MARK ANDERSON - DITCHWATER

MARK ANDERSON - DITCHWATER 💿 Hi, it’s a pleasure for us to have on Hardrockheavymetal MARK ANDERSON of DITCHWATER !! Welcome!! Thanks for speaking with me! 💿 On Oct 25th will be out your new album NEVER SAY NEVER. We have the chance to listening to it in preview and we were really impressed!! Can you tell us something about its composition process and style? I started writing the music in April of 2018. Me and Mike (vocals) hadn’t seen in each other in about a year at that point. My father had become very ill and me and Mike reconnected at the hospital. We just realized the disagreements and small issues of the past were not worth all the time and energy we gave them. Once the air was clear and we were on the same page the new music came easy. I wrote the first 5 songs for the album that first week alone. We began recording the album in August of 2018. It did take us a while putting the album together in the studio as we really wanted this one to sound exactly how we envisioned it. We never quite got the production we wanted on prior releases and we sought to rectify that with this album. Mike came up with the album title as it sums up all we’ve done together in DW. 💿 Can you tell us somethin’about the birth and the name of your band? Which artists or bands impressed you the most as musician? In 1993 the band I had was called Clutch. We were in the studio for the first time ever and we saw on MTV (They still played videos back then) a new band pop up called Clutch! We needed a new name and needed one rather quickly. A friend of the band said the name Ditchwater as kind of a joke, and I thought it was funny, so I ran with it. I was always interested in things that were unique and a bit different and the band name fit that mold. I wanted something that the music would define. Some names you know the style of the band as soon as you hear it but with our name, you really have no idea what it could be. For me personally I grew up on old school metal such as Priest and Maiden and then the beginning of Thrash with Metallica and Slayer. Those are the bands and guitarist who inspired me to play. 💿 There's a great return of format such as vinyl and cassette. What's your thinking about these classic format..love for vintage or is it impossible a future for music outside digital? There is great nostalgia for Vinyl and cassette, and I like to collect both at times. I don’t believe these formats actually sound better but there is a connection to physical representation of music that can’t achieved digitally. I think after CD’s go away the demand for those will come back one day just as these other formats have. Once one gets older, we tend to want to go back and collect the things we grew up on as it brings you back to that feeling. Collectors and die-hard fans will always want something to collect and something they can own. I think there will always be a place for physical formats of music. At least I hope so! 💿 Inside your songs what’s the role of lyrics in the composition process? Words follow music or vice versa? It always starts with a riff. In the past I’d start a riff and the other guys would jump in then Mike would come up with melodies in real time. These days I tend to demo everything on my $5 garage band app then we have full songs to put the lyrics to and use for reference in the studio when we record. For the next album we plan to go back to more of a group effort and actually playing the songs in a live setting during the writing process, we’ll see how it goes!

💿 Can you tell us somethin’ about your live plans ? We’re looking to play everywhere we can. Right now, playing regionally in the Midwest but we’re looking to expand out further in the new year. 💿 We love the cover of NEVER SAY NEVER!! Can you tell us somethin'about? Mike had an idea of a comic book cover. I follow a lot of comic book creators on twitter and I found Jason Johnson there. He’s done work for Marvel and DC and a ton of other things. It turned out beyond our expectations. 💿 Thank you so much for your time! See you soon on Hardrockheavymetal! Thanks again!