Black Diamond Bay Can't Get Satisfaction

Former Dears guitarist Patrick Krief was just getting his solo career off the ground in September 2007, albeit still as a full-time member of The Dears. He said to Chart then, "If there's no time to balance, I'll have some shit to figure out."

Krief and drummer George Donoso made their decision and left their old gig to concentrate on their new project after recording The Dears' 2008 Missiles. Their band are now called Black Diamond Bay (named after a Bob Dylan song) and their Calm Awaits debut album finally hit stores on March 31.

The BDB singer/lead guitarist spoke to CHARTattack about making the switch.

CHARTattack: In the case of leaving The Dears in 2008, was it a matter of you being ready to be a frontman or the new band being ready?
Patrick Krief: It was a two-step process.

The first step was, "Am I ready to open my mouth and start singing?" That first part I figured out on the Take It Or Leave EP, because there was a kind of urgency attached to my songwriting when I was singing as opposed to having other people sing, and I felt I couldn't ignore this.

I was feeling like, "I can't believe I'm out on the road with another band while [the EP] is not being toured." That was the feeling that was starting to build up in me with the EP. And then when I actually had a band together that I already started touring with — I took days off work and sacrificed all sorts of shit just to get my music out there — I felt even more like I shouldn't be here when I was on the road with The Dears.

[The Dears] kind of felt like the easy, luxurious gig, and it didn't seem possible to balance the two. I don't know if that would have been an issue in the future. That was the most pressing part. I had to get this new thing off the ground.

If things had been different, if The Dears had taken three years off, I would have toured hard with Black Diamond Bay and then I might have tried to do both, but The Dears haven't stopped at all. They keep touring and making records. But I'm pretty sure I'll be a part of The Dears records as long as they keep making them.

You think so?
There's an undeniable chemistry Murray [Lightburn, Dears singer] and I have when recording music. There's almost no conversation at all, it's just like "plug a guitar and go." And that's it. It doesn't feel like we're making an album at all. That's rare. I don't take it lightly. If he makes a record, I'll want to play on it.

(It should be noted Krief played guitars on Missiles.)

Calm Awaits sounds a lot different from your live set-up. It seems less aggressive and more dense.
That's the result of not having played those songs together in the studio. We change things up once we start playing them live. We speed them up and the energy from being in front of people plays a big role in how the songs evolve.

When I write a song, usually I'll demo the entire thing myself with a drum machine and then the other members will hack at the song, either totally revamping it or keeping it mostly the same. I kind of enjoy this approach.

Everyone got to play to a full band because in their headphones they had the entire arrangements going on. Usually it's dry and you don't hear anything in the studio, but it was nice to record on top of complete songs. Ideally, though, I'd like to bang out the basic four-piece live and overdub stuff on top.

I do like the separation that most bands I grew up worshipping, like Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, had — albums different from their live shows — and I like that to a degree. I think the show is more "aggressive." That would be the perfect word to describe it.

How do you feel you've improved as a singer since you've started performing your own songs? Do you practice?
As far as sitting at home and singing scales, I've been 100 per cent lazy about it. I really hate doing that sort of thing, but after doing over 100 shows, the improvement has been unbelievable. It's a million times better than when I started.

I am still pretty hard on myself about my singing. I was just waiting for the moment where I could just go on and open my mouth without thinking, and it doesn't mean I'm going to sing it perfectly, but there will be a lot more emotion involved because I'm not ruining every note. That reflexiveness I'm still waiting for, that perfect performance. I don't know when that's going to be.

Every singer I've ever spoken to is not into their voice, and I'm talking about great singers, too, like Murray. So I guess I'll never be completely satisfied either.