Unveiling Notes: The Diggs Interview
Three boys from New York looking for redemption; imagine that. In search of secure passage through their twentysomethings, The Diggs are chest deep in dissolved love as told through sludgy guitars. Whether or not they feel rescued with their second album Ctrl-Alt-Del, they’ve successfully rehashed the buzz sounds of the nineties. We talk to the guys about their grunge influences, growing up and growing beards.
Pensatos: Your music has a distinct nineties guitar heavy flavor. Who were some of your influences growing up in that time?
Timothy: I liked Pearl Jam and Nirvana and all of those bands just like everyone else. I really liked Blind Melon too.
Robert: That depends, the nineties was a long decade. In the early nineties I listened to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, etc. But, come the mid-nineties I was really into Radiohead, Bjork, Sonic Youth and I literally couldn’t stop listening to A Storm in Heaven by The Verve. That was a big album for me. There have always been elements of punk rock, and some classic stuff too.
Charlie: Alice in Chains, Bartok, Xenakis, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Ratt.
As for Howie Weinberg, you can’t get someone with that much experience and know-how and not have it affect your sound in some way. The guy worked on Nevermind for fucks sake!
In the studio you worked with two very influential people (Weinberg and Cullers) from two very different decades of music. How did they tweak your sound on Ctrl-Alt-Del?
Timothy: Ruddy knows how to get any sound. He got sounds from us that we didn’t even realize we wanted. Howie made everything sound huge.
Robert: Well Ruddy tweaked the sound by literally matching guitars and amps to individual songs; really taking each song and caring for it. He really came on board as the fourth member giving a nonbiased outside view of sound and structure. As for Howie Weinberg, you can’t get someone with that much experience and know-how and not have it affect your sound in some way. The guy worked on Nevermind for fucks sake!
Charlie: Many suggestions were made about adding melodic shading, by way of guitar, throughout the album as a whole; sort of a harmonic backdrop or curtain. Percussion instruments such as maracas, metalaphones, vibraphones, gongs and tambourines were used to create different timbres.
When you guys first started, you slapped down a demo in your kitchen with drug running gangster neighbors downstairs. That had to put a little fear in your music.
Timothy: It wasn’t scary and we knew they wouldn’t call the cops on us for making too much noise.
Robert: Not really. They left us alone, we left them alone. I was more afraid of getting up at 6am for my shitty maintenance man job. They did however shoot a bullet into their ceiling that ricocheted onto our floor.
“I wasn’t thinking at all about Commute during the Ctrl-Alt-Del sessions. I remember just wanting to write big songs and a big album.”
There is a feeling of redemption on Ctrl-Alt-Del. What are you recovering from?
Timothy: Sacrifices
Talk to me about ‘Careen’; guitar buster or heartbreaker?
Timothy: ‘Careen’ is based on a character from the novel Brightness Falls by Jay McInerney. The lyrics are inspired by the very last page.
Was there a conscious goal to move away from the dream pop of Commute when entering the studio for Ctrl-Alt-Del?
Timothy: I wasn’t thinking at all about Commute during the Ctrl-Alt-Del sessions. I remember just wanting to write big songs and a big album.
Robert: I don’t think so. Its art, you know. Things just come and you put them down. I think we were in a different place for Commute, and Ctrl-Alt-Del sounds like that place.
Charlie: Not entirely, we still like that raucous feeling on songs like ‘Careen’, and ‘Brightness Falls’ that we captured on Commute. On the whole, these songs are deeply emotional so we couldn’t ignore that we had to move in that direction. We wanted to achieve a tonal sound that was darker and much richer than the sounds and colors on Commute.
If you guys weren’t playing music right now, what do you think you’d be doing with your lives?
Timothy: Married with children.
Charlie: Composer.
Robert: I would live on a mountain and be an unstable man with a beard. Just kidding. I can’t grow a beard. Actually I would probably be a biologist of some kind.
