The following interview was conducted via email between music journalist Lisa Heffernan and Dan Sheehan back in March of 2008 as part of Heffernan's research for the June 2008 article on The Dan Sheehan Conspiracy in Long Island Pulse. Heffernan is a freelance writer who has written for numerous publications including Rolling Stone.
Who is in The Dan Sheehan Conspiracy right now? The CD band and the
live band? Does ex-Morrissey skinsman Spencer Cobrin share drumming duties with
session man Roi Star?
Originally, this album was going to be a six-song EP, featuring only the six songs that Spencer Cobrin drums on. However, several things, from financial to personal to technical stalled the completion of the EP long enough that by the time it was nearly done, I had written several more songs that I wanted to get out and I also had several strong songs from my backlog that had never been recorded, and I always liked the idea of full albums over EPs anyway so I decided to record these songs and extend the EP into a full album. At that point, however, Spencer Cobrin was back in England where he lives for about half the year so I did a search for other drummers and was contacted by Roi Star and really liked his demo, so he got to play on the other 7 songs with drums ("Before You Wake," of course, has no drums).
When it came time to play live, Spencer was again in England and Roi was busy with his own projects, so I called in an old friend who goes by the name of Bobby "King Baby" (for top-secret, ultra-conspiracy type reasons!) to play the first live show in 2007 and he worked out so well he's been the drummer ever since. We had a touring bassist until recently who plays with other bands so we are currently auditioning bassists for our upcoming shows.
Do you still play everything from bass to slide whistle and ably tackle most of the engineering and production work (a few guest engineers on the new CD include ex-Toadies guitarist Darrel Herbert)?
On the album I played everything but the drums, which mostly means guitar, bass and vocals but also some synth and some tin whistle and slide whistle. Live I only play guitar and sing. I did self-produce the album and did most of the engineering, but I did bring in engineer/Toadies guitarist Darrel Herbert at one point to bring his input into the recording process. We worked out of a studio in Wayne, NJ called Granite Alps, and he helped a great deal with Spencer's drum sound and some of my acoustic guitar parts. I did the final mixes at my 2 project studios, where I also did much of the recording.
What is your Long Island connection? Were you born in LI and/or do
you live there now? If so, what parts? Where do you like to play there?
I was born at North Shore Hospital in Manhasset and lived in Douglaston, Queens
for the first year of my life, then lived in Garden City (Nassau County) for
most of my childhood and some of my adulthood. I currently live in East Elmhurst,
Queens, and the band rehearses in Garden City Park as the other guys live in
Garden City and Lindenhurst (Suffolk). Our shows thus far have been mostly on
Long Island, and we work with 4 different promoters who book shows in Suffolk,
Nassau and Queens. Our favorite places we've played on the island have been
The Zebra Club in Copiague and Molly Bloom's II in Amityville, and we're psyched
to be playing some new venues on the island in the upcoming months. We really
enjoyed being part of the Band Battle Against Cystic Fibrosis at Mr. Beery's
in February, and we also enjoy playing live on the air at any of the local radio
stations!
I know you lived in Boston with Banter. Is that where you got your
musical start?
I would say I got my musical start playing clarinet for my elementary school
band in Garden City, but professionally I got my start playing in Boston where
I formed the group Banter. I did have a fledgling band in New York City before
that but my first professional gigs were with Banter. Boston's a great place
to start out as it has a very accessible music scene, but you can only go so
far there and you have to rebuild your fanbase constantly since it's such a
college town and people graduate and leave, so in 2002 I relocated the band
to New York and have been back ever since.
What bands or musicians made you want to play music?
Initially The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Who, then later bands like Pearl Jam
and the Screaming Trees.
Who do you like to play live or tour with? Any stories?
One Long Islander we like to play with is local fave Randy Jackson (of Zebra)
whom we're opening for on April 5th at The End Zone in Whitestone. He pulled
a nice one the last time we opened for him by showing up without his guitar!
We also really enjoyed a recent show where we followed the Uniondale-based band
The Headie Berrie who are great musicans and great guys.
Some interesting stories: My old band Banter was originally called Rogues Gallery.
When we were playing a show in MA, a guy from ANOTHER band also called Rogues
Gallery happened to be walking by the club and saw our name on the marquee and
thus bought a ticket, came in, threatened to sue us if we didn't immediately
change our name that second and then proceeded to throw a series of mugs, pitchers,
and stools at me during the set! I was oblivious to all this since I was in
my onstage, lost-in-the-music daze, but apparently for the people at the show
it was quite a site (for more details, check out my video interview with Tim
from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones on YouTube and the dansheehan.net site).
At another show, we were playing on a bill consisting entirely of bands that
we were friends with. One of the bands, called Hip Tanaka, set themselves up
facing BACKWARDS from the audience for some strange reason. I thought this was
pretty funny so I went to the back of the stage to cheer them on from what would
be the front, and their keyboard player came over and started doing a silly
dance next to me. The club manager then showed up and thought we were both crazed
fans who'd rushed the stage and came over and angrily threw us both out of the
club until someone convinced him we were musicians on the bill!
Recently, what keeps happening is that a band or an event that we're supposed
to be opening for keeps not showing up to the the club late, and we keep finding
ourselves with unplanned extra set time that we've been filling partially with
cover songs that we've never before rehearsed, which is always interesting!
There are other stories, but they are better left unreported, like the drummer from Banter getting assaulted by the singer from an opening act, or various drunk people doing very foolish things at shows, but I'm sure Long Island Pulse readers don't want to read about such sordid things!
What made you want to go solo? When did you leave the band (Banter)?
Banter was together for several years, and pretty much ran its natural course with the members' lives being pulled in different directions. Although I was the main songwriter in that band, there was a fair amount of democracy in terms of what type of material we'd play, and it was a bit restrictive, so when Banter ran its course I had a backlog of material that the band never recorded or never played, and I had a lot of new songs. Bands tend to want to conform to a specific image or formula, and I wanted to do an album that was more stylistically and creatively varied, showing the range of material that one musician might create without having to worry about the stylistic restraints of a band and its image. There are plusses and minuses to being solo and to being part of a democracy, and for my next album I do want to do somethiing more collaborative, but it was quite freeing to be so at the helm for this album.
Who would you really like to tour with?
I would really like to tour with the Meat Puppets, who've made a comeback this past year and have been putting on some really great shows and are very influential to me. I've been in touch with their booking agent so we'll see. I'd also love to tour with the Gutter Twins, the new band featuring Mark Lanegan of the Screaming Trees. I'll take the Smashing Pumpkins or Pearl Jam, too, if anyone has them to offer up and will gladly open for any Led Zeppelin reunion tour that might materialize! I'd also say Rush, but they don't bother with opening bands these days! I'd love to open for Zebra here on the Island some time, having opened for Randy.
How do you describe your sound?
Umm, prog grunge? People say it's alternative rock but it has influences from
a lot of rock genres from folk-rock to prog rock to pop. I think of the album
as a modern-day (Beatles) White Album or Led Zeppelin III just because of the
range of songs it has.
Who do you listen to? Modern and classic?
I listen to lots of obvious classic rock bands like the aforementioned Beatles,
Zeppelin and Who as well as Cream, The Kinks, and many others, lots of 90s bands
like Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees,
Meat Puppets, some obscure midwest 80s bands like Trip Shakespeare and The Rhythm
Corps. Honestly, I don't listen to much of the new bands on the radio these
days except for bands consisting of members of old bands, like Audioslave, and
even they're already broken up and thus out of date. My girlfriend critcizes
me for not listening to enough non-rock stuff but actually I'm pretty well versed
in lots of forms of music, but I do listen mostly to rock.
Has your new CD had any radio play? Which stations?
Yes! Our first play was on WBAB's "Homegrown" in January and since
then we've received airplay at around 200 stations across the country. We've
gotten a lot of play and chart placements at stations from Washington state
to New Hampshire to Louisiana. Locally we've been played on a lot of college
stations such as WUSB (Stony Brook), WSJU (St. Johns), WNYU (NYU, obviously!)
and a few others. We've also gotten airplay on some great internet radio shows
on Live 365 such as Dan Herman's Radio Crysal Blue, based out of Brooklyn, and
M3 Radio based out of the city.
What's the first single?
There's no official single, especially as college radio likes to play whatever
they feel like, but we've kind of pushed "See Kay" as being one of
the more instantly accessible tunes and it was in fact the first song played
on WBAB.
NOTE: for commercial radio, "See Kay" and "The Valley" were
chosen as singles.
Do you think you have more of a fan-base in other parts of
the U.S.?
Well I certainly have a fanbase in Boston since I lived and played there for
several years, and the radio play seems to be getting us new fans in places
like Worcester, MA, New Hampshire, Maryland, Lousiana, Tennessee, Idaho, Washington,
and Michigan to name a few places off the top of my head. There's also random
fans in other countries who stumbled upon us thanks to the internet. I guess
when we tour we'll see if we have more fans in any of these places. I'd love
to take all the fans from around the world and make them live in one place.
It would make things a lot easier, but I guess we can't count on that working!
What inspires your lyrics? You seem to write about everything
from war and love to fame, alienation and boredom. What are your favorite topics?
Did I write about fame? Certainly not from personal experience, although people
used to think I was the singer from Nickelback!
I thought 'See Kay' may have been about fame?
Well, actually it's kind of about the price of fame, since it's about the demise of Cris Kirkwood after being taken down by the rock n' roll lifestyle, so good insight!
There's no real favorite topic, it's just whatever occurs to me at the time. For a while, I wrote a lot about relationships gone bad, but that gets old after a while (both writing about it and living through it!) and I haven't been experiencing that lately. If the music is written first then I tend to write more ethereal lyrics, that are more about imagery than specific, concrete things, like with "The Valley" or "Comatose." "Collateral Damage," which seems popular at radio, is my reaction to how lots of Americans tend to focus only on how many American troops have gotten killed in the war with seemingly little concern for the many Iraqis, including children, that have been killed in the war or the brave work of all the humanitarian workers there and in other places. Obviously, people should be concerned about our troops but I don't see why all the others that are affected should be so overlooked. "See Kay," is about the events that occurred when Cris Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets was addicted to drugs a few years back, based on an article I read about his travails. "Go Outside" was inspired by people I know who live in a fantasy world, be it by playing too much Dungeons & Dragons or drinking too much alchohol, instead of facing reality. "If I Had the Time" is a song about hatred, and how it's a waste of time and energy, which is a life lesson I learned a few years back. "Rock Song" is a response to the Paul Simon song "I Am a Rock." "Before You Wake" is a song about being in the studio, away from home a lot while making the album and the balancing act between pursuing my art and spending tiime at home with loved ones. I think that gives a pretty good idea of what types of things go on in my hyperactive mind!
Cool, also do people often compare your voice and/or your sound to others? Who do you think you sound like? (I thought I heard a little Blue Oyster Cult music sound on some tunes)
I don't know much BOC other than their biggest hits, but I respect them and accept the comparison, esp. as they're Long Island idols. I'd say it's kind of The Who meets the Screaming Trees, or meets Pearl Jam if the Trees aren't well known enough, with a little Rush thrown in, maybe a bit like Live. People have said weird things from Jethro Tull to the Shins. Vocally I've been compared to Kevin Griffin of Better Than Ezra and some other people but I can't remember who! Journalists usually compare me to obscure acts that even I've never heard of!
Did your music or band ever get nominated for and/or win any awards local or otherwise (including radio station play/voting)?
The Dan Sheehan Conspiracy was a CMJ Top 5 add at 3 radio stations, KSLU in Hammond, LA, WKNU in Keene, New Hampshire, and KBSU in Boise, ID. Also, we were in top 30 chart placements at 7 FM stations scattered across the States (see http://dansheehan.net for particulars).
Banter had 2 "song of the month" honors in The Noise magazine (Boston), and these songs both were in the top 20 songs of the year. I suppose a "Homegrown" spot on WBAB is in some ways an "award." Both acts have had numerous chart placements on the websites mp3.com, soundclick.com, playgroundz.net and vitaminic.fr (in France)
Do you find yourself playing some more mellow tunes as a solo artist versus when you are part of a band?
Yes, definitely, when playing solo or duo shows it changes the song selection,
leaning towards more mellow songs, or at least songs that better translate to
acoustic guitar. However, in those situations I feel a greater mandate to fill
out the sound and often like to kind of "wail out" as a solo, acoustic
person. Sometimes playing mellow stuff works better when there's more people
to fill out the sound.
I was referring to recording more mellow tunes in the Conspiracy versus
in a band like Banter....
Ah, yes. BANTER being a democracy, despite me writing 90% of the songs, wouldn't have done "Before You Wake," and in fact refused to do "Patterns of the Rain," because there was a concept of keeping everything within certain parameters. Being solo, those lines disappear, and I can do pretty much whatever I want and thus made an album with both heavy and mellow tunes, although you'll notice most of the rockers are stacked on side one. Banter would have done, and in fact did play, some of the more rocking songs on this album.
I was noticing you write a lot about Heaven, hell, valleys, the maker and enlightenment- are you a spiritual person, or an atheist? Are you an anarchist?
I'm not an anarchist, in fact i think government should do a lot more. Also not an atheist - I am a questioner. I question why things are the way they are, I'm puzzled by why a creator would create such a crazy place. Isee a lot of people trying to make sense of things and I think that's mainly what I'm commenting on in these lyrics. I question whether it's best to seek profound meaning in things, or to just sit back and try to enjoy the ride, but in the end I can't resist seeking profound meaning in things only to arrive at more questions than answers!
WANT MORE?
Read the article based on this interview here.
See a video of an older interview with Dan here.