Philip caught up with guitarist/vocalist Adam "Smitty" Smith and bass guitarist Alex Conley at Berbati's Pan in Portland, OR on October 9, 2010.

Some bands are great on CD, but disappointing live. Others are great live, but have terrible sounding recordings. Then there are bands like DEADSEA that issue good recordings on CD and vinyl for your listening pleasure, but then absolutely melt your face off with amazing live performances. Hailing from Columbus, OH, DEADSEA formed in 2003 and have since released a demo and two full length albums, with a third soon to be unleashed. They are a band not to be missed live and are worth going out of your way to see.

This interview was conducted by Philip A. Wickstrand with guitarist/vocalist Adam "Smitty" Smith and bass guitarist Alex Conley on October 9, 2010 at Berbati's Pan in Portland, OR.

Phil: First off, how's the tour been so far?

Alex: It's been great. It's our first national tour, we've done six shows, it's three weeks. Been good.

Smitty: Yeah, great rooms, good vibes; a lot of different types of scenes, you know what I mean? It's been a really good, diverse tour already.

Alex: Yeah, for the first time I would say we've had pretty good feedback, so that's been good.

Phil: Do you find that doing an independently booked tour is difficult or do you just take it as it is?

Alex: I pretty much booked the tour, so I started probably four or five months ago. Nathan (Carson) was actually the first person… we basically routed the tour around the fest and so it was definitely a challenge, it's kind of more the DIY type thing, which has worked out great for us. We've had a lot of friends in the Punk scene, Metal scene who book shows and play in bands, so it made it all the easier.

Phil: You guys have a new album coming out soon; tell us a bit about it.

Smitty: Yes, it's still untitled, but it's gonna be two songs, two twenty minute songs, a two track full length and we're going to try to release it on vinyl first and we're real excited about the music. It's definitely the first time that we've really had a chance to arrange the band and really capture that on tape, so I'm very excited about that. It's DEADSEA, you know - it's going to be a little bit of everything, but at the same time, it's a real focused album, so it's going to be really cool, man.

Alex: Yeah, each song is a good counterpoint to the other, you know. It kind of touches on all the bases.

Smitty: Yeah, there's a lot of elements in our music, so this album's a really good way of like… we have the opportunity to do… what we do in this band, if you haven't seen it, is a lot of times, if you've seen us multiple times, you'll notice that we do a lot of improvisational arrangements in our music. It can be small things, it can be really wide, wide changes, but we had a year on the road last year with these two songs that I was talking about, that we can do that with, so we kind of solidified that and now it's a complete record.

Phil: Has the recording process started or…

Smitty: It's pretty much done, it's just we're trying to get it mixed. We had to finance the tour and everything's a give and take.

Alex: Right now, like we've pretty much... like, I run Chrome Leaf records, which we've done all the releases on so far. I mean, it's very, very DIY, just a small-scale label, so that being the case, we want to do a vinyl release, just limited and maybe come out and tour, garner some more different label interest or just whatever, you know?

Smitty: Yeah and that kind of gives us another opportunity - I kind of take care of more of the production, the sound and things 'cause we had to change studios a couple of times for circumstantial reasons and now we're finally at the fuckin' point where we can finish the thing. What's cool about it is that we really only have a few days, which is awesome because we've got to go in and really get great performances and not a lot of fuckin' around. I'm really grateful for that because a lot of records, you nitpick and nitpick at - this hasn't been like that at all even though it's taken us awhile to get it done. But what's going to be cool, it'll sound really fresh when it comes out just 'cause it is. It's probably like six days in a room. [laughs] Just fun.

Phil: For the people who haven't had a chance to hear these songs live, tell us a bit about what specifically they're like.

Smitty: Well, they're very epic. They're journeys - each song is kind of an individual journey. Alex and I both, you know, we write. We have a lot of differences in the way we write, but at the same time, we always love to have this certain type of intensity to each piece or each section in the song and me and Alex are both very into the elements, about referring to the elements in our music in ways, it can be dark or it can be transcendental, they can be astral, anything. That shows up a lot in this music, whereas the last records, they're a little bit more… lyrically, they go a lot of different places and this record's more about, like, we're talking about the elements, we're talking about… it's going to be happening here shortly. [laughter] It's a really unique journey through… the songs really kind of have a way where they envelope. Hopefully, the listener won't seem like it's been twenty minutes.

Alex: We're definitely not the type of band that plays three riffs for twenty minutes. We like to have dynamics and we don't like to get bored, we don't want to see people watching the show and enjoying the music, hopefully enjoying the music, to get bored, so I think in that sense we've kind of been premeditated. We're playing half of one of the tracks tonight and so I guess that being the case, the set we're playing tonight, like we kind of butchered up a bunch of songs, we've got a twenty-five minute song; we're playing about nine minutes of that. We're just trying really to make the most impact with the time we have.

Smitty: It's about taking the listener on a ride, no matter what. So if that means sacrificing certain things, we'll do that - if it's about putting pressure on the listener, we'll do that also.

Phil: Being a small independent band, do you find that illegal downloading has hindered you or actually helped you by bringing more people into knowing who you are?

Alex: I don't know. I mean, honestly, I've been looking at some blogs here and there and I guess I haven't really searched to see if our stuff's out there. I know I saw, I think it was on Cosmic Hearse… he does a blog and we basically played a show with them and we offered it to him saying, "Hey, here's our CD, just if you want, put it out there" and we got a lot of good feedback, people ordered the record, which is cool, too.

Smitty: A lot of people come and order the record, shirts and stuff, so I think it's just like tape trading, man - if somebody really wants to support something, they will and if they don't want to, then they won't. People make a lot bigger deal about it than they used to. Just go out and play live and if you inspire people, they'll support you, man. I mean, I do. We're all fans of music, you know, so if you don't bullshit, it makes it easy, you know?

Alex: I think bands like us are definitely more of a live experience. We enjoy playing and pretty much throw everything we can into it. Hopefully that translates over.

Phil: Where do you see DEADSEA a year from now?

Alex: Hopefully back in Portland. [laughter]

Smitty: Yeah, we really want to do a lot more touring and that's really the focus right now, more so than recording for a lot of reasons. A: obviously, so people will know that we exist and that we love music and that we share that energy with people and also for me, myself, I'd like that to have more of an impact on how we write because I think you learn a lot from your listeners. Not just about what they want exactly, but how they react. Like I was saying earlier about the sacrificing elements and putting pressure on the listener both and I think that you can only progress in that by your listeners and their energy and their intention, so that's what I'm hoping. And I'd love to get on the fuckin' road and stay there for awhile 'cause I'd love to see what this band can do 'cause it's got a lot of potential.

Alex: Yeah, that summed it up all right there.

Phil: Okay, recommend a book for our readers and then explain why you recommend that particular work.

Smitty: Nice!

Alex: Great question. Just off the cuff, I'd say "VALIS" by Philip K. Dick. It's very imaginative, it's very methodical. I'm very into Science Fiction, so it just covers a lot of boundaries. It's a pretty heady book, you know, there's an entire Exegesis, which kind of defines moments in what he's referring to in the book. So that's a start, I guess.

Smitty: I'd say "Journeys Out of the Body" by Robert Monroe. It's the first of the three series of books about astral projection. Basically, astral projection has a lot to do with my life. At least it has - it's had an impact on it in the past and the way that book comes across to an innocent reader, it lets you realize that no matter what kind of life you lead and how normal your life can become, something very natural, very mammoth can come in and make a presence in your life and then it's up to you to where you're going to take that energy, you know what I mean? So that book's had a great impact on me.

Phil: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Alex: Thanks for your time and thanks for your interest. We hope you enjoy the set.

Deadsea

Interviewer: Philip A. Wickstrand

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Formed 2003
Columbus, Ohio  USA
Label: Chrome Leaf Records
Genre: Melodic Doom/Death Metal

CURRENT LINE-UP:

Adam Smith:  Guitars
Alex Conley:  Bass
Jeremy Spears:  Drums

DISCOGRAPHY:

Deadsea (Demo-2003)
Desiderata (2005)
Deadsea (2007)

October 20, 2010

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PHOTOS BY PHIL A. WICKSTRAND

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