Dustin Bates has put 80,000 miles on his car, a 2009 model, as he crisscrosses the United States while writing Downplay’s first album for Epic Records.
The band signed with Epic last summer and began writing songs in August. Bates had the opportunity to work with notable alternative rock artists such as John 5 of Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie and Jasen Rauch, formerly of RED, in locations as varied as Florida, Nashville and Los Angeles.
“When it worked, it was like having a new person in the band for a couple of days,” said Bates, who added that between August and January he wrote about 50 songs he believes are the best he has ever worked on.
Of those, about 11 will be featured on Downplay’s upcoming album and two more could be bonus tracks.
“We had a huge batch of material where we could pretty much pick out the right songs, the right vibes of songs,” said Brian Weir, the band’s drummer. “We had a huge catalogue we could look at at the end of the day.”
A major factor in creating that collection of songs was the ability to focus solely on making an album, a reality that was created by Epic’s paying for a sound engineer, a producer and housing, among other things.
In addition to helping Downplay increase the sheer quantity of songs it wrote, the additional time also helped the band investigate elements of music it may have ignored.
“I explored the sound way more than I ever would have before,” Bates said. “The sound developed way more than I thought it would before.”
That exploration has paid off, as Bates is recording in Louisiana with Dave Fortman, a producer who has worked with Evanescence, Slipknot and Godsmack, amongst others.
“When they put you with a producer who’s produced records that sold over 30 million copies, that’s the big difference compared to the past,” Weir said.
Another sign the band is moving forward is its appearance on the lineup for the annual Rock on the Range festival in Columbus May 21.
Last year, Downplay was the first alternate. This year, with the backing of Epic, the band had no issues landing a spot in the lineup.
“It’s gonna kind of kick off everything for us. … I think it’s kind of like a statement for us,” Weir said.
Downplay is planning on starting a national tour shortly after Rock on the Range and is hoping to release its album late in the summer.
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