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Craig, bass player for Danger Is My Middle Name, was nice enough to answer some questions for me. I’m about four months behind on posting this one, and I apologize. It’s a good read, and I hope those of you who haven’t heard of this band go check them out immediately.

Q. Who makes up Danger Is My Middle Name?
A. Craig, Gabe, Mickey, & William

Q. How old is everyone?
A. We are all in our early & mid 20’s

Q. Where did you get your band name?
A. The band name came from just hearing the saying “Danger Is My Middle Name” and everyone thinks its from Austin Powers, but it wasn’t really what we were thinking of when we named the band. We figured it was well known enough that it would be easy for people to remember and name recognition is half the battle in music.

Q. Even though Sink or Swim is fresh on our minds, what can we expect from new Danger Is My Middle Name songs?
A. We did just finish up a small new bath of songs. They were the songs that we really wanted to record, and songs that really kinda of written to try and be anything specific. We knew when we wrote “Revenge On The Radio” and “Give It Up” that we wanted fun poppy songs. With these we were just like lets do something and how it is, it is, and not force it into one direction or style. So with the newer stuff, its definitely got more personality than anything we’ve done before.

Q. Who are the bands you would do anything to tour with?
A. There’s a lot of great bands that we would love to tour with, but I think we would just shit our pants if we got the chance to tour with Jimmy Eat World, or like Weezer. They are bands that we looked up to so much in the past that it would be just so surreal for something like that to happen.

Q. Where does Danger Is My Middle Name reside in today’s music scene?
A. Thats a question we’ve been asking ourselves for a while now. I mean, there are so many different music scenes and its split so many ways, we just kinda don’t know where we fit in. Which is probably a good thing considering we wont have to pigeonhole ourselves into one category.

Q. Given the chance, what would you tell your fans to do in order to keep Danger Is My Middle Name alive and making music?
A. I would say keep coming to shows and buying merch. Telling friends and spreading the word. In todays economy its so easy for a band to fall apart with lack of support. Choose the local show over the mainstream artist who doesnt need as much help.

Q. What bands did you listen to growing up?
A. I grew up on mostly classic rock (Ted Nugent, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC) but then got into stuff like Nirvana and Soundgarden during the grunge days. I eventually settled on Weezer during high school and began developing taste for more pop styled music, and then got into things like Blink and Brand New and stuff.

Q. What got you your start in music? When did you know it was what you wanted to do with your life?
A. I got started in junior high when a friend of mine got a bass guitar. I got a guitar, and we started jamming on some early Green Day. I think it was always more of a hobby until I got in a band that played small local shows, and kids would come out and be all into it. It seemed real.

Q. What are your thoughts on illegal downloading, and what is the effect of it on Danger Is My Middle Name?
A. A band our size and pretty much any band that isn’t the size of Metallica, I think benefits from it. Music is almost worthless these days (not in a bad way, just more like a flyer for your band), and its all about pushing other merch and getting people to go out and support your band. I think its just pointless for bands to complain about people stealing music because there are so many bands that wouldnt have a fanbase without it. It’s not like bands really make much off the actual purchase of music anyways. It’s all about other merch, and licensing.

Q. What are your thoughts on the music industry as of its current state?
A. Haha. Trainwreck. No one in the music indistry knows whats going on. If you have a fashion sense and can write an ok song, then chances are you’ll get signed to some label. Whether you succeed, thats a different story. I think music is no different than the actual world today. There are millions of poor dying bands, there are a majority of middle class bands who are successful-ish for what they do, but no one outside of the Warped Tour crowd knows about, and then there are the elite few (ie FOB) who are the rich republicans who have the money and are the only one that keep making the money. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Q. Has the music industry changed for you even though you have been a part of it for a relatively short time?
A. Well I have been technically involved in what has been going on since 2001 in one band or another. I have had the privilege of seeing the rise of downloading and file sharing, the rise and fall of emo, and most recently the rise and impending doom of dance rock, haha.

Q. What are your favorite records, movies, and books?
A. My favorite records are: Jimmy Eat World - Clarity, Weezer - Pinkerton, Brand New - Deja Entendu, The Rentals - Seven More Minutes, Yellowcard - Ocean Avenue, Rancid - And Out Come The Wolves. Movies, I”ve recently become obsessed with Step Brothers. My favorite book of all time is Dante’s Inferno.

Q. If you could have wrote any song in existence, which one would it be?
A. I really wish I would have written “What’s My Age Again”. I think it’s quite possibly the most perfect pop-punk song ever written. Great melody, great hook, very sing along. It’s the perfect formula.

Q. With Twitter becoming the new way to interact online, what has it done for your band?
A. I think Twitter has become a way to make bands more accessible to fans. When I was in high school, my family was poor and I did not have Internet and with that the ability to interact with bands online the way kids can today. Although it’s a double edge sword in that when I was young, it was a way bigger deal to see a concert as that was the only time I could see my favorite bands. Today, the addition of social networking has taken some of the magic out of the fan/band relationship and made it a bit more personal. I think it helps bands a lot that are building fans, and becomes somewhat of a headache once you reach a certain point in your career when fans expect you to keep up with something that you really can’t.

Q. If you could co-write with anyone dead or a live, who would it be and why?
A. I would co-write with Rivers Cuomo just because it would be something that the 16 year old version of me would have killed for, and it would also give me a chance to ask him what the hell he has been thinking with his music since 2001.

Q. How does Danger Is My Middle Name go about song writing?
A. There are a couple of different ways. The first way is that one person writes a song and demos it on acoustic guitar then sends it to everyone in the band to help come up with other ideas, then we converge together and tackle it with a pretty solid idea already. The second, sometimes you get lucky and the song seems to write itself. Someone will write, and demo all instruments, then we’ll go in and just learn it and refine it a little bit. The last way, which is honestly the most difficult for me is to just go in and jam for while. Some great ideas come from jamming, mostly just getting cool riffs, etc. Rarely does jamming lead to a really solid song tho.

Q. Who has produced your records, and how have they influenced your writing process?
A. We have gone with three different people for producing. Our first EP was done by Matt Kirkwold in Minneapolis. Matt is an amazing songwriter and really whipped some half assed songs into essential really awesome hits. Going to him, we pretty much learned that no song is done being written until you get the final master back of the recording. We did our latest CD with Marc McClusky and he pretty much instead of fixing already written songs preferred to have us write brand new songs on the spot in the studio. It was definitely a different experience that I’m still not sure how I felt about it. We just went back up to Minneapolis and worked with James Harley who mixed our last two CDs and just kicked out some straight rock songs. He was all about taking what we had and making it hit as hard as possible. That was definitely a really good experience that I think will show in the recording.

Q. Who would you want to do to guest vocals on the next Danger Is My Middle Name album?
A. Well we already have Kevin from Quietdrive and Jake from New Medicine formerly A Verse Unsung on a song on the new stuff we just recorded.

Q. What are some bands you want people to know about?
A. The Hot Melts from Liverpool, England are some really cool friends that we hung out with at SXSW last year. And our friends The Fold who just put out an awesome new CD, and AM Taxi who we have done literally ever big hometown show with, and our neighbors in our practice space. They just signed with Virgin Records, so we hope all goes well with that for them.

Q. Where would you have to go for you to say you “made it”?
A. I think if we did sold out tours in the US, Canada, UK, Japan, and Australia I would say ok, its time to quit.


Q. Are there any shout outs? Last words?
A. Shout out to our boys in AM Taxi, The Fold, The Hot Melts, Farewell, Callahan, World Record Production, our evil boss/manager David, our fine Jewish lawyer Dan :), all our fans, and everyone reading this… Sorry I wasted your time. Haha.