Shortwave Dahlia dot org

In anticipation of the new Shortwave Dahlia Album coming out, I sent some questions to guitarist/programmer Ethan Grim and he was kind enough to answer them. So here you go, 10 questions with Ethan Grim!
1. When did you first pick up a guitar? I started playing bass at 15. the more I played + wrote songs, I realized how limiting the bass could be for songwriting. Since the guitarists I played with never seemed to play what I heard in my head, I began to teach myself guitar chords to help show them what I wanted. I never performed live on guitar until about 5 years ago when I did so to help out some friends in need. And who were your first influences? as a kid, I liked new wave. but musically, the players I first emulated were predominantly heavy metal. for bass playing, it was all Iron Maiden + Rush songs that I learned to improve myself. on guitar, I have a completely different aesthetic. I really like guitarists who have a certain atmosphere or texture to their sound, like Johnny Marr or Robin Guthrie. for the more straightforward songs, I gravitate more towards guys like Johnny Ramone or William Reid.

2. When it comes time to add your guitar work to a song, do you try to puzzle piece your tracks into what’s already there, or do you try to mold the song to the riff? for the songs already written when I joined, I added on top of what was there, working around the existing song structure. as we collaborate, the song may evolve directly from any idea that’s introduced, including guitar parts or keys or bass or vocals.

3. I can hear the Cure-style influences in your playing, but who would YOU say are the main guitar styles that you enjoy playing? Ringing chorusy stuff? Metallic Shredding?  Buzzy Jesus and Mary Chain riffs? I love them all! to be totally honest, I am limited in my guitar playing. I believe my talents lie more in knowing what sounds best for each song and working around that.

4. What types of effects do you feel work best within the Shortwave Dahlia construct? And which ones would you like to toss into the mix? the guitar effects don’t really stray too far from what’s been done before, but you may notice some of the newer songs have effects tweaked into the programming and even the percussion.

5. What other musical avenues would you like to pursue within the band, apart from guitar and programming? that’s really what I signed on for, and I am perfectly satisfied with the role I play in this band. I do have another project I have started outside of SD where someone else is playing all the guitars and I handle the programming, bass + vocals. more on that as it progresses…

6. You added some programming to the latest tracks. Do you find programming more creatively flexible than guitar, or is it just another instrument to express yourself? there’s definitely more range in programming + sequencing, but at the end of the day, it really is just another instrument.

7. Having been in a a few bands before Shortwave Dahlia, do you find that the friction  within a band makes for better music or worse? it may give some extra fire here + there, but too much tension without a common goal will kill a band. the bands where one half hates the other tend to have a lack of balance in the entire sound.also, who wants to work with people they do not like?

8. What songs from Shortwave Dahlia’s catalog do you like performing live the most? What covers would you like to do live? “Vara” is  one of the few not ’set in stone’ that we actually improvise on live. I programmed a cover version of Charlie the Unicorn’s “Candy Mountain Cave” song and printed the lyrics up for Jack, so maybe we’ll sneak that in  one day… [interviewer’s note–SQUEE!]

9. What would you like to see happen for Shortwave Dahlia with the next album? I’d like to expand our reach, promote ourselves further out. we obviously have the internet to shop ourselves around. maybe if we could arrange more performances in more areas, like at least a weekend trip out of state, all the better as well.

10. Just for the gear-heads like me– What guitar would you kill to have, if money was no option? I like the ‘fishbone’ guitar Andy Summers had in the Synchronicity II video…

Thanks again to Ethan Grim for talking to me.

I had a chance to toss some questions to the band, about the new album and their newest member, and here are their replies!

1: Now that you’re heading into your second full album, has your sound changed or evolved since the last album, Illuminated?

Jack: It’s evolved a lot! The process is much different to the point that it’s almost impossible for me to equate the two. Illuminated was an educational experience for me as much as it was an artistic endeavor. I was learning how to utilize the studio, but I wasn’t really trying to stretch myself as a songwriter so I hear it now and think about things I could have done better. In this process, I can actually say “Why don’t we do this instead?” It’s nice to have people to bounce ideas off of.

Mark: Because everyone in the group has the chance to contribute to the songwriting process, the sound cannot help but have changed as we have added more people. I think that the great thing about this particular group of people is that we all liked the sound of Shortwave Dahlia before we joined. No one is trying to strike off on a tangent, instead it is more a matter of developing what we had as a starting point.

2: You’ve added a fourth person to your band, Dana Liebchen. How has her addition modified the Shortwave Dahlia sound?

Jack: It’s allowed us to do more of the instrumentation live, which has improved things. Also, with Dana on board it’s nice to be able to focus on an instrument at times, personally. I’m no Freddie Mercury.

Ethan: There is definitely a new dynamic working with Dana. We are all impressed by her abilities and proud to include her as one of her own. So far, her influence has been subtle, as I believe she is still trying not to change things too much. But, I also believe that her role will grow the more comfortable she gets working together with us. “Paramour” is so far the most obvious Dana-influenced song, as her voice carries it to a level we could not have without her.

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