I do have things I want to live for, endeavors that I am lucky enough to pursue, but in some attempt to consider the suffering of other people I got a vasectomy 3 and a half years ago. At the very least, I am not going to subject anyone else who isn't already here to this mess we're in.
It's funny, we were filming the last scenes of our upcoming music video for the song "God's Promises" in the Texas hill country last weekend, and the five year old actor, Caulder, who played Isaac was sitting on some rocks with the rest of us in between filming some scenes and he started joking about how all the rocks in the state park we were in are made of dinosaur poop, that people are also made of dinosaur poop, and he started laughing hysterically as a five year old does when talking about poop. Then he went one further, saying that we, people, eat dinosaur poop because everything in the world is made of dinosaur poop, and I couldn't hold back my laughter anymore--such astute philosophically pessimistic observations from a five year old. See, it is even obvious to him, a five year old, that we're all the complicated evolved remnants of dinosaur poop. Prophetic and profound, young man. Your elders spend their entire adult lives trying to deny these basic grim realities which you so eloquently illustrated. I'm personally glad he was born so we could share that endearing and humorous moment together, but the thing with kids is that they grow up, and then the curse of consciousness either pains them til death, or they suppress it and add to the problems at hand, as most people do.
More than anything, the way my views have changed in the last nine years since Graven Images, is that I've just lost a lot more faith in humanity at large. I didn't really think that was possible, but wow, apparently it was.
One thing I loved about your EPs and Graven Images, is the lyrics sheet and especially the narrative paragraphs explaining the songs. I like how you also approach specific subjects and not just “the world sucks”. What does it mean to you to have this platform (hardcore) to vent your ideas?
As much as I sound like a whiny pessimist in this interview so far, and often in other interviews too, I can't deny that I still want to work with those around me towards some kind of positive change. It's not enough to simply say that things suck in some capacity or another. I mean, duh. Nearly everyone feels that way. Life is hard, especially conscious life, and like I said, suffering is the crux of our problem, so I generally feel that if we can prevent some suffering in the world, then we are making the world and life better. If we can prevent women in our communities from being raped, coerced, or manipulated by predator guys, then that is a good thing worth working toward, even if we can't prevent it every time. If we can educate other people to know that eating meat is not necessary for human health, that most often not eating meat will benefit human health and simultaneously help us conserve environmental resources, then that is a great thing we should do, even if hordes of contrarians never listen to our message. These are just a couple examples of why talking about issues can be important in the music scene--doing so always creates the potential to make things better for someone, somewhere. To have this platform to speak about these kinds of things is one sliver hope that I do hold dearly, because it does mean that the potential to transcend ideas into action is always there. That is something I directly learned from the hardcore scene in the 90s and I will always be thankful for that.
I love the cover image – I always like working with mold or rust – natural decay. Can you tell me how it relates to the record?
Thanks for the compliment and thanks for asking. There are concepts behind it that I figure most people won't care about, or even spend two seconds contemplating, so at the very least I wanted to capture a feeling that represents the feelings of the record well. In some ways, I think the cover looks like irritated skin peeling to reveal bloody tissue. I wanted it to feel unsettling and bloody to look at. In real life it is an image of peeling paint on a wall transposed over a a piece of wood, with the image of a statue of Abraham about to cut his son Isaac's throat with a knife. The image of that is not quite clear on the cover, but when people get the record and open the packaging up they see that the picture on the inside of the insert is the clear image of Abraham ready to cut Isaac's throat. It is a play on the ideas of the layered illusions that make up conscious human reality. In a direct way, people pay observance to a sadistic story like the one of Abraham being willing to kill his own son because God asked him to because it gives them a sense of purpose and duty in their lives, and so it is widely perceived to to a noble story of dedication to a higher power, of trust in God. It's an issue of authority and how we submit to it, really. Of course, in the Old Testament, Koran, and Torah, Isaac is spared by the voice of God at the last possible second, and he and his father sacrificially slaughter a lamb instead. On a wider scale, this story is one of many of the myths that our species clings to to try to fabricate some kind of meaning in our lives, because ultimately what we're all scared of at the end of the day is that we're going to die, and we know it. It pains us to think think we're on this rock spiraling tens of thousands of miles per hour through a universe that is too vast for us to truly understand, and ultimately this whole human drama is a pitiful cosmic charade signifying nothing--that maybe all our virtues of patriotism and piety and family and self-hood are fabrications that amount to nothing all the same, and there is no redemption for our suffering at the end of this life. And then, when we've seen through it all to that point of dreadful clairvoyance, what do we make of it, and how do we proceed in a constructive and ethical way? Ultimately, that's what I aimed to explore with No Illusions.
The April release date has been delayed until July 17th, 2017. And Metal Blade does not want the music played or really even discussed. All I will say is that it moves like fire.
