In the spring of 2018, five Southern California musicians came together, leaving their respective projects behind, to form a new band. A band with the ability to seamlessly transition from crushingly heavy riffs to unforgettably haunting melodies and lyrics. With inspiration drawing from the top late 90’s and early 00’s rock bands, there’s a certain familiarity to the music that’s refreshing and yet evolved into what can only be described as Dark Station. “Down in The Dark” is poised to cement the band’s name as a commendable force in the rock world. With rock on the rise, Dark Station has risen to the challenge of aiding in rock’s revival. This is the new age. This is Dark Station.
Dark Station has released a haunting new video for their single “Heroes” off of their anticipated debut album “Down in the Dark” set to release in October 2019. “Heroes” was one of the first songs we wrote with our producer Gus Cryns. I was really happy with how the instrumentals turned out, and once the vocals were laid down, I knew we had something special” says Kyle Ort.
He adds, “This was our first time working with Director Erez Bader for the “Heroes” video. We weren’t sure how it would turn out, but he was able to bring our vision to life and create something that all of us are extremely proud of.”
The video can be seen here:
Dark Station is Nathan Spades (Vocals), Kyle Ort (Guitar), David Bruno (Guitar), Eric Sinful (Bass), and Dylan Roy (Drums).
Music Madness spoke to Dark Stations’s guitarist Kyle Ort about the upcoming debut album and the release of the band’s new single “Heroes“.
Music Madness: Kyle congrats on the release of the new single “Heroes”.
Kyle: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it.
Music Madness: I know you guys have been working hard on the upcoming debut release of “Down In The Dark”. How are things progressing on that front?
Kyle: Everything is going really well, it’s pretty much wrapped up. We’re looking at an October release date right now. Nothing set in stone, but it should be October.
Music Madness: I’m sure their are lots of emotions getting that first one to the finish line. Do you guys find yourselves obsessing about every little thing…making it sure its all perfect?
Kyle: Yeah, there’s all kinds of stuff to do, you think you’re done and then something else comes up you forgot about. But I think we’re pretty much there. What you gotta do is just really just trust your gut, you know. A lot of times you can go back through it and be like, “Well, I think this could be better, let’s try this, or let’s try that.” But at the end of the day, we just end up right back where we started, and we wasted a week working on something that we shouldn’t have. It’s just how it was supposed to be at the beginning. So you just have to trust your gut, and realize when it’s done, it’s done, and leave it.
Music Madness: How did Dark Station come about?
Kyle: We all kind of played in the same group a few years ago, we knew each other from that and then we split up, went our separate ways and joined different bands. It came to a point where I wasn’t really happy with my group anymore, I wanted to do something else and the other guys were looking to do something else as well. The guys were working on a song, they sent it over to me and the timing just kind of lined up. We stayed in contact over the years, but they sent me a song and I checked it out. I’m like, “Hey guys, you wanna write stuff like this?” It was different than what both of us were doing in our respective projects. I said, “Let’s do it.”
We got together and wrote a few songs. Nathan, our singer, laid down some vocals on it, and then we were off to the races. I think “Heros” was one of those first songs that we wrote, and we were all really excited about it, so we ended up writing thirteen, fourteen more songs, and now we have a full record and here we are.
Music Madness: Nice. How many songs can we expect to see on the new record?
Kyle: It’s going to be eleven songs.
Music Madness: That’s a nice, full album, for sure.
Kyle: Yeah, full-length album. We wanted to be able to do a full forty-five minute, fifty minute set, if we need to. I didn’t want to just put an EP out there, and only have six songs available.
Music Madness: Are you guys planning on releasing any additional videos prior to the release in October?
Kyle: Yep, we got three more singles coming up. So the next single’s gonna be out July 5th, and then the next one after that’s gonna be about a month later, and then about a month later, and then the album.
Music Madness: You’re just gonna tease everybody right up ’til October?
Kyle: That’s right, yep. Each single’s gonna have a music video. We were just working on those in North Carolina this past weekend, actually. We filmed two more music videos.
Music Madness: Is the band playing any shows between now and October? Or are you guys kind of just focused on releases, getting the album out, and then a tour after the fact?
Kyle: Yeah, right now we’re building everything online, trying to get a fan base. I would say, probably right around the time the record comes out, we’re gonna start doing some shows. I would like to start doing some light touring in the fall, but all that’s being worked on right now, nothing set in stone yet, so we’re working on it.
Music Madness: Very cool. Appears you guys have done alot in a very short time.
Kyle: Yeah, we’re working on a lot of stuff constantly. We spent about a year behind the scenes, putting this whole thing together. So it seems like we’re busier than we are right now, but we’ve already gotten a lot of the work done.
Music Madness: Right. Can you tell us a little bit about the first release, and why you guys chose “Heroes” as the first release?
Kyle: It’s probably one of the heavier songs on the album. I wanted to lead with something that’s heavier. I think it’s overall it’s one of the first songs we wrote, so it kind of shows a little bit of everything from the record in that one song. You’re definitely not going to know the entire band just from that song. You’ll see that over the next three releases. We felt like it was a good first song to put out there to say, “Hey, this is kind of what the band is doing.” And the next few releases will really paint a bigger picture of what the band is all about.
Music Madness: Can you give fans a quick rundown of what to be on the lookout for?
Kyle: Yeah, you can follow us and everything we’re doing at darkstationband.com and we’ll have all the updates there. Our next single is gonna be released July 5th. It’s yet to be announced, so keep an eye out for that. The album will be released in October, I don’t have an exact date yet, but coming soon.
Music Madness: Awesome, I’m looking forward to it. The true test will come when all that studio work is unleashed in a live setting.
Kyle: Oh yeah, a hundred percent. With all the studio tricks these days, you know, that’s what really separates the men from the boys in these bands. ‘Cause anybody can sound good in the studio, but you have to be able to do it live.
Music Madness: One last question so fans can learn something about you. Do you remember the first concert you ever went to and how old were you?
Kyle: Absolutely. So, my dad took me to my first concert, he took me and my brother. I was twelve years old I believe, and it was AC/DC and Slash’s Snakepit. Slash’s solo band after he left Guns ‘n Roses, opened up for them. That was a pretty big moment for me, I think. I was right at that age where I’m starting to get into music, and seeing a band like AC/DC was like, “Whoa,” you know. That kind of left an impression on me for sure.
Music Madness: Well, being a guitarist and seeing Angus and Slash, two guitar icons may have that affect on someone for sure.
Kyle: Yeah, for sure.
Interview by Steve Carlos