Artist Interview: Del Paxton

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Dylan England of Del Paxton was nice enough to take some time to chat with me about their new split with Retirement Party, out today on Storm Chasers LTD. 

I called their Auto Locator one of the best records of 2023, and wrote here about the experience of hearing it for the first time: “I feel like I’ve known these riffs for my entire life, the same way I know what it feels like to stand on the shore and have the ocean waves hit my feet.”

It’s a special record that has stayed in my rotation since that day, and now it’s time for the next chapter of the band.

Keep reading to hear from Dylan about their excellent new EP.

“an odd batch of songs looking for a wax home”

I spent the week playing and loving the new songs, but before we got there I wanted to talk about making and releasing Auto Locator. Dylan described the band being really intentional in the studio since they were tracking to 2” tape, being more open to different instruments and amps while being more focused than ever on the lyrics and themes. That along with using radio broadcast samples led to the unique sound “outside of the normal angular mathy/emo riffing we seem to gravitate towards.” A friend told him the record “sounded like driving home late at night in upstate NY at springtime,” and even though I’ve never had that specific experience, I know the feeling. That’s the kind of power those songs have.

The band felt a great response from fans as they toured in support of its release. A spring 2024 run of shows in the UK, where they played lots of those songs, was important in inspiring the writing on the Dogeared EP. By the end of the year, they were in the studio with Jay Zubricky (who also recorded their first record) at GCR in Buffalo. “We knew we wanted to track the songs as live as possible and keep a lot of the breath and feedback in the recordings,” Dylan says. “We always go back and forth between fully live tracking and more layered multitracking, but I think we found a really good balance on this one. Jay has a really great understanding of our influences and vision. It felt really natural going back to work with him again.”

One of the many things I love about these songs is how they have a real flow from the first riff to end of the record. Right from that first riff, it’s The Del Paxton Sound. “We wanted to release these songs together because they felt like a complete idea. They share a similar flow and overall mood, plus they’re all near five minutes in runtime.” The songs may have running times of 4:59, 5:00, and 5:54, but there isn’t a wasted moment to be found. The journey is unpredictable and keeps the listener on their toes. Where one track ends and the next begins is less important than the vibe.  “Another Heaven” slows way down about halfway through, comes roaring back again at the end, and the shifts are completely earned. This middle track “Dogeared” builds slowly and then rips into a cathartic explosion: “fold all the pages!” 

The band brought in another former collaborator, Chris Ploss, to add some electric piano and synths. “That really ended up pushing some of the arrangements over the top in a great way.” Dylan and drummer Greg McClure discussed “wanting some Clarity-era, Trombino-style sleigh bells and tambourines at the end of “Another Heaven” which ended up being one of my favorite moments on the EP. Greg is amazing at adding percussion details.” It’s clear the members of the band and the folks in their circle all come together in service of their vision and goals.

“Another Heaven” features guest vocals from Julia Steiner of the one and only Ratboys. “We’ve known Ratboys since around 2014. We reached out to see if she’d be interested in singing on it, we were so lucky she said yes.” A second Ratboy was also involved in the creation of this EP: Marcus Nuccio did the design and layout for the vinyl. “It's been amazing watching them ascend over the years, we love them so much.”

“We have a lot of friends in Chicago and have always felt a strong connection to the bands there.” One of those Chicagoans is Evan Waltzer-Weiss of Storm Chasers LTD. Dylan “loves everything he’s been involved with” [Crit’s note: me too!] and the respect between the two is clearly mutual. I reached out to Evan about putting the record out and he was effusive with his praise: “Having watched Del Paxton grow over the last 10+ years it's been really exciting to see them really come into their own and become one of my favorite bands, not just in the music scene we exist in, but Del Paxton are genuinely a band that I listen to all of the time. It's my honor to see their music come to life in this way. These three tunes on the split we have released haven't left my ears since the first time I heard them. I love this band and I cannot wait to hear what they do next. Every batch of songs they write get better than the batch of songs they wrote before.”

Through Evan, the band was connected with Retirement Party, who make up the other half of this split. The band was excited to combine forces for this release. “We’d been fans of theirs for some time. It ended up feeling like a really natural pairing, two emo bands with an odd batch of songs looking for a wax home.” The Retirement Party side of the split is called Nothing To Hear Without a Sound, en EP that came out in August but now has a home on vinyl.

What’s up next for Del Paxton? “We do have more new music on the way this year, and we’re planning to get back into the studio this summer as well. As far as shows go, we’re hoping to do a short East Coast run in the near future, and we’re also starting to look a little further out for the next bigger stretch of touring.”

Buy the record here.

Stream it on Bandcamp / Apple Music / Spotify.