INTERVIEW: Dylan Gilbert

Dylan Gilbert is an indie rock musician from North Carolina.

But it's not that simple. His musical talent reaches far beyond the confines of the indie rock genre, and it becomes apparent within the first few seconds of his new album, entitled Pangaea. Gilbert has a penchant for experimentation, often implementing unconventional sounds into his music. But he never strays too far from the goal: Making fantastic rock songs.

Gilbert may only be 22 years old, but Pangaea is his third full-length album, and after scanning his performance history, my best estimate is that he has played some four trillion shows. I sat down with Dylan to talk about Pangaea, being a self-supported touring musician, and the theremin.

Interview by Phil Pucci

Mixtape Muse: How long have you been writing music?

I've been writing music since I was about 13 years old.

MM: Your are self-releasing your new album Pangaea this week and subsequently touring the east coast all summer. What kind of work goes into being a full-time independent musician?

A lot of time at the computer. [Laughs] I spend an unhealthy amount of time sending out emails. Because, you know, you can send 300 emails to venues, and maybe get 5 responses. Booking a month-long tour, you pretty much have to email every venue in every town you want to go to. It gets easier as you keep going. At first, when you try to book tours, you don't really know anybody. But eventually, if you play enough shows, and if you're at least a little bit social, you'll meet new bands, you'll meet people that put on shows, and you'll meet people that run venues, that kind of thing. And you write down everything. I have a little bit of a database -- I always try to keep a database in my head, too. And just remember everyone you meet for the next time you go on the road.

As far as putting out your own albums, you just have to keep playing. As long as you're playing, you'll be making a little bit of money, depending on what you're doing. I've been lucky to have supportive family and friends that helped me out in the beginning.

MM: Do you support yourself solely on music?

I was! Last summer I got really burnt out on the road, and decided to take six months off to record a new album, and didn't gig much throughout. But before then, I was definitely making a decent wage gigging around.

MM: Can you state, preferably in one breath, the instruments you play on the album?

[Laughs] Vocals, guitar, bass, drums, glockenspiel, theremin, mandolin, a bunch of Bent gear, Thingamagoop... can't do it in one breath! Keys, organ, piano, lots of little toys, various percussion, theremin--did I say theremin?

MM: I think so.

OK. There's so much, I have no idea!

MM: Being that your music is intricately arranged and layered, how do you approach live shows? Do you tour with a band?

Right now I'm touring with a band for the first time on a consistent basis. But for the past few years, I'd been playing shows with an acoustic guitar and a Loop Station to add different layers and noises. I've had to rework my songs to do that, but it's never been a big thing to me. I've always used live shows and CDs as different things. When someone puts in a CD, they want to hear something that they can sing along to, and they want to listen to all of its intricacies. When you're at a live show, you want to jump around, have fun and feel the energy.

Some people come to me and say, "What you do live is so different from the CD," but I don't feel it's that different. The drum parts are the same, the bass parts are the same, the guitar parts are the same. It might be a little noisier but they are still the same songs played close to the same way.

MM: What artists did you admire as a kid?

I was really into The Beatles. And I was really into Weezer and Radiohead. Those were the big ones growing up. I'm really influenced by Brian Wilson and Neutral Milk Hotel. There was a preiod when I got really into 50s R&B, like Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson and Otis Redding. Other solid influences, let me think... Jazz music, techno music, 20th century orchestral music, atonal music. A lot of stuff.

MM: I grew up in Charlotte and still manage to have a hard time describing the music scene. What do you like about the music scene in North Carolina? What don't you like?

I think that Charlotte is one of the uncut gems, you know? It's the least talked about music scene in the country, but in at least the past couple years, it has become such a good music scene in my opinion. It doesn't have all the uppity qualities of a snobby music scene. There's not a lot of "too cool for school" kids here. There's a lot of good venues. There are festivals where there are hundreds of people in the street listening to music. You can go downtown and see the symphony! It's a big city, so it doesn't really have one sound. I think it's a really great music town, and I think that one of these days, it might become more significant.

Dylan Gilbert Official Site
Dylan Gilbert @ MySpace