Brilliant, essential, beautiful, focused and complex, these are just a few of the remarks that the Metal industry has spoken of North Carolina’s Daylight Dies, a passionate and ethereal band who’s focus lies on the hidden and sometimes disturbing psyche of the human dark potential. For a band that hails from the land of the free and home of the brave they are decisively European sounding when it comes to their music which in my book is a very good thing. Too often I’ve been a voice of praise for the old world and their ability to deliver the fine arts on a much grandeur scale than that of our homeland. It is however extremely gratifying to find an American band that meets… let me rephrase that - exceeds the expectations of what I hold true and discerning of value when it come to musical ingenuity and creative prowess. I knew within moments of speaking with drummer and spokesman for the band Jesse Haff that my conversation was going to be a very transparent and sophisticated discussion. I really enjoy talking with people who exude intelligence and at the same time are very down to earth. Daylight Dies are currently in writing mode for their next album after completing a successful U.S. tour late last year with Portugal’s Moonspell and Sweden’s Katatonia. I consider myself privileged to have had this opportunity to speak with Jesse and I’m sure that all the fans will find the following to be every bit as intriguing as I did.

OT: Listening to the new CD I found it to be a very pleasant surprise. I was a little shocked when I found out that you guys were actually Americans being that your music has a very definite European sound.  Have you had difficulty in establishing yourselves here in the states due to your particular sound?

Jesse: Of course we always hear that because we are primarily influenced by European bands; that obviously shows. I don’t know if it’s been any harder trying to establish ourselves because of the way we sound. I think actually it draws a distinction to us where people recognize that we sound different than most American bands so in a way might actually be a positive thing as far as people remembering us.

OT: Absolutely. So why do you think that America is just now really starting to catch on with this form of music which has been around for sometime now?

Jesse: I don’t know what the answer to that is. I do know that 1996 was one of the biggest years for Swedish Metal; at least for me. That was the year that Dissection came out with Storm of the Light’s Bane and Katatonia came out with Brave Murder Day In Flames came out with The Jester Race and I could go on and on. I couldn’t find anybody around where I lived that new of any of these bands except for a few close friends that I was jamming with. One thing that I notice is that American bands in the past couple of years such as Shadows Fall, Killswitch Engage, Darkest Hour, these kinds of bands started using these Swedish and Scandinavian bands heavily as an influence but then kind of changing it into more of an American sound sort of blending it together and then those bands started really taking off. When they started taking off it sort of opened a lot of people in America’s eyes to the whole European scene and to me it felt like it took American band’s bringing those influences over before people woke up and realized that there was this whole scene that not a lot of people had heard of before.

OT: It’s almost like there’s a natural evolution that’s come about unfortunately not everyone are into this blending of genres. Do you ever run into purists who don’t like what you’ve done with your music?

Jesse: Definitely, but we don’t really pay attention to that. Some people want us to sound like we did on our demo and some want us to sound purely Doom Metal and still others want us to sound pure melodic Death Metal but none of that is important.

OT: If no one has any diversity I think music would get to be pretty dry after awhile. I’m glad that you guys aren’t afraid to branch out and be experimental.

Jesse: Definitely

OT: Although this style of music is growing in popularity it’s still far from being accepted in the mainstream and it definitely appeals to a particular fan obviously. When taking into account the melancholic feel of the band I wonder how fans receive the music, I myself listen to music for enjoyment but it’s hard to enjoy anything when you’re depressed.

Jesse: Well I think that some music is entertainment some music is used for the purpose of making somebody feel better or forgetting about other things in their lives. Our music is sort of an exercise in catharsis, in cleansing these sorts of more melancholic emotions; the rough times that everyone goes through in life. We use the writing process as a way to get it out in a healthy way. Some people play sports or paint or things like that and we write music. So I think people relate to our music, it’s not entertainment per se but something that becomes important to and not just something that they put on and play air guitar to, hopefully in delves deeper than that.

OT: I agree, and I’m thankful that there are artists such as yourselves because I’m not really into pop music and tend to look for deeper meanings and I believe that this type of music has a very therapeutic value to it.

Jesse: Exactly.

OT: So can you tell me what the premise behind Dismantling Devotion is?

Jesse: There was no original plan for a theme but it’s sort of always been our goal to write lyrics that are very honest and emotional being based in 100% reality. What ended up happening with Dismantling Devotion was it developed a theme. As Nathan was writing this theme of disintegration of relationships or the slow deterioration of bonds that you have with people that are really close to you whether it be your girlfriend or boyfriend or parents or whatever. It’s something that’s sort of common to everybody and it’s like this painful process that involves emotions. Dismantling Devotion is about this experience of the dissolving of bonds and every song deals with different experiences. 

OT: Do you feel that it’s easier to focus on the darker side of life as opposed to something that is more uplifting?

Jesse: I wouldn’t say that it’s easier but I would say that it’s what’s inspirational, when you’re in a really positive mood we’re not inspired to write. We’re inspired to go out and get drunk and party, like any normal person would like to do. It’s when you’re going through the hard times that you are inspired because you become more introspective and you withdraw and are able to be more creative. It’s not necessarily that we want to avoid writing anything positive it’s just that that’s not inspirational. We can’t draw things creatively from that. 

OT: You may have heard the old cliché ‘out of chaos comes order’ and from that I gather that often times a person who hasn’t suffered enough is unlikely to overcome the obstacles of everyday life and are destined to repeat their mistakes having never learned a lesson. Until an individual is stripped down to the very fiber of their being they are unable to grow and mature and stumble through life repeating their mistakes and never achieving the help and release that they are in need of. Help comes from despair and order from chaos. Your music is therapeutic and a great refection of the darkness that we all find ourselves trapped in but it also allows for a way out inevitably.

Jesse: Yeah, I agree.

OT: Recently you filmed a video clip for the song “Lies That Bind”, which I hear was your first ever. What was your initial experience shooting this video?

Jesse: Well before we did that video my feeling was always that I hate 95% of music videos period, they’re usually totally cliché’ especially Metal videos where the band is just jamming out in a little room and that’s the whole video. So when Candlelight brought up the idea of doing a video to one of the songs… you know our songs are very unorthodox as far as the format for anything that will ever be played because our songs are really long and so I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to come up with anything that was really useful as far as like spreading our name. So I just approached it as let’s just make something that has some artistic integrity and has some consistency with the lyrics and the whole theme of the album and if nobody ever plays it , whatever and we’ll just do the best job we can. So there’s a guy named Ramón who had done a video for a band called Sanctuary, Roadrunner now and he’s from the same area that we’re from and we noticed in that video that he had really good technical abilities so we just booked a weekend and I sent him a sort of rough idea of what I thought could work for the video. I sent him some different examples of other videos that had some technical aspects that I really liked and we went down there and spent a whole weekend in the scorching hot summer of North Carolina recording this video in a bunch of different locations. Half the video is actually a narrative that has nothing to do with the band which I thought was important so as to make it something that is more artistic and interesting so that you’re not just watching a bunch of dudes jamming in a little room. The end result blew me away. I couldn’t believe it because our budget was miniscule and he’s just an incredibly hungry director that took every word I said extremely seriously as far as direction and then brought his own talent to it and we’re very happy as to how it turned out and to make it even more worth it, it’s been played on MTV2’s Headbanger’s Ball.

OT: Fantastic! I’m glad that you decided to out some thought into it and make it something unique. Do you plan on doing another video from this album or maybe a live video down the road?

Jesse: There’s probably not going to be another vide from this album. I hope that we can do one for the next CD. As far as a live DVD goes that would be great as well but there are no plans for that yet.

OT: You guys had a pretty successful tour with Moonspell and Katatonia a few months back, what are your thoughts on that tour?  

Jesse: The best way to summarize it is to do the whole picture and overall it was an amazingly positive experience. We got a great reaction and we certainly did a lot for spreading our name. A lot more people know who we are because of it and we got a lot more CD’s out there and that was good ya know, it was successful in that respect and we had a lot of experiences that we will never forget. Plus we are really lucky because we are actually personal friends with the guys from Katatonia and have been for over ten years now so to be able to tour with them again is like a dream and the guys from Moonspell were just incredibly nice guys do that was great but there was both extreme highs and extreme lows like any tour but overall it was great.

OT: When can we expect you to tour the U.S. again?

Jesse: We do expect more touring but I’m not sure when. Nothing is confirmed yet. I’m hoping that we’ll do Europe first but are gonna keep our minds open for anything that comes our way.

OT: Well I hope so because I need a second shot at seeing you since I missed the show this time. Man I was so pissed.

Jesse: (Laughs) I’m sure you’ll get one.

OT: Thank you so much for your time.

Jesse: No thank you, I appreciate the interview.

OT: We’ll talk to you again.

Jesse: Ok, take care.