Dramarama – Color TV
It’s been fifteen years since the band Dramarama has put out a studio album. That is all going to change on May 1st. Color TV is a twelve song album that has been a few years in the making. In fact, it’s a collection of songs that lead singer and songwriter John Easdale has written over the last twenty years or so. It also includes some deeply personal songs like the albums’ first single, ‘Up To Here.’ Easdale said about the song: A former altar boy’s lament. A statement on the state of the world, or at least how it is in my head. Not at all meant to be an anti nor pro religion song in any sense, but a comment on how consumerism has become, for many, the omnipotent. Despite what you happen to believe or don’t, practicing or not, what seems to unite us is our logos.
John stopped by the podcast to talk about the new album. We also talked about the bands’ biggest hit song, Anything, Anything (I’ll Give You) and what the songs legacy means to him.
I wondered what made the timing right to come back now and release a new album after so many years. John tells Sound Vapors, “We’d been tinkering with it for a number of years. We weren’t planning on there being a global pandemic obviously, but it was finally finished and we were thrilled that we had something that we could be proud of and hopefully that people would enjoy. That’s always the goal that people can enjoy what we can enjoy.”
John tells me that they’ve actually been working on the idea for a while. John says, “It must’ve been nearly ten years ago when we started fooling around in the studio. But it’s not like we were in the studio that entire ten years. It was a matter of being able to sneak in here and there. We’re lucky enough to use a really good studio in Los Angeles and we get to sneak in on weekends and holidays and late nights, when it’s not otherwise occupied.”
The current lineup of the band includes some familiar faces to the band and new more “recent” ones. John explains, “There’s three of us that have been there since the beginning. There’s myself, Peter Wood and Mark Englert, who have been the guitar players. We actually all graduated high school together so the band started in ’82 but we’ve been playing together since the ’70’s.” John continues, “The bass player and the drummer have been playing with me since the ’90’s. They started when the band was on a break. Like a ten year break from 1994-2003. So they started playing with me when I had a solo band. The “new guys” have been with us for 20-25 years. That’s Mike Davis on bass and Tony Snow on drums.”
The band initially saw success from their song Anything, Anything, (I’ll Give You) and was given even greater exposure when it was featured in the 1988 film, “Nightmare on Elm Street 4 – The Dream Master”.
John reflected on the songs’ success. “It’s by far our most popular song and it’s what got us out of the basement, out of the garage and out of New Jersey. It’s a lot like I was describing earlier, when I write a song. It’s one time when I really connected and that a lot of people listened to it and say, that’s me, that’s my life, that’s my feelings. And for some reason.. everybody likes it and everybody feels it. And we’re lucky that was the case.”
After seeing the song play on the big screen and be such a big part of the film, I asked him how the excitement level of the band must’ve been at that point. Pretty excited, right?? “Absolutely! We actually went to see it at the studio before it came out. It was a big deal for us. When we started the band we never really expected to get out of the garage. The music we were playing wasn’t being played on the radio where we grew up in the New York metropolitan area. It was way more classic rock like Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel. Not the kind of music that we were playing. We were just making music for ourselves and what we liked.” John continues, “We didn’t expect to become professional musicians. To still be doing it now, 40 years later, is even more amazing.”
You can hear my entire conversation with John Easdale by clicking on the link to your favorite place to listen to podcasts.
-Tommy Marz
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