us love music that was made before our time or when we werevery young. I love classic rock like Pink Floyd and Rush, old-schoolpunk and early, pre-hairspray metal. Tony is a Zep-head and ametal-head rolled into one, with a dash of early Van Halen for goodmeasure. Fernando grew up on the Beatles, Todd Rundgren and alot of power-pop and progressive-rock. We all love ‘70s pop likeEarth, Wind & Fire, Wings and The Bee Gees. HERE’S A TIP FORANY TRUE MUSIC LOVER: GET A TURNTABLE! I found one last yearat a pawn shop for next to nothing. You can get some of the bestmusic ever made for a dollar an album at almost any thrift store.<strong>RAG</strong>: What drew you to music— particularly your uniquestyle? Was there an incident or moment when you realizedyou wanted to be musicians?DEREK: I think none of us had much of a choice; the music was inour heads and it wouldn’t get out! Tony really had no choice. Hisdad was a professional musician, and he made Tony work with himfor years! I think our uniqueness comes from the fact that all of uslisten to a wide range of music. Another thing is that we’re not allinto the exact same things, yet we’re able to find common groundwhen we come together as a band. There’s an odd blend here thatkeeps things interesting. I think that’s a problem bands fall into—they find four or five guys who are into exactly the same thing andmake a band. Who’s gonna bring the fresh idea to the rehearsalroom? Who’s gonna say, “That isn’t a good idea”?<strong>RAG</strong>: Who would you most like toshare a stage with in thefuture?DEREK:and why?DEREK: Well, I’m kinda biased; I mean, I like them all! I don’t knowwhich ones are my favorites. I never want to release an album witha filler track on there, and so far, I feel I’ve stayed true to that.<strong>RAG</strong>: What inspired the cover photo for Oh… The Drama(Derek is standing on the driveway in his white undies,holding a hose and a glass of scotch)?DEREK: Oh yeah, the misunderstood cover… The guys think itlooks gay, the girls think I was trying to be hot but that I failedmiserably. The cover wasn’t supposed to be sexual in ANY way!It was supposed to represent the frustration of life in suburbia.It was inspired by the title, which was poking fun at the music. Imean, I was this twenty-something guy who grew up in thesuburbs, never really going through anything I would define astruly traumatic, yet there was all this dramatic music on the album.I told my photographer friend, “God— I should call thisalbum “Ohhhhhh… The Drama.” And we laughed, and then I waslike, “Wait— that’s it! That’s the title!” We brainstormed theconcept, and we came up with a 1970’s movie soundtrack motif,with most of the shots looking like movie stills. We wanted theshots to look like something might be happening when in factthere was no real action taking place—just like life in suburbia. Itwas an embarrassing shoot; in the middle of it, while Iwas standing in this guy’s front yard in my underwear,his parents pulled up to visit. What a nice greeting—some long-haired guy in his underwear with adrink in his hand standing in the middle of their son’sdriveway…<strong>RAG</strong>: Who are some of your favorite localbands?DEREK: DBY, Burner, Waxburn, Zach Ziskin, Stereo9; I know I’m forgetting a bunch here… A lot ofmy faves broke up, unfortunately: Plutonium Pie,Wallop, Humbert…ChristinaAguilera. She is very talentedand very passionate, and I hearshe likes Puerto Ricans… I happen to be PuertoRican… See where I’m going here?<strong>RAG</strong>: Tell us about Oh… The Drama.DEREK: I still find myself listening to the album, and it’s been aroundthree years since it came out. That’s always a good sign. I recordedit before the band was together. Tony engineered half of it,actually. The hardest part was the mixing. I recorded it at For TheRecord Studios up in Delray Beach, which was an analog studio atthe time with no automation for mixdown. Everything you hear onthat album was done manually. You could barely punch in on thosetape machines, and I loved them for that! They kept the performancesreal, and we still adhere to that ethic when recording. Icouldn’t have done that album without the help of Sosio, the engineerup there who also happens to be a great friend of mine. Speakingof recordings, we officially started working on a new album lastmonth. It should be finished by spring.<strong>RAG</strong>: What are some of your favorite songs on the album<strong>RAG</strong>: Do you guys have any pre-performancerituals? Also, do you get nervousbefore performances?DEREK: I have a ritual; I do a stretch routineand warm up before every performance. Then,when we walk on stage, we don’t start upuntil we’ve given each other that certain lookthat says, “Let’s do this!” We don’t really need more thanthat. I get butterflies sometimes in a good way, but I got realnervous once…we opened for O-Town… yes, the boy band. Itwas one of our first big gigs. There were hundreds of screaming14-year-old girls in the audience—scary when you considerwe’re not that cute and we don’t dance. I thought we weregonna get booed off the stage! I still can’t believe we made itthrough our set without being hit with empty CK1 bottles.<strong>RAG</strong>: Derek, why do you take your clothes off while playing?DEREK: Because it gets stupid-hot! There are certain venues whereit feels like 12,000 degrees up there! If you were on stage in anaggressive rock band singing lead and playing drums standing up atthe same time, with stage lights hitting you from every angle, you’dtake off your clothes too, believe me! It’s either that or play in asoaking wet, smelly shirt for two-thirds of the set. I’ve tried it; itdoesn’t feel too good.<strong>RAG</strong>: What’s the coolest thing you’ve seen from the stage;anything exciting or unusual in the audience or at the venue?DEREK: The coolest thing I’ve seen from on-stage is people singingour songs and/or really listening to the band. The most excitingthing I’ve seen from onstage is a fully-exposed pair of breasts! Tiedwith that is the excitement of watching the crowd gather and focus32 • <strong>RAG</strong> MAGAZINE • JANUARY 20<strong>04</strong>
on the stage duringthe openingsong. Actually,you can seebreasts anywhere;seeing thecrowd gather onlyhappens whenyou’re on stage,which makes itmore special.<strong>RAG</strong>: How doyou approachsong-writing?Is there a process?DEREK: I’ll hear themusic in my head,sometimes with akey phrase ors e v e r a lphrases... If theidea is strongenough, it will motivate me to grab a guitar and figure out the chords.If I really like it when I play and sing it, I’ll figure out what the songmakes me feel and/or think about and write some more lyrics. SometimesI’ll just write lyrics and put music to them after the fact, butthat’s not the norm.<strong>RAG</strong>: What are the themes within your lyrics? Can you highlighta few for me and tell me what inspired you to touch onthose subjects?DEREK: Lots of interpersonal stuff, introspective stuff or philosophicalstuff. Thoughts and feelings… what more can you write about?I try to cover a lot of ground lyrically. “Quitter” is about sex addiction.“Reborn” is a post-break-up song I wrote in a jet liner halfwayover the Atlantic. “Everybody’s Going Down To The Rave” is aboutnot being able to fit in. That’s a recurrent theme too—not fitting in.“Athena” is about choosing between two girlfriends. “Dumb MeDown” is about the degradation of western culture. I even wrotesome about space travel!<strong>RAG</strong>: Do you guys have any guilty pleasures? Tell us somethingpeople might not know about you?DEREK: Well, Fernando visits some pretty interesting Web sites (oneof them sends him an email every time a famous person dies), Tonycan do two-handed finger-tapping on the guitar and I have had atleast 13 speeding tickets in the past ten years.<strong>RAG</strong>: What are your interests outside of music?DEREK: Space travel, politics, snow-skiing and driving fast all thetime. Tony likes watching sports and fishing, and Fernando likes E-bay and bad movies. In other words, we’re all at the very least partgeek.<strong>RAG</strong>: Where do you guys go from here? What does the futurehold forDC-3?DEREK: We’ll always be doing the same thing; we’ll just be doing iton a bigger scale. In the future we’ll be writing music, makingrecords, touring, etc. It’s just that hopefully, instead of playing a100-seat venue, we’ll be playing a 10,000-seat venue. And insteadof playing live on cable access, we’ll be live on Conan O’Brien. Andmaybe I’ll perform a duet with Christina Aguilera. But don’t worry—I’ll still grant you interviews, Kelly!<strong>RAG</strong>: Any other messages to your fans? And anything youwant to say?DEREK: Christina Aguilera: you are postponing the inevitable. Justcall me already so I can give you directions to my apartment.
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