BackStage360’s Thorne Schreiber talks to Houston rockers Downfall 2012 on the “Thorne Experience.”
Downfall 2012: Danny Gil, Boo Rogers, Casey Bowen
THORNE: On the line with me sitting at a truck stop somewhere in the middle of Texas, I have Danny Gill from Downfall 2012. Danny, how are you tonight brother?
DANNY GILL: I am fantastic because we are not driving right now and because I’m talking to you guys.
THORNE: Excellent! All right, well thanks for letting us hook you on. Hey Danny, let me start out by thanking you guys. We’ve been playing your tracks since I got here three years ago. Personally, we’re all fans. You guys rock.
DANNY GILL: Thank you so much for playing our tracks. Man, we really appreciate that.
THORNE: You’re a great band, no sweat there, dude. I saw the latest video you guys posted about three or four hours ago. You guys are having a sh*tload of bad luck out there. Why don’t you tell us about all the “fun” you’re having on this trip?
DANNY: Absolutely. You’re right. It’s bad luck, but it’s reinforced by good luck and support. In this order, we had a trailer wheel fly off our trailer. Literally, …
THORNE: Oh, sh*t!
DANNY CONTINUES: … we heard an explosion behind us, and we looked out the right, passenger window, and our trailer wheel is racing us down the road. No kidding. We’re so thankful that wheel went off to the side of the road and there was no one around, because if it went in the other way, it would’ve hit oncoming freeway traffic. It could have hurt or killed somebody.
THORNE: Wow!
DANNY: But the result was our trailer died, suffered severe damage. Now it lives in a junk yard in New Mexico. We had to grab a U-Haul. [THORNE: Oh, man, geez!] Next thing on the list, we were in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I run Downfall 2012 through my phone. If you’re my friend or if you’re a follower and know me well, then you’ll see I’m always on my phone. I’m always sending emails and connecting with as many people as I can. And somehow after the show the phone just was gone, and no one knew where it was.
THORNE: Wow!
DANNY: Kind of lost contact with everybody for a minute. Been using Casey’s phone, our drummer, and that’s what I’m using right now. Then in Carlsbad, New Mexico, our track rig went down 10 seconds before our performance. For those of you who don’t know what that is, that’s what all the little synthesizers and things and then also the click track that helps us stay on the grid, just went down. We had a room full of people just staring and had to go old school and play through everything we could without any kind of backing tracks or click. Ended up being a fun performance, for sure. It’s been a lot of challenges, but we’ve managed to get through each of those. Come on, we welcome the pain. Let’s go.
THORNE: Yeah right. Hey, I got a quick question from the chat room. SloaneLynn wants to know if the food’s good at the truck stop.
DANNY: When we finally graduated from van to RV, we started camping at truck stops every night after our shows. We all put a lot of weight on eating all the truck stop food. So, we don’t actually eat the truck stop food much anymore. Every now and then Boo [Rogers] slips up and gets a hot dog.
THORNE: Slips up! [LAUGHS]
DANNY: It’s delicious and it’ll get you all fat and gross. So now we buy groceries and we hit the gym every day. It’s probably not what people want to hear, but that’s what we do.
THORNE: Before we get into the music, you guys toured with bands like Otep and a month or so ago you wrapped up a run with (HED) P.E.. How was it going out with those guys?
DANNY: (HED) P.E. was cool. So, a little history on me as a young lyricist. Jared [Gomes], from (HED) P.E. -back then he went by M.C.U.D., was my highest influence. Literally, [THORNE: OH?!] writing music and modeling his style. So, to go out with this legend, in my opinion, I think the guy is great. Their drummer, Jeremiah [Stratton], you guys know him as Trauma, came up to me and was like, “Hey, why don’t you sing with us every night?” So, I literally shared the stage with one of my idols, every night, for that entire run! So, that was great!
THORNE: Wow. I saw those guys at the Whiskey about six or seven weeks ago. I would have loved to have caught that show with you guys there, too. That would have been phenomenal.
DANNNY: Oh, we love playing the Whiskey, and we would have loved to do that show.
THORNE: Let’s get into the music. You guys rock, and from your videos I get a sense you guys are playful. [DANNY: Dude!] My sense is like that Ferris Bueller, look into the camera, in your face thing. What do you do in your live shows to translate that?
DANNY: If you’ve ever been to a Downfall 2012 concert, you’ll get an experience that I’d like to think you’ll walk away with a chuckle about. There’s just something that has been built between the three of us over the long period of time that we’ve been performing that creates a vibe that is contagious. And if you watch the latest official music video, we put out for Attack Point, [THORNE: Yeah!] it’s this quirky kind of just in your face [THORNE: yes!] crazy video. I think that’s maybe the best representation of who we are.
THORNE: If you could give your younger self some words of wisdom, what would it be?
DANNY: Oh man, what I would say is adapt to the new music industry, pay attention to the changes, get out of the old way of thinking. By the old way of thinking, it’s like put out a full-length record and go out on a tour. Put out a full-length record and go across the country. We did that a bunch of times! What I wish we would have done differently, and what we’re doing now, is just tackling a region at a time. Just go out, do 10 dates, come home with a little bit of money still in your pocket, and build yourself back up over the course of another five weeks [then] go back out for another two to three weeks. Just do it like that and just hammer on specific regions. People have been saying that we should do that forever, but we just didn’t listen. We would see a ticket to get across the country and play 40 shows in a row or 50 shows in a row, and we did it. The problem is, it’s just not sustainable. So, doing these shorter runs, you might not cover as much geographic ground, but you’re able to return to those markets and they remember you, and you see an increase in each of those markets every time you go back. We’re just now in our older age [THORNE LAUGHING] doing that.
DANNY [CONTINUING]: There’s two other things that I would tell the younger me. Really put a lot more into your digital presence. A lot more into your social presence. Find ways to keep it interesting for people that so far away you’ll never actually get to. The last one, it wasn’t just about who you knew, it wasn’t just about making those connections and making them lucrative for yourself. I was wrong. You really do need to get out there and just meet anyone [THORNE: yeah, yeah.] you can. Offer them what you can and ask from them what you can, because that is what’s going to get you to the next level.
THORNE: Talk a little bit about your process.
DANNY: When it comes to the creation of Downfall 2012 music, there are some variations, but for the most part, Boo comes to us with a song structure, all components in, minus vocals. The thing about Boo Rogers, who’s our bass player, is he’s a very multi-talented musician on all instruments. If you’ve seen our shows, he gets on a drum kit and riffs, but he’s also an incredible guitar player and he writes the majority of the musical side. Casey and I evaluate it, cut it up, and change it up. Casey rewrites drums, and then I sit with it for hours, and hours, and hours, and come up with vocals. When I hit spots where I can’t come up with anything, I’ll go to Casey and he writes the most beautiful parts. That’s how we do it. There are times where I’ll bring something fresh to the table or Casey will do so, but for the most part, I’d say 75 to 80 percent of the time, Boo’s got the song pretty situated the way he likes it and then we just go from there.
THORNE: I had a quick question [about] that was that Heckler video man, that made me laugh so hard. Was that crazy-looking guy at the bar the same guy from the Face to Face video?
DANNY: Correct! Well, Everyman for Himself was a whole different era of Downfall 2012. We [would] put out these short little EP’s that all came with a comic book and that guy was the character. He was the main character in the comic book.
THORNE: What’s next for you guys?
DANNY: Saturday will be the official last date of our travel for this tour at Fitzgerald’s in San Antonio. We’ll come home, we’ll take a shower, we’ll get a little bit of sleep, and then that following weekend we’re doing a show with Powerman 5000 that I know is going to just be vicious. So, we’re busy. We’ve got a lot coming up, still – we’re going home for a minute only to go back out.
THORNE LAUGHING: Okay. That’s pretty funny: “We’re going to come home, take a shower for a minute, then head back out.”
DANNY: That’s right. That’s right. [LAUGHTER]
THORNE: Well, funny! Hey, so, you guys were doing a GoFundMe [DOWNFALL 2012 ON TOUR!] a while back. I think it was for your RV, but I’m not sure. Is all that done? Or can we still get with you and help you out at all?
DANNY: The GoFundMe [THE TRAILOR DIED!] is alive and kicking and welcoming. When you hit the road at the level that we’re at, there are lots of challenges. Even if you’re getting a little bit of money each night, you’re spending more [THORNE: yes!] even if you don’t run into trouble. So, every time we go on the run, every time we’d go on a run, we open up a small GoFundMe campaign and every bit of that money goes towards those challenges and those other things that come up. We opened one at the beginning of this tour because we’ve been going for the last year and a half with no air conditioning in this RV, and we had a debate among the band. I was like, “Well, I feel like we’re asking people for money for a luxury. I just don’t know.” And unanimously all our fans were like, “Air conditioning is a necessity. It’s not a luxury. Open the GoFundMe and we will donate.” So, we opened a GoFundMe to replace our A/C. It turned out that we were able to repair the A/C, at least for the time being, so we had a little extra money leftover and then our trailer blew up! So, we literally changed the GoFundMe name to: “Downfall 2012’s Trailer Died!” And so, we are still raising money to put towards the U-Haul rental, which is very expensive. And then also the down payment or whatever we can put towards a used or a more suitable trailer for us than the poor little trailer that died in New Mexico.
THORNE: Is that link on your Facebook page?
DANNY: Yes. It’s easy to find. Just scroll through our pages. It’s on the Downfall 2012 official page. And then also we have a group specifically for our fans called the Downfall 2012 Family.
THORNE: Tell the fans where they can grab copies of your music, Danny.
DANNY: Okay, so come out to a show, say, “Hi,” enjoy the performance, and buy a record on your way out. But if you can’t do that, we’re on all digital platforms: Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, Deezer, whatever the hell that is. No clue what that is, but we’re on it. Amazon Prime Music and anything else you’re looking for. Just search Downfall 2012, and download or stream We Welcome the Pain, our latest record, and we really need you to listen.
THORNE: Check them out on Spotify. All streaming platforms. Buy their music! They get paid more money that way. Before we go, I want to say, you guys are hardcore for keeping the interview after everything you’ve been through. Dude, you guys are all right.
We’d love to talk to you guys again sometime from the road, so call us anytime. Have a great trip home. Let us know when something new comes out, we’ll get you back in here to talk about that.
DANNY: We really appreciate it, man. Thank you so much for having us.
THORNE: Thanks again Danny from Downfall 2012, for stopping in and letting us talk to him from a rest stop – some-damn-where in Texas, on their way home!
Downfall 2012 Official Page: http://downfall2012.com
Downfall 2012 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DF2012/
Special thanks to Press Contact, Yvonne Laughlin: http://www.yvonnesworld.com/
Graphics/Proof: Sloanelynn Cerise
Thorne SchreiberStaff writer for BackStage360