Mime Game’s Dillon DeVoe talks about his South by Southwest experience and recording his debut album in this edition of “Catching Up.” (Photo courtesy of Dillon DeVoe)
By: Jacob Elyachar
It is a pleasure to welcome Mime Game’s Dillon DeVoe back to Jake’s Take.
The singer-songwriter is currently hard at work at creating his upcoming debut album.
So far, this year Dillon has performed in multiple venues around the Midwest, released a three-track EP titled Mountain and performed at South by Southwest in the spring.
Dillon was able to step away from his recording sessions to sit down for an exclusive interview.
Jacob Elyachar: How have things changed for you since the last time we talked?
Dillon DeVoe: I have a whole new band except for Dalton (Gomez). He has always been with me all the time. We have a new bassist and a new drummer. I moved back from Atlanta, where I was working with my old musicians and everything feels like that it is coming together. Everything is finally taking off. The last time I talked to you, we were planning all the things we need to do to build the foundation.
I feel like the foundation is in place and we are finally ready to build it up.
JE: Mime Game traveled to Austin to participate in South by Southwest. What was that experience like?
DD: South by Southwest was awesome! Austin is always an incredible place during South by Southwest. We met a lot of people through networking and we got to hang out with some of our good friends and played a couple of shows. Next year, I want to play a couple more shows. All of our shows went really well. We played one of our acoustic shows at Fangoria founder Kerry O’Quinn’s house and he is the nicest guy on the face of the planet. We also did a house show with a bunch of bands that we really love and were friends with. Finally, we also did a showcase for Music Save Lives, which is an organization that stresses the importance of blood drives through music and musicians that they respect. Mime Game will be on a compilation that will be available year round and it was a great experience for us.
JE: What were some of the lessons that you learned from South by Southwest that you will implement for the remainder of the year?
DD: I need to drink a lot of water and pace myself. When I am doing shows, interviews and making friends, I have to give myself enough time to take a breath. I think it will be very important for me in the next year to keep that in the front of my mind.
JE: The last time we talked, you stated that you wanted your debut album to drop in March 2013. It is now June and we still have not seen it. So you could please share the album progress with my readers?
DD: Last March, my band started on the seven-song release that we have since put out and in November, we dropped a three-song EP. Since November, we have been working with a new group of guys in Atlanta, who had some other projects on their plate and they have slowed down this project. As of right now, the resistance moved out-of-the-way and now we are working at full speed on the project. But, we are really behind! (Laughs) Everything that I am getting back…all the drums and instrumentations are done and they sound really good and I made a trip back to Atlanta to do vocals on these songs and go oversee the project.
It is strange because we are recording in Atlanta and I have a lot of studio musicians working on the project, while the live band lives in Kansas City. We are playing shows in Kansas City and regionally as much as we can, while working on the album in Atlanta with the studio musicians. I can say that the quality is going to be really good and everything is turning out really well, but the time frame definitely got pushed back.
JE: What are some of the easiest songs to record?
DD: The easiest ones to record are the ones that you write in five minutes. They are beautiful and perfect because they do not need a bunch of tweaking. I have some songs that I have been working on changing for five years straight. I have a song called “I Don’t Need You Anymore,” which is a song that I wrote in five minutes and whenever we record it, it will probably take five minutes to record as well. (Laughs). Those songs are the ones that roll off the tips of your fingers and you say: “That one is not going to give me any trouble.” (Laughs)
JE: Speaking of trouble, what are the most difficult songs to record?
DD: Those are the ones that you pine over forever. There are always elements to them that are just eluding you. It is just on the tip of your tongue and you are almost there, but it just needs a little tweak to make it perfect because they end up being the most rewarding too. For example, I spent all day changing the key of a song that I have written and already loved, but it made the song a lot harder to play. By the end of the day, I realized what it did for my vocal range and putting the song right into my pocket was indispensable for that song. It was not going to have the same effect on people, if I was strained and singing it in a different key, I would have taken the easy way out and not changed it. The frustration was incredibly rewarding because the song came out better than it ever was!
JE: How do you keep evolving as an artist?
DD: One of the things that helped me grow as an artist was learning how to play the guitar. I already knew how to play because I have been playing with it since I was seven-years-old, but Mime Game has really inspired me and forced me to step up my game, sort to speak, with playing the guitar and singing at the same time. That has allowed me to write songs as an artist. I would write the instrumental and the vocals first. When I was with my former band, the Josephine Collective, I had to wait for my band to write an instrumental, give it to me and then, I had to write vocals to it. It is almost like Hip-hop because you have a producer who has a beat, then the artist comes in and does their piece and that was how Josephine was. It was more of a Kanye-way of making music. He makes his own beat and then, he does his own stuff. Before I was the lyricist and vocalist, now I am taking on management responsibilities, writing and singing the songs and organizing the band roster. I feel that I have grown in ways that I cannot express unless I can explain it to someone who knows what it is like running a band.
You can catch Mime Game in action tonight at the Czar Bar in Kansas City with Faux Reality and Tides of Aviation. For more information about the event, visit the event’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/168119973363709/
For more information about the band, visit their website: http://www.mimegame.com/
