Enjoy! The audio is attached and the transcript is below!

Del Mar – Artist on Artist Interview
Interviewed by:
Allan Kaspar of The DnA Project (mediaconsumesme.com)
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(members of Del Mar present: Nicole Gaugh, Bud Gaugh, Matt Bode, Mike Martinez)

Mediaconsumesme.com: OK I want to keep this pretty informal and relaxed. So lets just start, for the fans that don’t know you, with some introductions. Who’s all here with us and who does what?

Nicole Gaugh: Alright this is Nicole Gaugh, I do rhythm guitar and vocals (sometimes).

Matt Bode: Matt Bode and I do lead guitar and vocals.

Mike Martinez: Mike, I play bass and… that’s it (laughter)

Bud Gaugh: I’m Bud… and I’m master of the MOTHERF*&(ER!

(more laughter)

Nicole: That’s all he does.

MCM: That’s awesome, awesome. So Del Mar, you guys have come about, was it all at once? Did you guys sit in a room and say, “You know what, this is it!” I know your myspace page said you formed to “keep outta trouble with the law…”

Bud: Yeah me and Matt were in jail on a drunk bender and we were like, talking about how much music SUCKS on the radio, so were all, “We should just start our own band!”… No really it was, Nicole and Matt and Mike were all jamming together in a band earlier and… take it away Nicole!

Nicole: Me and Matt were in a punk band, later on that band kinda dissolved and Matt and I were… actually it was Matt’s idea to do a surf band, and we came together and Bud wanted to play music again, so it was the three of us. Then Mike joined, and thus Del Mar was born! Really for fun at first.

Mike: It was a mixture of making the punk into the surf because we’re all… kinda California..

MCM: Hell yeah…

Mike: Well, I’M from California, Bud’s from California.. I dunno about the ..

Nicole: California SUUUCKS!

(laughter)

Matt: Just mixing the surf stuff, I like mixing the surf with the rock and roll, its fun!

MCM: Absolutely and yeah its definitely evident on the album and you guys do it very well. So you’re all friends then, you’ve all known each other for a while then. It shows through the chemistry with the music that I’ve heard with After The Quake (their album). And you guys brought it up, your sound is just an incredible mix of surf, punk, and really just fist in the f*(*ing face rock. There’s no other way to put it you guys just got something all your own. You can really tell, I was listening to it (After the Quake) again for probably the 10th time now… the diversity of style that each of you have. You all have different influences but it all comes together great. You got some instrumental surf jams (like the track Broken Surfboards on the Beach). You’ve got ‘Pot Bandits’ which just makes you want to start a pit and punch somebody in the face. Do you guys have the same influences? One of you way out there? You still find ways to come together and make it work?

Mike: Well it comes from all of our music influences. I got a lot of music influences myself, a background with metal and all kinds of punk. Matt comes with his surf music that he loves, and that actually got me into it so… we all have a wide variety of music that we all like and it just all gets put in the mix.

Bud: Yeah I like a lot of old Long Beach punk rock, just like old school punk rock

MCM: Cool

Bud: 80s… 70s and 80s punk rock. Old school like Angry Samoans, Minor Threat

MCM: Yeaah!

Bud: I mean all kinds of shit, you know. I got a wide array of influences everything from African Jazz, Reggae, Latin, all kinds of music. So the surf stuff was really easy for me to adapt to. I mean I love surf music already as it is and a lot of the surf rhythms kinda have like a Latin flare to them. My instructor Billy Wilson (Rest in Peace), he was a jazz drummer and he taught some African, Cuban and Latin rhythms so that was instilled at an early young age. I like psychadelic rock, anything that will take your mind elsewhere…

MCM: Absolutely.

Bud: Anything that’ll make you want to… punch somebody in the face or… give them a flower or whatever it is! (laughter). If its changing your mood then its good music. Good music is good music, period, and thats where my influences come from.

MCM: It shows. There’s a lot of influences in the music, and its very good. It definitely shows in what you guys do. So you all had a hand in writing the music then? Everybody contributes? (to After The Quake).

Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Pretty much with every band that I know of at least, its really a group effort. Definitely for Del Mar anyway. There’s never just one song is written solely by one person, we all come together and make a song what it is. Sometimes Matt will start one or I’ll start one and bring it in, and we’ll all put a bass line to it, or a drum beat to it, we’ll switch things up. An album is like… and I’m sure you know because you’re in The DnA Project so, an album is a very… its a group thing, not a single person effort.

MCM: Yeah it’s definitely organic. I mean we do the same thing, so its kind of refreshing and cool to hear that. You do hear stories of where its just one person doing all the writing… you can really just tell when everyone is contributing. It reflects in After The Quake as well, you have tracks with in your face hilarious humor. The intro track can make me laugh EVERY time I hear it.

(Laughter)

Bud: We also have to throw a shout out to Burt Susanka and Rob Perez. Rob Perez engineered the album and co-produced with us and Burt Susanka from The Ziggens and Astronaut Love Triangle, his new band. There is a little kind of Ziggen-esqe flare on a couple of the songs. Like the intro to ‘Rats On A Sinking Ship’, that was something we had talked about wanting to do but it was really Rob. He got some actors to come in and do some voice overs. We kind of told them the story about how Slitherback (Laughter) had stolen one of our songs and given it to that FUCKED up movie ‘Knocked Up’

MCM: Whoa, for real?!

Bud: I guess the guy gave John a blow-job, no wait I think it was Phil gave that guy a blow-job…

Nicole: That would be right because he’s a bottom.

(More laughter)

Bud: So that’s what that’s all about. That was definitely kind of a Ziggen thing going on there with the character voices, you can almost hear ‘em turning into rats as they talk, ya know?

MCM: Yeah, I was actually going to ask about that—if that song had some subliminal undertones aimed at certain people but you pretty much answered that for me right there.

(all laugh)

Bud: Call them Slitherback, you don’t have to call em Silverback!

MCM: I liked Silverlack… one of my favs… jerks

(all laugh)

MCM: How have your fans response been so far about After The Quake? How do you guys feel its been received?

Nicole: We’ve gotten really good reviews actually. Its more of a matter of distribution and getting out there. To get shit played on the radio you have to be on a label, or give someone a blow-job or whatever so… We’re just doing it super DIY style, just getting the CD in peoples hands or over the internet, having them download it. We’ve had a lot of the comments we’ve gotten are like, “Wow this a great album! There’s nothing out there right now that I can relate to or listen to like this because so much of what’s on the radio is just crap.”

Bud: We don’t want our songs played on the radio, because the radio music will actually INFECT our music and we don’t want that to happen. We were in Hawaii on vacation recently and this guy noticed me in the store, in the grocery store. He was kind of upset, upset in a good way because he had sent for an autographed Del Mar CD and Zippy… ASSHOLE! ZIPPY!

Nicole: It was MY fault it wasn’t Zippy’s fault! I didn’t send it back…
Bud: He was waiting for months so, it was kinda cool because Nicole and I were there and we scratched on the CD (signed it for him) and gave him a couple copies for him to give to his friends. I told him to pass it around because thats the main thing. We just want people to hear it, we’re not trying to get rich. We just want to pay the bills on it so we can make another one.

MCM: Yeah that’s pretty much been our thought as well. I think our big dream… if we can just make enough to match the salaries we all make in our Clark Kent day jobs we’ll be thrilled.

Bud: I’m not even talking about that we just want to be able to go back into the studio again. We all have regular day jobs. I’m being a Dad right now so…

Nicole: (referring to Sublime) and drummer of some band that nobody’s really heard of… they’re called Subliminal or something?

MCM: The band that shall not be named for legal purposes? Kinda like some Lord Voldemort thing?

(all laugh)

MCM: Actually that does bring up another question to me. Now that you do have a family, Bud and Nicole (and I dunno if the rest of you do too), but how has that…

Nicole: We’re married to each other.

MCM: Well no I KNOW that, are you guys married to Matt and Mike too?

(cracking up)

Mike: He was born in California I was born in Nevada!

Nicole: Yeah exactly… the Nevadans WON’T marry the Californians! Except for you, Bud!

MCM: Ahhhh…

(laughs)

MCM: How has that influenced, say, touring plans.

Bud: Our daughter really loves to travel so, thats not going to be an issue I don’t think. We’re working stuff out right now, we got a little legal issue that we gotta straighten out. I don’t really want to comment on that right now as its still ongoing and I don’t wanna piss on my own boots so…

MCM: Yeah I don’t want to piss in your pool either so we won’t bring it up.

Bud: I can tell you there’s a couple of RETARDS at the base of it. They’re really upsetting all of our fans too so. We just wanna get out there and play the music we helped to create (in Sublime). Also Del Mar is going to jump on board on that tour as well. Its going to be a lot of fun. I’m going to be doing double duty… but I think I can hack it.

MCM: Yeah I think you can manage it pretty well.
Bud: Yeah.

(laughs)

MCM: That’s great though. Do you guys have any plans to come out to the Northeast? Do you have a set touring schedule yet or…. is that kind of up in the air?

Bud: Yeah it’ll be nationwide for sure.

MCM: Sweet!

Nicole: Yeah we’ll get you guys back there (referring to The DnA Project) when we’re out there. Now you guys are in the Poconos right? Close to Philly?

MCM: Yeah, yeah, we’re pretty much at the hub of everything. We’re near Philly, we’re near New York, i’m sure if there’s enough caffeine involved we can get there. Its a hub… central line!

MCM: Kinda going back to the Internet though, bands like Del Mar, and of course ours and many many others. I’ve felt recently with a lot of the internet developments with say, Myspace or Reverbnation, its really opened up the doors to get yourselves, or any good band heard in ways we never could before. I was curious, I know you guys use myspace (or sites like reverbnation or even garageband), how have you felt they’ve aided, or even hindered you in getting your album out there and your message to your fans?

Nicole: Well myspace is a huge help. A lot of selling an album DIY means a lot of touring which we haven’t had the opportunity to do too much of. So we just have to really step it up on the promotions angle. But I think myspace is a really great thing, it enables us to really connect with the fans, and we have a twitter site we’ve been kind of neglecting… oops i’ll get on that. Reverbnation I don’t deal with directly with that. Our President of Half or Nothing Records, Zippy, I think he’s kind of handling that so I’m not really sure about that one.

MCM: Yeah there’s a few sites out there, I’m pretty much a media whore and I try to get us everywhere I can. You have reverbnation, myspace, garageband. Only downside with Garageband is that its (your music) reviewed by other musicians most of the time, so the reviews can be kind of snobby, but it does have the chance to get you a lot of exposure.

MCM: Going back to myspace again. I noticed Myspace is starting to take a decline.

Nicole: Yeah.

MCM: Do you worry if myspace goes away… will another take its place?

Nicole: Oh yeah, Facebook!

Bud: I hope its not Facebook, I HATE FACEBOOK!

(laughs)

Bud: I signed up for an account there and they email you three emails anytime anyone comments on a picture or asks you to be their friend. Seriously, I had EIGHT HUNDRED AND SEVENTY EIGHT emails in a three day span! That’s why I closed out the account I was pissed!

(laughs)

Nicole: I think we’re going to have to move on to the new, whatever is the most out there. I guess its Facebook or Reverbnation and all that. We’re so focused on just having a good time and playing music together that we don’t take a whole lot of our time to do promotion… but we probably should.

(everyone laughs)

MCM: Now I noticed on your myspace page you guys are doing the Reno eNVy Christmas Party? For fans that have no idea what it is, you want to share with them whats going on with that?

Nicole: Sure! Reno eNVy is a local clothing line here. They focus a lot on humor, white trash. They’re pretty funny and awesome guys.

Bud: They’ll have Clowns and Midgets making balloon animals…

MCM: They’d fit right in up here!

Nicole: Yeah we’re gonna play the show, Rome’s gonna play it as a possible special guest (sidenote: he’s the lead singer should Sublime be able to reunite).

Bud: Free Soda Pop and Wieners for everyone!

MCM: Sounds awesome!

Nicole: Should be a great time!

Bud: (singing)

MCM: I’m sorry, what was that?

Nicole: Bud’s just singing circus music, ignore him.

(all laugh)

MCM: No worries, well I don’t wanna take up too much of your time here. Is there anything you guys would like to share with your fans specifically about Del Mar, your plans, After the Quake, or a future album?

All from Del Mar: Buy the CD!

(laughter)

Nicole: Buy the CD, support the good cause, we’re going to be (like Bud said) touring with Sublime so we’ll be able to make some new fans that way. We will eventually record a new album, we’re kind of making our music more diverse, sticking to the surf punk but breaking out a little bit.
Bud: Yeah it really all started from us watching Spongebob. ARE YOU READY FOR THIS?! I CAN’T HEAR YOU! HULLOOOOOO!

Matt and Bud: SCURVY BASTARD! SCURVY BASTARD! WHO LIVES IN A PINEAPPLE UNDER THE SEA!

Nicole: … see what I deal with?

MCM: (laughs) It sounds like my guys so its all good. Except I dunno if they watch Spongebob, but if it provides THAT much musical inspiration we may have to check it out.

(laughs)

Mike: Great surf music on Spongebob!

Nicole: Yeah there is!

MCM: Well, I definitely want to thank you guys very much for taking the time to do this interview. I know mediaconsumesme.com is very appreciative. I wish you guys the absolute best. You have a great album, a great sound and attitude and I think you guys are just going to kick total ass when you go on tour.

Nicole: Awesome, thanks Al!

Bud: Rock on!

Nicole: Thank you a lot, and you’ll have to send us your new CD too as soon as you have it wrapped up!

MCM: Yeah its almost done we gotta get a few things finished, couple more songs written then its off to master it. Again its a DU—or DIY operation but its almost there. So you guys will definitely one of the first to get one.

Nicole: Cool! Thanks again Al it was great talking to you!

MCM: Great talking to you guys too!