While you spend a lot of time chopping your enamel, your chunk turns into fairly sharp.
This appears to be the philosophy noticed by Dayseeker, following the breakthrough success of their fifth studio album, 2022’s Darkish Solar. Remarkably, that file arrived a decade into the Orange County post-hardcore outfit’s profession, and proper now they’re primed to blow up. Within the intervening years they’ve step by step chipped away at their craft, simply as vocalist Rory Rodriguez is doing to his inexperienced nail polish proper now, as he speaks to Kerrang!.
“After we have been first beginning out, we had a few mates in native bands on the time that had what felt like these meteoric rises,” says Rory, as he contemplates the positives of being on a slower climb. “There was a music, or a viral second, and their careers seemed set to catapult. I felt nice envy and requested myself, ‘How do they try this?’ And I keep in mind a supervisor on the time telling me, ‘Your music has a lot of substance and character to it, so it would take longer to catch on.’”
That supervisor, it seems, was proper on the cash. That is precisely what’s occurred to Dayseeker, simply because the sudden burning brightness skilled by a few of their friends petered out.
“These bands had success for a few yr however don’t exist anymore. Given how issues have occurred for us, extra step by step, there’s a probability it would last more as a result of it wasn’t some in a single day one-hit-wonder factor.”
Maybe as a result of Dayseeker have survived, and now flourished, in a panorama through which many acts perished, Rory admits to experiencing imposter syndrome.
“You get used to being on the backside once you’ve been there a very long time,” he says. “We did a present in San Antonio just lately, and there have been 3,000 individuals there to see us, which resulted within the present having to be moved to this out of doors part. It was a very surreal expertise, as a result of we’ve been supporting bands for the previous two years and after we have been enjoying for a lot of individuals, we felt it was their crowd. However once you’re headlining and that persons are there to see you, it doesn’t really feel actual generally. So we’re taking in any new success and appreciating it for so long as it lasts.”
Rory’s personal journey in the direction of a life in music was simply as gradual. He picked up a guitar at 14 and started writing songs a yr or two later whereas in highschool. Unable to seek out anybody to share these musical passions with, he ploughed his furrow as a solo performer within the Dashboard Confessional mould. His materials was as anguished as Chris Carrabba, too, on condition that this era coincided with a significantly painful break-up, with somebody Rory thought he’d find yourself marrying and beginning a household with, precipitating a interval of despair and, ultimately, songs that confirmed him the cathartic energy of the inventive course of.
“I put out an EP underneath my very own identify,” he remembers. “I took it off the web a whereas in the past as a result of it sounds horrific! I was so upset in regards to the break-up and was looking for my method, so I wrote 5 – 6 songs about that relationship and what we’d been by means of. As quickly as I completed [the EP], I had my first style of what I get to expertise a lot of the time now: the acceptance of a dangerous state of affairs. Then I was zenned out about every thing – I knew that I’d transfer on, she’d transfer on, and it wasn’t the top of the world.”
Rory’s profession began to maneuver on too after highschool, albeit modestly, when he met like-minded of us in search of a singer and he joined what he calls his first “horrible” native band.
“There was a scene of younger youngsters enjoying steel and hardcore. I really feel that’s the place I grew up and acquired used to performing. We weren’t excellent nevertheless it was enjoyable, and once you’re younger, you’re simply to see the place it goes.”
Finally, that journey led Rory to Dayseeker, alongside guitarist Gino Sgambelluri, the one different member of the band who stays from their early days.
“I’m very grateful to have him,” Rory says of a pal and bandmate who over the previous 12 years has offered help and humour, in addition to progressive riffs and “lifesaving” vocals. “He’s a nice singer and if I ever must take a breath for a second, he can take over a line.”
Speak of what Rory discovered from Dayseeker’s early days isn’t awash with the standard or anticipated tales of youthful overindulgence and hedonism, however classes of an altogether extra healthful {and professional} nature.
“We discovered find out how to be punctual, the significance of exhibiting up on time, to be well mannered and to do your job nicely,” he explains. “Again after I was in native bands, I was hurting my voice as a result of I might yell my head off for an hour and it didn’t actually matter. However then you definately get onto a circuit the place it’s a must to do the identical present each night time for a month, so I needed to readjust some issues. Total, although, I suppose the principle factor our early days taught us was to be humble.”
Even with these classes on board, the years of toil with little to indicate for it pushed Dayseeker perilously near calling it a day earlier than the discharge of their fourth album, 2019’s Sleeptalk.
“Proper earlier than it got here out, I felt like if that album didn’t do nicely we would stop,” Rory admits. “I didn’t know if we might hold touring for months and are available house with $200 in our pocket. It’s not sustainable.
“Fortunately,” he grins, “that was a massive turning level.”
Nowadays, the considerably shy however sweet-natured Rory, who’s spent his life “bouncing between” Orange County and Los Angeles, does a lot to work on himself. When he’s not on the highway, as is the case in the mean time, he attends remedy and often works out. His precedence, nevertheless, is his daughter, Hazel.
“I’m grateful that I get to be a father or mother,” he smiles. “It’s my favorite a part of being alive.”
Rory celebrated the three-year-old on Darkish Solar’s closing observe, Afterglow (Hazel’s Track), its lyrics articulating the aching pang a musician father goes by means of when it’s time to go away house for tour (‘I’m on the highway, lacking milestones / Counting the times ’til I’m coming house / No, don’t overlook me after I’m gone / The only best factor I’ve carried out’).
Regardless of these phrases of remorse, the music is in the end a celebration of an achievement leagues above ticket gross sales and streaming figures – in addition to a reminder, on an in any other case sombre file, that higher days are forward. Plus, Rory causes, in the end that is what he does, how he helps his daughter, and it might even act as a optimistic instance of the chances exterior of extra conventional traces of work.
“I’m hopeful that when the time comes, she will be able to discover a profession that she’s enthusiastic about,” he says. “I’ve proven her it’s attainable.”
“Ardour” is a phrase Rory makes use of a lot, and is evidently the measure he makes use of to resolve the place to place his efforts. He’s no stranger to the nine-to-five grind, having skilled as an optometrist, a job he’d often return to between excursions.
“I’ve labored in optometry my entire life,” says Rory, sporting a pair of relatively natty specs himself. “I’m not talking ailing of that career as a result of I might have been working in a lot worse locations, however I wasn’t enthusiastic about serving to individuals select glasses. I preferred the job for probably the most half, however did get some sufferers who have been simply absolute psychopaths I needed to appease.”
Darkish Solar largely handled Rory’s father succumbing to most cancers, making it a file he was “extra emotionally invested in than I was with the rest”. Not that Dayseeker’s different information have shied away from tough subjects; the music Ravenous To Be Empty from Sleeptalk, as an illustration, explores problems with self-image and physique dysmorphia, knowledgeable by a pal’s consuming dysfunction. On condition that Rory writes in regards to the experiences of others, in addition to his personal, has this ever prompted any points in his private relationships?
“Fortunately no,” says Rory. “However I put out a music a few months in the past about any individual I’m not on one of the best of phrases with. There was a a part of me that questioned if that individual would know the music was about them, however they haven’t stated something, so I hope it was obscure sufficient that they didn’t know.”
The music in query – that includes the lyrics ‘And the bridge I burned was soaked in my very own kerosene / However I can’t take the way in which they gained’t look again at me’ – is Bliss In Distress by Rory’s different band, Hurtwave, which is a mission that scratches a completely totally different inventive itch for him.
“I like a lot of actually gradual, mellow rock music. I can’t try this a lot in Dayseeker or followers could be like, ‘You’re placing me to sleep right here!’”
Rory clearly cares a lot about his listeners – although not in the way in which a few of them think about.
“A woman gave me a letter at a present,” he remembers. “It was very in-depth about her concepts of us romantically, and the way she was certain I had written a music about her. I had actually by no means met her in my life, in order that was fairly scary.”
The singer cares sufficient, although, that he has been delicate to the extra impulsive value determinations of his band’s most up-to-date work.
“I’ve been on the opposite aspect, when a band places out an album that I didn’t love, however I’ve by no means felt the motivation to go to their social media and allow them to know I didn’t like their album,” he says. “After we put out Sleeptalk, it felt like our previous followers thought we’d cracked the code on our band and new followers couldn’t consider they hadn’t heard us earlier than.
“After we put our Darkish Solar, I didn’t suppose it was that loopy of a style soar, however there have been individuals who stated it was too gradual and wasn’t Sleeptalk, holding on to that file prefer it’s the Holy Grail. It felt private to me to have individuals saying it sucked on the day it got here out, midway by means of listening to it. It took me a second to snap out of it.”
Now, Rory and his bandmates – Gino, bassist Ramone Valerio and drummer Zac Mayfield – are within the midst of constructing their subsequent album with Dan Braunstein, who produced each Sleeptalk and Darkish Solar. Having began work on it in September, they’re aiming to finish it early subsequent yr, factoring in a touring cycle that features dates within the UK and Eire, in addition to producer Dan’s equally busy diary.
And at this juncture, it seems to be set to be one other emotionally taxing opus.
“I really feel prefer it places all of our different music to disgrace,” enthuses Rory. “Perhaps there’s a completely satisfied music on there… nevertheless it’s fairly darkish so far.”
This text initially appeared within the winter 2024 challenge of the journal. Dayseeker tour from December 7 and play Obtain Competition 2025 – get your tickets right here.
Learn this subsequent:
Posted on December sixth 2024, 2:00p.m.
