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Daryl Palumbo
DARYL of GLASSJAW
06.07.02

Daryl Palumbo has opinions and he’s not afraid to share them.

Honest, raw, hardcore... These words could just as easily be describing Daryl as the seminal band Glassjaw that he fronts.

"Worship And Tribute," Glassjaw’s second album and first with new label Warner Bros., was released July 9th. Though still containing the nu-metal crushing flavor of their debut "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Silence," this second venture is a far more diverse and accessible album.

Back in June, with the release of "Worship And Tribute" imminent, we sat with Daryl and collected some of his opinions for you.


Show & Tell: Your first album is on Roadrunner Records and this one’s on Warner Bros - how is Warner Bros. treating you guys?

Daryl: Warner Bros. is treating me great thus far and I’m not usually a fan of large labels at all especially THE largest major label in the world [Warner] you know what I mean. A lot of times bands don’t get the attention they deserve and I feel that the label usually overcomes the band’s say in the band-label relationship. Then they start doing stuff like marketing a band and talking about things like "pushing units" and "pushing numbers."


S&T: Things are going good for them [Warner Bros.]?

D: Things are going great for them. They cut all the fat. They got rid of all the bullshit acts. The Warner, Elektra and Atlantic merger thing is just a powerhouse, y’know. And it seems like for the first time in the history of major labels a giant label knows it has the power to care more about the art it puts out than just about "pushing numbers." The label seems to get, for the most part, what we are going for as a band and our relationship with them was based on the fact that we were not going to do anything we didn’t want to do ever... and they know that. They’re not going to want us to do anything we don’t want to because it would be forced or rigid. So we seem to be on the same level.


S&T: It’d be nice to see that happen throughout the music industry.

D: Yeah. Yeah. We were on Roadrunner. Roadrunner is a joke. Roadrunner’s not even a real label. It has the power to be one of the superpowers in the heavy music industry. While labels like Victory Records, which is such a small hardcore label, is totally surpassing Roadrunner. Roadrunner is a joke. Its like the scourge of the music industry.


S&T: They have a few bad cogs?

D: A few bad cogs? A few! They have had quite a few bad fucking cogs!


S&T: You’re happy now with where you are?

D: Yeah I’m happy! I’m happy to be on a label where I can say that I share the same label as anything from fucking Depeche Mode to Morrissey. Being a part of [that history], it just goes to show that they do understand music. I look at Roadrunner and the only band I ever liked on Roadrunner was Slipknot.


S&T: And Dog eat Dog.

D: Oh I loved Dog eat Dog!


S&T: I went to high school with a few a them so I have a soft spot in my heart for them.

D: When I was about 12 and 13 I liked Dog Eat Dog. If you were a New York hardcore kid you liked Dog Eat Dog. I loved New York hardcore. I will always love it, that era is my era. I loved Dog Eat Dog and VOD. VOD is one of my favorite bands and will be one of my favorite bands of all times. And then growing up listening to a lot of death metal.


S&T: Ross Robinson [Korn, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot] also produced your first album. Was he someone you had to work with again?

D: Yeah. He’s a member of this band, our 6th Beatle and that's how its going to be. [Roadrunner didn’t want us to use him but] we decided we wouldn’t do it without him. Right there we knew we’d rather break up than work with Roadrunner. We ended up working with Warner Bros. and [Ross] did the record.


S&T: Musically, and especially vocally, there’s a heavy Faith No More influence to what Glassjaw is doing. Was Mike Patton a big influence on you?

D: Growing up he was one of my heroes... absolutely. I want to say no because I hear he’s a bitter old man and that he laughs at bands that cite him as an influence. Everybody on M-fucking-TV and all heavy bands everywhere site Patton as an influence and he talks shit about them? I still think he is the greatest singer in heavy music history but I feel way above any other band that cites him as an influence. Fuck it if he has a problem with it.


S&T: The new album was getting great reviews on the internet way before it’s release date. How do you feel about that, that they’re already swapping music?

D: Y’know, as long as they buy it when it comes out. People know that its fucked up to steal the record then not buy it. If they like the record they’ll buy it. I think its great its being received by people and that they’re loving it.


S&T: I’ve only read good reviews.

D: Yeh, I haven't read anything bad yet. Knock on wood. I would probably feel a lot worse about it being leaked ahead of time if everyone was hating it.


S&T: One last question. In the American version of King Kong vs. Godzilla, King Kong wins. How could that possibly be?

D: It can’t. There is no way that Godzilla doesn’t win. Godzilla can spit fire... Godzilla is way larger than King Kong... There is no way, but for the sake of having American fans dig it, Americans relate way closer to King Kong seeing as how it is an RKO picture’s invention from American Pop-Culture. There is no way it could happen.



We told you he was opinionated.

interview by kristina sisti & scott sisti