Dead Superstar: A Big Bang!
Not very often do you find a band that stands out from the mess of bands that sound exactly the same. It is pretty sad, but Dead Superstar brings hope back to the Music Industry. Formed in 2005, Dead Superstar is here with a clear mission: they want to bring the masses a fresh mix of musical elements and through their powerful, energetic performances; they hope to cross new boundaries. After seeing them perform 3 different times, at 3 different venues, I have no doubt that this phenomenal band will be a significant force within the next decade. With the release of their brand new album titled "Tribulations" and their radio campaign kicking off on March 9th, Dead Superstar is very excited to bring their music to the masses. I recently had a chance to interview the band at The Delancey and after a few minutes of conversing with them, and I realized that their mindset is definitely on target! Here is what went down after they took over the stage at The Delancey on Friday February 19th:
HU: Alright! I am here in New York City, by the Williamsburg Bridge, by The Delancey, with this band called Dead Superstar.
In Unison: Dead Superstar!
HU: Yeah! Dead Superstar just jammed hard man! And you guys…
Terrence: Take 1!
In Unison: (Laughter).
HU: So Troi, you were going to tell us a story. What happened? Go ahead.
Troi: I have a story that happened with our old band Perseverance a few years back. We were playing up in Toronto. And these two guys smashed a window, fucking grabbed the TV set, walked to the curve and where like: “Yo, Taxi!!!”
Terrence: (Laughter).
Troi: Taxi pulled up. The guys got in the fucking cab with the TV and took the fuck off! (Laughter).
HU: Did you guys get any video of that?
Terrence: No.
Troi: No, no, no… I wish we did bro!
HU: So first of all. Introduce yourselves; say what you play, where you are from, and your influences. We’ll start with you man.
Troi: Hmmm… Troi Mosby. Long Island New York, via Queens. Influences: Anything grooving, anything hard.
HU: For example?
Troi: Hmmm… From Pantera to The Village People bro! I am all across the spectrum.
Terrence: The Village People? Yeah kid!
Jared: Wow!
HU: (Laughter). How about you?
Terrence: (Laughter). Hmmm… Terrence Keith. My influences go back into the deep roots man. We are talking like 70, 60’s… James Brown into Zeppelin and The Doors, into 90’s Grunge. Like Rock from Rage Against the Machine, Soundgarden, a little Black Sabbath and Pantera. It goes all over the floorboard baby, all over the floorboard.
HU: Speaking of Black Sabbath, did you know that it recently was the 40th anniversary of Black Sabbath?
Terrence: Yes, I did hear that.
Evan: Yeah…
HU: And I think most musicians today if it wasn’t for Black Sabbath... Black Sabbath shaped up what was going to happen in the music industry with Hard Rock music. I think they were The Beatles of heavier Rock.
Terrence: I agree. And also a band a lot of people are sleeping on is AC/DC…
Evan: AC/DC, I was about to say that.
Terrence: AC/DC…
Evan: AC/DC all the way!
Terrence: A lot of people think they had…
Evan: They are Rock N Roll.
Terrence: Yeah, they think that AC/DC had those mundane like grooves because people used to say: “Oh, they had no groove!”
Jared: Done, dirt, cheap…
In Unison: (Laughter).
HU: And since you mentioned AC/DC, it is Bon Scott’s death anniversary today.
Jared: Today is the day?
HU: Today is the day.
Jared: Ahhh man… that is a really sad day.
Troi: Really?
Jared: I am Jared. I am the drummer for Dead Superstar. I am most deeply influenced by Bon Scott’s pants in the “Let It Be Rock” 1982 wide-release movie.
Terrence and Evan: (Laughter).
Jared: When Bon Scott opened the show wearing a pair of ripped jeans and by the end of the show the jeans where so scared of Bon Scott, they had fallen off of his body miraculously…
Terrence: (Laughter).
Jared: I thought that fucking was the most amazing Rock N Roll moment that I have ever seen on film. So here is to fucking Bon Scott!
Terrence: Hip, hip.
HU: Like an imaginary shot?
Jared: Exactly.
HU: Yeah, I mean…
Jared: What’s funny is that Bon Scott was 33 years old when he died and a lot of people in music, and the musicians and artists know about this thing, is that 27, 33 curse. That artists die at 27 or they die at 33. And that is something that is really close to us. We had people that we know die at that age. We got family that where musicians that have died at that age. And most of us have escaped both of curses at this point. We are just worried about Evan; he is a little under the wire.
Terrence, Troi and Evan: (Laughter).
Jared: Bringing up Bon Scott, that curse and that whole thing, is really important to us because our record “Tribulations” is coming out. And a lot of the songs are about loss and things that have happened to us in our lives as people. Whether we have been injured or hurt, or somebody died, or somebody close to us is no longer with us... So that is important.
HU: Yeah right on! You always have to keep the memory of everybody who has passed, because they influence us in one way or another. Whether it is through art, through music, through family. They influence who we are and the future of what we are going to be. Like for example, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, any other influences that you can think of?
Evan: Man, I listen to everything! I don’t even know where to start. But if it sounds good, if it has a good riff to it; it can be any type of Rock, Hard Rock, Metal, Extreme Metal… I listen to everything. I love the riffs of Lamb of God and August Burns Red, and then I’ll get down with 311 and the Dave Matthews Band. Whatever it is man, if I hear a good riff, if I hear a good solo... I might be influenced by it. I also like a lot of progressive music like anything that John Petrucci and Dream Theater, or Opeth does. I let all the different kinds of influences just come together and I try to write whatever sounds good.
Troi: The Who is still rocking it out in the Super Bowl.
HU: Yeah!
Troi: Fucking 62 years old man! Don’t get fooled again!
Terrence: No one mentioned the Rolling Stones. But hey, that’s all good.
HU: But they already had it. Since we were talking about different bands that have influenced so many other bands, for example, Metallica, Do you guys think they will ever have a spot at the Super Bowl?
Terrence: I don’t think they ever will.
Troi: I don’t know…
Evan: They should! They absolutely should, but they probably won’t. You know whom I would love to see: a Led Zeppelin reunion at the Super Bowl.
Jared: Oh wow! That would be amazing! I think that the NFL has the balls to put Metallica on stage at the Super Bowl. They are just going to have to get through other bands first, you know? They did Bruce Springsteen, and they did the Rolling Stones, and they did The Who.
Terrence: Did U2 do it yet?
Jared: Yeah, U2 did it.
HU: U2? I think so right?
Troi: Yeah.
Jared: Definitely.
Troi: Janet Jackson with the titty!
Terrence: Oh!!!
Troi: (Laughter).
Terrence: The titty!
In Unison: (Laughter).
Jared: That was the best!
HU: No, no… you had to bring that up!
Evan: I went to grab a beer and I saw everyone’s face! I missed it!
Troi: That was a nice titty you know?
Evan: I looked away to pick up my beer and I see everyone’s face… The Missed Boob!!!
Troi: I wanted to see that titty since she appeared in “Good Times”!
In Unison: (Laughter).
Jared: Yo! I have to agree with that!
Troi: (Laughter).
Jared: That is pretty much when I was interested.
Evan: I think that was before my time.
Terrence: You got it over with at the Super Bowl.
Troi: (Laughter).
HU: That was classic.
Jared: I don’t want to let everybody else look at my girl. You know what I am saying?
HU: Since you where talking about the new record, what else can you tell us? In my opinion it is obviously fresh, I heard the music just now, and it is real good!
Evan: It's raw! It's dynamic! And there is a lot of variety. We don’t stick with any particular types of given labels, whatever you want to label the type of music that you hear. And that is one of the things that are going wrong with all music these days; everyone feels that a certain type of music has to be labeled a subgenre of a genre. Whatever it is, Hard Rock, fucking Groove Metal … Death Core now is the hot thing in Extreme Metal. You know if it is good music, if it sounds good… just play it, listen to it, like it and call it whatever you want to.
Troi: Yeah! We went into the studio with Joey Z from Hard Rock/ Metal band Life of Agony … and we just did our thing man. Just laid down our tracks and what came out, came out man. There was no set plan! We did our thing and we just tried to make it happen. I hope everyone likes it.
HU: How was working with Joey?
Troi: Great!
Evan: Fucking awesome!
Troi: (Laughter).
HU: Obviously you spent a lot of time together with him and with yourselves in the studio. Was there something that happened ridiculously funny or something that just inspired the record during the process? Whether it was pre-production, production, mixing…
Troi: All I can say about this album… it was made of on Jack Daniels and late night sushi bro!
Terrence: (Laughter).
Troi: A lot of hours up in the docks in Brooklyn just doing our thing man. It was an interesting experience. Joey Z is a good man. He grew and we grew with him.
Terrence: (Laughter).
Troi: It was an experience bro! It was a great experience that I would do again in a minute. It was good times. We got what we wanted to get across.
Terrence: Let me tell you that he did one hell of a job on the album. But you got to pick it up and see for yourself because it is dope. The production is off the hook, everything is tight and you got to check it out because it has a message and it is a good vibe, and a grooving CD.
HU: And where can people find the CD? Give them a couple of links, plug yourselves.
Troi: DeadSuperstar.net.
Evan: MySpace.com/DeadSuperstarMusic. ReverbNation.com/DeadSuperstarMusic.
HU: Are you guys on Twitter?
Evan: Yeah, we are on Twitter. You can follow us on there.
Terrence: Do we Twit?
Troi: We are on Twitter, we Twit, we Facebook, we iTunes, we CD Baby, we La La, we Lu Lu…
Terrence: We take your sister to a ball, we do all those things and we do it right.
Troi: That’s right!
Terrence: (Laughter).
Troi: We take your sister to the fucking concert; drop her off with her panties in her back pocket.
Terrence: (Laughter).
Troi: We do all that shit! (Laughter).
Terrence: When we drop her at her house in a freaking carriage, you know it’s us.
Troi: That’s right! We lean her up against the door, push the doorbell and bounce!
In Unison: (Laughter).
HU: Any closing remarks? What do you want people to know about Dead Superstar?
Jared: We want them to know that the album drops March 9th to radio. And that our manager Tom “Smitty” Smith is bringing the album to the people all across the United States. We are going to be on Sirius, we are going to be on College Radio, we are going to go to specialty shows and markets. We are going to be out there getting plays on radio stations across the US, Canada and even some in Europe, so we want people to call up and request our songs! If you hear the shit and you like it, call up your radio stations. Call and request Dead Superstar. Tell them to play it all day long because the only way we can get out there and play for people, is if they want to hear the music. And if they hear the music on the radio, they got to tell them to keep playing it because it is hard to get bands across the country.
Evan: Yeah, we do it all for the fans. That is what it is all about. If people didn’t like our music, if we weren’t having a good time by playing awesome music for awesome people, then we wouldn’t be doing this. So we are getting it out there on the radio. Request Dead Superstar at your local station, at Satellite Radio, or whatever it might be playing. And we are looking forward to kicking ass with everybody out there.
HU: And that is the right attitude. And you know what? Not only pick up the CD, but pick up the merchandise and go to the shows. Everybody, this is for every single band out there! You have to support your local acts. We are in New York where there are a lot of hungry bands, and there are some really, really good bands out there too.
Evan: Exactly.
HU: What you are doing is basically evolving to something different. You don’t want to sound like ABCDE, like a formula to try to get that musical perfection, because that fails.
Jared: Yeah.
HU: What you guys are trying to do is get your own flavors out through your own influences. You guys are obviously pretty different dudes.
Troi: Oh yeah man. You got to come to the shows; our shows are an experience man. The more people the better. All I can say is prestige worldwide.
Evan: OH God!!!
Troi: Catalina Wine Mixer baby!
In Unison: (Laughter).
Troi: That just happened! (Laughter). Fucking Evan will eat your dick like fucking Kobiachi!
In Unison: (Laughter).
Jared: I hope this is not going to be at the Satellite station or Cable station, because you are going to have to sensor the shit out of us.
Terrence: Bleep! Bleep! Bleep! Bleep! Bleep! Bleep!
Troi: We want to thank you for coming down man and just seeing the show, interviewing us. And giving us the time to get our shit out there and hopefully everyone will dig it man.
HU: The sky is the limit. Thank you guys! Dead Superstar, you guys fucking rock! Any last words?
Evan: Joe…
HU: You never told us who you are?
Evan: You kick ass Joe. My name is Evan. I play guitar for Dead Superstar.
HU: We forgot that part with you right? (Laughter).
Evan: I figured you knew who I was.
In Unison: (Laughter).
HU: But now I know who all of you are.
In Unison: (Laughter).
Terrence: Wait. You don’t know who I am?
Troi: (Laughter).
HU: No, no… who are you?
Terrence (Laughter).
HU: Who are you?
Terrence: My name is Terrence and I am the front man of Dead Superstar. And I just want to say that our music is a revolutionary spiritual message that we want everyone to take a listen to and I want to say that it is not something plastic, that we just made up just to get to number 1, top 10 hits, whatever. This is real! What we write is real. We come from our hearts, we come from our souls and we want to break through. And we want to send a message out. And that is all I got to say. Dead Superstar! It’s almost like a big bang. And that is what we are trying to create, something new, and something different. A new creation of music, bless it.
HU: Amen.
Troi: Troi Mosby, Dead Superstar.
Jared: Jared, Dead Superstar. Terrence that last part was very moving. I want you to hold me right now! I feel very emotional.
Terrence: (Laughter).
HU: (Laughter). Alright, thank you guys!
You can listen to this interview and to their new record titled "Tribulations" right here:
Related links:
Dead Superstar Official Site
MySpace
Reverb Nation
This is a video taken by Nik from Rock Metal Inc.:
This are Radio Stations that will be playing Dead Superstar's new album titled "Tribulations". If you don't see your local station listed, call them and tell them you want to hear Dead Superstar!
Non-Traditional:
Music Choice
Full Metal Jackie
Commercial Specialty:
KEYJ Abilene, TX
KFLY Eugene, OR
KFTE Lafayette, LA
KJML Joplin, MO
KMKF Manhattan, KS
KROX Austin, TX
KRRX Redding, CA
KSHE St. Louis, MO
KZZE Medford, OR
WAQX Syracuse, NY
WCHZ Augusta, GA
WDHA Cherry Hill, NJ
WKGB Binghamton, NY
WKLL WKRL Utica, NY
WKTA Rebel Radio Chicago, IL
WLFE Burlington, VT
WOBX Nags Head, NC
WRIF Ferndale, MI
WVBR Interlaken, NY
WXRX Rockford, IL
WYBB Charleston, SC
College/Community:
KKFI Kansas City, MO
KSJS San Jose, CA
WBGU Bowling Green, OH
WEOS Waterloo, NY
WMPG Portland, ME
WORT Waunakee, WI
WSOU S. Orange, NJ
WSUP Platteville, WI
WWSP Custer, WI
WXCI Danbury, CT
By: JoSchuftan
