Hanging with Decyfer Down
06-06-2006
by Brenten Gilbert

It's difficult to keep up with all the new rock bands emerging on the scene these days. Walking around Nashville during GMA Week, it was clear that the market was ready to explode with new releases and artists debuting in the coming months.

One of these new groups is Decyfer Down, hailing from North Carolina with a sound they describe as "Middle America Rock." CMCentral caught up with the guys during the week to discuss their new album, their music and their tales of sleep-talking. Below is that conversation for your reading pleasure.

CMCentral.com (brenten gilbert): So how have you guys been doing?

Josh Oliver (drums):Tired man.

Tired? Are they keeping you busy?

Brandon Mills (guitar): Very busy.

This whole six in the morning to eleven at night . . .

Chris Clonts (guitar): Can we just sit this one out and take a nap?

I guess man. If you talk in your sleep.

There you go. We are glad to be here actually.

Dude, he freaked me out last night. Do you remember when you woke up? Do you remember that Josh? Freaked me out. He just started going, "No! No! What are you doing?" and I roll over and he's sitting up - not sitting up, but laying up looking at me - and he's like, "Dude stop!" Saying some weird stuff. And I'm like, "Josh! Josh!" and he just laid back down. It freaked me out man. You weren't yelling or anything, but you were saying some freaky stuff.

I was dead asleep

"Chris! Man, the aliens are coming! Chris! Climb out the window! They are here!"

Dude, that has actually happened before, but that's a different story

Yeah, I'm sorry man. We're on a rabbit trail. We do that a lot.

It's cool. Real conversations are better than canned interviews anyway.

(laughs)

So you guys want to talk a little bit about the new album?

Sure man, it's probably a good idea to be a little bit focused. We don't want you to run off and say man you can't even interview those monkeys.

I've actually done that this week.

Excellent.

Well the album comes out June 6th and it's called End of Glory. . .

(laughs)

Just kidding, it's called End of Grey, it's our first album, we are really excited about it obviously. We're all from North Carolina and. . .

(laughs)

. . . that coffee is kicking in isn't it?

Yeah, I had five sips and I'm ready. For the first two interviews today, I was [zoning out]. Now I'm [ready to go] like (panting). As a matter of fact I gotta go get it man.

The coffee was strong dude

(laughs)

Anyway. . . what other kind of input do you need on that?

Are you nervous that it's releasing on 06/06/06?

(laughs)

Are we nervous?

It's God's way of putting something out from Him on a bad day.

I think it's the day that Bono's going to announce. . .

We're actually pumped about it. . .

Yeah? That's cool. Well it's exciting to be releasing it, I'm sure. I just think it's funny to see the 6.6.6 flyers. . .

There are a lot of other records coming out. A ton of Christian records.

They just can't put the finger on us.

That's right, get it out whenever you can.

It's already been pushed

And it's called End of the Grey.

End OF Grey

End of Grey, sorry.

(yelling) END OF GREY!

Okay, I guess we're done here. . .

(laughs)

We had a guy introduce us and he had it written down End of Grace so he said, "End of Grace, wanted to let everybody know"

Aw man, that's wrong.

This was at a church. . .

At the church everybody was like, "This CD is called the End of Grace? What?"

(laughs)

Great

Yeah, we are a metal "Lamb of God" band.

No but as far as End of Grey, the title is basically talking about how, all of our life, we struggle with obvious, the middle the grey. You know, it's opposite of black and white and it has a lot of meanings for us individually, in our personal walks. As a band, we were coming through this particular project and because we're brand new, it was kind of tough finding the right label, the right fit, the management, the publicist, and getting everybody together. It was kind of grey there for a while because we had all of these options. But as God continued to guide us, it was just becoming clearer and more focused. We felt like the album should be called End of Grey for that particular reason, we got to a place where it was just black and white.

The album represents the new, the fresh. No more grey areas.

This time it's for real.

We're bringing it, yo!

(laughs)

How did you guys end up getting signed?

(laughs)

Actually, it was kind of funny because the group, Building 429 - I'm sure you've heard of them - is from our area and when we came up here, they were recording their first project. We came up just for a visit and to kind of meet with some producers. We were wanting to get a good quality recording done. We met their producers, Jim Cooper and Tony Palacios and gave them a demo. It was the whole classic story of, "Hey, do you want to work with us?" They listened to it and agreed to work with us, because they felt that there was something there. So, we went along with it and it was great. God opened up a lot of doors. We got some investors, financed the whole record ourselves and recorded it here in Nashville. During that process, we met Zack, our manager from Q Management. When he came onboard, he was shopping at the labels. We were talking with a couple of different labels. We prayed about it and our best fit was with S/R/E [Recordings]. Just from the way they approached it to what they stand for, we felt like it would be a perfect fit for us.

Cool. Since you're new, it's inevitable that you'll be compared to other bands. Who are you being compared to and what do you think?.

CCM said we sounded like Kutless and we were like "Hmmm.

People compare us to other bands. You are always going to get compared. They say we sound like Staind and Sevendust, Saliva and Oak Ridge Boys.

Oak Ridge Boys, I could see that

(laughs)

Basically, it's just great, just a classic sound. Heavy guitars with a lot of groove and melody, you know? That's our style. There are a lot of bands that have different variations of that sound. It's just the stuff that we love to listen to and what we love to play.

We definitely don't try to write according to the trends or sound a certain way. We write what we want to write. It just depends how we feel at the time. Some people said they heard a little old school rock in there. There are a lot of bands that did the whole rap/metal thing because that was marketable for the time. We really try to just stay with that middle America rock. We want to do this, we want to be this kind of band. This feels cool to us, we like it. We grew up listening to rock so if we can feel it, maybe somebody else will dig it, too.

S/R/E has some mainstream contacts and friends and stuff. Are you guys going to be releasing to both markets?

The way our deal is set up is that we have a step up deal with Columbia and they work with us in the mainstream market on that end. S/R/E, they are our label, working the Christian market.

They are going to try to push it over, but it's kind of one of those things where we'll go where God wants to take us. We are not one of those bands who say, "We've got to go mainstream" over and over. It doesn't matter. We'll play. If it happens it happens. It's up to "The Man."

We don't really view it as much as a Christian market versus the mainstream market. To me, it's just people who listen to music. There are believers and non-believers that listen to both stuff. It's finding out what any one particular song can do to one particular person. That's all we are really looking for.

So was it frustrating at all to deal with the categories? People telling you where to fit into a . . .

Sort of. You get tired of hearing "Christian market," "mainstream market" and it's painful, you know? It's all people. You have people who are saved and people who aren't saved. Whoever we are playing with. . . If we are playing with fellow believers, they are being blessed, hopefully. If there are non-believers, then we are planting seeds. It's frustrating sometimes because things are so labeled. We feel that God is using us to step outside of the box and really try to go out and get people who are really searching for something.

So your concert audience is kind of a mix?

It's definitely a mix

That's cool. So how about a really wacky question? A fun question that I'm sure you'll get a kick out of, given your coffee high.

Sweet.

If I'm walking down the candy aisle of a store and I stop to pick up a bag of the candy that describes you as a band or individually, what candy am I holding?

I'm more of a raisinette, if you ask me.

Raisinette? Why's that?

I'm just kind of all gooey inside.

Okay, never mind. . .

(laughs)

Resee's Peanut Butter Cup. I'm a little bit sweet on the outside and kind of melty. . .

I'd say a Blow Pop, dude. You've got to work at it and stay with it a little while and then you'll start seeing the colors. We are good guys. We joke a lot, but you have to have a sense of humor. Some people take things really seriously, but we are blessed to even be here. We are stoked about it, God has been so good, we just have fun with things.

What are you most excited about over the next couple of weeks?

We are going to be able to go home for like a week.

We are really stoked about that. We haven't had some quality time at home for a while, so we'll do that before we head out on the Vampire Tour that starts at the end of April.

And then are you doing another tour later for . . .

June, July and August is the festival thing and then August I think we are going to do a west coast tour and then I'm sure we'll do something in the fall also. All that stuff is getting worked out right now.

Anything else you want to tell our readers before we wrap up?

"Life Again," the single, should be out. A lot of radios stations have already been playing them. All of the songs especially "End of Grey," the title for the album, sum up the album. The songs are pretty self-explanatory. "Life Again," the single, definitely represents us as Christians. Every Christian has fallen away from God at some point or another, whether you question things or what not. "Life Again" is almost a prayer, asking for God to bring you back so you can feel love again. Basically, a cry out that you want to be back to where you had that passion for God and it's like a new start, a fresh start.

We thought about the song that would best represent us as the first single. That was kind of along the lines of what we were thinking. We want people who first hear us around the nation to start the journey with us along that same line of thinking: we start from a fresh, full life in God. Every song on the album deals with a particular thing that we've dealt with in our life and we felt that that would be the best representation for the first song.

Cool

The other song had like 80 F-bombs in it and we really didn't . . . .

(laughs)

It was just all just bleep noises.

We thought that that might not be the best way to open the Decyfer Down. . .

People can buy the "clean" version. . .

Well some of it still gets by, apparently. You always hear those stories, "So and so is going to sue Walmart because they bought this CD for their kid and there's curse words on it."

Well you don't have to worry about that with us.

'Cause we aren't going to be in WalMart.

(laughs)

No, we might be.

Should be in the Christian section in WalMart.

You guys should be in the main section.

That's probably what will happen.

They are trying to put us in there with the regular. . .

I think a lot of CDs are just ending up there.

It's for the very, very contemporary.

If somebody comes in looking for Pillar or Skillet or somebody like that . . .

I think Skillet is in the main section. . .

Yeah, Skillet, Disciple all those guys. . .

Yeah.

Flyleaf.

Yeah, Flyleaf's great.

It definitely helps break down the barriers of one side or the other.

And a lot of people will give our record a chance.

Oh, this is in the Christian section, they are going to be thumping us in the head and we are definitely not.

That's cool. So DecyferDown.com. . .

And our myspace is MySpace.com/DecyferDown. . .

It's got a lot of cool stuff on it. We've got songs and stuff you can listen to and all of that good stuff.