Dark New Day

This "5 and Dime" interview was conducted in person with Brett Hestla, the singer for Dark New Day, when his band rocked Sayreville, New Jersey's Starland Ballroom on August 26, 2005.

Tell me everything people need to know about your band Dark New Day and its musical direction.

The guitarists are Clint Lowery and Troy McLawhorn. Will Hunt drums and Corey Lowery plays bass guitar. I'm the singer, Brett Hestla. This band has been in the planning stages for 12 or 13 years, maybe even longer, but that's where we can trace back to when we all talked to each other and decided who was going to be doing what. Everybody kind of went their own separate ways and had their own record deals and their own success. The band had become something we just talked about. Around Christmas, a few years back, Corey called Clint and Troy and rekindled the flame a little bit. I was the last guy they called because they thought I was full-time producing. Will called me on a whim to make sure I wasn't interested, but I said I was interested and would love to do it. I dropped the producing hat, and we started working on material at my studio in Orlando. They already had the music going for six or seven songs. It was really interesting to hear what it sounded like after all the years talking about it. As far as a musical direction, we didn't have a goal or an agenda. We didn't say we were going to sound like this or anything. It was more like I have this tune. Somebody would bring a song to the table and the others would dogpile on it, and 10 minutes later it was like it appears on the record. It was a really fun situation with no strings attached to it. There weren't any expectations from it. We were just writing songs and having a good time together. I think it came out better than my past projects, because we weren't going for anything in particular. We just let things happen and let it be what it was naturally.

Tell me about your band's debut CD.

The album's title, "Twelve Year Silence," came from the years of planning and no real music coming from it. Then the silence was broken. Released in June, it's on Warner Brothers, and it's in stores everywhere.

Tell me about your band's touring plans for 2005.

We just finished up a tour with Seether. We're kicking a few things around. We might just do some radio shows after that. Or we might be the opener on the Audioslave/Seether tour this fall.

What does your band have in store for your fans in the next 12 months?

I don't think we'll be back in the studio anytime soon. The record label is pretty excited about a few other singles on this record. I would imagine there might be two other six-month single cycles. It'll probably be another year or more before we're back in the studio. We're writing now, and we're in a constant state of writing music.

Feel free to promote anything else you'd like that applies to your band.

Our official website is www.darknewday.com and our Myspace page is www.myspace.com/darknewday. Keep checking both sites for the latest.

Please share your thoughts on Dimebag Darrell.

My personal thought is that it was a senseless act. They couldn't have taken a nicer or a better person from us. Dimebag was special. He was such a positive light in the music business. It's a real shame that we don't have that light shining any more. We're lucky to have a lot of records to keep the memory alive.