Northern Californian based band, dredg, transcends any preconceived music genre or label. Dredg consists of singer /guitarist Gavin Hayes, lead guitarist Mark Engles, bassist/keyboardist Drew Roulette and drummer/keyboardist Dino Campanella. Their music incorporates music, art, philosophy and subconscious, thought provoking lyrics in a cutting edge, avant- garde musical fashion. On July 30,2009, singer Gavin Hayes and guitarist Mark Engles sit down at their New York, Warner Music Group’s ILG record label office for an interview with music journalist, Ingrid Praniuk for an interview.

Ingrid: For new listeners, who have yet to explore your music, explain how dredg got started?

Mark: As simple as 4 kids in school that met each and had common music tastes and started playing together, started playing cover songs at the age of 14, 15 year old and started writing our own material and it went from there.

Ingrid: What is the significance of the title of your newest release: “The Pariah, the Parrot, The Delusion”?

Gavin: it was originally the first song on the record, which you know it is pretty relevent to that track but it kinda encompassed the whole idea of the record. We really liked the title and I explained it as the parrot symbolizes like a flock, a group of followers basically a contrast to a pariah and delusion is kind of suffering a bit of fanaticism that belief can create.

Ingrid: Your music has an interdisciplinary, artistic, multifaceted approach where music, art and philosophy are fused and integrated with one another. Where did this concept come from?

Mark: it is just the way when we write music, we want to be non linear. And want to have a lot of dimension whether it be, conceptually or it actually present itself in audio or actual sound either way we want complexity and layers. I think it is more self-conscious and it is just kind of what we have always done. I don’t think it is set up. That description is something I would have never come up with; that was amazing! That is like we don’t sit around and discuss it in that sense like we just did but that is what comes up and we create.

Gavin: A lot of it too is that we all contribute to the writing so you four different people’s influences and it kind of gel into one cohesive idea. So a lot of those “layers “ kind of derive from that.

Ingrid: And some of you guys come from an artistic background or philosophy background.

Gavin: I pretty much met Drew through art classes. Even since I was a little kid I was drawing things and I was doing that well before music. But that has been teetered off lately as music has taken over.

Ingrid: As stated in the “For Immediate Press Release”, “The Pariah, the Parrot, The Delusion” was inspired in part by Salman Rushdie’s essay “Imagine There's No Heaven: A Letter to the 6 Billionth Citizen. Salman Rushdie’s writings also influenced U2 ‘s “MOFO” and played an intricate role in their lyrics to “ The Ground Beneath Her Feet”. How did you come across his essay?

Mark: I read it in a book called “The Portable Atheist “ which is a Christopher Hitchens compilation book. It has writing of various agnostic literature and atheist literature going way back thousands of years to pre Nietzsche. I loved the essay and I thought it fit closely to what Gavin was writing and all of Gavin’s lyrics for this album. So I presented it to him and said “what would you think about kind of loosely basing mainly the art work in the way visually it is presented and loosely tie it together with that essay?” Luckily, Gavin liked it and went with that.

Ingrid: To what degree and capacity has this essay influence the concept of your latest work?


Mark: It was more of like a parallel.
Gavin: Yeah more like an inspiration. It was kind of along those lines and his idea and concept of writing of some unborn person and telling them what to expect. I mean it was more of an inspiration for the rest of the writing and as Mark said the artwork is directly related to that idea and concept.

Ingrid: So it wasn’t like you read the essay and this song came out of it.

Mark: No I mean the essay is almost like a poignant, focused piece and kind of ties up what I think Gavin and I have been reading a lot in the last 2 or 3 years. You can take all the different full-length books and put it together. That essay is a very focused way to kinda describe intellectually what maybe 5 different books were saying. That's what I liked about it. It was concise and focused.

Ingrid: Your past releases have been viewed as concept albums.
Is “The Pariah, the Parrot, The Delusion” also a concept album?


Gavin: Yeah as we said, it is more of an inspired by that essay. We did not want to turn this record into a concept record. I think that the fear of some unnecessary pressures on the record….

Mark: The fear of having a gimmick, you know, too, like having a title of the word “concept record” is craziness and maybe even overused. But we love when records have themes and have a feeling. That is what we set out to do instead of just having twelve songs on an album that don’t tie together.

Ingrid: How much of your lyrics come from direct personal experience or observations of others?


Gavin: A lot of them come from conversations that I’ve had and taken from a lot of different sources. I even think from stand up comedy play a role and people like George Carlin that are beyond comedians. I don’t know; a lot of different things like movies, defiantly experiences and so on. I think most of my lyrics are written from my perspective. I don’t really play that third person role that often.

Ingrid: On your song “Information”, at the bridge of the song, the lyrics shift to 3rd person (he woke next to her…), which is unique.

Gavin: It’s a right turn

Ingrid: Yeah, it is not only a musically bridge but also a lyrical bridge which most songwriters don’t usually do that. I was really inspired by that.

Gavin: There is actually a second half to that and it never made it in the cut. But I feel that bridge was really relative to the first song and other pieces of the record. Within the song is kind of a right turn but within the record it makes sense, to me at least.

Ingrid: What approach does dredg take in songwriting? Are there main writers in the band or does everyone just merge together and play off of each other?


Mark: it is a little of both. A lot of times it is us four all in a room and we are kind of go at it and record everything. Then we go back afterwards and listen to what deserves to be worked on. Other times someone brings in something that is just them working at it at home. Then we all add our bits to it. We are all very involved. Gavin writes all the lyrics; those are all him. But musically, it’s all of us together kind of a jam situation or people show each other their personal workings at home and maybe can use little embellishment for the other members to take it to another level.

Ingrid: As for the lyrics, do you have them prewritten?

Gavin: Usually, yeah. Because we are all in a room together it is nice to have it. I usually bring in my lyric books or now I even use my phone even. I have stuff in there.
It helps to guide melodies but not always. Sometimes I veer away from them just not to be controlled, I guess, by syllables and sounds.

Ingrid: What musical advice would you give to anyone who is just starting out in a band?


Mark: Steal from as many influences as you can. Everyone falls in love with certain influences, certain other bands or other artists. I say “don’t take too heavily from one influence. Try to spread out your influence as much as you can.

Ingrid: Last question: Which of the following do you foresee dredg doing in the future?

A) Having a multimedia art gallery expo of paintings, music, film and spoke word

Mark: I like that.

B) Running away and joining a new kind of circus which uses your art and music as part of their 3 ring act.

C) Film scoring cartoons and more films

D) __________(Your own idea)

E) All of the above

Mark: I like “c)” a lot. I would love to score films the rest of my life if I could. But I also like “a)”. I like the multi media art gallery. But speaking personally, I like would pick scoring of films. Gavin, what do you think?

Gavin: I think scoring of film is cool. I love to be behind the scenes in a way because I am not really in the whole face part of music. Writing for other musicians would be really cool too, something along those lines. You are still creating but not really having to tour and be the face person. That sounds appealing.

Mark: “d)”- dredg becomes the first band to play on the moon. That would be our own idea.

Ingrid: So would you be painting, as well, on the moon?

Mark: Drew might be.

Gavin: Defiantly have a huge bag of drugs with me; that is for sure! (Laughing)

Ingrid: The whole gravity factor!

Gavin: You probably won’t need them out there but might as well have them within reach. Yeah, sounds fun!

Ingrid: Thank you gentlemen for your time!

Gavin: Thanks!

Mark: thanks a lot!

	Ingrid Praniuk Music journalist/photographer Vocal Specialist instructor http://www.citrusarts.org/music/vm/vmbios.html#ipraniuk