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BABYLON A.D.
Derek Davis Interview
by Kara Uhrlen |
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After releasing two albums on Arista Records and shooting a video for "The Kid
Goes Wild" for the RoboCop movie, Babylon A.D. may have fallen victim to the
destruction caused by the grunge scene, but according to vocalist Derek Davis,
they never truly called it quits.
"We all kinda grew up together, like cousin’s or distant brothers or something,
so it wasn’t really like we ever really broke up. By the time ‘94 came around
and Nirvana was super-big and the music that was coming out right then, it was
like we needed a break. We were tired, mentally tired as well as physically
tired of banging our head against the corporate f*ckin’ bullshit that you have
to do when you’re on a major label. And plus we’d been partying way too much all
those years on the road and needed to get a grip on reality.”
After returning home, Davis says that the band licked their wounds, grew up a
little bit, and found that music wasn’t the only thing that they were going to
do with their lives. While he and drummer Jamey Pacheco did a couple things on
the side musically, he says it "wasn't all satisfying like the Babylon A.D.
thing was." And since the music was still pumping through their blood and they
felt like they had something more to say, they eventually released another
album.
Instead of being force fed their image by a major label, the band went on to
release their first live album in late 1998 and their third studio album in July
of 2000 on Apocalypse Records, their very own label. Davis says, “We really felt
that the record label that we had been on previously never really gave a good
representation of the band, we were always told what to do.”
The live album, entitled Live In Your Face, was composed from various live tapes
that the band had collected over the years from 1990 to about 1994. Davis says
he sat down for about three weeks or so, listened to everything the band ever
recorded, and picked what he thought was the best representation of the band
live on stage. And though all original band members were represented on those
recordings, their bass player Robb Reid has since decided that “music wasn’t for
him.” He has been replaced by Pacheco’s brother Eric, who Davis says has “always
been one of the clan, either he comes with us on the road – he’s always been
there. He’s always been a great musician and songwriter in his own rite.”
After two years of writing and recording, their third studio release American
Blitzkrieg was officially released on July 4th, and though the band approached
the album as they had done with their first two albums, it was the first time
they had total creative control.
"Before the record label would have a big hand in picking the songs and telling
us what songs to put on a record, how to sound, what the production should sound
like, things like that. This record we just basically threw caution to the wind
and we’re able to do whatever the f*ck we want, because there’s nobody else
telling us what to do.”
And with control the band said what they wanted to say, sounded how they wanted
to sound, and did what they wanted to do. And though there are many fans who
love the release, Davis realizes that there is a portion of those die-hard
Babylon A.D. fans wondering why their latest release doesn’t sound exactly like
their first two albums. He explains that it is no longer 1990, and that Babylon
A.D. is moving forward though he doesn’t' think the album is all that different.
"When you’re a musician, you just keep writing, you don’t stop and say ‘well
let’s see, in 1990 we wrote a song called “Bang Go The Bells” so lets try to
write a song like that'."
He adds, “I do think it sounds like our other stuff – I think most people think
it’s just like the next record. If you listen to the first album and then the
second album, you can definitely tell there’s a difference between those two
albums, this one just happens to be about seven years later after those ones
were made. So, in between there might have been three or four albums, but we
would have gotten to this point anyway.”
The band will be playing shows in select cities, as well as doing interviews and
other promotions in support of their album, but Davis says it’s not like they
are kids anymore saying “give me fifty bucks and a bunch of beer and chicks and
I’ll play.” Now that they’ve grown up and have homes, touring is more like
business, and it’s all just a matter of supply and demand. If there’s a big
demand for them, they’ll play, so he suggests that everyone requests their first
single “Sinking in the Sand,” which will go to radio in a few weeks.
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