“DAOBOYS! DAOBOYS! DAOBOYS!”
The crowd at ArcTanGent Festival in the southwest of England is making noise earlier than the Callous Daoboys do. The tent they’re taking part in on a Saturday afternoon is stuffed filled with our bodies, a number of of whom sail over the boundaries earlier than their opening quantity “Star Baby” has an opportunity to transition from frenetic math rock to a sudden jazz pop break in its again half. The Atlantans carry a whirlwind of chaos to the stage, they usually get chaos again, however who might anticipate something much less from a band who pleasure themselves on creating music that “sounds like two songs fighting,” and who use wildly disparate songs from “Sweet Caroline” (a pure match for an English crowd, because it’s related to soccer chants) to Zedd’s “Clarity” as transitions?
Then, there’s the small matter of frontman Carson Pace’s mosh calls, wryly nodding to the nation’s state-funded well being service when he implores the contingent, “Show me just how free your healthcare is!” They’ve made a house slightly below 4,500 miles from the state they hail from.
Read extra: 15 modern mathcore bands bringing the style into the future
Their ArcTanGent present is the final in a three-week run of dates throughout the U.Ok. and Europe — a few of them headline reveals, a few of them pageant reveals, a few of them help slots for Holy Fawn and Hippotraktor. These have been their first reveals exterior of the U.S., and for Pace, it’s his first time ever leaving the nation. “I thought there would be more of a difference, but it turns out everywhere has grass and trees and buildings and stuff,” he jokes, sitting with guitarist Dan Hodson at a picnic desk backstage at the pageant. “No, it’s been great. I love it here. Truthfully, I think the U.K. and Budapest are my two favorite places. I love Germany, too. It’s crazy I get to come here at all, let alone play shows to a lot of people here, and we’re playing some of our best sets here.”
It’s been a “borderline DIY” operation, with Hodson successfully stepping as much as tour handle in addition to carry out. “I’ve learned that we can handle a lot more than we think we can, and that it’s pretty easy to figure out what you’re worth,” they replicate. “Not to toot my own horn, but me and Maddie [Caffrey, guitarist] did a lot to get this thing set up and pull it together. We’ve been learning a lot about what each of us is capable of — it’s interesting to see and very rewarding to see how everyone functions like it’s just another day on the job. It really cemented that this is what we’re meant to be doing.”
The sextet — accomplished by violinist Amber Christman, bassist Jackie Buckalew, and drummer Marty Hague — have had extra eyes on them than ever following the launch of their critically adored second album, Celebrity Therapist, final 12 months. Although every part is likely to be arising Daoboys now, it hasn’t all the time been that method, and this flush of success they’re experiencing hasn’t precisely fallen out of the sky. It’s the product of grinding away since 2016 whereas additionally going by way of quite a few lineup modifications (Hodson, for one, solely joined the band final 12 months) and all the typical rising band street bumps. “For a little while, we were touring in this bus that was just a piece of shit. It had no AC. It broke down every seven shows. We had to replace the tires on it so many times,” Pace remembers. But, when life determined to take a break from following Murphy’s regulation, they’d flip to one another, and, with out fail, one among them would say, “God smiles upon the Callous Daoboys.”
That in-joke ended up turning into the title of the band’s forthcoming three-track EP, a figuring out, humorous wink towards their very own success, in addition to their enjoyment of being self-referential. Look additional into its lyrics, nonetheless, and the extent to which God actually has smiled on these eccentric noisemakers may be referred to as into query. Sure, they’re nearer, in Pace’s thoughts to “becoming the band that I see in my head,” but it surely’s not with out its downsides — “substance abuse, breakups, [and] not really being able to be home when other things in your life are happening.”
To confront these topics, Pace challenged himself to be blunter and extra direct together with his lyrics as a substitute of placing a wall up with advanced metaphors. “I think that the biggest complaint about my lyrics is that they don’t make sense,” he considers. “They mean something to me, but this time around, I think you can probably get what I’m talking about, which is the first time I’ve been proud of that. I think previously, being honest was really hard for me, being naked in front of our audience was very difficult for me, whereas this time, I feel like I’m being as honest as I possibly can.”
Did he assume, then, that he was utilizing metaphor as a technique to cover? “Definitely,” Pace confirms. “There were [times] where [I’d use] a metaphor that was an extrapolation of a metaphor that’s a reference to this thing that only I know about. I certainly don’t regret those lyrics at all. [But] the place I want to be in now is just saying everything that’s in my heart, as corny as that sounds.”
Pace and Hodson are eager to emphasize that the three songs that make up God Smiles Upon The Callous Daoboys aren’t Celebrity Therapist B-sides. “It has nothing to do with that record — they were written so far apart, but it’s a little epilogue that closes the book, if you will,” Pace clarifies. On prime of that, these new songs will probably be the band’s first to characteristic the musical fingerprints of their present lineup, marking Hodson and Hague’s first contributions to their sound.
Then once more, it’s straightforward sufficient to discern that Celebrity Therapist and God Smiles Upon The Callous Daoboys had been written at totally different instances, by totally different folks, simply from the sound of those new songs. They’re markedly totally different from Celebrity Therapist, although they haven’t uprooted their mathcore nous and nonetheless shift types like they’ve picked them from a seize bag. The Callous Daoboys in 2023 are simply as heavy, however they’re additionally catchier, groovier, extra quick, and extra them.
“Where I want to head going forward is having a sound that’s entirely our own,” Pace elaborates. “In a league where we’re not being compared to this band or that band. You know, I appreciate the Dillinger Escape Plan comparisons — that’s a band I saw so many times, and I love them to death. But I’m ready for it to be like, ‘What does the new Callous Daoboys song sound like? It sounds like the Callous Daoboys.’ That being said, I want to do more wild shit.” He even sees the band taking part in round with electronics extra, having used to make it.
One of the most attention-grabbing points of this EP, in the meantime, is the band’s flirtation with nü steel. It’s pushed to the fore most on its standout last observe, “Designer Shroud of Turin,” the place their wrecking ball riffs have an indelible groove, to not point out a cackle-rousing shoutalong of “NOSTALGIA FOR THE 2000s!” and their most muscular refrain so far. Both Pace and Hodson have their very own shut ties to the style — one among the first bands they ever bonded over was Korn, whereas Pace cites Limp Bizkit as the cause he needed to play guitar. “I think that [influence] just happened naturally with us,” he continues. “I think, before, I was trying to resist the nü-metal elements, and now I’ve opened the floodgates. Now, I just don’t give a fuck.”
“[My gateway into] more extreme music was Korn, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, System Of A Down,” Hodson provides. “I probably wouldn’t have the sense of groove and rhythm that I do if it weren’t for those bands. That’s such an important part of nü metal; it takes so much influence from hip-hop, and it makes you move. Our drummer Marty will always say, “I play drums to make people dance.’”
Put merely, this band’s quest, at this second in time, is to be daring, even a bit of loopy, however most significantly, to be gloriously particular person. “I think we’re just trying to write what we find interesting,” Pace concludes. “This is the band that I want to hear, the band I wished existed [when I was younger]. I feel like when you do that, you’ve stumbled across something really special.”
Discussion about this post