Musician Daniel Brooks on his latest album The Death of Daniel Brooks.
How did you come up with the album title The Death of Daniel Brooks?
It just kinda made sense given where I was in life. I had a lot of people around me dying, I thought I was dying, and I truly felt that I was next, and that everything in my life was falling apart. That all turned into the existential crisis that is the album.
How’d you find song samples [for your album?]
I’m a crate digger, most of the samples are ripped off vinyl, but some aren’t though. I cheated a little bit.
You collaborated with a lot of musicians, did that influence the songwriting on the album significantly?
Most of the songs were already written when I had people hop on them, but I did have a good amount of folks co-write some of it. Writer’s block is stinky and I hate it.
You said you’re a crate digger, are you a huge vinyl enthusiast?
I wouldn’t say huge, but definitely. Anytime I discover a record I love, I try to go find it at a shop, sometimes I’ll bully people on Discogs. Crate digging wise, I’ll usually go to Repo Records in Philly and go through the dollar bins until I find something that seems interesting, bring it home and see if I can pull anything from it.
Have any plans to tour the album or do gigs?
As a matter of fact, me and my band, The Dirty Crooks, are gonna start playing in Philly soon. We played down in Glassboro not too long ago too. We did some stuff off TDODB and some stuff from previous records, with a couple covers thrown in for funsies. It was dope. I threw a banana peel in the crowd.
Tell me more about The Dirty Crooks, who’s in it and what do you guys do?
So we’re like a funk-rock-electro conglomerate of doodoo. We started back in 2019 with the intention of playing my shit, hence the full name, ‘Daniel Brooks & the Dirty Crooks’, which I know it sounds kinda egocentric, but I really wanted to play my music with a full group. I clarify that because I’ve been dogged on it before. Anyway, for a while we just ended up playing covers at these shitty little local events that usually didn’t pay us. So once TDODB came out, I had the idea again to start playing some of my material and get out there again.
And for who’s in it, we got:
Josh Beck on vocals, sax and guitar
Sophia Argueta on vocals and auxiliary percussion
Kaitlyn Oliveri on vocals and sax
Patrick Kelly on vocals and bass
Joey Hess on drums
Isong Lee on keys and synths
And myself on some vocals, guitar, synths, drum machines, and bullying everyone else in the band so that they do as I say.
[Editor’s note: Daniel Brooks doesn’t go full Mark E. Smith on his band, he treats them nicely]
What’s next moving forward?
Well I’m going to focus largely on this band, although I’m also toying around with some new music, but I don’t think it’s time to dive into that yet. We’ll see what happens.