Girl at the Rock Shows

The Deader End, from California, doesn’t really have much material out there, but they got me hooked with their song “Numb.” There was something about it that really caught my attention, ears, and heart. I loved that it was a no-frills, rock’ n’ roll kind of sound, but that there were subtle intricacies thrown into the two-minute, forty-three-second song that kept me on my toes and made The Deader End’s sound feel so unique and original. I just had to know more about this band and was honored when they let me ask them some questions about anything and everything. Unfortunately, Brandon was not available to help out with the questions, but Todd and Bill (the other two members of this amazing trio) were.

What’s your go to coffee order?
Todd: Well, I just like to support local businesses and especially the independent coffee
store, so I go to Starbucks and I have a vente vanilla, sweet cream, cold brew. Two of
them a day. Two a day! I have a $10 a day habit. I don’t care.
Billy: I am typically black coffee. Like two to three every day.

Worst day job you ever had and why?
Todd: (Todd worked at an independent record store that went corporate) You would
think working at a record store is cool, but it is not because it is retail. Especially when
you’re a record store, that’s an independent record store that gets bought by a
corporation, and you’re the manager, and you have to be the guy to make the record
store lame. There’s a seven-point thing with every customer, you have to upsell them,
there’s mystery shoppers that come in and you can’t smoke pot in the back room
anymore.
Billy: I haven’t had one yet. I guess I have that to look forward to.

Brace yourselves two-part here. Pick between It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia,
The Office, and Parks and Rec.
Todd: Well, there’s only one correct answer to that and that’s Seinfeld.
Billy: I know you were going to say Seinfeld. Well, if we go with these ones here, The
Office is the clear winner.

Now that you’ve picked, please assign each band member a character from the
show.
Billy: So, The Office, I’m Michael Scott. Damn.
Todd: Ooh, does that make me Jim? Nice. And then Brandon is the temp, BJ Novak?
Billy: No, no, he’s not bad. Let’s see. Brandon’s just so nice and so cool. He might be
Holly, the HR person. Because she’s like the voice of reason to Michael Scott’s dumb
ideas.

Everyone says that every crowd is their favorite. What city is the best audience
and why is it Minneapolis?
Billy: Is that where Prince is from? Minneapolis. That’s why. That’s my answer.
Todd: Side note, I have Prince’s guitar strap here in my possession which I acquired but
illegally.
Billy: And that’s all you should say on that.

Todd: So, if we’re going to talk about local SLO County crowds, the best crowds that
we’ve ever had are The BarrelHouse crowd and Frog of Peach. It’s a toss-up.
Billy: I would say best memories of us playing together…it’s Frog and Peach crowds
and BarrelHouse crowds…there were some super sweet moments. Paso Pour House
crowds too. Our final show in the last band we played in together at the Pour House will
always be my favorite show we ever played, for sure.

How would you describe your music to your grandparents or parents?
Todd: Punk but it’s not like “punk.” It’s not sloppy for the sake of being sloppy. It’s like
precise punk. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying.
Billy: Happy rock and roll. Actually, one way I would describe it is that we’re packaging,
lyrically, things that I would think that a lot of us are going through on the day-to-day.
There are heavier things, but we’re putting into a sonically upbeat musical package that
is uplifting. Hopefully, when people hear it they’re like, “oh, yeah, I am I’m experiencing
that too. I can relate to that.”

Favorite lyrics of all time?
Todd: That’s a “Billy” question because I can’t zone in on lyrics. I’ve tried. I saw a
musical the other night for two and a half hours. I didn’t know what the hell was
happening. I just see people’s mouths moving and like lights and stuff.
Billy: I can’t have one favorite. But The Verve did have that line. “I need to hear some
sounds that recognize the pain in me.”

If you’re going to rob a bank, what would be the song playing in the getaway cars
you escape?
Billy: The first thing that came to mind, Tom Petty’s “Running On A Dream.”
Todd: I picture “Kickstart My Heart.” Because that’s what Dwight did in The Office
before he did a sales pitch. So now we’ve circled back to The Office.

What’s the best concert you’ve ever been to?
Billy: You might not expect I would say this, but Huey Lewis and The News at the CA
Mid State Fair, front row center. Because watching their lead guitarist play and being so
into it. Also watching La Bamba the movie, those were the two things that got me into
playing guitar. For 10-year-old me that was the best thing that could have ever
happened.
Todd: Mine is more recent. It is M83 at Vina Robles because it was a pivotal day in my
life when it was Mother’s Day of 2023, where that day earlier, I had quit a band that was
a toxic. I tuned off my phone and then that night I saw M83, and it was mind blowing. It was an audio-visual experience. It was kind of like Fantasia, that Disney movie. It was
just like a “thing,” and I knew what I wanted to do with my life. That was only two years
ago, but at that point, I was like, “I want to do that” so I let go of something I didn’t want
to do and picked up something I did want to do.

If you compare yourself to an animal, what would it be and why?
Billy: It would have to be one that’s having a bad hair day and just always a little fidgety.
I guess is that like a ferret?
Todd: For me I want to say dog, but I think it’s actually more of a cat although I don’t
really like cats that much. But they kind of are just very self-contained and very much in
the present moment and they don’t really need much and they just kind of exist. I feel
like I do that.

If you could have dinner with any musician dead or alive, who would be on why?
Todd: I was I’m originally going to say Eddie Van Halen, but probably Steve Vai. As a
guitar player, you ask any guitar player who got them into playing guitar and they’re all
going to say Eddie Van Halen when they come from this sort of 80s school. I initially
started there but went to Steve Vai because he never did all the same shit that all the
other 80s records did, and he actually got creative with it and got really artistic and took
it to a new level.
Billy: Can I have dinner with Dolly Parton? She just seems awesome. And hear the
stories of the last…how many decades of music? And hear her commentary on
everything? I’d love to hang out with Dolly Parton.

Worst concert you’ve ever been to?
Billy: Weezer at Coachella years ago. It wasn’t because of the band. It was the crowd.
We were near the front and throughout the show, the crowd kept pushing more and
more from behind. The were thousands of people just crushing you. It got so bad at one
point, my feet didn’t touch the ground anymore, but I was still upright pressed between
people. I ended up getting on top of the crowd, almost crowd surfing like, and made my
way to the fences where the security pulled me out. I truly thought I was going to get
crushed to death. At Weezer.
Todd: I saw Van Halen in 2013 with David Lee Roth at the fair. And for being as big of a
fanatic as I was, I was a little underwhelmed. But it’s understandable. When you see
bands that are of a certain age, it felt like I was watching a Val Halen Tribute band. And,
yeah, he could still play all the notes and do all this stuff. And Dave was doing the best
he could, but it did not blow me away.

What’s an old school fad that you wish would come back? Billy: Maybe opening the phone book and pranking somebody.
Todd: Prank calling! Oh, my God. Yes! That was the best thing to do when you were in
junior high in the 80s. You can literally pick up the phone and dial random four numbers.
Somebody would pick up and you mess with them. The kids today will never know the
joys of prank calling.
Billy: We may have lost them with “phone book.”

Favorite method of listening to music?
Billy: It’s going to crush the souls of artists out there. I love streaming.
Todd: For a while it was pirating. And that was bad. Then Napster. But now we’re paying
13 bucks a month to stream, and we have access to every recording ever made. And it
also gives people like us the ability to release music to the world without having some
gatekeeper to decide that we are worthy enough to release something. We can just
release something.
Billy: I do prefer streaming just because of that, the access. I can listen to all my friends’
latest music. If Latest Regret puts out an album, I can hear their album right away.
Granted. I am still going to support them and pay for the physical CD because they can
use that money for recording their next songs. But when it comes to how do I want to
listen to music? It’s largely streaming. Granted, I have a vinyl collection and it’s mostly
all bands that I’ve gone to see live. If I love the show, and they make a vinyl, I’m going to
buy it, and I’m going to also buy the variants because I’ll go down that little collector’s
rabbit hole.

What’s one thing one thing I should know before listening to “Numb”?
Billy: That it’s not meant to be political. That’s the biggest thing.
Todd: There’s a line in the first verse about lean right and lean left but it’s not overtly
about that.
Billy: The whole song is about wrestling with people being divided. There’s social
division, political division, there’s divide over religion… And there’s a quick knee jerk
response by many people to say, “I only believe this, and I cannot listen to anything
else, and you cannot change my mind about that.” I think the first thing about “Numb” is
that it’s not meant to be political or emphasizing that specifically. The song is about
empathy and understanding, and I wrote the song because I was having a lack of that
due to a bunch of bad experiences that I had with people close to me. I was feeling very
calloused. That song came about from having to force myself to look inward and
challenge myself that if I’m going to be a good human, then I’ve got to give a shit about
the stranger across from me, and that’s the basis of “Numb.”

How do you all meet?
Billy: Todd and I, junior high drama class. I’ve known Todd now for something like 37
years. Brandon and I met about three years ago through playing punk shows when I
was in another band.

What comes first when it comes to The Deader End? The lyrics or the music?
Billy: It usually starts with a lyrical idea that’s probably going to become the chorus.
“Live Right Now” began literally with those three words and it sparked this whole
storyline in my head about a zombie character and carpe diem. “Something Loud” was
the idea of your voice being heard. “Numb.” That feeling of being unfeeling towards
people around me. So, I’ll usually start with the chorus, but I will hear some music in my
head that will go along with it. I’m listening to music all the time and on some level being
influenced or inspired by it. So, lyrics and music at the beginning are going hand in hand
for me. Once I have an idea for something that’s interesting to me as a lyric, then I start
chasing some music to go with it. Once I have a chorus, the verses start falling into
place and I just start writing. But it can take months. I want each line to have purpose.
My mornings are where the lyrical flow usually happens. But a lot of the music writing
happens late at night.

Out of all the lines of lyrics in the song, what is your favorite one of them?
Todd: The lean right and lean left thing. Because that’s, if you live in Paso right now,
that’s very much right now. You can’t win right now. Someone is going to think you’re an
evil person for some reason for having a point of view different than theirs.
Billy: It’s the pre-chorus for me. It’s the “show me something more. Show me love worth
fighting for” because that’s the call to action in the song. Everything else is very “I” and
introspective. “MY heart’s scarring over,” “MY blood is getting colder,” “help ME feel…”
That switches with the pre-chorus and begins to look outward and the call of action is to
the world in front of me, to my friends, to my family, show me that we can take care of
one another. That’s my favorite line.

The song has a punk energy, but also a bit more of the 90s alt rock influence or
call me crazy. Who would you say would be your biggest influence when it came
to the song?
Billy: It was absolutely Rise Against. They were the biggest influence for the song.
However, though, being 90’s kids we can’t deny our influences and that stuff just seeps
in. Personally, I’m a fan of Alkaline Trio and Jimmy World Eat World, which naturally
shows up in the music too but then, I want to be My Chemical Romance, but I’m not that
good. The Foo Fighters seem to find their way in especially anytime I try to do
something in a dropped tuning. Todd: This is weird because I don’t really listen to any of these bands, but I interpret it.
Billy presents these bands to the table, and I listen to them peripherally, but I do my
interpretation of it.

So, say this was covered by a top 40 rap artist who would you want to be and
why?
Billy: Oh, this is a Brandon question. Brandon, you’re going to have to answer that for
us.

Numb is your third single. Are you ramping up for a full release sometime soon?
Billy: I think we’ll keep releasing singles. Maybe a full release as we head towards song
number six or seven? The “compass” for The Deader End has been to create music
simply to create and share. So, we create a song, release it, and then decide after if we
want to do another one. It’s a song-by-song project. And so far, we’ve enjoyed three
songs together, so we’ll do four. I think if we continue to enjoy doing this, if we get
release, say, six, then maybe we’ll record additional for a full release. But I’m enjoying
releasing singles. The whole point of it is just to put out the music. I don’t mind the idea
of doing an album, but I feel like each song is a standalone. Each one is a snapshot of
wherever I was mentally and emotionally at that time.

What about touring plans?
Billy: No touring plans.
Todd: I don’t ever want to tour in my life unless there was a lot of money.
Billy: What if say Germany or the Netherlands said, “hey, come play some shows?” I
wouldn’t be opposed to grabbing some friends and let’s do three weeks overseas.
Todd: I’m open to doing shows with this because I think that’d be cool.
Billy: So, to shed some light on The Deader End, when we got together to start doing
this we committed to three rules. At the time, I was in two other bands. Todd was playing in, like, five other bands, plus his own personal project, Godyes. Brandon is full- time in Latest Regret. When we started, our ground rules were #1 let’s create music simply to create and put it out into the world so that the music can live out there. Rule 2, we won’t play live that way there’s no additional band practices or additional time commitments to take away from Todd and Brandon’s other projects. Rule #3, we park all egos at the door. Todd’s key role is bringing the music to life as an engineer and the producer and does much of the instrumentation. I write the demos; Brandon gives it lungs and Todd brings it to life. Brandon and I don’t get to share a lot of whole opinions about the final mix. Todd’s in control at that point. What it is going to be is what it’s going to be. And it has worked well for us. So, there are no plans for touring. I think all three of us are really enjoying where the music is at right now. I’m not going to close the door totally on playing these songs live, but we have no plans as of yet.

Is there anything else you want everyone to know?
Billy: The songs are at times somewhat pop, and tempo-wise, upbeat for a reason. I
want the lyrics to stick with you. I’ve been in bands where lyrics were just filler. When it
comes to The Deader End and the lyrics, it’s important to know these come from a very
personal place, and often the songs are more of a biography or a peek into what’s
weighing on me. Like, “Live Right Now”, although it’s very poppy and happy sounding,
it’s a song about me dealing with my own mortality, and I want to take that sort of me
freaking out about it and turn it into a positive and turn it into a message in a bottle to
share that says “let’s take advantage of every moment that we have while we can.” With
“Something Loud” I have felt at times uncomfortable in my own skin or that my voice
didn’t have a place. I want “Something Loud” to be something that empowers not only
me but others who hear the song to believe who they are matters although many of us
may feel like we don’t sometimes, which isn’t true. “Numb” is a call of action to love one
another, and we need that more than ever. So, all these songs are not frivolous little
songs to us. It’s very much like a therapy session. Hopefully, these songs might
challenge you or might give you pause for a second to consider maybe there’s
something you can do differently today and it might make you happier, and it might
make the world a better place. I think that’s hopefully what The Deader End is a vehicle
for at the moment.
Todd: Yes. I’m here to support all that.

It breaks my heart to know that the chances are slim that I’ll ever get to catch The Deader End live, but I love that they’ve created such a world with their music, and I hope that continues. I loved getting to know both Todd and Billy a bit more through these questions, and, although I feel like some of their answers gave me more questions than anything else (I have to know more about Prince’s gutiar strap), I feel like it also made me feel even closer to The Deader End’s music in a beautiful way.

Like I mentioned, The Deader End doesn’t have a lot out there right now but what is out there is more than worth your attention so spend some time with this California-based band and show them some love!

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