There are very few bands that ever "make it." There are even fewer who are able sustain a career in the industry, and even more difficult to not give in to the latest trends in order to stay in the limelight a little while longer. But what's most difficult of all, perhaps, is the ability to create music that truly touches and moves people. Bands who do this may not reach the top of the Billboard charts, they don't win Grammys or VMAs (as if winning one is validation for anything these days), but ask any fan of these bands, and they'll chomp at the bit to tell you how much the band has meant to them. If you've ignored the picture above and the title of this post, now's probably a good time to tell you that, for me, The Dangerous Summer are building their case as one of those kind of bands. And Keep Calm and Carry On was lucky enough to sit down with vocalist/bassist AJ Perdomo and guitarist Cody Payne before they played at the College of New Jersey to talk about where the band is at, where they're going, and where they've come from.
Keep Calm: You're listening to 91.3FM WTSR, on the campus of The College of New Jersey, this is Donald Wagenblast, host of Keep Calm and Carry On, and right now, I'm with AJ Perdomo and Cody Payne from The Dangerous Summer, right before their CUBRat show . Guys, how are you doing today?
AJ Perdomo: Doing good, doing good. Came here from Maryland, and we're having a good time.
KC: That's great to hear. You guys have had a really busy 2012, tour-wise. You guys have been all over the globe: Australia, England, how's that been for you?
AJP: It's been awesome, this has been one of our big years. It's the first year we got to Australia. We did Warped Tour last year, so this was kind of the "next year," the follow-up. Honestly, we had a busy year. We're kind of winding down, stopping to do the new album. We've got to stop touring at some point to start working on it. We're writing the new album, and just playing a few shows. This was an "off-show" that we came up here to do real quick.
KC: Are you guys getting tired at all?
AJP: No, we'll never get tired of it.
Cody Payne: I'd prefer to be on tour, honestly.
KC: Really?
CP: Yeah. Studio time is when I get the most stressed out.
KC: You guys were talking about the new album. For a lot of people, I think the big question whenever you guys go in or out of the studio, is Tyler Minsberg's role. He's been in and out of school. What do you guys consider his role in the band to be right now?
CP: I mean, we leave the doors open. We don't consider him an ex-member. If he was ever like, "Alright, let's go on tour," for sure, he would be the drummer. But we respect the fact that he has other things to do, school, and a job.
AJP: He's done a few tours since he's had to go back.
KC: He did Warped Tour with you guys, I believe, right?
AJP: Yeah, he does whatever he can do. We still chill with him whenever, you know. It's nothing bad. Everyone thinks that.
KC: That's usually the pre-conceived notion, that something happened in the band. That's good to hear.
AJP: Oh yeah, definitely.
KC: You guys posted on your Facebook page a couple of weeks ago a sort of "Progress Report," where you guys detailed your tours upcoming, your releases, and other things you were planning on. What was the significance of doing that? We don't really see that from a lot of bands, giving these full-fledged reports.
CP: I just think sometimes people start wondering, and they're like, "Is this band still together? They haven't played a show in a while, they haven't posted anything." I think the more you stay consistent and have something for people to get stoked about. It's just a good thing to keep the progress there, and keep people talking and interested.
AJP: People always wonder what we're doing. We're just writing, and playing shows.
CP: And we used to be a lot worse about updating, and posting, and doing videos, and all of that, so we're trying to get more with the fans.
KC: In that "Progress Report," you talked about--and AJ, you had just mentioned it as well, that you guys are working on a new album. Where are we in the stages of that?
CP: Early, pretty much.
AJP: Yeah, early. Lots of ideas. We just got to start pumping it out. We're just finally stopping touring. Our headlining tour stopped, like, a month ago. This is just, you know, we're back here, doing a few shows until our tour in December. We're just writing, and filling in spots with shows here and there.
KC: You also touched on the release of your upcoming DVD that's seen its share of backtracks. What's the status of that?
CP: It's been filmed. We had our friend Josh come out for the whole summer. He filmed every show, and we had, like, five terabytes full of video. Right now, it's just a ton of video to go through.
AJP: Yeah, so he's making right now. It's being put together, it's just a slow process.
CP: We're hoping sometime this year, but I really have no idea. It's up to him, and our label.
KC: So what can we expect from that? Will it be live performances?
CP: Honestly, I don't know. There's...everything.
AJP: Pretty much everything on our tour. We've even had footage from the past two years that we managed to have. At one point, stuff got stolen, and we lost a lot. We had a bunch, still. We just want to release, "What is The Dangerous Summer?" We don't know what it's going to look like yet, it's still in the editing stages. So we'll see.
KC: Are you scared at the idea of juggling the finishing of the DVD with writing your new album? Have you been able to separate the two?
AJP: We don't really do anything now, we did our part. We did a bunch of interviews, we contributed, and we did as much as we could. Now it's in the making, you know? We're not the ones making it, we have our director.
CP: Yeah, we'll see some rough edits, make some critiques on it, and send it back and forth.
KC: All of this is in support of your album War Paint. It turned a year old this summer. Looking back on it now, how do you think War Paint has been received, overall?
AJP: Good. I'm happy. Actually, as time goes on, I feel like people are turning to that album more than Reach for the Sun. Not that I think Reach for the Sun deserves any less credit, but people are picking their favorites. Lots of people are actually going to War Paint and saying, "this is the album I relate to." We've been playing it on tour, and it feels good to finally play the songs. We've done a whole touring cycle out of that album. People have been singing along, having a great time.
KC: How would guys compare the recording and the writing process of War Paint to recording and writing Reach for the Sun?
CP: I'd say, recording-wise, I think the sound of War Paint is a lot better. There's still songs off of Reach for the Sun, that it kind of surprises me that we wrote that at that time in our life, but I like them both equally.
AJP: Yeah, I think the one thing that's different about it is with Reach for the Sun, we were a new band. Now, it's like, we were a little more established, and writing songs for an audience, finally. I think that was a lot different. It was just stressful to have an album out and under your belt. I think the third album will be easier than both of them, because we've reached past a certain point. We're a little bit better at writing.
KC: You said you guys were a new band, I think a lot of the appeal of War Paint was how you guys were going to back up Reach for the Sun. It was an album that you guys performed front to back on a tour; did either of you feel any pressure going into that album?
AJP: Oh, yeah.
CP: Oh, tons. I mean, I feel pressure even this time around. Any time something is well-received, it's like, your next thing has to at least match that, or else it's a little disappointing.
AJP: I always think the band has to make their newest album the best album. I think it's always going to be, you know, scared to death of not living up to that.
KC: And do you think you guys did that?
AJP: Yeah. I like it. I like it a lot, so I'm happy. It's up to the fans, really.
KC: I was listening through War Paint the other day, and, compared to Reach for the Sun, there were a couple of songs on Reach for the Sun that had profanity, but War Paint was 100% clean. Was that done on purpose?
AJP: Yeah, actually. We made the decision to not use it. I think profanity is a fine thing, it can be used as a good tool, but abuse it, and it's worthless. I think we made the decision to not have any profanity just to open up our sound so anyone can listen to it. I don't know what the next album is going to be like, but we definitely did make a conscious decision on that.
KC: You guys also posted something on Facebook a couple of weeks ago: it's your sixth year as a band. Looking back on that, I'm assuming you started this band in hopes you would get to this point where people would be talking about how you've been a band for six years. How does it feel to finally get to this point where it seems like you're here to stay?
AJP: It definitely feels good. We definitely feel the effects of being an established band. But you're always hungry for more. Back then, we were looking up here, and now we're looking even higher. We're stepping up that ladder. It's hard to look back and say we've made it. We have a lot to accomplish. We have lots going on, and lots that we're looking forward to.
Keep Calm and Carry On would like to thank AJ and Cody for taking the time to sit down with us, and special thanks to Brian and Katie from CUBRat for helping to make this possible. Be sure to check out The Dangerous Summer on Facebook and Twitter to keep track of all they're up to!
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