Getting to Know… Dead Echoes | Interview 🎤

On our 230^th interview in our Getting to Know… series, we get awesome insight from Toledo, Ohio-based rock/metal collective, Dead Echoes.

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hen asked what makes them distinct, 🎙 Dead Echoes – 🎙 Bryan Coulter and 🎙 Matt Smith – gives a relatively straightforward answer: “A mix of our songwriting and song content.” The Toledo, Ohio-based rock/metal collective expounds, providing an alluring portrait that captures their artistry. “Since 💿 Twin Flames [their debut album] is told like a story … each song has its own style, and we don’t conform to any particular musical style or song structure.” Eclecticism – always rad 🤘! Dead Echoes deliver an entertaining and insightful Q&A.  Rather than spoil any more of it, why don’t you check out 🎤 Getting to Know… Dead Echoes: Interview No. 230 for yourself!

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Starting things off, for those who may not be familiar with you, what makes Dead Echoes distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?  

🎤 It would probably have to be a mix of our songwriting and song content. In our first album, 💿 Twin Flames, we are telling a story about the downfall of a modern relationship. In it, we explore a range of real-life touchy subjects like domestic abuse and suicide, as well as the inability to leave a toxic situation. Since it is told like a story from start to finish each song has its own style and we don’t conform to any particular musical style or song structure.  So you will hear bits of hard rock, metal, hip hop, etc… and we don’t hold back.

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Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did your Dead Echoes and what were some of the goals or the visions you had early on?

🎤 Matt had some songs he had been working on to get some things off his chest during a rough patch. The couple songs turned into wanting to write a full album to tell this story of what he was going through at the time. He was looking for someone to vocalize the tracks and found Bryan. The two of them worked together to finish up the tracks and brought Dead Echoes to life.

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Let’s talk more about goals.  Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

🎤 The goal for us is always just to make good music. We have had music in our lives since we were kids. We have played in different bands over the years. Now being a little older, we are thinking more about how much we love to make music and less about what will come from it. Of course, we would love nothing more than to get our music heard by as many people as possible, because 💿 Twin Flames tells a great story that a lot of people can relate to, but just being able to continue to make the music is more than we could have ever wanted and are thankful just to be able to do so.

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Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Who would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

🎤 Some of our biggest influences are bands like Tool, Godsmack, Sevendust, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, and pretty much any grunge band from the 90s. These are the bands that we listened to growing up. This was our introduction to music. We wanted to be like these guys. There is a list of concerts from back then that you would go to and just take in the show and think… “man, I wish I was up there.” We are taking a lot of that nostalgia and hoping to give new listeners the same feelings about us that we had about those early bands.

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Ah, the fun stuff.  What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance?  Feel free to be creative.  

🎤 Well, we are just releasing our first album which was written during COVID so there really hasn’t been much of an opportunity to play live shows yet. So as far as that goes we are really playing it one day at a time and waiting until the time feels right for that. But, when that happens it will for sure be a blast.

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Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?  

🎤 That is a tough one because there are so many good songs on this album and each one was a unique experience recording. Most of these were written during some pretty rough nights and the emotion is captured perfectly. 🎵 “Unlove” is a good one because it describes being in a relationship so toxic that you just feel stuck. Codependency keeps people stuck where they truly don’t belong, and it isn’t until everything implodes that they are able to finally get away. 🎵 “Into the Night” is a really good one as well because it’s basically about having depression and being afraid to be alone at night in fear of what you might do to yourself. So that was a really hard song to write and even to listen to still. Honestly, though, Bryan really delivers on the vocals and in a way makes every song feel special in its own way.

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Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?

🎤 Ha! Now sure how awesome of surprising we can be. We are really laid back and just like to enjoy life. We are doing things that we love to do, especially Bryan who runs his own studio and gets to produce and record music every day. Matt runs his own shirt shop so we get to make our own merch which is pretty cool too. It’s just a good situation we found ourselves in. It works!

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Closing things out, what is Dead Echoes currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure. 

🎤 We just finished up the first album, 💿 Twin Flames so we are going to be promoting that for a while, but we are also fleshing out another batch of songs for a second album that you will absolutely NOT want to miss! It’s the best stuff we have done to date and it keeps getting better and better. Check out Twin Flames and the title track single that we are releasing for it on all major streaming apps.

Thank you so much for sharing taking the time to answer these questions, and best of luck moving forward. 

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🎤 Getting to Know… Dead Echoes: Interview No. 230 [📷: Dead Echoes, Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype]

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