QRO caught Dead Sara in New York. In the interview, Emily Armstrong (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Sean Friday (drums, backing vocals), Siouxsie Medley (lead guitar, backing vocals) and Chris Null (bass guitar, backing vocals) talked about just having played South-by-Southwest, finally putting out their new album Pleasure To Meet You (including renting a house in Malibu to make it), upcoming touring, and more…

Click here for photos of Dead Sara at Webster Hall in New York, NY on March 31st, 2015 in the QRO Concert Photo Gallery

QRO: You guys just did SXSW (QRO recap), how was it for you?

Emily Armstrong: It was fun! It was really great.

Chris Null: It was my favorite SXSW, actually.

QRO: I’d imagine your sound would work really well in a place like Austin. Did anything happen that surprised you or from the audience reaction?

Siouxsie Medley: Yeah, I was surprised by the crazy type of energy.

EA: Yeah, and there was this startling contrast between people that knew us and people that didn’t and it all worked out so well.

QRO: Congratulations on releasing the new album. That’s such a massive thing and I was wondering, how does it feel to have it out?

EA: It feels really great to have it out! We’ve lived with it for such a long time.

Sean Friday: Yeah we started recording it in fall of 2013 and the final mixes were last April [2014]. So we’ve had it done for a year. [laughs]

QRO: It must’ve been very hard too since as musicians you’re always thinking of things that you can change, so to have the album done and sitting with it must’ve been quite difficult.

SM: Yeah it definitely was.

EA: Especially since we’ve written a shit ton of new songs since then. We could play a whole set of newer songs if we wanted to at this point. [laughs]

Some of these places just surprise you differently every time.

QRO: And it’s also been a while since you’ve done a full tour like this. What’s a place you’re excited to getting to?

EA: Well like you said, a place like Austin would be good for us and always has been in the past. What surprised me is that we did Charlotte recently and that’s such a great, great town. Really fucking amazing. Some of these places just surprise you differently every time.

QRO: I’ve heard how Charlotte is very in love with rock music as well. How was it actually to combine the melodic elements of your songs with the guitar-orientated aspects of your music?

EA: It comes from mostly rehearsing often and trying to think of different ways to be creative. You always want the songs to be fresh, but you never want to feel a sense of being rusty. Creativity can truly come from that and yeah I’d say the melodic aspects of our music just comes from playing a lot.

QRO: Were there things you tried for recording this album that was totally different than the first album?

SM: We actually rented a house in Malibu and brought in all our equipment there.

You don’t really hear about rock bands doing things like that. [laughs]

EA: It used to be a thing back in the day [laughs] but I know what you mean.

SM: Yeah and the beach was in walking distance.

SF: It was a challenging thing as well because with that the distractions are so close but you always have to remain focused on what you’re doing so that was an interesting thing to go through.

I think when you listen to the [new] album you can hear a bit of a story within it.

QRO: Not many bands can say they’ve recorded close to a beach so well done on that! By the way, I love the title of the album, Pleasure To Meet You. It kind of has that nice double meaning of a new hello or even a re-emerging type of hello for those who might’ve forgotten you. Were there other titles you thought of and did you guys all agree about it at first?

CN: I’m trying to think if we did actually and I don’t think we had many or any other titles. We kind of all agreed upon it once it was thought up.

EA: There’s a song on the album called “L.A. City Slum” and we thought maybe that’d work as a title. And in it there’s a lyric that goes, “Pleasure to meet you” and Shaun said, “Wait how about that?” and it just made so much sense to us after that.

SM: No one said anything for a while and we all just thought, “Wow right, that’s it!”

QRO: Would you say there’s a theme that goes along throughout the album?

EA: Not really, all the songs are quite different from one another but in an intentional way. There is a bit of correlation to it all because it’s us being us, but what I love about it is that it’s a very ‘rock’ record and I’m very proud of it.

SM: Yeah, I think when you listen to the album you can hear a bit of a story within it. It wasn’t intended or written that way but when I hear it now I can hear/feel the package aspect of it.

QRO: Would you say the sonic sound of a record feels more or just as important to the lyrically content?

SM: I think they truly have equal importance actually.

Now we feel that we can just tour anywhere, it feels great being able to say that.

QRO: Do you guys also watch live music together and get inspiration from being a band in L.A.? With recording in a house and just from what I know about L.A. I’d imagine that you guys would do a lot of things together?

SF: We’ll have our moments where we’ll hang and moments where we’ll do our own thing, but it’s mostly from just being around each other a lot. [laughs] It’s interesting though, because L.A. is more spread out than [NYC], but even with that you can still feel the need/desire to retreat into yourself kind of.

QRO: That makes sense to me. When it comes to touring next what are some things that you’re looking forward to?

EA: It’ll probably sound a bit stupid/hokey, but honestly just experiencing new things. I’m really looking forward to that the most. New cities and new people. It’s also our first headlining tour so it’ll be exciting having that happening. It’s just going to be a very different type of thing.

CN: Yeah, it’ll just be very different for us. Especially after doing a lot of west coast dates.

EA: Yeah, there was a lot of success in that from crowd interactions and reactions so our confidence towards playing other places just built up and now we feel that we can just tour anywhere, it feels great being able to say that.

We still to this day get people that come up to us and say that they saw us open for Muse and that’s just incredible to me to know that could have such an impact.

QRO: Lastly, is there a moment from making Pleasure To Meet You that means a lot to you that you look back on and go, ‘Wow, that happened.’

SM: I’d say there’s two moments actually. There’s one moment during the making of “You, I Am” (the last song on the record), we were demoing another song and Em just started jamming into that song and she began singing it and it was just one of those perfect/one take moments that are so rare. We were all super emotional from it and couldn’t believe that it happened the way it did.

EA: I started singing and everyone kind of slowly stopped what we were doing. Most of the song was written on the spot and we never stopped the recorder so we got that very raw take. What was amazing to me is that we tried re-recording it another time in a different studio and the experience from that was quite the same, just that slow build up and the halt in the room.

QRO: That must’ve felt like a sense of validation as well, like a, ‘Yes this works!’ moment towards your music. I don’t think a lot of bands/artists can even say they’ve experienced something like that.

SM: Yeah, and the lyrics stayed mostly the same from the first recording to the second recording. The structure of the song isn’t super traditional so the fact it works the way it does is very special to us. [laughs]

QRO: That’s brilliant. I have to know just one more thing; what was it like opening up for a band like Muse a couple years back? Especially a band like you that’s very straightforward opening for such a bombastically/colourful band?

EA: Well the thing that surprised me the most was that the reaction was supremely positive, a lot more than I would’ve/could’ve even expected. We still to this day get people that come up to us and say that they saw us open for Muse and that’s just incredible to me to know that could have such an impact.

CN: And even people who couldn’t make it to the shows and saw our names on the poster would look us up and become fans that way.