questions answered by Lewie
** Interview by Mike - April 2007 **
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Dark Shift questions answered by Lewie ** Interview by Mike - April 2007 ** |
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Before I
went to a local metal show called Doomsday 2007 in Milwaukee last
January, I made sure to check out most of the local bands on myspace
so I knew what they sounded like before I got there. Dark Shift is
one of the few bands that I didn't check out beforehand for some
unknown reason. When I got to Doomsday, I noticed Dark Shift had
cool looking t-shirts available. I told my friend, Dark Shift better
be cool damn it, so I can buy one of their shirts. Later, Dark Shift
took the stage and totally blew me away with their live show. A lot
of energy and a great stage performance. Needless to say, I went
home with a Dark Shift shirt that night.
ADRENALIN: How did Dark Shift form? And how did you end up with a band of such talented musicians? LEWIE: It all started in the spring of 2000. Joel and I lived in the same dorm in college, he on the first floor and I on the fourth. All year we both heard of this great guitar player that lived on the opposite floor and figured it was more hype then truth. It wasn’t until the last week of the semester that we bumped into each other, and realized that we were the two “guitar gods” on campus. I went to his room and jammed a bit showing off my chops, he was impressed, then he picked up his guitar and made me look like a complete newb! That summer all I could think of was how I needed to start up a band with him. It wasn’t until October, when in a drunken rage at a house party that we decided to start. For the rest of the semester we skipped class and jammed 7 days a week and wrote our first couple songs. We recorded our first demo, us and a drum machine that January. Brett who also was at Whitewater, and joining the same frat as I, found out about me through my roommate. He heard the demo of “Lost Forever”, thought it kicked ass and wanted to jam with me. Having Joel on my side, I didn’t really want to jam with Brett because I already had the best, so I let him borrow my bass and tabbed out the bass parts |
for him. Now Tommy we met through a referral for flyers that we were hanging up. He was the thirteenth drummer we tried out and I can’t imagine us with out him! ADRENALIN: Your album "Gaining Ground" got a good review from myself. And I am sure you got other great reviews as well. Did you receive any negative feedback at all? LEWIE: Yeah some dude said we sound like rehashed whinny Avenged 7 Fold! Other then that, some people we not too keen on the vocals, mainly people who only like screaming/ growling, and a couple power metal only guys bitching cause I don’t do castrati! lol ADRENALIN: Are you planning on mainly promoting this album for awhile with shows (and possibly a tour) or is another album in progress already?
We have been working hard on new material the last few weeks. We have two songs that musically and arranging wise are done, I just have to come up with vocal lines and lyrics, not to mention titles! One song that is 95%, and |
LEWIE:
Yeah, we are going to ride Gaining Ground for all its worth, I may
be a bit biased, but it’s a killer disk, it’s been in my cd player
since I got the final mixes back from Joel last May (2006). It’s a
huge step in a different direction then “The Assault” was, we
matured a lot since that one!