Dave Debiak Interview (New London Fire/Sleep Station)

Appearing on PatrolMag soon:


Part Three- A Day in the Life.



NM- Day job?

DD- I own a store with my wife and we just kind of go there during the day, we own a line of makeup and massage, waxing stuff like that.

NM- How is that balancing those two things.

-Air Siren goes off in the background-

DD- Apparently like its 1945 and the fucking Germans are about to bomb my town. What the heck is that all about. Let me get somewhere where I can’t hear this.

NM- Is it a battle having to go back and forth between the band and the real world?

DD- I’m always working, I just got out of the studio last night. You talk about a day job, I’m still doing music as a day job. I spent the last two days in a recording studio.

NM- How was the album received? Did people know the stuff?

DD- It was ok, we had people there to see us some nights and were pretty excited, we were just going up there and playing our songs.

NM- Putting time in?

DD- We just thought we’d tour the country and see about the results, and I wasn’t thrilled with the way it came out, it’s hard to get a really good tour you’re happy to be on. We were
on a couple tours that it didn’t make too much sense to be on, even though we adored the people we were on tour with, the other bands. The tour wasn’t planned very good, we lost a ton of money, and I’m not sure how much more of that we can do.


NM- Y’all had your van destroyed?

DD- Yeah, it got destroyed by a tree and we don’t have insurance so we’re out 12,000 dollars. Getting another van, and getting out on the road is posing a huge problem. We’re
sitting around going, “how the hell are we supposed to do this anymore?” You have to have a van and be able to physically get on the road and go. And that’s money we’ll never get back, and that’s gone. We’ll be pretty hard pressed..

NM- What’s the process for you writing a song? Inspiration?

DD- Living, just life, just situations that come up in life that you go through. Sometime you’ll see something on television that touches you, or you’ll be walking down the
street, I don’t know depends where you’re at. There’s times in my life that I’ve been put through situations and then I’ve written from the feeling I’ve had at those times.

NM- How long have you been writing?

DD- I remember my mom had a piano and the first thing I did when I saw it, was run over to it and try to write my own song. I was never interested in learning how to play the piano
right, or technically, I just wanted to utilize it to write my songs.

NM- So a lot of it is telling stories?

DD- No I just wanted to create something. You know an artist wants to create, they want to paint their own painting. They don’t like to just paint what’s there, some of them want to
paint what’s in their head.

NM- So there was never a question of what you wanted to do when you grew up?

DD- Um no. It really took me a long time to figure out what that was. I knew what I was, there’s a part of me that thought I could never do that, I could never go through with that, I
wrote songs for myself and just never thought I would have the opportunity to share it. I never thought I would get to play with a good band.


NM- Music doesn’t seem like a side thing in your life, not just something you’re messing around with. What is music to you?

DD- It’s me. My whole life, it makes me a human being. It’s the only thing I’ve ever had in my whole life, it’s like breathing or drinking water. It’s just part of who you are, your chemistry, makeup. If you can picture yourself doing anything else, then you should do it- period.

NM- What is that you love most about, if music is being you, then what do you love most about being you? What do you love about music?

DD- The only time I’ve ever liked what I saw when I looked in the mirror was when I was holding a guitar, that’s pretty much it.

..
NM- Is it more important for you to put out good art rather art everyone appreciates?

DD- Its nice when someone can appreciate it and can see where you’re coming from, from the beginning of our conversation it’s been obvious that you appreciate music and
that’s a nice feeling because it’s good to know that you can spend all that time creating, and then that someone gets that connection. There’s people out there who I’ve never met, never
see, but could be listening to the record right now, that’s the kind of connection you want to have. Every record represents me personally and represents me as a human being and that’s the most important thing to me, to do something fulfilling and not necessarily have to be accepted by anyone.

NM- My brothers really dig you, just fyi.

DD- Really? Crazy, I hope we don’t weird them out too much with the next record.