Welcome to My World: DNASH
January 23, 2006
So here I
am sitting
in the world of dnash (friends can call
him ‘nash’) on a Monday night at around 9:00 p.m. in his dimly lit
apartment, surrounded by equipment, a bachelor pad decorated in
true musician fashion – from celebrated album covers which double as
wallpaper to musical instruments hanging as décor. The
phone begins to ring off the hook and it takes us a while to settle in
to our “interview”.
If
I had to describe this dude in one word, it would be ‘genius.’ At
33, this gifted musician has lived quite a life – growing up overseas,
spending his childhood in Europe, and began to play the drums at the
age of 2. At age 6, he knew he was destined to be a drummer and
with the exception of a few sporadic drum lessons and a summer at
National Music Camp, “where he played Dungeons & Dragons and
majored in Pizza”, he is self taught. dnash lived in
Indonesia during his early teen years where he got his hands on his
first four albums – a pirated version of Queens Greatest Hits, Kiss
Unmasked, Meet the Beatles and an Elvis album. His family
then moved back to the States, and settled in the quaint town of Weston
where he attended Weston High School. Having been bit by the
music bug and vagabond roots running through his bloodstream, dnash
left school and traveled to Alaska, Canada and Los Angeles trying to
put together a band and somewhere along his travels, made his way back
to Connecticut.
Recently back from touring the mid-west in the fall, dnash
is a busy guy and is involved in several projects; playing drums in a
local blues-based band, Hybrid Blue; promoting himself as a solo
performer; playing guitar in The Doug Wahlberg Band; and playing drums
for Freewill, a Rush tribute band.
With his roots in writing, he has arranged and written lyrics while
also playing drums, keyboards, guitar and bass. During his
career in music, he has fought his way in and, more often, OUT of bands
hoping for “an equal right in a band”. He doesn’t want to be told
“just play the drums.” We talked a bit about where the
current state of the music scene is right now in the U.S. and he feels
that “if CBGB’s leaves New York, the East Coast doesn’t have a
chance.” dnash “is still searching out the brass ring” and
it’s discouraging to him that “a lot of musicians in our area don’t
really have as much of an interest in making it as they say they do.”
There is also a full length CD in the works, a demo of which I have had
the privilege of hearing. dnash has complete musical
control and his outstanding ability has allowed him to write, record,
and produce all of the songs on the CD as well as playing all of the
instruments.
Currently, dnash feels as though he “has fallen back into
writing during the last few weeks” and has a screenplay in the works
for a rock opera.
Consequently, this self-proclaimed, “jack of all trades” is also a
world renowned fang maker. Yes, that’s right folks, on top of
playing virtually every instrument known to man, he makes fangs, and
has a national as well as international following. dnash
began his fang making while living in Vancouver in 1994 during the
whole “Interview With The Vampire” explosion. dnash
recently finished work on a film project, Soul’s Midnight, making fangs
for Armand Assante and the rest of the cast. The soundtrack will
also include some of dnash’s original music.
You can next catch dnash playing with The Doug Wahlberg Band on
February 3 at Ziggy’s in Fairfield and February 17 at The
Georgetown Saloon.
dnash is about to embark
on his Fang Tour 2006 in
Europe and for all of you fellow vampires, he will be doing fangs at
the Melbourne Tattoo Convention in Australia on May 5th.
