🇬🇧The Dragon Berries — a great interview about everything

"Будь как дома" continues to reveal little-known, but insanely talented people. Today we spoke with the American alternative rock group The Dragon Berries, who has been conquering the American scene since 2017. Let's talk about their debut EP, their formation and much more in our latest interview!

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Your group was finally formed in 2017, right? Tell the full story of how the band was formed.

Connor: The band was founded when Quinn and I were roommates in college at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. I moved to Austin in 2017, where my goal was to find a bass player and a drummer.

Quinn: Connor and myself have known each other since we were young. We knew that we wanted to make The Dragon Berries a full band, so Connor moved to Austin and met Chris and Reid.

Reid: After Connor moved to Texas he met me and Chris because we worked at a fine dining restaurant at the same time. Connor approached Chris and me and said he has a friend (Quinn) who plays guitar and wanted to jam to see how it goes. Since Quinn wasn't living in Texas, our first band practice was all of us jamming to a quick and dirty guitar track Quinn recorded onto a laptop.

Quinn: Then I moved to Austin shortly after graduating college. It was definitely a cool experience knowing I had a band waiting for me out here.

Reid and Chris, tell us about your personal story. How did you come to music?

Chris: I started playing bass when I was 13 years old. I got very involved in the jazz band and jammed with my friends growing up. I was heavily influenced by Incubus, RHCP, and Muse growing up. Sometimes I write and record stuff in my bedroom in my leisure time. I don't perform any of my solo stuff yet, but once I have enough material I'm hoping to perform at shows with the band!

Reid: As for my personal background, I grew up in a suburb North East of Houston, Texas and I started playing drums when I was 12 years old. I was really into heavy rock and all types of metal, so I was just playing along to bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Lamb of God, As I Lay Dying, and Blessthefall. As the years went on for me I got more into RHCP, I've listened to them my whole life because my parents always had a song of their in a CD mixtape they'd make for road trips. So there was a point in drumming that I retired the double kick pedal to challenge myself to start playing with a little more feel and that was about 3 years before I moved to Austin.

You have a very interesting musical style. It's a mixture of Eminem's style, RHCP rhythm and Jimi Hendrix guitar solos, all in the 60s and 70s style. How did you come up with this original style?

Quinn: Connor was pursuing a hip-hop career and my background was rooted in rock music, so we thought it would be cool to sort of combine our influences and see what happens.

Connor: Our style of music came to fruition by us understanding who we are and what our influences are as individual musicians. Our musical tastes span far and wide, so coming together as one definitely creates a unique palette of sound, including the genres of the artists you mentioned.

What does "Dragon Berries" mean? Who got the idea to name the band like that? Tell the story behind the namе.

Quinn: The meaning behind the name, The Dragon Berries isn’t very deep at all. Connor and I were stoned looking at different objects in the room as possible band names. We then saw a bottle of liquor that was flavored Dragon Berry... The rest is history (laughs)

Connor: We liked it the most out of our options and decided to roll with it. I have always thought it fit really well with our style of music.

How do your parents and friends feel about your art? Do they support you?

Chris: My parents were supportive of me learning music growing up, but didn't really want me to try to make a living off of it. Now they support me doing whatever makes me happy.

Connor: My parents and friends love what we have going and support my decision to pursue this as a career full-time. I’m very lucky to have a supportive family and group of friends.

Quinn: Yes, my family is very supportive and wish me nothing but success.

Reid: My parents were always supportive of my musical interests, my mom let me play drums IN THE HOUSE which is crazy to me, so they really like what's going on. And my Friends are all music nerds, so they'll come to shows and give me feedback when we record something, so I feel very supported by everyone here.

Let's talk about your debut EP. Not so long ago, "And the Moon Turned Red" was released. How did you record your EP? Who helped you with this?

Reid: We recorded the EP with a couple of good friends, we have a friend named Scott Collins who has a studio space in his home and Dylan Fisher did all of the producing and engineering. These two guys have done amazing things in the Austin music scene and they are so freaking talented! We will definitely work with them again in the future!

Do you write the lyrics for your songs by yourself? What do you sing about in the songs "Fall, Rise" and "Nectarine"?

Quinn: Connor and I co-wrote a lot of the lyrics and of course we composed the songs as a band.

Connor: "Fall, Rise" and "Nectarine" both have similar meanings. The EP as a whole actually has one central theme. They are basically about overcoming the hardships in life. True testaments of my character always come when I get knocked down. I have suffered from clinical depression my entire life and it wasn’t until I found music that I finally started discovering my purpose. The songs portray that’s it is ok to speak up about how you’re feeling. In this case my “speaking up” was writing songs.

Who drew the cover for your EP? Does the cover have a hidden meaning?

Reid: One of my great friends from High School, Chris Ramirez. I grew up with this guy in a bunch of my classes and he was always doodling at an insane level of detail, we have had some phone calls about it that has lasted for at least an hour!

Connor: Himself and I have many hidden meanings for The Dragon Berries. Many of those meanings will come to fruition visually in with future recordings and albums. You can also find a lot of meaning behind the artwork in the lyrics and overall vibe of each song.

How can you describe your EP, for those who have never heard it?

Connor: I like to describe our music in colors. I see a lot of red, blood orange, yellow, purple, and several shades of blue. If I could describe it with a word, I’d describe it as risky.

Quinn: Our EP definitely encompasses who we are and what’s to come. Our sound consists of a lot of different genres blended into one and we will continue to move in that direction.

Reid: We have other songs that have yet to be recorded. But the ones on the EP are just a good way to show everyone what to expect!

How soon can we expect The Dragon Berries' full-length album?

Connor: Giving an exact time frame is difficult. The best thing we can do is keep recording the songs we write as quickly as possible. I can give you an estimate of 2022 for a full-length album. Hopefully no later than that!

Reid: Right now our plan is to release a bunch of singles to hopefully gain some more traction, once we get better streaming numbers and stuff we'll explore a full-length album.

You recently showcased part of a new song on your Instagram. What can you tell us about the material that you recorded in the studio? What will it be?

Quinn: The song we recently recorded is a little different from what people are used to. It still sounds like us, combining elements of rap, funk, and heavy rock. Yet, we incorporate a lot of new sounds such as keyboards and other psychedelic sounds. This most recent song is undoubtedly our most polished and elaborate production yet! We’re not entirely sure when new song will be released. We’re hoping by the end of the year!

Tell us about filming the video for "Nectarine" during the pandemic.

Reid: (laughs) Nectarine was actually supposed to get a fully professional music video treatment, but the COVID-19 pandemic kinda locked us all up, so we had to just individually shoot in our homes and I edited it all together. It was a good time though, I would definitely do that again!

You have already organized concerts. Tell us about your impressions. Do you have any interesting stories?

Reid: We almost signed into a show for next week, but we are actually about to go into the studio for a single, so we wanted to focus on that. As far as cool stories, nothing really stands out except for one time after we played I was packing up the drums and a guy walks up to me and he says very intensely "That was awesome, nothing like this happens in this useless city" kinda weirded me out, but he was trying to be nice (laughs)

Connor: One of our first shows in Austin, we were getting very rowdy and Chris hit me in the head with his bass. It hurt pretty badly, but we continued the show (laughs). I miss playing shows very much.

Tell us about your very first concert.

Reid: You can actually see footage from our first concert on our YouTube channel, the guy who does art for us helped put together a grassroots music festival called Phillip's Farm and he let us play there as our first show. It was deep in the Woods of Coldwell, Texas and I was so sweaty and nervous I almost passed out! Fun times though!

Who of the currently existing bands or solo artists would you like to make a feat with?

Reid: As far as collaboration, I think it would be cool to collab with literally anyone making music. I have no specifics as far as people, but the prospect of creating music with someone is always exciting and I'll be happy to do it!

Quinn: I personally would love to make a song featuring Andre 3000 from Outcast!

Connor: Personally I can hear Kid Cudi in one of our songs. I’d also like to feature Post Malone someday. I am heavily inspired by Zach de la Rocha, Eminem, and Fleetwood Mac.

Follow The Dragon Berries on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/thedragonberries

Follow The Dragon Berries on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3MBA4xNosmDAVyP35lbHoC

Listen to The Dragon Berries on AppleMusic:

https://music.apple.com/artist/the-dragon-berries

Search The Dragon Berries on SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/thedragonberries

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