Dead By Sunrise’s Live Sound

[Ex97]

This is coming from a HUGE fan of DBS, not to sound cocky but maybe the biggest DBS fan in the world or one of them. But honestly, I didn’t really dig their ‘’live sound’’. Anyone else feel this way looking back? I love the demos we got and I do actually love the album even though a lot of fans didn’t. But when they started playing live as a band in 2009 it just never sounded quite right to me. I went to 2 of their shows, NYC and Ulalume Festival in 2009 and they were both fun don’t get me wrong but they weren’t amazing sounding. 
 

It’s weird because I love the live Let Down from 2005. But don’t really dig the live Let Down from 2009-2011, even the acoustic ones, they just don’t sound as good. I also loved Walking In Circles from the 2008 set, it sounded so much different when played live in the years after, same as My Suffering which I know they changed quite a bit but still. Even Morning After, listen to like the 2006 Bucket of Weenies performance for example, sounds different and not just because it was played slightly different but just the sound overall. Maybe it was the addition of all the Julien-K guys but then again why did the 2008 set sound so good to me? Idk. There was never really any great banter or anything either at DBS shows. I don’t want to say Chester didn’t seem like he was having fun but sometimes I got that vibe. Even with the STP shows he looked like he was having way more fun. And the Camp Freddy shows from 2006 on he always looked like he was having an absolute blast maybe even more than all other side projects. Bucket of Weenies too which of course he was hammered but still. 
 

Then in 2010 Chester tweeted about how the album didn’t sell well and how the label didn’t help promote it and it bummed him out and he was even asking if they made a good record or not. I felt bad. IMO it was never the record that was bad. I think it’s fantastic. The promotion though was handled very badly. Barely promoted at all and the band didn’t even have a proper website or anything. The merch was kind of crappy too, anyone remember it? I never bought any of the official merch cuz I just didn’t like the way it looked and it was the same price as LP merch which I bought instead back then.

 

I also was reading some of Church’s old posts on Facebook (one of Chester’s best friends) and it seemed like DBS was supposed to have a U.S. tour in the summer of 2010 or maybe late spring but the label wouldn’t fund it? Interesting. 
 

I just wish Chester didn’t think it was the music that was bad and he knew that it was just the label and shit. Chester was hard on himself sometimes. 
 

But I’m getting off topic. I’ve seen Ryan say the live sound of the band was better I just disagree as a fan. What do you guys think? 
 

Ultimately my opinion on DBS after all these years of being obsessed is that I just wish they had released the album in 2005 and did a small tour like Mike did with Fort Minor in the states in 2006, etc. They could of basically done them at the same time. I feel like the original DBS stuff before they wrote more songs in 2008 and changed stuff was a lot better and more raw not just in sound but the emotion DBS meant to have. Like I said I still love Out Of Ashes but yeah I feel like it was just too past it’s time by the time they released it, it feels like a 2005 era album to me. Both the original Fort Minor stuff and Dead By Sunrise are prior to Minutes To Midnight for me in my mind, even the Mike and Chester have said in interviews that the reason they made those albums were because they felt like at the time they wouldn’t fit with LP and that after writing MTM they felt like they could write that kind of music for LP now. 

[LPLStaff]

The 2008 set sounds so good because it's heavy and has the rock feel to it. What I think you are referring to is the later sound they had in 2009-2010 was too electronic, and I am not a big fan of it either. That's why inherently that music sounded better acoustically. They needed to rip it with the guitars and not have the synths, etc so loud. The Let Down from the Columbia show is such a step down from the 2005 live acoustic one.

The DBS era was a disaster in itself. Remember they flat out refused to have a website? They said check MySpace (!) for all of the updates... what a horrendous strategy. Getting info on what they were doing was extremely difficult. On that LP tour in 2009 it was extremely confusing to figure out shows they were going to play or not, beforehand. 

 

I believe the label stuff. They probably didn't want to give much money to it at all, and for them to push something there needs to be a big hit involved. Howard producing the album is an entirely separate topic itself - they could have done much better with him but he has the signature rock albums (which are great) attached to his name and I'm sure the label helped push him to work with Chester. His 10 Years Feeding the Wolves album is very overproduced compared to anything else in their catalog, for example. But he does have some great pre-2010 records. Remember Mike said in 09 or 10 that the label didn't want to fund the massive Projekt Rev tours anymore? Too much expense on their end. That's why PR scaled down. The only disadvantage to being on a massive label like that is you need have results for many things to make it make sense. The DSPs needed to sell way better, the band needed more sold out shows, etc to make it make sense to do it all again/keep it going. The advantages are huge for being on Warner - don't get me wrong. Their press/A&R machine is probably the best on the planet for artists.

 

Fort Minor did their entire operation much better than DBS did. At the very worst, they should have teamed up for a run in 2009 or 2010 for shows. No USA tour for DBS was a very weird move, but I'm sure they tried as you said. Mike was probably knees deep in ATS at that time making a masterpiece LP album and didn't want to run another FM album/EP/drop out with a tour lol.

[bloodbath]

I've been reading all of your comments so far, and there's not much to add, but I remember, little before the album came out I listened a bootleg of one of the slowest/saddest song on the album, and I hit me hard. Months later, when I had the time to listen to the entire album I remember that, that song wasn't there. It probably was Walking in Circles or something, but my point is, the album was SO ponished and clean that it had lost the edge completely. I lost all of the interest back them, and nowaday I still rather listen a live recording that the studio counterpart.

 

I don't know the details of the recording as well as you but I'm pretty sure the producer gave the album the Linkin Park treatment: Everything perfect and tidy, with thousands of little details, which works perfectly fine for Linkin Park, but not for a hard rock band. I don't know, maybe Warner thought that if something had Chester on it, it MUST resemble Linkin Park mandatory. In other words, Dead By Sunrise should be Linkin Park but without hip hop, and this band is far from it. Even Chester spoke it out during an interview, DBS had influences that the other guys didn't like, but it was Chester's. 

 

I agree with you on the timing, Fort Minor came out in the perfect time frame, when Linkin Park was the biggest band in the world and FM could partially fill that void. Even some of the songs like like Slip Out of the Back sounded like Linkin Park outtakes! So definitely DBS could have benefit from that, even though for me strays way far more from the Linkin Park sound than 05 Fort Minor. Instead, nobody cared about DBS by 2009, many of the casual LP fans left the boat horrified by MTM. Probably most of them discovered DBS when Chester died, and I can't blame them. To make long story short, nobody cared about DBS (labels, touring agents, etc.) but DBS.