CHAT WITH GUITARIST ISHAN FROM DIRT CITY AHEAD OF SELF-TITLED EP RELEASE
Sydney rock legends Dirt City are set to release their Self-Titled EP next week on the 18th of August, already dishing listeners out a treat with track ‘Death in the Desert’ which gives us a solid look at what's to come and only has us more excited as the days tick down to the EP release.
To celebrate this, we got the chance to do a Q&A with guitarist Ishan which you can check out below.
Tell us one interesting fact about each member!
ISHAN: Loves playing flamenco guitar
WARREN: Used to be a catwalk model
ANDREY: Toured throughout Russia in his old metal band
JONO: Runs his own Music School - teaching kids and adults all about bass, drums, guitar, vocals and how to be in a band - think School of Rock!
LUKE: Has an insane guitar collection
Love the name - Dirt City, how did you come up with that and why do you think it was the best fit for the band?
It’s always hard to come up with a name for a band - most great names are taken! We decided to go to our inspirations as we were having a hard time figuring out what would suit the music. Sludgey riffs are our go to - and there’s no better band for that than Alice in Chains. Also, we totally love how dark and raw Bruce Springsteen can be (no joke!)
Our Fave Alice in Chains Album is “Dirt”...and my fave song by the Boss is “Atlantic City”.
Combining the two just felt right - and totally spoke to the musical vibe of Dirt City.
‘Death In The Desert’ is the latest track that you’ve released. Tell us a little bit about it.
I’m of sub-continental descent and I’ve always loved the sound of sitars, growing up. I always thought there’s something ‘sinister’ in Indian and Middle eastern scales that I wanted to explore further.
So I had the idea of trying to meld both Oriental textures with heavy riffage; turning one into the other, or one from the other. So we started experimenting with Indian soundscapes and developed the intro - which then turned into the lead line of the Chorus.
So Death in the Desert is essentially our ode to World Music - with sitars, tablas, acoustic guitars - mixed with modern western hooks and choruses (and of course sludgey riffs).
We can’t wait for your Self-Titled EP to drop next week! What was the creative process like?
Thanks!
The seed for Dirt City started with my tastes in heavy music changing.
I’d always played in technical / metalcore / djent bands - and to be honest, really got over the style.
Modern metal is plagued with quantized, robotic and sterile production, riffs and playing. Its about who can play the fastest and cleanest. There’s no way to tell if someone actually played a part on a record (given this overproduction).
We wanted Dirt City to embrace and celebrate the mistakes, odd notes, noise and attitude that real and unaltered professional musicians produce.
For example, image, Led Zeppelin quantized, comped and autotuned. No way!
So the best way I thought to get into this raw ethos was to ditch my high gain amp and pointy guitars and use a Fuzz Pedal instead. It made me come up with more sludgey riffs and unleashed a wellspring of creativity.
I came up with Demos for all the riffs on the EP by myself - without even a band in mind - it was my own passion project to begin with. But I knew these songs deserved more and got Warren our singer onto it. From there we slowly built the band - and enlisted Nathan Sheehy (DZ Deathrays, Birds of Tokyo) to produce from there.
We did a heap of pre-production work with Nathan to freshen up the songs, cut the fat and really concentrate on the songwriting and songcraft. He had amazing ideas; incorporated 80s synths that added a heap more dirt to the sound to ultimately create a soundscape that’s been forgotten in heavy music.
We fully embraced these textures and love how the production turned out. Fuzz guitar, synths, real drums with raw vocals
Without a doubt, listening back to those initial demos with my fuzz pedal - the songs have completely come to life in a way I could not have imagined, while still keeping the same ethos or raw, heart and grime.
What was the best part about creating the EP?
No doubt the creative process - watching the tracks go from being home demos - to the countless hours re-writing, editing, re-arranging, and then pre-production, re-arranging, re writing with Nathan in the studio - at the time it felt like a grind and mind bending, but looking back there’s nothing better than working on songcraft and finding your true voice in the studio.
If you could play at any venue around the world with your dream line-up, where would it be, and who would be playing?
This is a tough one. If we’re talking about playing with modern bands, I’d say:
Monolord - these guys are the kings of sludgey fuzz riffs imo
Beartooth - love their catchy hooks and huge riffs - something we aspire too
The Hu - the Mongolian band thats taking the world by storm. Awesome to see World Music hitting the Metal Scene hard - totally love how they mix their culture with metal attitude
Venue: Hammersmith Odeon - My childhood self would be amazed if we got to play in the pantheon of heavy rock - walking in the footsteps of Maiden, Sabbath and all the rest would be major bucket list vibes!
After the release of the EP, what’s next for the band for the remainder of the year?
Strange thing happened - we realised our EP sounds awesome unplugged! So we’re going to release an acoustic film we recently shot - and will release this as a separate EP on all streaming platforms.
We’ve also got our Launch gig at the Duke of Enmore on 24 August, supported by Paint Job and Hawker.
We’re looking to line up a heap more touring from there (Regionally with Hawker)
We’re also well on the way to writing EP #2 - so pre-production starts in October - no rest!!