THEORY OF A DEADMAN Drummer Says 'Say Nothing' Is A 'Darker Record'

Chris of BackstageAxxess recently conducted an interview with drummer Joey Dandeneau of the Canadian rock outfit THEORY OF A DEADMAN. You can listen to the entire chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On the band's forthcoming studio album, "Say Nothing":

Joey: "There was a big impact for 'Rx (Medicate)', to not only our fans but to people who had never heard us before. That song, I think, brought a lot of awareness to a problem that maybe some people don't know about. There's a lot of people who have either experienced it themselves or potentially know somebody that has. That song really brought us into a place as a band where we went, 'Wow.' I think we need to start talking more about other issues that the world is facing. When we came from a place of our last record that was a little bit more light-hearted, a lot of breakup songs, a lot of love stuff, a lot of tongue-in-cheek stuff, too. All of a sudden, 'Medicate', was, like, 'Wow, what a difference.' Sometimes it's a little scary to touch upon such serious issues. When we saw the positive reaction from the song, we felt like it was the perfect time for us to keep going with that idea and really reach out to a whole other list of serious issues that are going on in the world. This new record, 'Say Nothing', comes out early next year, is a, if you will, a continuation. The last one, there was some darker material, some lighthearted, this one is really kind of all the way through from front to back is a darker record."

On whether it's important for THEORY OF A DEADMAN to discuss issues like domestic violence through the band's recent video for "History Of Violence":

Joey: "It's a real thing. I think a lot of people maybe don't know about it; I'm not sure. It's a real thing. We were really happy to put this song out for our first single to kind of lead into letting everybody know, 'This is what our new record is going to be like. Already, we're seeing a huge influx of people coming to our shows already reacting, almost the same way, if not more, than they did to 'Rx'. We know we've touched a nerve, but we are here to help. We've already put out, on the video, we wanted to make sure you could see we're involved in the domestic hotline to help call in. Anybody that needs help, call them, that's what they're there for. We also want to make a video that really showed and try and be as true to it as possible within the three-and-a-half-minute segment of what it really looks like. We chose not to be in the video. We felt like it was a better solution to represent the real life of it and to have us not in it and just almost be like a very short movie, a realistic rendition of what this song is really about. I think the video ties well with it. You're right, we have had a lot of pretty heavy reactions to it and because it was done properly. It was done to show that this is not a joke."

On taking a more serious approach with their lyrical themes:

Joey: "It's not that — I mean, the thing is, a lot of people in the world break up and relationships, they break up. People can relate to it. I think that's what gave us success over the years was there was a relation to this for our fans. We get it. We get what you guys are going through. We go through the same thing. I don't know if this stuff that we're doing now is any better. All I know is it's definitely in a different realm. All the other stuff was… This is darker. It's just a darker, deeper more serious thing that is going on in the world. So, we're writing about it."

THEORY OF A DEADMAN's seventh studio album, "Say Nothing", will be released on January 31 via Atlantic Records.

Photo credit: Jimmy Fontaine