MuzicNotez: First off, it’s an honor to be doing this interview with you, thanks for taking the time to sit down with us.
Introduce yourselves, what are your names and rolls in the band?
Darker Still: We are Tony Bertucci (vocals), Patrick Lockman (guitars) and Quinn Lockman (bass). We all write the songs and perform in our live shows.
MuzicNotez: How did you meet and form up? How long have you been together?
Darker Still: Well Patrick and Quinn lived and played together for years in a couple bands. It was when they decided to go for a stronger vocalist that they thought about Tony. Tony went to school with Quinn and he was a lead in school musicals. He seemed like the obvious choice. Had you ever seen one of his performances, you would agree. He was more than willing to join the project and then Darker Still began. This was around the end of 2010.
MuzicNotez: How did you come up with the name Darker Still?
Darker Still: We had a show actually. There was a battle of the bands we had signed up for and we didn’t really even have a name yet. We all threw names around, seeing what we liked. It was ultimately Patrick who coined the one we would keep. It just had a mysterious ring to it, and it stuck.
MuzicNotez: Who were your musical influences, idols, or bands growing up that have helped mold you into the band you are today? Or helped mold the music that you create?
Darker Still: We each brought influences from different places. I like that about us. There are so many different influences going in to the music that we don’t really run out of ideas because we write so differently. Tony likes Queens of the Stone Age, System of a Down and Muse. Patrick pulls from Eric Clapton and Tony Iommi; you can hear it in his playing and phrasing. Quinn plays like his idols Jack Bruce, John Paul Jones and Chris Squire.
MuzicNotez: What’s the greatest concert you’ve ever been to or performed?
Darker Still: Quinn: For me, Genesis was the best concert I’ve ever been to. Have you ever watched something so amazing that you just start smiling like an idiot? I did that for over two hours. My face hurt from the awe I experienced that night.
MuzicNotez: What’s the ultimate goal you want your music to achieve, or for you to achieve in your career as a musician? Any particular message you wish to send?
Darker Still: We want our music to be the reason people get in to music. If I can list musicians that ultimately define me as a musician, how amazing would it be if we were to receive the same compliment and praise. If people can hear us and get the feeling music gives me when it really hits me, I think that would be something.
MuzicNotez: You recently released the self-titled debut EP ‘Darker Still’, what was the process like to create this? What was the writing style like?
Darker Still: Creating this was both rewarding and exhausting. We wanted an engineer and studio worth using, so we chose one down by Toronto. It was a challenge getting there with our work schedules and driving the winter conditions that Canada presents. Ultimately it became a weekend project for a long time. Hearing it develop as well as it did was an experience I will never forget, but working under the microscope as it is really focuses on the areas that you need to improve on as a musician. Some days you just feel so beat up when you leave, re-writing parts or re-recording parts over and over again. That being said, I can’t wait to record with Mike Dmitrovic again.
MuzicNotez: You’ve been receiving airplay worldwide, and rising to the top of rock charts. What’s it like to be receiving all of this well deserved success?
Darker Still: It’s surreal. For one thing, the praise is when you turn on the computer, so it’s almost artificial with the people you see every day not knowing what is happening around the world. For another, the numbers are so high, you look at it and are like “yeah right!”. But the numbers are real, so it feels amazing.
MuzicNotez: What else are you working on? What can we expect to see and hear from you in the future?
Darker Still: We have many songs on the go constantly. There are a ton of completed songs we have that didn’t make it on the EP, and finished tunes since its release. If you are able to see us live, we bring out unrecorded songs here and there as a treat for the fans. The biggest thing we have on the go is definitely the music video. We’ll have something for you guys sooner than later. We’re pretty excited about it.