Big thanks to Mike Cubillos of Earshot Media for the chance to interview the band, and of course, thanks to Spencer!
My questions are in bold, Spencer responses are normal type.
Please introduce yourself.
My name’s Spencer and I play lead guitar in Daphne Loves Derby
Daphne Loves Derby owes quite a bit of it’s early success to the internet, you guys recorded 3 songs with Casey Bates in a studio as well as 10-15 on your own at home, which do you think was more productive?
I think it really depends on the producer you are working with. In our case, Casey had more of a role of a really talented engineer rather than digging into our stuff and nit-picking it out. I think we are the type of band, we just wrote tons of songs at home. We probably demo-ed on garageband over 30 songs. From that’s what seeded all the songs we like, we had time to write good songs rather than writing a mediocre song and make it great. I think it’s a healthy mix of both.
Do you feel like Casey allowed your first record to get to it’s fullest potential?
At the time, it did well. We were young and didn’t totally know what we were doing yet. None of us have anything against Casey, and we don’t want to trash but I think any band feels like that CD could’ve been better.
Your first couple videos made it onto MTV, MTV2, Fuse, and other TV outlets- how influential do you feel that TV is to artist success?
I think we haven’t seen much fruit of TV because the play we have gotten is very minimal. Videos on TV reach millions of people at once- and youtube is having a huge impact but I still think TV has a dominant impact as well and it’s not going to disappear any time soon. I don’t think we’ve been able to take advantage of what cable television can do, yet.
How are things going with the label, Outlook Records?
Things are going well. Trevor’s team lost the other week. (Trevor plays for the Denver Broncos and is the president of Outlook) We just signed for two CDs so after Goodnight, Witness Light is released we’re not on them any more. So far it’s been good, they definitely believe in us and they give us a lot of freedom with the CDs and the moves on the business side.
What was Tour for the Cure (Jack’s Mannequin, Copeland) like for you guys?
Tour for the Cure was fun, it was the biggest tour as far as attendance goes, that we’ve ever done. Walking into some of those venues, our jaws would drop and our eyes would widen. It was kind of like, ‘wow, we’re playing that tonight?’ It was exciting for us to play with bands that are so tight live, you just suck it in and try to absorb everything they are doing.
Still young guys, where are you at with school?
Since we started touring we haven’t had anytime to be doing school. When we were home we were there for a couple weeks or writing for a month. We all either went from High school to touring or did community college until touring.
You guys finished your new record, Goodnight Witness Light- done with Matt Squire (Panic! at the Disco, Cute Is What We Aim For), tell me about it.
Matt Squire was a blast, we definitely connected with him musically and personality wise which made it just awesome to work with him and bounce ideas back and forth. We walked in with lots of ideas and we were stoked to be isolated. Last time we did the whole record in Seattle and there were so many distractions. At Matt’s studio, his basement is where we were living and the really big garage is the studio. You’re in this recording zone, it really allows you to focus. We were able to write at night, and do pre-production during the day. He was super fun to work with. He didn’t change our songs into something we didn’t want them to be, but he would still be critical on anything he thought was lacking. We were really thankful to be with him.
What’s the best gift a fan could give to you guys on tour?
I never mind homemade cookies, chocolate chip is my favorite. Pretty standard. Somebody bought me a lot of things for my birthday once, like headbands and target gift cards and that was pretty fun.
Any last comments?
Seahawks lost and it breaks my heart!
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