DANGUR INTERVIEW

Dangur played at The Room at Rebel Sound Records the other day and ripped. I heard singer Pete put a couple holes in the wall. Anyway they're a bunch of cool dudes and I exchanged some words with bassist Nick about the band and their imminent mini-tour and the foreseeable future.

Friendship Bracelet: So you’re all from Holyoke and I’ve seen you play at UMass D.I.Y. shows a few times and it’s always rad. Whats’ the scuzzy metal/punk scene like in Holyoke if there is one at all?

Nick: In Holyoke all of our group of friends make/record music all of the time. We’re jam fiends. There’s not much of a scene specifically in Holyoke, but I guess you could say that about a good portion of areas of Western Mass. Bands that end up playing shows with each other on a regular basis usually are pretty dispersed.

FB: When did you four get together and start Dangur? How’d you all meet up? Where does the name “Dangur” come from?

Nick: Dangur started in 2005 while I was playing bass in a hardcore band called The Blackbelt Club with Pete (singer of Dangur) on drums. Me, Andrew (drums) and Pete all went to Holyoke High and formed friendships through seeing each other at school and punk shows at the Flywheel mainly. We’ve all become super close. Before Dangur, during Blackbelt Club, I was also playing bass in a band called Ricin with Keenan (guitar player in Dangur). That band was starting to break up and Keenan and I had been jamming together since middle school and he’s quite the talent so we really wanted to start another band together so we did and that was Dangur. I asked Andrew and Pete and they agreed.

FB: Where does the name “Dangur” come from?

Nick: The name Dangur doesn’t mean anything at all. It’s a horrible name, and yes there is a story behind it, but a lame one. That’s what we went with. It was at first The FVK (Fearless Vampire Killers), but we soon found out that was taken.

FB: What’s your guys’ favorite records that helped to inform Dangur’s sound?

Nick: Well it’s funny… We started out as a hardcore band wanting to sound like local legends Sick And Tired and we were heavily into the Bad Brains. But all four of us heard Annihilation Time II one fine day and I'd say that album definitively changed the course of our band, if it weren’t already obvious to anyone. We wanted TO BE Annihilation Time II. Deep Purple’s In Rock, Black Flag’s My War, Boris’s Pink and Dinosaur Jr.’s Your Living All Over Me are all records that all four of us draw alot of influence from in this band. I liked that question.

EDIT:

Probably even more important than the few albums I mentioned are Black Sabbath's Paranoid and Master of Reality. I cannot believe I missed that.

FB: How’d you guys hook up with Former Thieves for the week of shows youre playing? Have you ever gone out and toured before?

Nick: Two Summers ago I tagged along with my best friend Dan Kozuch’s hardcore band Casket on their first tour. They hooked up with these dudes from Iowa called Despiration. Great guys, great band. We all partied and became friends over the course of the tour. I recently found out that 2 of the kids from Despiration had formed a new band called Former Thieves and got wind of them coming around here this summer for a tour. So I called em up and we started helping each other book shows for us for the week, and between both bands it’s come together pretty smoothly. We’re super psyched it’s our very first tour! We’ve only played outside of Western Mass in Albany, NY and parts of Connecticut so this is going to be awesome for us.

FB: Releasing anything else this Summer/Fall? What are your plans for the Fall school semester? More shows? More 7″s?

Nick: I’ve been discussing putting out another 7″ with Dan Barker from Shock To The System records about putting out another release. He’s psyched to do another album so sometime this Winter or Spring you may see another 7″. We’re calling it Cosmic Garage. It will most likely be a 4-song record. We’ve also been talking to Nick Chechile from the band Overman, who has a doom, solo project called Sunless. We’ve been discussing possibly recording and producing our own split to be put out on vinyl. That may take some time, but it’s something we definitely want to pursue. This semester I’ll be booking more shows with D.I.Y. UMass and inevitably Dangur will find its way onto a bill or two. We’re pumped on life.