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1- Dan, you have been around playing in and as a live member of various bands for several years now. Can you tell us a little bit about all of those past and present and what you have taken away from each of those?

Man, I could fill a book based on that question. Um, I'm gonna cherry-pick 'cos like a lot of guys I've been in lots of bands, and always multiple bands at once. This is sort of in chronological order, though understand that there's /lots/ of overlap, e.g., for the last two years of Rattbelly's existence, I was simultaneously in Null Device and Siv.

Rattbelly: The main thing I learned in Rattbelly was how to self-edit and keep songs short, tight, and focused. Rattbelly broke up in 2003.

Null Device: I left Null Device in 2007, and they're of course still at it with a revamped and extremely awesome lineup. They're one of my favorite bands to see live.

Siv: mostly Siv has taught me that it's okay to have a side project that's actually a side project. In the past I had always tried to give every band the same amount of time and attention, but in Siv that's just impossible, since the other two band members live 85 miles away and all three of us are insanely busy (our singer is a professor at a tech college, for example) with other things. I fought it for a while but since I chilled out about it I've enjoyed the band much more.

Stromkern: I haven't specifically /learned/ anything playing for Stromkern so much as I've just had certain things confirmed for me at a high level and beyond a doubt, like the value of working with pro-caliber talent, the fact that I'm hard-wired for touring and love it more than pretty much anything except possibly working in the studio, the amount of work required to really bust a great show, etc.

The Dark Clan: with TDC I'm learning every day how to comport myself amongst a wide variety of people with whom I've never had to deal with before, how better to network with folks (which is a skill I'll be working on for my whole life, having, as I do, no natural talent for it), and just how to run a band by myself, which is something I've never done until TDC. Every other band there was always me and then one other guy who ran the show, but now in TDC I'm on my own. It is of course simultaneously exhilarating and exhausting. Well, and even that's changing as these days Lane and Mercy both have a lot of input into things, and their input is extremely valuable to me.

2- What made you decide to sign with DLVNmedia for your various side projects? And what can people expect in the future between here and Sonic Mainline?

Honestly I'm not sure. Right now I see DLVN as my "anything goes" outlet, but that's how I originally saw Mainline, too, so the difference is small and arbitrary. I already have a late spring 2010 release well under way for Mainline and a fall 2010 release planned and started for DLVN, and the only difference right now is that the DLVN releases are shorter, and a little more "what-if" focused. I guess maybe that's the best way to put it, at least for now: DLVN releases all tend to be in the "oh that would be hilarious" or "what if we tried --" kind of category, and the Sonic Mainline releases are more focused on my sonic goals for the band. So yeah. DLVN is more song-focused and Mainline is more band-focused. Maybe?

3- Now, we know that you have 2 labels that you are working and recording for. One criticism that people have leveled at you is the fact that there is a lot of humor in your work. Do you view the separate labels as a way of separating your comedy and more themed experiments from your more serious work? Or are you going to continue this process across all of your releases still?

Well, first off, any person who thinks humor is something I should be criticized for needs to take the stick out of their ass. Brad from b00le had a great point that he made to me after our show at Reverence 2008. He said: "being angry, being happy, sad, laughing, being humorous, being serious, these are all facets of being a properly functioning adult human, so why can't they all be expressed equally by a musician?" and I totally agree with that. I think kind of the dark underbelly of your question is the fact that people want to pigeonhole bands, and they want them to be either a wacky band or a serious band or a band to dance to, or whatever, and the music industry is legendary for punishing musicians whenever they dare show the temerity to try another genre or change up their sound, and I think that's bullshit. I mean look at the Beatles for fuck sake, everyone jizzes their pants over the Beatles, and they ran the gamut from dark, serious, intense music to sappy ballads to rave-ups to hilarious and jokey music. Writing a wacky jokey song requires no less talent or work or craft than writing a Big Serious Epic. In fact I'd argue that often it takes more.

So in terms of separating out the humorous songs and silly covers and only releasing them on DLVN, that won't happen. In fact there's already a pretty intensely silly and fun song on the new full-length, the one that's coming out on Mainline in 2010. It features darkNES of the Gothsicles on vox and is sort of a funky UK Breaks/Plump DJs style thing. There may be more goofy covers and such coming out on DLVN in the near future, but that's only because those tracks tend to get conceived separately from my full-lengths, and DLVN is a great outlet to release those EPs and one-offs. But if I wasn't on DLVN I would still release all those tracks on Mainline.

4- I know a little bit about what you have planned for 2010. Could you give the fans a little bit more insight into your plans as far as releases and touring goes? Also, any more further collaborations in the future?

Well, I've talked about it a little bit already, obviously, but the next full-length is gonna be a double album, 10 tracks on each album, total of 20, because I think more than ten tracks or 45 minutes (whatever comes first) is too long for any album. Anyway, the first album, called Fade, is gonna be like the live show, and all the songs will be performed by the live band; me, Mercy, Lane, and either Nic or Glenn on drums. I've been describing the style of music as Jimmy Eat World meets Within Temptation meets The Postal Service.

The second album is gonna be all dance music of one style or another; some DnB, some UK Breaks, some old school Electronica, Synthpop, all kinds of things, some stuff I don't know how to classify, and every track is gonna be a collaboration; I'm writing and programming everything, but every song will have a different singer. So far I have tracks done for Matt from Caustic, darkNES from the Gothsicles, Donna from Ego Likeness, Lane from the TDC live band, and a Milwaukee-area singer-songwriter called Jennifer Dekorah Lee (who has the most amazing, sublime voice), and some of the songs are already recorded and mixed. I have all the other songs written, but I haven't asked their respective singers yet if they'll perform them, so I can't say yet whether or not they'll appear, but I'm really hopeful.

I'll also be collaborating with Jim Warchol again, who did Starwash with me on Goths on a Boat, and that'll be for an upcoming DLVN comp. I'm also sure I'll be working with guys like Matt and Eric and darkNES again, 'cos we're all friends and all in the area, Andrew Sega from Iris and I are constantly on the verge of doing...something together. Maybe we'll just record our next drumken 3AM jam session. That would be hott. So but anyway, yeah, there'll be lots more collabs in the future. Always. That'll never change. I love working with other musicians way too much to ever stop.

5- Who are some of the larger influences on the Dark Clan? I know that pretty much everything that you hear goes into the mix one way or another. But what bands would you say have influenced you more than others and why?

There's really nobody that's more of an influence than anyone else, not overall anyway. One artist or another might be more of an influence on a given /track/, but other than that I'm just always listening, all the time, to everything I can get my hands on. I'm as likely to be influenced by a local artist no one's heard of as I am a top-tier global superstar. Actually I take that back. I'm slightly more likely to be influenced by locals or smaller acts. But still.

6- Any final words?

Yeah! Go see a show, and have fun doing it! Don't worry about being seen, or if the band is cool, or what your friends are wearing, or if you're alone, or any of that shit. Just go to a show and dig the sounds. You'll be amazed how much great music is out there. I know I am. At least once a month I go to some random club where I don't know anybody and don't know any of the bands and just see what's up, and I've never had a bad time doing that, and bands LOVE seeing people that they don't know at a show; it fools 'em into thinking their "fan base" is growing or some such nonsense.

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