WEB-EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: NARROWS' DAVE VERELLEN ON MAKING THE BAND'S DEBUT AND FIGHTING FIRES

In Revolver’s August issue, out now, we interview vocalist Dave Verellen of the mathcore group Narrows about its first full-length, New Distances (Deathwish). For those of you who didn't get enough (or are too cheap to buy the magazine), here's the best of the rest of our wide-ranging chat.

REVOLVER What do you do for a living?
DAVE VERELLEN I’m a firefighter. I have a regular job where I have to go to work and shit like that.

So you stay in a firehouse and everything?
Yep. I work just outside the city of Tacoma, Washington. I work for a county department that’s comparable to, like, L.A. County. So it’s a big area that includes cities and stuff like that. But yeah, I’ve been doing that for about six years, ever since I stopped doing music full-time.

How’d you end up in that line of work?
I had two uncles that were firefighters, and it’s already something I was planning to do if nothing else happened for me, so I started pursuing it right out of high school.

In our print interview, we talk about how you felt this need to get back into playing hardcore. Hardcore is just one of those thigns that sticks with you—it tends to color everything else you do.
Oh, yeah. And it’s funny how it goes in circles like that, where you’ll run into other people who are going through the same thing. Like, I’ve run into other firefighters doing job-related stuff and they’ll be wearing a T-shirt of a certain band or they’ll mention a certain band and I’ll be like, “Hey, dude, I used to listen to that stuff, too!” You know, and then you start bullshitting about it. Hardcore always stays a part of you, for sure.

Geographically, where is everyone in Narrows today?
I live in Seattle, and Ryan Frederiksen lives in Seattle—we’ve always lived in Seattle or Tacoma, respectively. And then Rob and Sam both lived in Seattle for the last couple of years but just recently moved back to San Diego, where they’re both from originally. Jodie’s the only one that lives in London, and he’s always lived in London.

What are the logistics of getting together to play?
It’s tough. There’s a lot of bands that can get away with working together over the Internet stuff and then going out on tour because—I don’t know, maybe just because of the music they play. But for us, just trying to be a hardcore band where so much of it revolves around the energy and playing tightly and keying off each other live onstage, we’d have to squeeze in these intense days of practice before we record or tour. And really, we’ve only done one tour, this past December— not even a tour; it’s more like a trip. We went down to L.A. and just flew home, and it was only, like, seven days of shows. This was great for us, because we found out real quick what we needed to work on and how we play together. When I was in Botch, I knew just from years of experience that I would always have to stay either in the middle or the right of the stage, because if I got close to [ex-Botch/current Minus the Bear guitarist] Dave Knudson, I’d get knocked out with a guitar. So I just figured that out early on, whereas with Narrows, I didn’t have that time to figure that out. It was an interesting learning curve—but fortunately, all the guys are pretty well experienced, so everybody knows how to do their job, which is great.

It has to be a little bit weird, though, because so often you rely on that live experience to get your songs into shape before you record them.
Totally, yeah. It’s been tough, because I was always used to trying out a song live first and working through it for a couple of months and then realizing stuff like, “Oh, you know what? I really need to take a breath here, so I’m gonna try doing this here,” whereas with Narrows, the other guys are like, “Okay, here’s the music. Now record your vocals on it.” I love it, but at the same time, you always wish you could go back and make those little tweaks, but you can’t because, you know, your guitar player is in London. [Laughs]

What was the big idea behind the band—in other words, why did Narrows have to happen?
I don’t know. To be honest with you, dude, the reason I’m in Narrows is because I’m selfish and I want to be in a band for myself. I want to play shows; I want to go on trips; and I want to record songs. If nobody likes it, that’s already what I went through playing drums in [the alt-country band] Roy, you know what I mean? I was in that band with my brother Ben and [ex-Botch bassist] Brian Cook, and we loved that band, and we loved those songs, and we loved recording and playing together—and nobody bought the records. But that’s OK. It’s a tough market. I think if I would’ve made the mistake of trying to be in a popular band and trying to write music that I knew people would buy, I just wouldn’t be happy with it.

You started recording New Distances with your brother, Ben, but ended up finishing it with Matt Bayles. What led to that?
Yeah, so what happened is that we started tracking with my brother, and we got almost everything tracked except for, like, one and a half songs and vocals. So my brother, he builds amps now [Verellen Amplifiers], and that was consuming him, and he was also in his last quarter at U-Dub [University of Washington]. We’d been talking about it, and he was just like, “It’d be awesome if Matt could take over for me; that’d make everything really easy.” So that was that. It was nice to have Matt in there to help us finish it, and even my brother will tell you that Matt made it sound really awesome. He just added that element to it that Matt does.

Did the record change much in the handoff between the two producers?
It changed in the essence of how Matt is a very meticulous producer: He would go through and mute everything that needs to be muted, move everything that needs to be moved, and he does like a clear coat over a painting—just brightens everything up.

Lastly, how does a 31-year-old, like yourself, approach hardcore differently than the 20-something you might’ve approached it?
I guess I’m more like a grumpy grownup now. Like, think back to when you were a kid, and your dad would be looking at you while you were doing something stupid and just let you do it. Then, when you hit your head or whatever, he’d be like, “See? You learned something, didn’t you?” So I guess I look at a lot of hardcore kids now, and I’m not necessarily thinking they’re doing stupid stuff, but I see the changes and the fads and stuff they’re into and I’m just like, let ’em go through it, you know what I mean? It’s their story to evolve. It would suck for me to be like, “Back in the day, we didn’t do that,” especially when it was only eight years ago that I was that age. That’s not much in the way of seniority. So I guess I’ve gotten a little more open-minded in that regard. I also have a better idea about what I like and don’t like now, so I’m not afraid to tell people. You know where you’re younger and you run into another band and you’re like, “Oh, yeah, man. I really like your band,” and maybe secretly you didn’t like it very much? You just thought you had to like it because everybody else does? Now, I’m more open about saying, “Yeah, I’m really not into that.”

Interview by Aaron Burgess