Both interviews by Kenneth Morton

Fans of bands such as Fear Before The March Of Flames and Norma Jeans are sure to enjoy the innovative, challenging music of Drop Dead, Gorgeous. Based out of Denver, CO and with members still in school, this appears to be the summer when the DDG is destined to hit the big time. Now on tour with Scars Of Tomorrow in support of their new Rise Records release In Vogue, we recently had the opportunity to speak with keyboardist Aaron Rothe. So Fashion Your Seatbelts and get ready to transcend the trends with the DDG…

Is there any story behind the name of the album In Vogue?
Not really. In Vogue kind of means In Style. Basically a lot of what’s on our CD talks about the scene and fashion. We have a song where part of the chorus says, “Why do it for the fashion?” And we’re really huge on that. There’s all these hardcore and screamo bands doing the fashion thing – doing it all for the looks and the hair and stuff like that. We called it In Vogue to be kind of ironic, because style and stuff like that is the last thing we care about. We just like to play music. So that’s the main reason.

Do you think your fans get the sense of irony that’s on your album?
I don’t know if they will or not. I think it’s more for us to kind of do – to just speak out on it pretty much, as far as our opinion on fashion and the music industry and how it’s all tied together now. I don’t know if a lot of people will pick up on it or not, but we hope they do. We don’t want them to think we do it for fashion, so hopefully people will pick up on the irony of it.

Tell me about the Denver, Colorado scene, and how does Drop Dead, Gorgeous fit into it?
The music scene here is – I think it’s great. Everybody here is so supportive of both local bands and national acts that come through. It’s just really thriving right now. Kids will go to a show, and it’s not like they’re going there to just see one band. You really enjoy going to see the music. There’s not a whole lot to do in Denver unless you’re over 21, so really concerts are about one of the only things to do – from what I’ve experienced at least. The hardcore metalcore whatever phase is kind of big right now. There’s tons of great bands in Colorado. I think we fit in pretty good.

There is a movie called Drop Dead Gorgeous that starred Kirsten Dunst and an amazingly thin Kirsty Alley. Have you ever seen it, and does the band name have anything to do with that movie?
No, I haven’t seen it. I want to see it, because I’ve actually heard it was a good movie from a few people. That had nothing to do with the name. I actually joined the band a few months after it started. As far as I know where the name came from was when they were starting out the band before they wrote anything, they thought, “Maybe we should get a band name first.” They all just kind of went off and thought about it. And two of the three people who originally started it both thought up the name Drop Dead, Gorgeous. The comma thing is pretty important. Without the comma, it’s like an adjective describing looks, but with the comma it’s more of a phrase.

How do you get Dressed For Friend Requests? It seems like clothing might be optional if it’s in reference to Myspace.
Oh, it definitely is. It’s kind of about the music scene these days. There’s a line in the song that says, “Yeah, you’re just jealous.” And how everybody acts like a celebrity on Myspace and acts like they’re the biggest rock stars. They dress up to take their pictures and go to shows. I mean, that’s cool if you do it, but that’s not something we do. Just be yourself.

So it’s more of a satire on being on Myspace?
Yeah, definitely!

Speaking of that, are you guys surprised at all by all of the attention you’ve gotten on avenues such as Myspace?
Oh yeah – it’s amazing. Most of the success that we’ve had so far has been through Myspace. That’s how Rise Records found us. That’s how we extended our fan base. A lot of it is because of Myspace. It’s a great way to promote a band and we’re very surprised at the response that we’ve gotten from it.

Who in the band is the biggest Myspace whore?
Nobody checks it too much. I don’t know – I’d almost have to say me, unfortunately. I do a lot of the writing back to people on Myspace. I’m probably on the most out of everyone – I don’t know why. I don’t live a very exciting life yet, I don’t think.

Well someone’s gotta answer the mail, right?
Exactly. That’s most of what I do. I don’t sit and go around and add people. It’s really important to us that we write back to people that write us, and comment back as much as we can. We’re starting to get a lot of messages and comments, but we still appreciate our fans a lot. It really drives us crazy – before we were even a band, if we wrote a complimentary message to a band and you look at it as “read,” it’s like “Oh, they don’t even care.” We definitely, totally care and appreciate our fans and everything that they’ve done for us. That’s the only reason that we get to do this. It’s really important to us that we get to write back. It takes up a lot of time to write back to everybody, but we get it done eventually.

Some of your band members still go to high school. I was wondering how much school interferes with the band. And the members that are still in school – is it fairly well known that they are in Drop Dead, Gorgeous?
Yeah, they get a lot of it in school. I know Kyle in our band; his nickname at his school is Rock Star. But yeah, they know. There’s three of us that are still in school. I’m not in school anymore. It interferes a lot. We’ve had to put off touring till this summer, because they can’t miss school. Playing out of state shows – we’ve never been able to do that. Even shows during the weekdays - that’s pretty limited too because they’ll go late. After this school year ends, Dan will graduate, and Kyle and Danny Cooper who are the guitarist and the drummer – they’re juniors this year. They are just going to get their GED’s so we can tour full time.

Are there any Drop Dead, Gorgeous groupies wandering around the slopes of Denver or beyond?
I don’t know – maybe. The way we like to look at it is – more than just fans – we seriously really like to appreciate what they’ve done. I just consider them friends that we haven’t met yet. So I don’t know about groupies. We get recognized and followed in some places that we go. It’s fun. I don’t know if we have groupies – there are probably a few.

Tell me a little bit about your solo project and what the music is like.
It’s pretty much the opposite of Drop Dead, Gorgeous. It kind of balances out. I was raised listening to contemporary Christian music my whole life until I was about 15 or 16. I was never around the rock and roll kind of stuff, so a lot of my influences are really poppy. I really don’t listen to a lot of hardcore or metal at all. I listen to a lot of Goo Goo Dolls. So it’s softer, much more mellow music with me at piano or acoustic guitar. It’s just something that I do for fun.

Is your solo project something you’d like to put out on a record label one day?
Yeah, I think it would be fun to do. Right now I’m not very interested in doing anything with that. I really have a lot of fun playing with Drop Dead, Gorgeous. But eventually maybe when I’m older and can’t move around as much, I think that definitely would be an option. I just want to play music. That's basically it.

How long have you been playing piano and who are some of your influences?
It’ll be 15 years in July. I started when I was five. And influences would be Michael W. Smith, who’s a contemporary Christian artist who plays piano too. I grew up listening to him and really loved his music – he was a big influence. The Goo Goo Dolls definitely – I’ve always liked them. More modern ones like Andrew McMahon from Something Corporate and Jack’s Mannequin. Those would probably be the main influences. And my dad too. My dad was the one that got me into it when I was just a kid. He was the reason I wanted to start to play – because he played and he’s always been playing since I could remember. So that’s the main reason.

Tell me about the Tickle Me Elmo shirt that one of your members is wearing in the new promo pictures. Is that very fashionable?
(Laughs) I don’t think it is. I think it’s funny. I think it’s awesome because that just kind of proves we don’t really care about what we wear. Clothes are clothes and it’s not a fashion statement to us at all. It was just something fun instead of wearing a black band shirt like most other bands. He had a black Elmo shirt. I like it!

I think you should get a Big Bird shirt and go on tour with it!
We would each have a member of the Sesame Street cast!

Yeah that would be interesting! So what’s up next? You’re about to go on tour…
Yeah, we’re going on tour with Scars Of Tomorrow, Calico System, and Inked In Blood. We’re all big fans of all those bands, so it’s very cool that we get to tour with them, especially for our first tour too! And we’ll pretty much be touring full time for a long time. We get to go to Australia sometime this year and do some touring over there, which we’re really excited about. The CD is being licensed through Crusade Records out there, and it’s a really good opportunity that we get to go over there and play some shows.

At the end of the last interview you thanked me for not mentioning your hair, and now I must. I mean, is the hair really a big deal to you?
It’s not a big deal to us at all. We all used to have longer hair, and it seemed like when we do interviews – even the people that review our album – “Oh, they care about fashion because they have long hair.” A lot of the interviews were just about, “Oh, tell us about your hair. Who styles it? How do you get it done?” It’s not a big deal to us at all – we don’t really care. So it’s just a relief to do an interview where we don’t have to talk about our hair and if we like it or not.

Do you have any final thing you’d like to add?
Just that we hope to see anyone who’s reading this and we hope to meet a lot of people on tour. We’re excited to meet people when we get to this.

Drop Dead, Gorgeous at The Whisky 07/02/06

Drop Dead, Gorgeous Links

Rise Records: The Record Label for Drop Dead, Gorgeous!
Drop Dead, Gorgeous on Myspace: The Official Myspace Page!
The Highwire Daze Home Page: Return to the Main Page!

Drop Dead, Gorgeous live photos: Live from the Left Bamboozle!

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