Interview with
Christopher
Hall of The Dreaming
Tell me about the final days of Stabbing Westward and the creation
of The Dreaming.
The Dreaming sort of started a few days before the end of Stabbing Westward.
(laughs)
Is that the reason for the breakup?
No, no, no. The winds of change were blowing. Stabbing was trying to write a new record,
and we just left our deal from Koch --- and so everything was just in flux. Some of the guys were thinking about going
more "pop". And a couple of us were thinking the opposite, about going back to our roots. Walter and
I felt that we started the band to be this electronic, dark, heavy thing ... and it sort of mutated into this weird pop/rock
thing. We really didn't feel the connection with the music, so as the other two guys wanted to go farther down that
path - Walter and I were trying to go back the other direction. I think the combination with that combined with the
lack of a record deal freaked everybody out, they just didn't know how to function as an unsigned band. The thought
of playing a show for the joy of playing - it just didn't happen. It was just too hard being a band when we weren't
signed. So I started calling around, I called Johnny --- who had been in Stabbing Westward as a substitute drummer for
a tour that we did. I called him and said that I had a bunch of song ideas that I want to flush out, we talked about
not forming a band because I was working on some songs that weren't going to be Stabbing Westward songs. Then a
few days later everything fell apart for Stabbing Westward.
So
do you guys have songs on your albums that were supposed to be for Stabbing Westward?
"Let
It Burn" and "Beautiful" were both written --- the original song structures were written back in that time
period. I actually presented "Let It Burn" to Stabbing Westward, I played it for them - and I even think we
made a weird demo of it, but it kind of came out really ... kind of Creed like. So I stuck it in my back pocket
for a while, to see what would happen.
What was it like
stepping into a new band?
It took a long time, even now I'm shocked at how long it took.
I kind of had the idea that because I was walking away from a successful band that I would just be able to instantly form
another one and get a record deal...
You guys just now got
signed, didn't you?
We are not signed. We are releasing our album (Etched In Blood - available January 31, 2008!) completely
independently with no deal. We've been offered a couple of deals, but they're terrible -- they didn't make
any sense. The deal that we just walked away from - our lawyer and record label went back and forth for several months,
and all our lawyer was asking to do was to clarify what they promised us in-person --- and to make the contract actually say
that, and they wouldn't do that. They kept on saying that the contract said it, but we had a really good Hollywood
attorney looking at it - and he said that it didn't say that at all and that they were ripping bands off. After
doing the math, and one of the things that The Dreaming did was to sit back and think of what we're trying to accomplish
and how to define success. For us, just being able to tour and get out of Southern California - and to be able to record
our album and have our fans being able to buy them somewhere - that counts as success. I think the days of getting
a major record deal and selling a million copies - it's past for us, it wont happen for us and we're not really
looking for that.
And
you guys are really using MySpace a lot...
MySpace is definitely
were we're doing most of our stuff.
Tell me about
your band mates.
A bunch of fags, all of them. (laughs) I think that's one
of the things that has taken the longest - was putting together the band. We've been through over a dozen people
so far, and at one point we had a solid lineup - and spent about two and a half years - it just felt like it wasn't going
anywhere. And now we finally have the perfect combo, we've got Jinxx - he's played in orchestra - he's this
weird combination of shredder, but also classically trained ... and he's really good at writing. Then we've
got Carlton Bost from Deadsy - I don't want to say he's rythm guitar because they both sort of take turns, but he's
a super solid guitar player and an amazing showman - really talented at keyboards - so he re-introduced the electronic side
to the band we sort of lost. In the early Stabbing (Westward) days, we did a lot of programming - a lot of electronic
stuff - and then Walter really came into his own with "Whither Blister..." and "Darkest Days" - Walter
came in as programmer and did some amazing - amazing stuff. When he started doing that, I just let it go and stopped
doing it - all my knowledge of programming was in the early 90's... and when The Dreaming formed I was looked upon to
be the programmer guy, and I was lost - I didn't have any of the gear and knowhow... so a lot of our songs became punk/rock
or metal simply because I didn't have any of the tools to make them more industrial, but when Carlton came he had this
awesome setup that he had from Deadsy --- he's a weird musician because he's torn between Nine Inch Nails and Skinny
Puppy and Skid Row (laughs). He grew up as an 80's metal guy on guitar, then when he joined Deadsy he got real into
electronic. So he brought that element to the band. Bringing rhythm guitar to the band really changed everything
- earlier we only had one guitar player and all the other bands we were playing with had two or more guitar players as well
as really massive backing tracks. So we sounded smaller than the other bands. Brent Ashley, our bass player, he
saw us play - he watched the show and just didn't feel that our current bass player really fit in with what we were doing,
and that she looked kind of seperate --- she was an awesome bass player, but he just didn't feel like she was part of
the band. I've never met him and he called me out of no where and said, "Hey, I'm a bass player - and you
should hire me" ... "well, we kind of already have a bass player..." he said, "yea, I don't think
that's going to work out... it just doesn't seem like it's going to work out". And sure enough, two
weeks later she left. So it was cool to actually have someone see us live and get it - and want to be a part of it.
And then Johnny is a drummer extraordinaire - played in Econoline Crush, Star 69, Freak Of Nature.
I've been following your career since the first Stabbing Westward CD - you've obviously
changed a lot as a person - how much have you actually changed since Stabbing Westward?
Tons,
I hope. (laughs) I've grown up. I was a kid on the first Stabbing Westward. I've grown as
a person philosophically and artistically, and I think it's important that your music and art reflects it - and you just
don't keep regurgitating the same feelings that you had - that you put your growth into your lyrics, without coming
off as preachy. But things have definitely come full circle for me.
Let's
talk about the new CD.
It's 99.9% done, it was done when I left for Christmas - and then
I heard something I didn't like so I'm going in this afternoon to fix the intro to one song. A lot of it's
been recorded for a year and a half, and twice we felt that we had solid release dates. We're finally releasing
ourselves on February 1st, we're doing a record release party on the 31st of January - and then it's going up for
sale on our website February 1st. And we're aiming to have it on iTunes by February 5th.
Is it going to be an actual CD or another downloadable CD?
No, we're making actual
CD's that you can order with artwork through the website. Then we're heading out on tour February 12th, and
of course we'll be selling the album at our shows.
And
how much are they going to cost?
Ten bucks. That's the other cool thing about not
being on a label, you can sell CD's at a reasonable price. We sell them right at shows where you can get them signed.
Tell me about "Crawl" - that's an amazing song.
It's a good song, huh? I like that song. That was the first song I wrote after Stabbing
(Westward) broke up. I just wrote it on an acoustic guitar, then Jinxx took the original core structure and turned it
into what it is. As soon as the band (stabbing westward) broke up - quite a few months went by before I wrote anything
new. And that was the product of the trauma of the band breaking up, and even though I was trying to not make it a big
deal - I think that subconsciously I was freaking out a little bit. Then "Crawl" came and it was really cathartic
- it was a good release for me because I wasn't able to get anything out for so long - and all of a sudden this song
came real naturally. We tried to turn it into a band song, where the whole band played it - it just didn't feel
right any other way except for just acoustic and vocals. And I'm going to put the whole acoustic version on iTunes
so people can get it.
I noticed that The Dreaming's
rehearsal room has it's own MySpace page - what's up with that?
(laughs) I have no
idea what's up with that - I wish someone would put the energy that they put into that into more productive uses.
(laughs) I think that was Brent, I'm not really sure. That's kind of the cool thing about The Dreaming - we
take our music deadly serious, but at the same time everyone is such a goofball - we have a really good time. I don't
think Stabbing Westward ever had a good time, Walter and I have been best friends since high school, but the rest of the guys
in the band all sort of just came along kind of by accident - we were never friends - we never really hung out that often,
even on the road we all went our seperate ways. In The Dreaming, everyone is really good friends and we travel in a
'91 van that we bought with the help of our fans. It's just fun --- we listen to XM Satellite radio and everyone's
singing on the top of their lungs and laughing their asses off. It's fun, and that's a rare thing that I'm
discovering in bands. All the guys that have joined our band - they feel like they found a home - we were all in bands,
but were miserable before - we were successful, but very unhappy.
And
the best part of The Dreaming's rehearsal room --- they decided to make it bi-sexual.
I'm
pretty sure the room likes girls though - it smells like it does.
What's
the highlight of your career so far?
I think when The Dreaming played in New York with Ill
Niño - I would have to say is the highlight so far. It was totally packed, we've never been out of Southern
California at that point - we were shocked at how many people there knew us and our songs. It was the first time we
felt like a band.
It took you guys a long time to get
out of California to tour.
We kept assuming that we were going to get a record deal, the
first several years that we were together we were ready - then we had a major shift in management. We got a new manager,
who's awesome, but it re-started the entire process ... so all the demo packages that we sent out were re-recorded and
sent out again. We assumed we'd get a record deal and tour with label support ... it took another year and a half
before we realized that it wasn't working.
Has your
search for a major label stopped completely?
We're done, we've wasted so much time
looking for a label - 'cause if you're looking for a label then you can't release your albums. So we're
just releasing our albums and touring - see what happens. We would like to get a distribution deal, it would be nice
to get records into stores 'cause a lot of kids don't feel comfortable or don't have the access to buy stuff online.
We'll start looking for distribution deals later. We had this tour coming up in February with or without an album,
and we figured that if we're going to be on tour then we should probably have a record. When we toured with Ill
Niño our record was pretty much done, but we weren't allowed to sell it because we thought we were signing with
a label. So every time we'd play a show all these people would come up afterwards and ask for a CD, they're
not going to remember you when the CD comes out.
Tell
me something about yourself that people don't know.
I'm really short. I'm
like 5'6", some people think I'm really tall. I like to scuba dive. Carlton watches football every
Sunday, he will not rehearse on Sundays. Jinxx likes to sew renaissance costumes, by hand. Johnny has a ... he'll
kill me if I get this wrong ... a '54 Cadillac that he lowered and totally pimping out.
