Daniele (Priests – drums)
SPB: Which of your songs is the hardest to master in a live setting?
Daniele: I would say for me “Suck” was. I have always loved disco drums and disco music in general. I always dreamed of making dance music, but it always seems out of my grasp. I never felt like I had the musical chops to pull it off, but in typical masochist-Daniele fashion, I kept trying to write a Priests song with a disco beat. My theory was that if we wrote a killer song with one, it would force me to keep playing in that style and eventually I'd get good at it.
It took a while for the idea to take root. I was so bad at discobeats! Whenever I tried incorporating it into a jam, it usually felt flat and dragged the jam in a less exciting direction, but after enough tries, it finally clicked with the bass/ guitar/ vocal melodies that eventually became “Suck.” Like it was so clear those melodies needed a disco rhythm, so we all pushed through a rather shoddy execution of the songs cause we all saw it's potential if it was done right. I worked and worked at it and got it down well enough to record, but it still often sounded janky when we did it live, but, once again cause I'm a masochist, I insisted on it being in the set lists most nights. In my head I just figured, it would only take a couple months till it was solid, LOLZ. It took a full year of non-stop touring before it finally got to a place where I was like 'hell yeah, this baby's in the pocket' and I didn't have to be nervous about playing. It's crazy it took so long, but also really really satisfying now that I got it.
