Progressive rock band Dredg is on tour again and will be coming to Salt Lake on Friday, Nov. 12 to In The Venue along with headliner Circa Survive.
Dredg has been in the studio recently recording a new album that will be much different from their earlier albums in the way that it doesn’t really have a concept. Dredg has always been known as a concept band since their debut album Leitmotif in 1998.
“We figured this is our fifth record, we’ve been around forever and wanted to do something different,” Dredg singer Gavin Hayes said. “It felt like the timing was right, where we are at in our career and I’m really happy with it actually.”
Various forms of art and literature have influenced all previous Dredg albums. For example their most recent album The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion, released in 2009, was inspired by the essay Imagine There Is No Heaven: A Letter to the Six Billionth Citizen by Salman Rushdie.
The new album will put a lot of focus on the artwork in order to pull it all together. Dredg has even thrown the idea around of creating characters with this new album.
“I think the concept [for the new album] is going to be more based on the artwork than actual songs,” Hayes said. The band is currently working on the artwork that will be with the album.
Since the rest of the members of Dredg were living in California while Hayes was living in Seattle, this album wasn’t even conceived the traditional way of the band getting together to work on the songs as a whole.
“A lot of it was done remotely. I would fly down every once in a while and we would work on the songs as a band,” Hayes said. “But a lot of it was just streaming music on email. I think that is part of the reason the record sounds different as well.”
Hayes admits that when writing a new record he usually writes all of the lyrics before the music, but this album was a little different. He enjoyed writing the record the way they did because it allowed him to go deeper into the writing process instead of just being put on the spot to think of something good.
Dredg is only playing one song from their new record during this tour but plans to add another new song to the set list within the next few weeks after they’ve had time to rehearse.
It’s difficult to compare Dredg’s sound to anything that plays on the radio regularly and that’s what prompted the band to tour with the bands they are touring with. Dredg’s unique sound makes it difficult to pair them up with other bands, but Hayes feels bands like Circa Survive and the other bands they are playing with on this tour have a similar sound and similar values when it comes to music.
Dredg is touring with Circa Survive and is also playing shows in between this tour with Animals as Leaders and Code Seven.
Fans of alternative rock or concept bands will not want to miss Dredg this week on Friday, Nov. 12 at In The Venue.