New York City two piece Double Mint Dragon have been blasting out their blend of progressive rock with a dash of noise for the last several years. Their brand new album “Silver Volt” is full of radiant energy and top notch musicianship.
I sat down with guitarist Alex Woods and drummer Scot Balles to explore their earliest musical memories, how the duo got together and the making of “Silver Volt” which you can get here.
CMM-What was the first music that really made an impact on you all growing up and what artists and bands did you all enjoy the most?
Alex: The first music that really made an impact on me came from early 90s Mtv music videos and the radio. Nirvana was my favorite band for a long time, still might be. Early on I mostly glommed onto the popular rock of the time, The Offspring, Green Day, Smashing Pumpkins, etc. I started taking guitar lessons and really liked Jimi Hendrix. In my teenage years I discovered punk rock and the ethos of the subculture. At 14 years old NOFX was very influential, they were an accessible introduction to punk along with bands like the Vandals, Rancid, Bad Religion, and Pennywise. Later in high school I got really into At the Drive in, the moment I heard them I was blown away, I remember borrowing a copy of Relationship of Command and listening to the cd like 10 times in a row. Others that became staples of my formative years were Fugazi, Modest Mouse, The Dismemberment Plan, Cursive, the Mars Volta, Sparta, Radiohead, The Pixies, Led Zeppelin, Miles Davis – Bitches Brew, Herbie Hancock – Head Hunters, Yes – Fragile. In college I saw Tera Melos play at Tower Records for like 5 people, they blew the roof off the place and I’ve never been the same. They opened the door to bands like Don Caballero, Hella, Melt Banana, and Lightning Bolt.
Scott: I really started getting into music when I was about 12 or 13. This will date me, but it was 1994 and a bunch of big grunge albums came out like Vitalogy, Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged, Purple, and many others, so those were the first CDs I bought. I loved bands like Fugazi, Tool and Rage Against the Machine. Then Primus changed everything for me. My high school jazz band also exposed me to a lot of jazz and fusion. I’m from the Pittsburgh area and unfortunately wasn’t aware of the math-rock scene as it was happening in the late 90’s when I was seeing local bands, but eventually I discovered bands like Don Caballero, Hella, and The Mars Volta.
CMM-When did you all first start playing instruments and eventually playing in your own bands and how did Double Mint Dragon form?
Alex: My dad played guitar and so I wanted to play guitar. I took a few notes from him, got serious about it and started taking lessons at 12 years old. I continued with the lessons for a few years and would play music with friends. At first there were some varied attempts at bands but no one really knew what they were doing.
An old buddy of mine took lessons from the same teacher, we’d often share guitar riffs and jam. Eventually in high school we started writing songs and formed a band with a few other friends. We wrote some originals, made recordings, but never played a show before parting ways for college.
I went on to study music where fellow students and I formed a proggy, post-punk type of band. We played a lot of shows, made a couple studio recordings, and went on a few small tours through California. Through that experience I became hooked and have been playing in bands ever since.
Scott: I took snare drum lessons in 5th grade music class and loved it. I started playing the drumset when I was 13 years old and formed a band at 16. I joined high school and college jazz bands and percussion ensembles, and later played in various rock bands and even an alt-country band.
Alex and I met in late 2013 after we both joined a Craigslist band. Alex had just moved to NYC from California. The band played a handful of shows before splitting up. However the two of us had more similar musical tastes and played well together, so we formed Double Mint Dragon.
The idea was to remain a two-piece so we could quickly write and play all sorts of tricky math riffs and arrangements. Alex had played in a duo before and found it worked quite well. With fewer members there was more sonic space to fill, so we relied on gear to fill that space – guitar pedals, loops, an octave splitter, and drum triggers.
CMM-You all’s new record “Silver Volt” is really impressive. What was the recording process for making the record like? Any particular gear you all used that really helped shape specific parts?
Alex: We had been playing the songs live for about 4 years so we had a lot of details worked out and were well rehearsed. We knew it would be complicated to record songs that are so reliant on loop pedals, so we planned a pre-production process using Logic X, syncing the files through Dropbox. I would track scratch guitar at home. Scott would track midi-drums using his Roland V-drums. Essentially we mapped out the songs to a click and recorded takes until we were happy.
Scott: We kept going back and forth, improving our tracks to the point where we were well rehearsed and ready to go into the studio, but in March 2020 the pandemic blew up our timeline. We eventually found a way into the studio, but with delays.
Alex: Our friend Josh Carothers who’s an amazing drummer in the bands Chilton and Ear Worms, recorded the drums at Miguel’s Baby in Manhattan and got awesome drum sounds. Scott sweated it out over two days and totally owned.
Scott: Later we recorded the final guitars at Douglass Studio in Brooklyn with the help of brilliant audio engineer Chris Gilroy. Chris really knew how to find the best tones and how to deal with Alex’s slightly complex setup. Plus Alex played great.
Alex: We dialed in the knobs and layered in the guitars one by one. Live we play all the parts with loop pedals and an octave splitter. For the album the parts were recorded individually to give more control and stereo separation.We recorded the vocals on our own back at Miguel’s Baby. The final recordings were mixed by Chris Gilroy and mastered by Dan Coutant.
We are a very gear dependent band. The crux of the guitar sound is derived from a two channel looper and an octave pedal. The guitar signal is split between a guitar and bass amp with the sub octave only going to the bass amp. A kill switch is used to mute the bass amp when it is not needed. The two channel looper allows me to control what loops go to the guitar and which go to the bass amp. I can also sync different length loops or split different loops into separate channels. On top of that there’s a bunch of delay, overdrive, fuzz, and bit crusher type pedals. For an extra layer of sound Scott uses a Roland SPD-SX drum pad. He triggers synths and samples that intertwine through our live mix.
CMM-If the band could compose a score for any film director who would it be and what would the film be about?
Alex: Funny question. Scott is a professional animator and I recently made a couple animated shorts and scored the soundtracks. This is something we are both very interested in.
I would love to make music for a David Cronenberg film, a Gendy Tartakovsky animation, Ridley Scott during the Alien/Blade Runner era. Or maybe a John Carpenter or Jim Jarmusch film even though they score their own music, I love them. David Lynch too! Though I think our musical direction leans towards a sort of minimalist sci-fi aesthetic, closer to 2001, Star Trek, or Denis Villeneuve films like 2049 and Dune.
The film could be about a sea urchin’s perspective on correlating data points and the upheaval of technology.
Scott: I can’t say I’ve ever had ambitions to score a film. I’m probably better equipped to work on visuals. I’ve wanted to make short animated films or animate videos for our band. I love the soundtrack Rezner/Ross created for the HBO Watchmen series so maybe we just need to find the right type of TV/Film to create layered, atmospheric and sometimes aggressive soundscapes or just let loose on abstract comedic sketch shows. Or, if Sylvain Chomet is reading this and has an animated film in the works, Double Mint Dragon is available to compose.
CMM-What do you have coming up next? Any new recordings/shows etc etc???
Alex: Currently we are writing new material, rehearsing, and booking shows. We just played our first gig since before the pandemic. Up next we have our album release show on June 3rd at Goldsounds in Brooklyn, followed by a show on June 17th at the Econolodge in Brooklyn.
Shows:
June 3rd – Gold Sounds – Album Release with Chilton, Dirt Bikes, and Centvry
Brooklyn, NY
June 17 – Econolodge with Chilton, Brooklyn, NY
