New England’s leading metal band, Dead By Wednesday released their self-titled full-length album on April 19th, 2019 through the Combat Records/EMP Label Group. The band just completed a tour promoting the new release as a direct support of metal legends Flotsam and Jetsam on the Tour of Chaos 2019. In addition, DBW has released their new video for the first single off the record titled “You & Die.”
The 12-track album showcases a rebirth and rebranding of the band since their inception. A decade after their first record, the band has shown growth musically all while keeping the hard hitting grooves, integrity and passion that fans have come to expect. DBW’s new record was produced by Nicky Bellmore (Dee Snider/Jasta) and was mastered by Zeuss.
Dead By Wednesday’s lineup has evolved as well, with the newest member, master shredder Dave Sharpe on guitar (ex-Blood Has Been Shed w/ Howard Jones, End-Time Illusion), Rob Roy on vocals and original founding members Mike Modeste on bass and Christian “Opus” Lawrence holding down the fierce foundation and furious rhythm section.
The band recently accompanied David Ellefson on his east coast Basstory Tour, with both Sharpe and Opus of DBW playing alongside Ellefson during his solo set. Christian “Opus” Lawrence is also the US touring drummer for Ellefson’s rock band with Frank Bello of Anthrax called Altitudes & Attitude (Megaforce Records).
Music Madness caught up with the mad shredder Dave Sharpe fresh off their Tour of Chaos 2019.
Music Madness: How’s it feel to be back in Connecticut after wrapping up the Tour of Chaos out West Coast?
Dave: Yeah. 21 shows, in a month. It’s nice to be back, but not nice to be back.
Music Madness: Congrats on the release of band’s self-titled full-length album. How has the reception been?
Dave: Oh, yes. Things have been going well with that. It’s getting a lot of exposure, sale’s have been good and I think we peaked at number nine on the College Metal Rock Charts so far. So, that was pretty cool to see our names up there with some contemporary artists that are pretty well known.
Music Madness: Very cool. Now is this your first album with the band?
Dave: It is, yes. I’ve known the guys for a decade, but they’ve gone through a few different changes on guitar and I’ve always thought in the back of my mind, “Hey, maybe I should try out.” But I had another band at the time going on. But the timing was right and I officially joined in August of last year.
Music Madness: Very cool. Did you and Rob come in at the same time?
Dave: No. Rob came in about the tail end of the previous album, ‘Darkest of Angels’. He was able to contribute one of the tracks on there, “The Surgeon”. He’s been playing with the band now for about three years or so and putting in his due diligence and hard work on the release.
Music Madness: “You and Die” was the first video that DBW released from the new album…why “You and Die”?
Dave: It is and obviously one of the more melodic oriented songs and one of the catchier tunes on the album. Right when I came in, I was actually able to contribute the guitar solo on the recording, and two weeks after my first show with the band we shot the video. So, I was happy to be a part of that.
Music Madness: Very cool. The album gets released and you hit the road. How was the new music received in a live setting?
Dave: Yeah, you know we weren’t sure what to expect. We love Flotsam and Jetsam, but they’re more of an old school, kind of thrash speed metal band. Although, I would put their newest album up against any modern metal band. I mean, the production and the song writing is stellar. So, we knew going out that maybe not necessarily our primary crowd and then we knew going to the west coast that a lot of these fans had never either heard of us or seen us before.
But the reception was very good, a lot of diversity and the set that we put together, whether it was the more doomier tracks, like “Shipwrecked” or the fast thrashing tracks, like the new song “Smelling Salt” off the new album was very well received. Every audience is a little different but a few areas, like in Seattle, we got a circle pit going and a lot of horns in the air and headbanging. Great feedback afterwards and we sold a lot of merchandise. So that was a good sign that people enjoyed the set.
Music Madness: Very cool. So are your sets right now consisting mostly of the newer stuff or is there a good mix of old and new music?
Music Madness: I think it’s very well represented with the history of the band, almost one song from every album. Certainly, I think about 50 percent of new tracks and then one song off ‘Darkest of Angels, “Live Again”, which there’s a video for and it was well played on Sirius Liquid Metal. “Shipwrecked” off ‘Death of the Rockstar’ and “Pawns” off the very first album and a well played video that was in rotation on MTV2 back in the day. So, we tried to appease both old fans and the band’s newer fans.
Music Madness: Coming in as the newest member was it a tough transition? Did you have to go out and learn every song immediately and how much time does it take to learn all the old music?
Dave: It’s kind of interesting looking back on the time period. It was around May of last year, and they gave me a full set to learn, which was a mix of old and new music…kind of similar to the set that we’re currently playing. And I made a goal with myself to learn one song a day. So, several hours a day I would just sit down and I would by ear, learn the music and the guitar solos and practice my ass off. One thing I wanted to do was make sure that when I showed up to that first band practice, that I actually nailed all the songs.
Although I had to tweak a few parts, I wanted to be professional about it and that’s what I would expect from a musician joining a band I was in, that they would come prepared. I think they were impressed by that and I enjoyed learning the songs and different guitar styles from the previous guitarists, which I all know and I’m good friends with. Great community here in Connecticut and everybody supports each other and we’re all a big family in the end.
Music Madness: Very cool. What is new on the tour front?
Dave: Yeah, we are looking to go out in October. We can’t really announce the band that we’re going to be going out with, but potentially another well known band for a two week run around Halloween time. Probably east coast maybe into the Midwest. We may be playing few larger or mid sized festivals . It will be scheduled out in October/November as well. We’ll be taking a little bit of time off from live shows as Opus Lawrence and myself will be actually going out on tour with David Ellefson of Megadeth to support his new solo album and book tour, More Life with Deth.
Music Madness: Very cool. Ellefson rocks.
Dave: Yeah, he’s great. Obviously, you know, the CEO of EMP and his business partner, Thom Hazaert, running Combat Records, which the new self titled release is on. And while we’re doing a tour with David, he’s been a very vocal supporter of Dead By Wednesday, so while it’s not Dead by Wednesday going on tour with 50 percent of us helping to put together his solo band. It’s good press and exposure for Dead By Wednesday and Combat Records in general.
Music Madness: How was that experience with David on his Basstory Tour?
Dave: Oh, it was great. So Dead By Wednesday was able to open for the Basstory tour last November. We did an east coast run, we were able to hit the major states up here, Connecticut, Mass, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, and then actually we’re going to redo a couple of those shows. I think The Shamrock in Connecticut was where we played and we’re playing there again July 11th. It went so well that David invited, Opus and I, to do a Florida run with him last December.
Music Madness: Right on. Did you guys do any kind of Connecticut release party for the new album?
Dave: We have a lot of friends and bands up in Massachusetts so the first release show that we did, we did at a place called The Tank up in Agawam, Mass. Great turn out and we got to play with a lot of our friends bands so that was the first official CD release party back in April. We did play the Webster’s Theater at Hartford on the recent tour with Flotsam and Jetsam; kind of an unofficial CD release. But we’re scoping out the July 11 show as more of the official Connecticut CD release party.
Should be a good turn out. Last one was a stellar turn out and great reception from our Connecticut fans.
Music Madness: Beautiful. That’s always a good thing. You want to have the home state behind you. Always makes it a little more exciting.
Dave: Can’t say enough about the Connecticut people. They all come out to support us. We try to make every show a large party…have all our friends bands out and give everybody an opportunity to be on these larger shows. Especially if we play Toad’s Place. Opus does a birthday bash every year and that’s always a very well attended and received event.
Music Madness: Sounds like a good time. Any last words from Dead By Wednesday?
Dave: I would just say that if you haven’t had a chance to check out the album, it’s available in hard format. You can buy it on CD, Best Buy, Target, local shops have been picking it up. You can order it online through Combat, you can order it through the band website. Spotify, iTunes, pretty much any digital market, you can find it on. The production is stellar. Nicky Bellmore engineered it and Zeus did the mastering on it. I can just tell you that everything is just loud, clear…the songs are very catchy and very well written. Check it out.
Interview by Steve Carlos
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