Maylene And The Sons Of The Disaster are currently touring the UK in support of their latest album, II.  I was lucky enough to catch up with their frontman, former Underoath singer, Dallas Taylor for a chat.  After some brief introductions and a discussion about the miserable weather and Birmingham UK / Birmingham Alabama, we settled in for the next 15 minutes. 

This being the first time HRH have interviewed you, can you please explain to the readers how the band came about? 

DT:  I lived in Florida and I moved to Alabama because of my girlfriend, now my wife.  My roommate played drums and I knew him before from his old band and we were just messing around.  One day I decided to go over and just goof around and that is how the band started, really clicking.  We just took a lot of influences.  Like when you are younger you run from everything your parents teach you, when you turn 15 or 16 everything they have instilled in you, like any kind of music you knew, like I was raised on old country and stuff, and I hated it when I was 16 or 17.  Now the older I am, I am turning exactly into my Dad, so I think when we started this band just everything I grew up on I wanted to take in and start doing, and that is how this style formed and a lot of the influences came from all of us. 

Did you all have similar musical influences? 

DT:  Pretty much, I mean, like a little bit of difference, some guys are classic rock and some guys are more bluesy or whatever, just the stuff our parents got us into that when I got a certain age I ran from.  People always laugh because I was raised on a dirt road, we had horses, I used to rope, my cousins are all in the rodeo.  So no one ever realised like when I was in Underoath before, everyone thought I was just from the city when I was actually from the major of the country. 

The name Maylene And The Sons Of The Disaster comes from Ma Barker and her sons? 

DT:  Yeah 

Who were all gangsters? 

DT:  Yes 

So did you decide on the concept of Maylene first, or did you start writing and it came through as an influence and you took the name from there? 

DT:  When we started this band I wanted it to be different from anything previously I had done, we wanted to make it more than a band to us.  I do not know if the audience gets it, but something more interesting so like lets put some stories behind it and make a whole story behind the band and make it seem more like a living, breathing thing, rather than just a band.  So that is how we came up with mother Maylene and her sons, and kind of just ran with it, so every time we do an album there is so much more we can do rather than just the cover of the album, we can make a whole concept around that album. 

Given the lyrics, album cover and the video for “Dry The River”, is II actually a concept album? 

DT:  Yeah there are parts that are concept, but some are just normal songs that you write about.  They all kind of fall in together, where it is like even the songs that aren’t written exactly about the concept, it’s mainly all the songs are really about you only have one chance of, you know, you only live once, and how you affect people, the people around you and your loved ones and family is going to affect you when you die.  How people are going to remember you or how you are going to be looked at.  So that’s the whole picture of this band is like trying to get that point across, to everyone, because it is so easy to burn bridges, but one of these days if you are on your death bed, or whatever, you are going to regret a lot of times those bridges you burned or the people you hurt.  So that’s it really, for instance from Ma Barker to whoever, any of the serial killers, to Jack The Ripper, Hitler or whoever.  There comes a time in life where they have to justify and think what they are doing is right.  But everyone knows right from wrong, and so one of those guys on their death bed or whatever they realise, unless you are mentally insane, you have to realise, I cannot believe what I have done.  You know it is kind of like you only get that one chance to make an impact on people or you just basically become a monster or something like that. 

So will you use the concept of Ma Barker on your future albums or will you go away from it as you move on? 

DT:  We will definitely keep using it, I don’t know how, and how it will be done, but I like using it, definitely I know for the next record.  It will keep building, I do not know if we will go back, and kind of like how in old country, you just used to do a talk from the grave kind of deal, I do not know if we will do that or maybe take a step back to when they were younger, I know it is non-linear, you know we don’t know what. 

You mentioned the next album, is it already in the pipeline, are any songs completed? 

DT:  Some ideas and we are already starting to work on that stuff. 

Something to do on tour? 

DT:  Yeah, definitely, that is what we are really trying to do now, write a lot on tour.   

How is the tour going so far? 

DT:  It’s going good. 

It is not your first time to the UK though? 

DT:  No we came last year with Norma Jean, He Is legend and The Showdown.  It was a fun tour too last year, same time so we are used to the rainy weather. 

Is there a plan to come back later in the year? 

DT:  I hope so, we just picked up a booking agent here a few months ago, so I think he will be giving us a lot more work over here, so we will probably be back. 

Is the tour just in the UK, or are you taking in the rest of Europe? 

DT:  Just UK, so hopefully we will come back soon and do the whole tour, Europe, UK and all.   

Currently there seems to be, certainly in the UK, a lot of the Southern sounding rock and metal bands about.  Is this something that is just happening in the UK or is it happening everywhere? 

DT:  It is weird because when we started we didn’t really think about Southern, we just did what we wanted to do, and now it is turning into more of like a title or a trend.   

Almost pigeonholed? 

DT:  Yeah, we are just doing what we want to do.  We do not write to be like: (in strong Southern accent) “let’s write to be more Southern”, you know, it is just who we are. 

It is a natural sound? 

DT:  Yeah.  When we first started we just did what we wanted to do, and people didn’t even get it at first.  There wasn’t that many bands that were, but the whole Southern thing too, I think it is really overdone a lot of times, because, if you want to call Southern riffs, there’s bands like AC/DC and Motorhead that have wrote those kind of trashy riffs, even Led Zepplin or whoever.  It is really, I think, all influenced by blues, mainly, old blues licks, that is where the Southern comes from.  It is just now, a lot of younger people, or even people that are new to whatever are just getting it now in this music scene.  

Is there a fear that the Southern sound will be almost like nu metal or metalcore, where bands no longer want to be associated with it? 

DT:  I think, I hope, that the trend will wear off and the bands that really want to do what they do will keep doing it and the other bands will just kind of fall away.  That is what I hope, but I do not know if that will happen.  Just like even with metalcore I am sure the true people that write that stuff hope that those other little bands following the trend will just fall off and the bands that really care about what they are doing keep doing it. 

Going back to the album, II, was the photoshoot with all the blood etc… fun to do? 

DT:  Yeah, a lot of fun, it was really cold though.  We did it in November in Alabama, I was laying in that stream, it was probably close to freezing water, it was cold, and it was raining that day too. 

How long were you in there for? 

DT:  The guys that laid in the water had to be in there for like 10-12 minutes but still, laying still.  But it was fun, a lot of fun, I like anything like that.  One day I want to get into making short films and stuff because I am big into like just imagination and all of it.  So that is why I think the next layout will probably kind of use our imagination to do something fun with it, rather than making a normal layout, like have a lot of fun with that. 

You also, unusually, have three guitarists, you started with two? 

DT:  Yeah, now we are back on tour with two right now, we do have three, one guy is at home right now, he just got married so he is at home with his wife.  But we have two right now, but three on recording, and we had three on the last tour just not this time. 

How does that work?  Is there any time when one is not doing anything so thinks about going to get a beer? 

DT:  No, they are always doing something, it just makes it more of a fuller sound and it makes it that little bit more interesting live because there is always so much going on.  But the guys, the two guitar players we have right now, it sounds like three guitar players. 

What can people expect from the band live?  Are you energetic? 

DT:  Yeah we are usually pretty animated, a couple of us.   

You said about one member of the band staying home as he has just got married.  It must be hard at times being on the road so much? 

DT:  Definitely, it is hard being away, I am married and have a two year old son.  So it is hard sometimes, but you realise what we are doing is for a reason, hopefully to help out people that are going through hard times in life.  I mean that is my biggest reason for doing this.  There is so much negative music out there that we are trying to impact and help out other people with whatever they are going through.   

So will you play your records to your son as he grows up to give him something to rebel against?  

DT:  (Laughs) Yeah, he probably will, he’ll probably end up listening to pop music, I hope not. 

Lyrically do you use the family situation as well as the Ma Barker stories? 

DT:  My wife does not like to read a lot of what I write, because I write about my biggest fears.  I am obsessive compulsive, I have OCD, and I think the things I don’t want to think about, I tend to think about the most, because that is how my brain works.  So I like write about death a lot, not because I love death, but that my biggest fear is leaving my family behind so that’s why I tend to write about it so much.  So a lot of the last record was actually me writing about if I was to die, say I was in the bus or something and I was thinking if I was to get in a wreck tonight what would I write, what letter would I write my family.  So a couple of the songs are me just writing basically letters saying I loved you, you were a good family.  But I don’t really want to write that but I guess it helps me get comfortable, so when it is my time to die I have tried to live life to the fullest and write it down on paper as much as I could to people, you know, in the future.  It is really weird because when you are like OCD the things you don’t want to do you tend to do.   

Being obsessive compulsive, does that get in the way at all with writing or touring? 

DT:  Um, it makes it hard sometimes just because you know little things, like when people are messy or things like that, it gets under your skin.  I am better now, but it helps, I think for me, appreciate what I have a whole lot more when you are on the road.  When you are around your family all day every day you can sometimes take them for granted and then when you are gone away you realise how much you do care.  I mean you know you care about them. 

It brings it home more. 

DT: Yeah 

The album seems to have been well received.  HRH gave it 9 out of 10 and it has had a lot of praises, it must be good to have these responses?  

DT:  Yes, we are getting a lot of good press out of it so it is awesome, makes us feel really well, you know when you are happy with whatever even if you get bad, it was an accomplishment to us.  We didn’t really know how this album was going to get accepted though, we did not know if you were going to like it or not, it has been doing pretty well so it is good to hear. 

Lastly is there anything you would like to add? 

DT:  Just for everybody to keep their heads up.  You know everyone has a purpose in life and to make the best out of your life, and god bless everybody and thanks for supporting us and hopefully they will kind of get out of our music what we try to bring across when we write it. 

After thanking Dallas Taylor for his time and getting my CD booklet signed (I know, very unprofessional) the conversation started up again regarding the photoshoot for their latest album.  When flicking through the booklet he pointed out that the location and the deserted cabin was accidental; they just stumbled across it and it was ideal for what they wanted.  The guns, however, were theirs; apparently they have lots of guns!

Maylene & The Sons Of Disaster's latest album, II, is out now via Ferret Music. You can check out the HRH review by clicking here. To find out more about the band you can visit their official website @ www.mayleneandthesonsofdisaster.us