‘Ireland’ is a great song. Is the message in it summed up by that saying, ‘Happy is the man who thinks the world is in his backyard?’
Yeah, kind of, that’s pretty much the underlining theme of that. You know it’s just about expanding beyond what you know, and getting out if you can. People get caught up in the smallest, little things.
Are you Irish?
No, raised Irish though. I’m adopted. Actually we named the song ‘Ireland,’ because we compare our songs to colors a lot, and that song just felt really green and just reminded us of Ireland for some reason. It was a working title, and I liked it, so we left it.
Have you searched for your biological parents?
Yeah, I actually just found my biological family a couple of months ago. I just met my half-sister in Buffalo on tour. I never met her, she’s an opera singer. She was in Buffalo performing with the Buffalo Philharmonic, and I found her online. I’ve met about 20 of my cousins and her. I haven’t met my parents, but it pretty amazing! I have seen pictures of them. I have a medical history now, and I have photos. I know where I get my hands and so on—it’s pretty exciting.
It’s interesting that you came from a musically inclined family.
Yeah, a lot of them are musicians and singers. I am Portuguese and a lot of them play traditional Portuguese music from Lisbon. It’s been really inspiring. I have been given a lot of family CDs lately, it’s pretty cool that there is some genetic interest in music. It’s kind of cool.
The instrumental ‘Long Days And Vague Clues’ is just thrilling and so unpredictable, how did that one come about?
Dino basically wrote that whole song himself, he is a really good piano player, and his mom is a really talented piano player and accordion player. That was pretty much based on his piano line, and we had our friends from Judgment Day, Anton and Lewis Patzner, playing the cello and violin making it even more curvy and weird. It came out cool though. They [Judgment Day] are a three-piece, it’s a cello, violin and drummer, and they play like crazy technical metal and stuff. They join us onstage which is wonderful, they will add stings to a lot of our songs and it’s beneficial to our show when we tour with them.
Dredg’s new album, The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion, is in stores now. Catch them at The Fillmore @ Irving Plaza on July 30 and at the Bowery Ballroom on July 31. For more info, visit myspace.com/dredg.
