Track Premiere + Interview: Daddy’s Beemer
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A chat with the members of Daddy’s Beemer at the Drunken Unicorn in Atlanta about their new music, throwing their own house shows, and how much it hurts to have the realization you’re, in fact, NOT Lil Dicky. Surfy-synthy-swinging rock group Daddy’s Beemer are back with their first master releases since February 2018. The band, comprised of Brady Sklar (vocals + guitar, he/him), Dan Fetterolf (guitar +/or drums, he/him), Wesley Heaton (bass, he/him), and new member Brandon Gallagher (drums, he/him/any) are here premiering their best work yet with “Indoors” and “Serotonin”. Just returning from a busy SXSW run, they’re touring the south east with fellow Carolina act, Tom Angst.
Catch them at any of the upcoming dates linked on Bandcamp, and stream their first 2 singles “Indoors” and “Serotonin” which will be officially out this Friday.
Welcome! You guys are just getting back from SXSW (where we met)– how was that experience for you?
Dan: it was our first time there, we played four shows. met a lot of good bands and a lot of good people.
Brady: it was like an explosion of just… venues and music everywhere and you have no idea what’s going on—
Wesley: it was the wild west
Brady: yeah, the wild west! also the most west we’ve ever been.
That was the next questions out of my mouth: you guys are based out of the Carolinas so was Texas the farthest you’ve taken the band for shows?
Dan: We’ve gone up to Philly and the northeast. We’ve been to Jersey once—
Brady: Is Jersey higher than Philly?
Dan: Yeah! …Well…
Brady: When you’re from the south, everything higher than Virginia is just like, high time. We’ve never been out to the west coast, though.
What made you guys immediately go back out on the road after coming home from a SXSW run? Because, Wesley, I know you tweeted something about ‘love coming home and booking another tour right after getting home from a different run!”
Wesley: Right! I’ve been wanting to go to SXSW for a while, so one of my goals for the year was to find a tour that could go down that path. And then, on top of that, we knew we were going to be putting out some sort of music after, so we wanted to plan another tour after that to hit the cities we normally do in the southeast and make a little money hopefully, after going bankrupt from going to Austin and back. I booked the SXSW tour at the same time Brady was booking this two week tour we’re about to start on and we work together on a lot of that.
Dan: — Uh, I booked one show.
Brady: Yeah, Dan, why don’t you tell us about the show you booked?
Dan: I booked new Orleans!! On the way back from Austin
Brady: Oh? And how was that, man?
Dan: Ohh, it was something. It was a good venue, New Orleans was good but–
Brady: You can’t win ‘em all.
Dan: (in agreement) You can’t win ‘em all. We almost played to nobody, but we had some friends on spring break from Clemson that came out.
Wesley: The good thing about playing a show in New Orleans, let me tell you, is getting to go out and experience the city. At the venue there was this gambling slot and—I tried it. I was really bad at it. We lost money doing that, but we made the money back from the door.
And this is your first official stop on this post-SXSW tour, right?
Wesley: 100%
And you guys have been to Atlanta before?
Wesley: We’ve played here a few times! Brady?
Brady: Oh! well, the first time we played Atlanta we played at Georgia Tech on their campus at a place called Under the Couch for their radio station. We were still a very young band, relatively, and we pulled up and we saw this giant stage in the middle of campus in the courtyard and there’s lights and everything and I think: oh my GOD are we playing right there?! and we get up there and we start looking around and there’s all these banners for “LIL DICKY LIVE IN CONCERT.” Lil Dicky was playing the same night as us and he pretty much sold it out and campus was popping. There were like six people at our show. and I invited my cousins… and I shouldn’t have.
Did they come?
Brady: They did.
Okay! So… that’s good…?
Brady: (shaking his head) It wasn’t! I should’ve invited them to a better show. I wish—I wish I was Lil Dicky!
Dan: SO, we’ve played house shows and small venues around Atlanta before but I think tonight is going to be our best one yet.
What made you guys hook up with Gymshorts this time around?
Wesley: Ian, from Dinner Time (Atlanta locals)! We’ve played shows with Dinner Time before and this definitely won’t be our last so any time we want to come through Atlanta we hit up those guys and they help us out.
And I’m guessing you pay it back in South Carolina, at Pablo?
Wesley: Right! They’ve played Pablo a lot and we always love having them and spreading that love.
You guys are playing Pablo, when is it.. tomorrow?
Brady: Fridaaaaaaaay!
For anyone who doesn’t know, what is Pablo?
Dan: Pablo is a house that me and Wesley used to live at with our buddy Nathan, and Brady pretty much lived there. We had a little group of friends, like a collective, and a bunch of bands we all traded places in. So, we would throw shows all the time in the basement. There’s a neat little stage area with a backyard right there but we’ve had some great bands come through there.
Brady: The venue came before the band did. We needed to have a band that could play in the basement, so we were the first band to have a show in there.
Were you guys even friends before?
Wesley: Dan and I have been friends most of our lives, but Brady we only met probably a year before we started the band. We had talked a few times, but I knew he wrote music so when we needed a band to play the basement I hit up Dan because we were living together and he was down immediately. Hit up Brady, a few others for brief stints of time, and yeah, then we were Daddy’s Beemer.
Pablo is cool because I found out about it from some other southeast bands that had played there, and I followed the venue on Twitter before any of you—and then when I met you all at SXSW, Wesley and I figured out we had been Twitter mutuals for a few months and it was a cool moment.
Wesley: it’s really a big family, honestly—
Brady: PABLO IS THE CRAZIEST SHIT YOU’LL EVER SEE IN YOUR LIFE! GO AND BE BORN AGAIN IN THAT BASEMENT!!
ANYWAY, it was around last February when you released your latest EP, Pucker. It’s been over a year since you released new music, so why now?
Dan: Just trying to put something out there. We wanna give the people what they want. We have a bunch of tunes, a bunch of stuff that we’ve been working on so we just wanted to get it out.
Brady: Summer singles!
Wesley: HOT singles. People are asking us: Daddy’s Beemer when’s the record coming out? Daddy’s Beemer we need new music! What am I gonna play in my car when I’m driving 75 miles an hour? We got this music now!
That’s what I was just doing, cruising over here to Atlanta listening to your new masters of “Indoors” an “Serotonin”, which congrats, they’re fantastic (Dan: Thank you!!!). Have those been sitting in demos for a while, are they new? When did they come about?
Brady: They are NEW. We wrote them a while ago and we’ve just been producing them. we’re working with a producer named Preston Dunnavant out of Clemson and listen—he’s the next Danger Mouse, alright? You know, there’s times when we would record ourselves like the first two EPs and we’d let things slide and Preston doesn’t let anything slide.
Wesley: And that’s what we need
Brady: We need someone to be really mean to us.
Why these two songs to lead off 2019 for you? What made you feel like this was the direction you wanted Daddy’s Beemer to head in?
Brady: It was one of the last times we practiced in Pablo and I came in with that riff that’s like (imitates “Serotonin” opening)—oh wait you can’t write that down—and we kinda just jammed off that and it uh, it became the Instant Summer Classic we all know and love now. “indoors” was just an acoustic song I wrote, and then we came together with our producer and added a string section, a synthesizer…
Wesley: Hooked it up!
Brady: Wesley came in with the bassline, Dan came in with the drums.
Dan: And violin!
Brady: Yeah! There’s a pretty big string section in this song. When we start putting out new music and aren’t playing as a three piece anymore, Dan is going to be playing guitar, synth, and violin on stage and Brandon’s gonna be drumming for us. Say hey, Brandon.
Brandon (whispering into the mic for the first time): Hello everybody.
So, with Brandon, Daddy’s Beemer becomes a four-piece and there’s gonna be some lineup changes?
Wesley: Got big plans!
Brady: Still keeping It in the family, though.
Dan: Five piece! Six piece! Maybe percussion!
Wesley: I’d like to have two basses, so I can count as two people.
Brady: Maybe even a full choir.
And what’s next for this big act? Where are you hitting next and where can people see you?
Brady: Just the southeast. Where people know us.
Wesley: We’re playing Boone and Greensboro for the first time! Everywhere else we’ve played before like Greeneville, Columbia, and Charleston. Looks like it’s going to be a fun time. Need to get the AC in the van fixed and then it will be a little more fun, but.
Brady: It’s never Really worked, but Brandon’s gonna fix it tomorrow.
Brandon: Huh? Oh. Yeah. I’m on it!
Alright guys, anything you wanna plug?
Wesley: We got new merch!
Brady: Listen to our two summer singles.
Wesley: They’re hot.
Dan: Keep on rockin’ in the free world!
Brady: (imitating Nardwuar) Doot doola doot doo…
Wesley + Braden + Dan + I (joining in): Doot doo.
Follow Daddy’s Beemer on
Facebook + Instagram + Twitter + Spotify
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Olivia Kesling | @shutup_olivia
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