Well, seven members of the band (seven that wrote music and performed with the band) will not necessarily reunite but reunify for a night of songs from the band's entire catalog. We caught up with guitarist Dave Wilson and got the scoop on what's going on tonight and what might come down the road.
Read more after the jump.
[DARYL] never officially broke up, but for a few years, the word was the band was done. What brought you guys back together?
Well, my involvement with the band ended in 2004, when I quit. I think you might get different answers depending on which members you ask, but I feel like the band just had a steady decline after that. To be clear, I don't mean to imply that the band declined because I left, rather I left because I felt the band was in decline. New songs weren't being written in the frequency they were before, and those that were written didn't sound like [DARYL] songs, so it was time for new projects to emerge to give those new songs a platform, which is what happened when Beau [Wagener] and Dylan [Silvers/Baerwaldt] went on to form The Crash That Took Me. On a certain level, [DARYL] lived on -- I mean, Crash is named after the title of one of the last [DARYL] songs to be written. There wasn't a final show because the music just morphed into other projects, which is why the term 'reunion' isn't being used. The idea of this show was to get everyone who had been involved in the writing of the songs together on one stage and have a fully fleshed-out blowout of a show.
Since this is billed as a reunification of members from the first line-up and the final line-up, is there a preference towards which songs will be played?
I think we did a good job of picking songs that span the life of the band. The guitar players that came in after I left wrote their own parts for the older songs, and I know I was anxious to hear how my original parts would work with theirs. It could very easily have become a huge mess that needed a lot of work and rewrites to sound good, but the truth is that both Beau and Dave [Christensen] wrote great parts that work well with what I play. This meant we really didn't have many restrictions when choosing songs to play.
How are you guys juggling four guitarists, two bassists, one keyboardist, and one drummer? Is this sensory overload?
Four guitarists: Dylan, Dave, Beau and myself; two bassists: Jeff Parker and Chad Ferman; TWO keyboardists: Chad and myself, and one hard-hitting drummer [Michael "Spammie" Lamm]! I know it will be loud, [DARYL] was always loud -- a nightmare for sound guys, but I think we've arranged it in such a way that the sound will be fuller rather than noisier. Having seven people on stage is not something we would recommend, but we're hoping to do it in such a way that it makes sense.
Any plans to do anything as a band after this show?
While we aren't referring to this as a reunion show, we're not referring to it as a final show either. Have we talked about being willing to play other shows? Absolutely. We all love these songs and the band and we're all close friends who enjoy being around each other in any capacity, but the reality is that this show took over a year to prepare for and put together. Each of us has so much going on in our lives right now that just scheduling practices is an endeavor. So while another show is a possibility, there's a really slim chance of it happening. To be honest, we're putting everything into this show because of that, and it's hard to see beyond that.
You have said that photography became your serious hobby after you left the band. How does it feel to come back to guitar?
More than a hobby, it's been my livelihood. To be honest, I don't feel like I've strayed too far from music in general. I run sound at venues, I've had regular DJ nights, and I've photographed a number of bands and musicians over the years, so I still have a strong music connection. I'm looking forward to being back on stage again and I'm glad I passed the audition, as old and rusty as I may be.
