DEATH TO ANDERS

By Katherine Hoffert

Photo by Zoe Ruth Erwin

Death to Anders remember what it was like to buy an album — a whole album — for just one or two songs. The rest of the songs, though unfamiliar, were in turn discovered, not discarded. While the members of the Silver Lake-based indie rock foursome — Rob Danson (guitar, vocals), Nick Ceglio (guitar, vocals, synth, piano, glock), Pete DiBiasio (bass) and John Broeckel (drums) — appreciate the freedoms that the current digital wave has afforded today’s musicians, they still think there’s no substitute for the full package — be it a compact disc or a (full album) digital download.

“I think it’s very important now, especially because of iTunes, for artists to think of a full piece of work as being one entity,” says Danson, Death to Anders frontman. He makes an analogy between the album and the song: “You don’t want the song to be extremely repetitive and stagnant. You want the chorus to be a little bit different than the verse, and then have a bridge, so that the listener keeps an interest. And same thing with the album. An album is basically just a really long song.”

While it’s up to the listener to decide whether or not Death to Anders’ new album, Fictitious Business, is a concept album — Danson says “maybe” — there’s no question that it’s an ambitious accomplishment both in songwriting and production that demands to be listened to in its entirety. A self-described “surreal and cryptic look at life in the 21st century,” the album takes listeners on an intense journey full of abrupt turns through beautiful and paranoid terrain marked by lush walls of sound, rollicking melodies, noisy swells and questioning lyrics. There’s a lot of variety within and between each of the 10 songs, but an ongoing narrative with repeating themes sews it all together.

Another source of the album’s cohesion is producer David Netwon. The former guitarist for The Mighty Lemon Drops, who now records at his own Rollercoaster Recording studio in Burbank, co-produced and mixed the album with the band. “Not only was working with Dave Newton one of the most memorable and amazing experiences that I’ve had in this band, it was probably by far the best business decision we’ve ever made,” says Danson. “He creates this environment that is full of inspiration and positive energy. And the tones and sounds that he gets are fantastic, and he is just extremely efficient and fast.”

Recording 15 tracks in eight days, the band’s own preparedness going into the studio is also worth noting. “We decided to record scratch tracks with a click track for every single song, and then we had our drummer and bass player pretty much rehearse to those scratch tracks so that when they went into the recording studio, there were no surprises,” Danson says. “In the studio, we recorded drums and bass to the scratch track, and then we deleted the scratch track and overdubbed everything else after that.”

The connection to the listener that Death to Anders strive for in their recorded material also extends to other artists in the independent music community, as illustrated by the band’s involvement with the Central Second Collective. A group of like-minded musicians in the Silver Lake/Echo Park area that initially teamed up almost out of necessity to play shows and navigate the scene together, the CSC is “more of a philosophy and a theory now than anything actually solid,” according to Danson. “The idea began to expand outwards to a lot of other bands,” he explains, “so the community is still there, but it’s definitely broadened its reach beyond the collective and the area.”

While they are shifting their sights beyond their immediate community, Death to Anders are dedicated to maintaining the connections they make and relationships they start, be it with fans, venues, bookers or other bands. “I’ve seen bands break up because of touring,” Danson says. “And what a lot of bands don’t necessarily realize is that touring doesn’t always mean going across the United States and playing 30 days in all these different places. What we want to do right now is kind of spiral outside of L.A., hitting up places that, within a month or two, we can return to.”

As they continue to forge connections both at home, on the road and between their songs, Death to Anders find refuge in the modern world, knowing when to use it to their advantage and when to take it with a grain of salt.

www.deathtoanders.com