Dryden Mitchell Interview with Muzik Enthusiast Magazine 

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Alien Ant Farm’s Dryden Mitchell on Overcoming the Trials Around Their New Album

Carolann Berry - Published March 7, 2015 - 0 Comments

To say Alien Ant Farm are survivors would be quite an understatement. It seems that almost from the start, complications and tragedy have plagued the rock unit from Riverside, California, at almost every turn. These obstacles first materialized with the devastating bus crash in Spain in 2002, that claimed the life of the driver, and left singer Dryden Mitchell with a fractured vertebra and months of recovery time, a disintegrated record label and numerous lineup changes.

Fast forward to the trials of getting the band’s new album ‘Always and Forever’ written, recorded, produced and released, it wouldn’t have been entirely surprising if the members of Alien Ant Farm collapsed under the pressure. Fortunately for longtime listeners, whether through sheer determination of their passion for music and their audience, the band continues to show resiliency.

Music Enthusiast recently had the opportunity to talk with frontman Dyrden Mitchell during a break in their ongoing United States tour to discuss the band’s first album in nine years, their reasoning behind to crowd fund the endeavor, and the reason behind such a prolonged break in between new albums.

Carolann Berry: So it looks like you just missed the snowstorm we had out here on the east coast. I understand your back in California now?

Dryden Mitchell: Yeah, missed it by a couple of days I guess. We’re back in California now for about a minute, then we go back out for a few shows and then we’re going to Europe with a couple of bands, and, well I don’t think it’s even known yet, so I don’t want to say who they are. But it’s going to be really great. We’re just trying to finalize all the details for the European tour. March, April, and May is going to be a busy time for us, that’s for sure. And I’m pretty excited to be touring Europe. Oh, hang on… (

Dryden: Yeah, her mom just stepped out, she’s 17 months and if her mom or I are not engaging her she gets pissed! (

) And we have another on the way. Things are gonna get real now!

Dryden: Thanks, I used to say I didn’t want kids, but now I am so infatuated with her, she’s the best. And I can’t wait for the new one. So even with all this, we’re trying to do some shows and get the album out and sparking up some of that Ant Farm energy, you know? It’s a lot, but you know we’ve seen some pretty high moments and we’ve had some really low moments too, so I just take it as it comes and try to enjoy all of it.

Carolann: It has been quite a while between albums. Why the long gap?

Dryden: Well, we took a little departure from each other, I mean, we just got sick of each other. You know, it happens when your together all the time, you have strong egos floating around and add alcohol to the mix and it’s hard, we just grew apart. So we took some time. But, after some time passed, we did a Sonisphere festival in the UK with Metallica.

I thought these people are going to eat us alive. It’s been too long and nobody’s going to care. And a lot of people only know us for the “Smooth Criminal” cover. But just the opposite happened. That’s why I love European crowds. They allow for different kinds of bands to play together at the festivals, and they’re loyal. So that got us thinking about doing another record. But it’s taken awhile with all the label problems and whatnot.

Carolann: I wasn’t going to bring up the “Smooth Criminal” cover, but since you did…

) Yeah, I know. It kind of gave us a tough hill to climb because we blew up on such a pop-y cover of a Michael Jackson song.

I mean, I have no qualms about it, but it took a while to build a following where people actually started realizing we were a real band.

People didn’t know how to take us, it was this weird, novel thing. But behind it all we had songs.

We were a band for years before that song hit. So it was weird to jump out with that song. I’ve loved that song and hated it and loved it again.

Carolann: That album was doing well even before that song came out as a single, wasn’t it?

Dryden: It was. The song “Movies” did well and the album was selling better than I ever dreamed it would. At the time I was regretting putting “Smooth Criminal” out as a single, but it is what it is, and I’m grateful for it now. It served us well.

Carolann: So with that being said, would you do another cover song?

) Well, yeah! I have thought about doing a whole album of nothing but covers. I think it would be cool. We have a small but strong fan base that knows what we are and know what we do, so yeah, I would do it. Hey, people still cover the old standards and classics. Just a different interpretation of a good song. No difference, really. It’s like, “Hey, look what I can do with this song.”

Carolann: True, a well done cover is always appreciated. Getting back to the new album, why did you decide to pledge fund?

Dryden: We had a problem with the person who signed the band. I like to think we’re open minded, but he was more into urban music, like hip hop, and we just aren’t that band. He wanted to get us with co-writers and write like crazy to see what we could come up with. I was all for that. I’ve never written like that so I thought that would be cool and challenging.

We actually did about seventy songs, and he was like “We still don’t have the one.” And I kept thinking that when we were with the major labels we never had this problem. It was getting ridiculous. Months in Chicago with this guy, seventy songs in and this guy is still going “I don’t hear the one.” So I thought, when you’re sitting in a room with a couple of producers and they have seventy songs and don’t hear what they want, it’s like, “Dude, you signed the wrong band.” It just got really tense and we just decided to bail on it.

Dryden: It was a subsidiary of some label. They were looking for an “All About That Bass” or something like that. He was more about the money, than the band. Unfortunately, we had heard some less than flattering things about this guy from another band who had dealt with him, and that’s when we decided to cut loose from him. In hindsight it was a bad move on our part to hook up with him. So crowd funding at that point was the way to go.

Carolann: Well, the extra time put into the album doesn’t appear to have hurt. This album sounds much more cohesive than anything you’ve done before. It’s also got a lot more punch.

Dryden: I’m really happy with it. It is a little more grown up sounding, maybe because of everything we’ve been through. I do think being in that situation caused us to put a little more into the writing. So it did work out, even though it wasn’t in the way we originally thought. I’m very pleased with it.

Carolann: All the songs on the album are pretty strong, but being a music fan, ‘Homage” is probably my favorite. Plus, it has a really cool “Killers” vibe to it. Did you fit in all the bands that you wanted to, or was that not possible?

Dryden: No. It definitely wasn’t possible! Not even close. A lot was for the pun of it. It was written pretty quickly, it just came pouring out, and I didn’t want to change it, even though I knew there were so many bands I didn’t get in there.

Carolann: Does that kind of writing come easy to you or do you have to work at it?

Dryden: I do it all the time. We’re always trying to one up each other. Not necessarily musically, but conversationally. And dumb puns are my favorite thing, they also sit well for writing lyrics. So it’s kind of a natural thing for me.

Carolann: I hear you’re a big movie buff. Have you ever thought about getting involved in the movie business in some way?

Dryden: You know, it’s funny, when we were shooting a video with DreamWorks a while back, someone came up to me and said, “You know, for someone who’s never really been in front of one, you have a cool report with the camera. Would you be interested in exploring that?” And I remember thinking, “I just want to do this thing with my band” and thinking I really didn’t want to get involved.

But now looking back on it I’m like, “Shit! That guy was giving me an invitation to possibly get into a whole different career, and I just squashed it before I even thought about it.” I never went past that conversation with DreamWorks, but if someone offered me the chance again, I probably wouldn’t turn it down. But we did do some songs for soundtracks, does that count? (

Carolann: Well, our time is almost up, is there anything you want to put out there?

Dryden: Not really, I just appreciate you taking the time to do this and I hope everyone checks out the new album. I’m really excited to have it out there and see where 2015 takes us.

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