Seattle punk band Dragged Under started their year off strong. The band kicked off 2020 with the release of their explosive new album, The World Is In Your Way and now, they’re currently out on the road supporting The Used, but they’re not stopping there. In between their dates with The Used, Dragged Under are also playing a handful of headlining shows on their “No Days Off” tour, leaving them with virtually no days off on this run. With that amount of dedication and hard work, it’s no surprise that the band has hit #8 on the iTunes Alternative Album Chart and #18 on Billboard’s Top Alternative New Artist, and it’s safe to say that they’re only going to continue to grow as 2020 moves forward.
With The World Is In Your Way out now and their current tour underway, we caught up with Dragged Under to discuss their new music, their experiences opening for The Used so far and plans for the rest of 2020. Listen to the album and read the full interview below.
Can you tell us a little bit about Dragged Under for anyone who might be hearing you for the first time?
Dragged Under was formed from the ashes of another band. Ryan, Josh and I (Tony) went into the studio with the intention of writing the 3rd record for our last band and when the process started, the results we were getting were so much better than anything that we’d done before and we just decided to start fresh with Dragged Under. Our goal for the band is to mix the influence that we all took from our love for 90’s /2000’s skate punk and give it a modern twist.
You guys just released your new album, The World Is In Your Way to start off the new year! Now that it has been out for a little bit, what are some of your favorite things about the album? What are you most proud of?
We’re just most proud of the response, people are being so overwhelmingly positive about the album, from all aspects. Charting the album on Billboard and iTunes was awesome too, It provides a bit of validation for all the hard work we’ve done.
Did you have any major goals in mind when you first started working on the album?
I’d be lying if I didn’t say that we had some high hopes for the record.
We wanted to have a manager that would get behind the project, which we found in Joey and Taylor at Moniker. We wanted to break one million streams with the singles, and chart on iTunes and Billboard as well as get some Spotify editorial playlists, and we wanted to get a good support offer from the songs. All of which happened. Maybe it’s luck, but from the first time I heard the songs mixed and mastered i knew that this was going to be a little different from all the other bands that I’ve done in the past.
What was the most rewarding or exciting part of working on The World Is In Your Way?
We went into the studio with a blank slate, Our producer Hiram Hernandez challenged us to be really open with the process and to try some things that we may have otherwise not done. There were a lot of moments where i think we were nervous or scared about the response that we would get from some of the songs because it was such a departure from what our fans were used to hearing from us, but seeing how much people love the songs that we had fun making is truly the best part of releasing music with DU. There’s liberation in being able to write what’s actually on your mind AND have people respond in such a big way.
You guys are also in the middle of your tour with The Used! How have those shows been so far?
Unreal. This is a band that I’ve listened to for close to 2 decades and to see them play every night or just high five Bert backstage is still kind of weird. I used to see this dude on my TV back in the day and spent HOURS listening to their music so for them to have asked us out on this tour is a dream come true, and their fans have been so kind and really into the music. It’s like we’re playing to people that have been fans of DU for years.
You guys have an extremely energetic live presence – if someone is seeing you for the first time at one of these shows, what can they expect from your live performances?
It’s hard to put a term to it, all I can say is that we leave it all on the stage, and it’s only going to get better as we get more conditioned, but to us the live show needs to be something that fans can’t get by listening to a CD. They paid for an experience and we’re doing them a disservice if we don’t deliver on that. Just come expecting to sing along and have fun and you’ll fit right in.
On top of these tour dates with The Used, you’re also playing some headlining shows in between on your “No Days Off” tour (which is quite literally giving you no off days on this run). What are you looking forward to the most at these shows?
We’ve actually been really anticipating seeing what the crowd sizes / response will look like vs other bands we’ve played in in the past. And we’re seeing larger turn outs and more engaged crowds than ever before. So I guess we’re just excited to see if that keeps up!
Do you have any other big goals or plans this year after these tour dates?
So far we’re just looking forward to getting our show in front of more people and supporting some other big bands that can expose us to a larger audience. For us this is all about new eyes and ears on us and making them say. “that show was awesome”. We’re also excited to start the writing process again and see what we come up with in the studio after playing these songs 100 or so times.
Thank you for taking the time to chat with us! Is there anything else you’d like to add?
If you want to keep up with DU please follow us on Social Media and follow the band on spotify! And we look forward to meeting you all at a show in the future! thanks for reading and supporting us.
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