Chapter 1 - The Interview

Aiming for the Stars: an interview with one of today‘s hottest up-and-coming rock bands
_{New York, July 12, 2006}
Published in D.A.R.E. Magazine

Ever since their media debut four months ago, the up-and-coming new band Drakula has been taking the world by storm. With phenomenally fast-growing popularity, they’ve quickly clawed their way to the top of the charts. But is the band more than whirling guitars and nonchalant rockstar attitude? D.A.R.E. correspondent Arthur Lewis interviewed the band in New York just before the start of their first worldwide tour in attempt to get into the heads of the stars that have taken the music industry by storm.

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The band members sit before me beside the window of the small New York coffee shop. I managed to set up an interview with them today, the last chance before they embark on their first world tour. They’re a strange looking bunch.

The band is: Dan Sholls of Gloucester, England on lead guitar and backing vocals (age 31), Toby King of Broken Hill, Australia on bass (age 29), Travis Rift of Calgary, Canada on drums (age 35), Arella ’Ari’ Winchester of  Carlsbad, California on lead vocals (age 17), and Takuya ‘Akuma’ Takahashi of Inuyama, Japan on keyboard (age 32).

Dan, decked out in hardcore gothic attire, is slumped nonchalantly over the arm of the sofa. Then there’s Travis and Toby arguing over whether or not to allow smoking on the tour bus. Akuma sits pensively and watches the fight over the rim of his coffee cup. Ari is all pink strawberry print, polka dots, and Hello Kitty barrettes, her bright pink hair atrociously messy from the wind outside.

Lewis: Thanks for meeting me here on such short notice.

Dan: No problem. We have a few hours to kill before the tour bus shows up, anyway. They had to do some repairs on it. It was attacked by a parade. The idiot driver left it in the middle of Main Street. Not a good call.

Ari: We’re always happy to take time off to answer a few questions for our fans.

Lewis: So, you’re leaving on your first world tour this afternoon. Nervous? Excited? What are your feelings on the tour?

Akuma: We’re all a little of both. We’ve been talking about it a lot this week. But whatever happens, we think it’s going to be a great experience.

Dan: A chance to get our faces out there even more, you know? See the world. Adventure, fans, all that. It should be a lot of fun.

Lewis: you have gathered a vast amount of fans over the past few months. What do you think accounts for your extreme popularity?

Ari: I’d call it a mixture of things. We’re not like any other band out there, and most people haven’t heard anything like our music before.

Dan: Exactly. We’re refreshing. Other bands make music that sounds alike… other bands make music copying their favorite band before them. It’s a never ending cycle of copycats. We’re something to break the mold… relief from bands trying to sound like each other and steal great ideas from each other instead of coming up with their own.

Toby: I think the fact that we’re very music oriented also helps. Other bands are more concerned with appearances or what people think. We’re very focused on what we do, not on our image. We’re all about the music.

Dan: All about the music, eh? I like that. Maybe we should patent that.

Lewis: That’s already the slogan for D.A.R.E. Magazine.

Dan: Oh. Never mind, then.

Lewis: So, your music is different. But you’re all different than most rock stars you see today too, right? No two of you are from the same country… were there a lot of cultural clashes because of that? Did it cause any disagreements over what kind of music you produce?

Dan: Every band has its disagreements over what kind of music it produces. But we never really had any disagreements because of culture. Music is music. It may sound different or have different principles depending on where its background is, but deep down it’s all the same.

Travis: I think all of us being from different places actually helped the music. Every country has different things to bring to music, and when you throw ideas from this many places together, you get a really cool mix. I think it’s what makes our style so different.

Lewis: How about age? Ari, is it strange being the only female as well as the youngest member?

Ari: It was a little hard to get used to being around so many older people so much, but when it comes down to it, it really is all about the music. We all have different visions, but age didn’t really seem to matter when it came to music. When we got down to recording, we weren’t any certain age. We were just musicians. It is a little annoying to be the only one who can’t legally sign their own contracts, though.

Lewis: The five of you completely closed off all contact with the outside world while you were recording your album. What was that like?

Toby: It was a really personal experience. We poured our souls into the recording, and we kinda forgot there was life outside of it for a while. But then, when the CD was finished, we woke up.

Lewis: You said in an interview in Hit Parader that you all work very well together. What can you say about your group’s dynamics?

Dan: It’s simple. I’m the asshole, Aku[ma] is the quiet musical genius, Ari is the peacemaking visionary, Travis is the hardcore rocker, and Toby is the idiot.

Toby: I-

Dan: There’s one in every band, Toby. Deal with it.

Lewis: So, New York is where you all met. How exactly did that happen?

Ari: There was a huge rock music summit here last summer. I’d heard about it in the fall, and I’d been working to get enough money for the trip. I eventually got to go. I was so excited, and I was running around and hyper there. I ended up tripping over Dan’s guitar case, and he chewed me out. Travis and Toby ended up coming out of nowhere and getting him to chill. Then, Akuma was playing with a techno band up on stage a few minutes later, and we were all really blown away.

Dan: And a few hours later, somehow or other, we had decided to form a band.

Akuma: It was Ari’s idea. She was really excited about it, and the rest of us just kind of caved at first, didn’t really think anything would happen with it. Dan had been searching for a band for a couple of years, but I don’t think we were exactly what he had in mind. But then we played a couple of songs as a group at the summit, and he realized that we were better than he’d thought.

Lewis: So, you’re all from different places, and distance would be difficult to work with. How have you solved that problem?

Travis: We’ve been living in New York. Our record company got us an apartment in Chinatown, and we’re looking for somewhere that you can buy an actual house without selling your soul to the devil so we can actually get somewhere to work, hopefully build our own studio eventually. It would be way too hard to deal with distance, so we’ve decided to all stay in the same place.

Lewis: So, it sounds like you’ve got big plans for the future.

Dan: That’s right. No way are we stopping at one album. The revolution will continue. We’ve been doing a lot of covers lately, mostly by artists we really love; Elvis, Bill Haley, and a few underground Japanese bands that’ve caught our attention. And plenty more, but none of it’s ever going to hit anyone’s ears, so there’s no point in mentioning it. We’re doing an online download center for our cover songs, though, so visit our website it you want to check them out.

Lewis: So, what other bands would you say you draw influence from?

Dan: As few as possible. That’s the point of what we do here… to make music that’s new, music that isn’t just based on yesterday’s crap that’s faded out. We’re not bringing back music that people’ve already heard, we’re giving them something new.

Ari: There aren’t really any bands in particular that influence us, but we get a lot of inspiration from the feel of the music from the fifties, the eighties, the twenties, and plenty more. The combination of different styles gives the music that texture we like. I write most of the lyrics, and the others are more in charge of figuring out the feeling that we want it to have.

Lewis: Well, it looks like we’re almost out of time here. Just a few more questions. Do you have any advice for potential rock stars out there?

Dan: Not really, because I know they’re just going to try to be like us, and the pattern of copycats will continue. They can figure it out for themselves.

Ari: The best advice I can give is not to give up. People might tell you that you’re no good, that you’re never going to make it. Don’t listen. If it’s really what you want to do, then don’t stop doing it. If you’re trying to get into music, then I’m all for you.

Lewis: Wise words indeed. Now, since you’ve come into the public eye, people have been comparing you with everyone from Evanescence to Backstreet Boys. What do you think of the comparisons?

Toby: If you’re going to be a public figure, you’re going to be compared to others. It’s going to happen, so we might as well roll with it. I suppose we have some in common with the people they compare us to.

Lewis: Well, that’s all the time we have for today. Thanks for your time.

Travis: Don’t mention it.

Lewis: Any words for the fans?

Ari: Keep rocking, guys!

Dan: Come see us on tour. The album comes out on July 27th, make sure you give it a listen. There’s more to us than what they play on the radio. Trust me.

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The band will be playing in various locations around the world on their tour, and their debut album, Piss in the System, comes out at the end of the month. This interview provided only a quick glimpse into the minds of creative genius that make up Drakula, and maybe there’s more of a story to tell yet.

-Arthur Lewis, New York

All members of Drakula, D.A.R.E. Magazine/websize, and Arthur Lewis are ©2006 by Danie McCafferty (Moonchild10) 

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