Oct
22
10.33am

BAD WOLVES // ‘DL’ On Dear Monsters, Being A Career Musician And More


Chart-toppers Bad Wolves have kickstarted their Dear Monsters era—the first with Daniel “DL” Laskiewicz as lead vocalist. For the LA /Massachusetts band, this has meant a return to the hard rock sound that made their first two LPs such a success, just with a slight twist this time.

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We spoke to DL about this new record, career changes and what fans can expect to see next.


halloween hysteria


Hysteria: Congratulations on the upcoming release of Dear Monsters! How are you feeling about sharing it with the world?

DL: Thank you! I’m beyond excited. I can’t even put it into words. It’s been such a crazy, long process, and I think we’re all ready to get it out and have everyone hear it in its entirety. Although we’ve put out a couple of songs, it doesn’t tell the same story as hearing the full album. It’s important to hear it as a whole, and it’s definitely set up that way. It tells a story and will take you on a journey.

So would you call Dear Monsters a concept record or anything like that?

Not so much a concept record, but it’s just as important to hear it front to back, specifically because of the sequencing and the tracklisting and everything. As I said, it takes you for a ride, and every track is as important as the next.

Where’d the band find their lyrical inspiration?

Let’s take a song like Springfield Summer. A lot of it was me feeling empowered enough to step into this new role as their singer. So that track is a special one for me because Springfield is my hometown, and it also touches on me transitioning from normal life, production and behind the scenes work to this. It also touches on me being home with my family and loved ones and then taking on this role again – going back on stage and being a career musician again. It’s scary, and it’s fun, and it’s exciting. It’s all of the above.

To your point there, you’ve done this production work and were also part of The Acacia Strain. So how’d you find the transition to joining Bad Wolves went?

To be honest with you, it wasn’t too different. I was in a touring band before, doing international runs and all that. I keep telling everyone, the one thing I’m most excited about is not to be weighed down by the guitar around my neck. It’s going to be really cool to put the mic in my back pocket and go screw off, have a drink, high-five everybody and be a little more free.

We made a very conscious effort to maintain the integrity of Bad Wolves. The band’s always had a signature sound with the down-tuned guitars and their sense of melody. It’s still very much Bad Wolves. If anything, we’ve just tried to expand on the original idea of what the band was.
[ Daniel “DL” Laskiewicz ]

You’ve spoken about getting this new album out for the fans. What do you say to all those who are waiting for it to drop?

We made a very conscious effort to maintain the integrity of Bad Wolves. The band’s always had a signature sound with the down-tuned guitars and their sense of melody. It’s still very much Bad Wolves. If anything, we’ve just tried to expand on the original idea of what the band was. I think we did a damn good job of maintaining their integrity and who they are at their core. There will always be people who like the former singer better; there will be people who like me better and maybe some people who fall in between and just like the band as it is. You can’t make everyone happy, but we made a conscious effort to maintain what the band’s built.

What was the recording process like?

The album was about 60% done by the time I came in. That was when we started going back and forth, and I started coming to rehearsals. Leading up to that, I’d demoed a few songs they’d already written.

The collaborative process between the band and I really started when I came out to track vocals for the record. At that point, we took each song and put each part of it under the microscope. Everyone took on a producer role then. I tell people that even though the former singer and I kind of live in the same range, we approach things differently. There were a lot of things we wanted to tailor to my vocals, whether that was through moving parts around, making verses softer or vice versa. There were a lot of changes made to match my vocals stylistically, but it was fun. And because of that, we were able to do songs like Springfield Summer, which they may not have done in the past.

As I said, I work out of a studio, so I’m always creating, and the guys are too. We’re always writing and trying to figure out our next song. Bad Wolves are an LA-based band, and I’m a Massachusetts guy, so we’re on opposite ends of the country. But even when we were done with the record, and I was back home, we felt like we were there but still missing something. So that’s how songs like Springfield Summer came in. There were also some songs that didn’t make the record that we shared over dropbox. And we’ve been working on those as part of the next record.



How’d you navigate working across the country to each other?

It definitely versed us in long-distance relationships (laughs). We’d talk on the phone a lot. But even if we lived closer, just based on the pandemic, we’d have done it over zoom anyway. I don’t know if it was as big of an issue as it could’ve been. We still got everything done, and every time we needed to get together, I’d just fly out there.

After the record, we had to get together a few times, shoot videos, and do a bunch of things. It didn’t impact us too much.

Going off your earlier point about always being creative, what can we expect to see next?

Definitely some shows. We want to get out there as soon as we can. We also have a lot of cool stuff lined up with the album release. We shot a few videos, we have behind the scenes studio and video footage, and we have some interactive fan stuff too. Beyond that, we’ve got almost half a new record written already. We strike while the iron’s hot. When anyone in the band has an idea, we write it down and save it in the riff box.

Pre-order here.





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