{"id":1461,"date":"2013-12-08T17:22:01","date_gmt":"2013-12-09T01:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/venturarocks.com\/blog\/?p=1461"},"modified":"2013-12-08T19:15:47","modified_gmt":"2013-12-09T03:15:47","slug":"interview-dean-dinning-of-toad-the-wet-sprocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/venturarocks.com\/blog\/interview-dean-dinning-of-toad-the-wet-sprocket\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview – Dean Dinning of Toad the Wet Sprocket"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Toad<\/a>Toad the Wet Sprocket has their first release as a full band in at least 15 years.\u00a0 It’s a big deal.\u00a0 And we know it’s a big deal because when the guys in Toad went to fans for help on producing the album via Kickstarter, you won’t believe how quickly the band made their target of $50,000.<\/p>\n

Ventura Rocks (VR):\u00a0 I have been listening to the new CD, I\u2019ve kept it constantly in my car for the past couple of weeks, I’m loving New Constellation.\u00a0 I don\u2019t understand how you can just pick out a song to push on radio because there are so many solid songs on there!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Dean<\/a>Dean Dinning:\u00a0 Well that is interesting, because we are about to release another single. We released the title track, \u201cNew Constellation,\u201d as the first single; it got a little traction out there on the radio, but we\u2019re ready to release another one.\u00a0 This is the first time we\u2019ve put out a record in 15 years, but thanks for things like i-Tunes where people can actually go on and sort of cherry pick the record and the songs that they like, it\u2019s really kind of helped us find out what song should be the next single.\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting because you can take a look at what individual songs people seem to be responding to, and just go, \u201cOh, obviously, that\u2019s what people want to hear, so let\u2019s put that one out as a single.\u201d
\n
\n(VR):<\/strong>\u00a0 Alright, so what\u2019s going to be the second single then?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dinning:\u00a0It\u2019s going to be a song called \u201cThe Moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

(VR):<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>Nice, very nice.<\/strong> I was putting my money on a bonus track, \u201cFinally Fading.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dinning:\u00a0It is a great song.\u00a0 That song was previously on Glen\u2019s solo album back in 2002 or so, and that\u2019s the reason we didn\u2019t put in the main listing of songs for the record or release it as a single.\u00a0 One of the things we wanted to do was to put out something 100% new.<\/p>\n

(VR):<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>Well that makes sense, you\u2019d want to choose a song the whole band had done together as a group effort.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dinning:\u00a0Right, especially after all this time.\u00a0 But it\u2019s such a great song and we\u2019ve been playing it live in concert and people really like it and are responding to it.\u00a0 We do a really great version of that song, a little more rocking than the version Glen had done on his solo album.\u00a0 While we were in the studio making the record, we didn\u2019t know if other songs would turn out as good as we hoped, and we might need an up tempo pop single like that.\u00a0 But as it turned out we had other songs that hopefully would do the job.<\/p>\n

(VR):<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>As a former program director of a rock alternative radio station here in town, KXBS, The Bus, and I’d like to think I have an ear for what would work on radio but I have to say I\u2019m having a hard time! \u201cCalifornia Wasted\u201d, \u201cI\u2019ll Bet on You\u201d, \u201cGet What you Want,\u201d Is there Anyone Out There,\u201d\u00a0 \u201cLife is Beautiful,\u201d these are all solid songs.\u00a0 You guys have got to be proud of what you did here.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"New<\/a>Dinning:\u00a0We\u2019re really happy with what we did, we had a great bunch of songs.\u00a0 Before we made the record we went in and played for Mikal Blue, who is our producer.\u00a0 He has a studio down in Thousand Oaks, we played for him absolutely everything we had. And some of the songs like \u201cBet on You\u201d was originally another song that Todd Nicols, the guitar player, and I had done on a record we had done with a band that we had briefly after Toad called Lapdog, and we had done this song called, \u201cSee You Again.\u201d\u00a0 And I played that for Mikal Blue one day when we were in the studio and we were playing every idea that we had so we could make sure that some undiscovered gem would not be heard when we went to make the record.\u00a0\u00a0 And he just flipped out for \u201cSee You Again\u201d and he worked on it and rearranged it and rewrote the lyrics and it\u2019s a whole new song.
\n
\n(VR):<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>It\u2019s beautiful.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dinning:\u00a0You know you look at the album \u201cNew Constellation\u201d as kind of a best of everything that we all been doing for the last 16 years I suppose, and us throwing it all in there and making a Toad record out of it.\u00a0 But thank you!\u00a0 That was the idea to have really strong songs with sing along choruses and stronger individual identities and hopefully it wouldn\u2019t just all blend together.\u00a0 We wanted something that would get people\u2019s attention.
\n
\n(VR):<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>Crazy good harmonies, you got the hooks up the wazoo.\u00a0 It\u2019s really nice. <\/strong>
\nOk, Let\u2019s talk about Kickstarter; from what I read, Toad was thinking it would take two months to hit your goal of $50,000, but it took so much less!\u00a0 How did you get wind that this was going on?\u00a0 Explain how it all unfolded.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"kickstarter\"<\/a>Dinning:\u00a0We were actually in New York out on a very short tour where we were scheduled to play at Willie Nelson\u2019s 80th birthday celebration and the the Kickstarter went live during that time and we were watching it.\u00a0 We all got the Kickstarter app for our phones and we were watching it in real time.\u00a0 It was climbing so quickly\u2026you know, it was unbelievable!\u00a0 It was sort of like watching the individual song sales on i-Tunes.\u00a0\u00a0 (laughs) You know there\u2019s this new fangled thing called the internet these days and you\u2019re able to watch your project in real time as people are pledging and the numbers are just going up and up and up, and halfway through the first day we realized we were going to hit the goal the next day! And we did!\u00a0 It was unbelievable, we set a $50,000 goal originally and we hit it in 20 hours.<\/p>\n

(VR):<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>Oh My God!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dinning:\u00a0You know we had a feeling that our fans would really respond to the idea of Kickstarter, because they really wanted us to make a new record.\u00a0 Our fans have been paying real money to buy tickets to come out and see us live for the last 15 years.\u00a0 I mean we were broken up, we got back together, and we\u2019ve been touring off and on pretty steadily since 2006.\u00a0\u00a0 But we had no idea that they would jump on it with that kind of enthusiasm.\u00a0 And even at the end of the two months \u2013 well once we hit the original goal, we made another goal, which they call a stretch goal, And we said, Okay, if we get to $100,000, then we\u2019ll throw in a live acoustic CD.\u00a0 And people encouraged their friends, shared it on Facebook to get more people to participate.\u00a0 Our fans just really showed up.\u00a0 That\u2019s the main thing that we found out just how much real love there was for the band out there in the world.<\/p>\n

(VR):<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>What validation.\u00a0 That is just so amazing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Dean<\/a>Dinning:\u00a0And we did this other thing with Kickstarter where as soon as we hit our original funding goal which was really big, we didn\u2019t expect to hit it that quickly, we wanted to let people hear the music, and that was the ideal all along.\u00a0 The record was pretty much done, and we wanted people to be able to download it.\u00a0 No one had ever done that on Kickstarter before; normally you have to wait until the end to even get the email addresses of the people who had pledged.\u00a0 So we had to figure out a convoluted system.\u00a0 We set up a second page where we would have to send messages to the backers and then have them put their email addresses on another page and we would send them a download for another site\u2026you know, at the end of the day, we ended up with about the first 6,000 of the most diehard fans of the band got the download of this new record they had been waiting for, for all this time.
\nAnd as far as critical reviews, we\u2019ve done really well, but having the fans love it as much as they did right off the bat\u2026it made me feel like I really didn\u2019t care if someone gave us a bad review now, because the people I care about love it.<\/p>\n

(VR):<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>Exactly, and that is the bottom-line, It\u2019s about the fan, the person who wants and knows and loves the band, someone who has always been there\u2026and how they feel about it.\u00a0\u00a0 That\u2019s all that really matters.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dinning:\u00a0Yeah, that\u2019s what matters. And we got them first which was really really cool.
\n
\n(VR):<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>What\u2019s it like this time around?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dinning:\u00a0I can\u2019t get over how fortunate we are to have all of these people who have stuck with us for so long.\u00a0 The best reason to want to keep doing this music is the difference that it has made in people\u2019s lives.\u00a0 Every night going out there on stage and seeing their faces light up when we play a certain song, it\u2019s the best thing in the world.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty cool.<\/p>\n

(VR):<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>And Glen\u2019s voice seems to be holding up alright?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dinning:\u00a0It\u2019s doing just fine.\u00a0 We have a new rule where we don\u2019t do more than four shows in a row, and he\u2019s not spending too much time talking after the shows.\u00a0 We do these big meet and greets after the show; we\u2019ll go out in the lobby and take pictures and things.\u00a0 People always want to engage in some very deep conversations, but he\u2019s had to develop some sort of discipline to say, \u201cYou know I\u2019d love to have this conversation, send me email on Facebook.\u201d\u00a0 The voice is something that you just can\u2019t wear out. Talking is actually worse than singing.\u00a0 So yeah, we\u2019re holding up real well!<\/p>\n

(VR):<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>What\u2019s next for the band?\u00a0 Continue doing what you\u2019re doing?\u00a0 Keep touring and see how long you can go with this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dinning:\u00a0Yeah, that\u2019s the great thing about doing this ourselves; we get to decide when it\u2019s over. No one in an office somewhere is looking at a balance sheet \u2013 and our balance sheet is on the positive side \u2013 but no one is looking at it and saying, \u201cWe\u2019re not going to put any more money into this.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s up to us. The next single is going to go to radio right after Christmas, we\u2019ve got tour dates in the West\u2026it\u2019s so odd, but we get calls to play on the East Coast all the time, and we have to schedule things more along the West Coast, so finally we\u2019re getting to places like Salt Lake City and Seattle and Portland.\u00a0 Things are so much more spread apart in the West, it\u2019s harder to tour out here, and there are lots of places. So we invariably fine ourselves going up and down the East Coast and in the Mid West more than we make it out here to the West. But we\u2019re going to do all those places in about two weeks in February and we\u2019re looking forward to summer and the rest of 2014.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/toadthewetsprocket.com\/<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/toadthewetsprocketmusic<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.twitter.com\/toadwetsprocket<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Toad<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toad the Wet Sprocket has their first release as a full band in at least 15 years.\u00a0 It’s a big deal.\u00a0 And we know it’s a big deal because when the guys in Toad went to fans for help on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[260,259,112,258,985,7],"class_list":["post-1461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-dean-dinning","tag-new-constellation","tag-pam-baumgardner","tag-toad-the-wet-sprocket","tag-ventura-rocks","tag-venturarocks-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/venturarocks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/venturarocks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/venturarocks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturarocks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturarocks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1461"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/venturarocks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1529,"href":"https:\/\/venturarocks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461\/revisions\/1529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/venturarocks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturarocks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturarocks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}