SceneSC recently got the chance to interview Devin from Dignan about the band. He told us a little about the band’s past, present, and future, which is looking very bright for the band. Dignan’s current tour is going to be pretty kind to SC, and they’re treating us to four shows this month:
Friday, Sept 10th in Ninety-Six at the Homemade Genius Festival
Saturday, Sept 11th in Columbia at the New Brookland Tavern
Tuesday, Sept 21st in Greenville at Meathead’s
Thursday, Sept 23rd in Charleston at The Tin Roof
We’re definitely looking forward to seeing them play again and we hope to see you all there.
You guys are known as a band that tours pretty rigorously. Tell us a little about your current tour and how the road’s treating you so far.
This tour’s been really great. We started this tour back home in Brownsville, TX, which is about an hour and a half away. This one’s gonna be six weeks for us. The first three weeks we’re doing with this band called Farewell Flight. They’re from Harrisburg, PA. So far we’ve had a good run. We’ve just been to Texas and we’ve had a good five shows there. We also just did one last night in Norman, OK and that went over really well as well. But we’ve had a good couple shows so far, good turnout. The Farewell Flight guys are a lot of fun, too.
Where are some of your favorite places to play, and are you hitting any of those cities/venues on this tour?
One of our favorite places to play is Columbia, SC at New Brookland Tavern, that’s definitely one of our favorite places to hit up. We love playing Atlanta. And we like playing Austin a lot, too.
So far all your releases have been EPs. Was it a deliberate decision to stick to the EP format, or was it just due to the circumstances at the time you hit the studio to record?
We put out a few things previous to The Guest, but as far as growing, we felt like EPs were enough to introduce ourselves and tour on, as a band. We did The Guest and then another EP called Cheaters And Thieves, and that’s what we have out now. I think EPs are a good, safe thing to put out, and I think we’ve always been kind of cautious about everything we’ve done, whether that be touring or writing a specific style of music or merchandise. We want to do it tastefully, and I think the EPs spoke for themselves, and we wanted to just do it that way. We didn’t want to go ahead and rush ourselves to put out a full-length. I think now is finally the time for us to put out a full-length. I’m honestly glad we waited, because there was some learning that we needed to do and growing as a band as far as musicianship and the direction of the music that we want to play, so I’m happy that we did just stick to EPs. I think they’ve served us well. I’m glad we weren’t rushed and now we’re working on a full-length that’ll come out late July or early August of 2011 and we’re excited about it, and I think now we’re actually ready for that.
I saw you guys just recorded a Daytrotter session. Will any of that new material be featured in that?
We did just record a Daytrotter session in Austin. We found out about it pretty late. But, no. We wanted to try and do something a little different, how a lot of the bands playing sessions do, but we came to realize that since we’re not a very big band at all (we’re still very DIY and underground), it probably wasn’t best. So what we did was we just did four songs live, straight, and we recorded with some different textures. Heidi, our keyboardist, played on an actual piano and I played through a different amp, but we didn’t do anything acoustically or a cover or anything like that. We just did everything live and ran through four songs of ours, and I think that’s good though because we’re not very big and I think the people from the Daytrotter world will be listening to that as more of an introduction to our band. I think if we’d have done anything differently, it would’ve been like, ‘This is cool,’ but I would like for them to be introduced to the band first before we do something different. Hopefully a little later down the line we can do another Daytrotter session or something where we can be a little more stripped-down or creative with that. But I’m pretty happy that we just did four songs we did live for it.
As you said, you are a young, up-and-coming band that’s pretty much established itself as a touring act but isn’t yet a household name in the indie music world, but it’s a pretty rough time in the music industry right now. Even Paste Magazine just announced that they’re going to stop printing the physical magazine going forward. Do you feel it’s an especially rough time to be a band in your position?
Yeah, it is, it’s a very rough time. The music industry is constantly changing, with the CD sales plummeting down and everything digital going up. It’s a different time right now, but even still we’ve been progressing and growing and slowly becoming more successful. We’re still working hard and we’re still going to keep going. Good things look like they might be coming for us, and it’s an exciting time and it’s exciting just to be doing this, no matter if it’s growing or not, it’s just fun and exciting for us to be around each other and to be able to play this music and travel.
Over time, you guys have been though a handful of lineup changes. Do you feel that’s had an effect on your musical direction or that maybe that’s held you back from being bigger than you are now?
No. We have had some member changes, when we first started we had a second guitarist and we had a few different drummers. We’ve also gone through a few keyboardists going all the way back to the beginning of the band, when we were really young. But we had to go through all of those things to learn how to work through them and experience it a certain way, and we have to learn from that and grow. I feel like everything we’ve done has developed the core of the members that are now Dignan, and I feel like it’s stronger than ever. Right now we’re a four-piece with a fill-in drummer, and we’re working on filling that gap right now. But this is the strongest the band has ever been, and no, I don’t feel like it’s ever held us back or kept us from growing. Us having to make these difficult decisions and sometimes having to vote somebody off has only made us stronger and kept the momentum going forward.
You guys are named after Owen Wilson’s character is Wes Anderson’s Bottle Rocket, Dignan. In the movie, Dignan is a bit of a “schemer” and invents a 75-year plan for his life and career as a thief. Do you, like the character, have a 75-year plan for what you want to do with the band?
No, no we definitely don’t have that. Our plan right now is to keep on touring throughout the rest of the year. We have another tour planned out for November that’ll mainly be Texas and the surrounding area: Oklahoma, Arkansas, and maybe Louisiana. We’re working on a full-length so we’re setting aside some time from touring to work on writing as a band after November. We’re going to work on recording and merchandise and design and artwork and figuring out everything for the record’s release. But, after that, as far as having a 75-year plan, I don’t think so. We’re gonna keep going and touring. I think we’re all pretty happy with everything that we’ve done, so we’re just going to keep going until, I don’t know, until it feels… complete.
Follow Dignan on Twitter: @DignanMusic
Follow us on Twitter: @SceneSC @benjaminkerley
