Dragondeer on Gaining Steam, New Record

Tim Wenger | May 1, 2014 | 0 Comments

by Tim Wenger

Dragondeer has made a name for themselves pretty quickly, having just formed last year. The band just finished recording a new record and will be traversing the highways of our fair state this summer. Check out what front man Eric Halborg has to say about the project.

CMB: Ok guys. Let’s get the lowdown on the recording process.

EH:So we started the process of recording “Don’t That Feel Good” by getting drums takes with Jeff Cannon and Nick Sullivan at Silo Sound in Denver. Jeff and Nick gave me those drum takes and we then tracked lap steel, mandolin, electric guitar, classical guitar, bass, vocals, harmonica and percussion at my home studio in Denver and I mixed and produced the record there as well. We used the different spaces in the house (built in 1900) to get the natural reverb and delay you hear throughout the recordings. Mics placed close to the ceiling in wood floor rooms and in stairwells captured natural reverbs and were mixed with close mic’d tube amp captures of the lap steel, mandolin and harmonica to get this far away-old school sound we were after. We had the final mixes mastered by David Glasser at AirShow Mastering in Boulder. David has won Grammys for mastering old blues and folk records and works with the Grateful Dead and those influences matched the vibe we were going for with this record perfectly.

CMB: Seems like you guys have played quite the gauntlet of solid gigs for such a young band. What kind of reaction did you get at shows like SXSW and Nacarubi Music Festival?

EH: Really positive reactions. To see some bigger crowds dancing and digging what we are doing having never heard our songs before is encouraging.

CMB: What were the steps that helped elevate you to those caliber of shows so quickly?

EH: The big thing that got the band rolling were the live in-studio videos that Colorado Public Radio’s Open Air 1340AM shot of us early on. Every show we’ve ever played has been booked without us having a record out. Promoters check out the Open Air videos and see that we can play live and we’ve been invited to play some really cool shows because of it. Grateful to CPR for those.

CMB: What’s the plan following the release of the record? Is the highway calling your name?

EH: We are going to play a ton of shows all over Colorado this summer. It’s Colorado’s Summer of Love; the eyes of the world are on this state. People are going to flock here from all over the world and I’d like to play music for them this summer as much as we can. Celebrate a bit. And then come fall we’ll tour the west coast and wherever else people are getting into the record.

CMB: Give me a brief history of how the band came together and how the pysch-blues sound was born.

EH: I was recording Brendan Kelly from The Lawrence Arms solo record and Brendan wanted some mandolin on one of his songs. I knew Cole Rudy played mandolin and I had him come play on the track. I saw that he ripped on mandolin and he told me he thought it’d be cool to play blues on his mandolin and we both shared our love for old school blues like Howlin Wolf, Robert Johnson, Junior Wells, Muddy Waters, and John Mayal. . I had been playing harmonica a bunch in my car. I had my car stereo stolen from my pick-up truck and for four years I didn’t replace the radio I just had harmonicas in the truck and would drive around Denver and play. Cole and I decided to jam some blues together with me singing, playing harp, and playing classical guitar through a tube amp with heavy reverb and Cole playing mandolin and Lap Steel through his delay reverb and assorted guitar pedals. We wanted to take the blues and stretch it out with long improvised solos on harp,mandolin, and lap steel. We played as a two piece for like six months then added drummer/percussionist Carl Sorensen and eventually bassist Casey Sidwell. Carl, Casey, and Cole all have jazz backgrounds which made improvisation a really natural part of the band. It keep things exciting for us to be able to create on the fly every show and lets us play long sets which is something we get off on. We want to take the foundations of blues and freak it out and put our own effected improvised psychedelic twist on it.

CMB: What gets you ready to perform? Any pre-show routines worth sharing?

EH: We like to play acoustic in the green room or out in the alley behind the venue. It lets us connect and get the fingers and vocal chords warmed up. Grass and tequila come into play as well.

CMB: Where can we get ahold of the record online?

EH: Dragondeer.com