istorically, at year-end, I've always made a point of expressing what a great year the previous twelve months were. And why not? You have to build up the anticipation for the EDITOR'S CHOICE list that I was about to roll out for our readers. At the close of 2017, we've got another amazing list of artists who made 2017 so damned memorable. Some of the names are familiar, some are not, but everyone of them left a strong impression on us visually and musically. As far as the year 2017 itself - eh, it's been difficult! Our monthly publication ROCKWIRED MAGAZINE has ceased, but there is hope that it maybe returning in the Spring of 2018. This has forced us to beef up the editorial for ROCKWIRED.COM and so far the results have been promishing. 2017 may not have been the best year for us, but it's one more year behind us and If we've got twenty five favorite bands and artists to share with you at the end of the year, that works for us. 


 stood and saw METALLICA play for 75,000 people at ROCK THE RANGE. I don't think it's dead by any means. We're getting ready to play Madison, Wisconsin. Last year 15,000 people showed up. Shows like ROCK THE RANGE and ROCKLAHOMA are proof that rock n roll is not dead. I'll admit that it's not like it once was, but you've got bands like NOTHING TO WORRY , RED TIDE RISING and ROYAL BLOOD . You've also got a lot of bands coming out of Ohio. Ohio is like what  Los Angeles used to be for rock except without the awesome weather in the winter time. fourteen-hundred people in Columbus came to see us play and bought our record. It reached #2 on the AMAZON ROCK CHARTS and #15 in the OVERALL ACTION CHARTS the day it came out. Rock n roll doesn't look dead to me. TAYLOR SWIFT put out a record the same day and we got #15 on that chart. If it's dead,  it's ghost is haunting the hell out of everybody."



ur music is not straight ahead rock n roll so we try to create an experience where we can connect with an audience in a deeper way. It's not just about rocking out. You can rock out but we try to have that other space where we can create. That is the thread that keeps us going . It's also scary. Some people don't want to be in that space. They think it's ridiculous. Maybe they're not used to it. Maybe they're afraid of it. The experience we give on stage is more introverted than extroverted and it taps into sacred feminine energy. It's basic earth energy. It's key to evolution for us all. I really believe that.My Dad was a monk. I was raised with this kind of stuff. Native populations still hold onto this and it has resonated with me ever since I was a kid. It makes more sense to me than all of this other stuff going on. There is a lot of crazy stuff going on right now. People are searching and scrounging . It's all about the dollar and that is where people think that they should focus their energy. Maybe not. How about this other thing? I feel like we're providing an alternative insight into their perception . Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it's all rock n roll. And maybe I'm just a hot chick on stage. Or maybe I'm an ugly chick. I don't know."


've always liked the sound and I think it's a cool direction for the band. We started experimenting with and before long the new material seemed to write itself. It just feels right. When we kept  building on it  we came up with cooler ideas and they all started heading in that direction. It feels like the right direction to go in. There are a lot of bands out there doing the female fronted symphonic thing and we're not into that. It's been overdone. We really like this heavy industrial thing. Meeting CHUCK was  a good thing. I've known him for a few years and I knew that his background would align well with this. It was a neat thing. We also worked with a new guy JAY RUSTIN  who did the mixing. He's worked with ANTHRAXX and POP EVIL and STEEL PANTHER. It was a good fit. MICHAEL WAGNER mixed the ballad. It'll be neat to get  that on e out there. It's a good direction for us to go in. It's where we need to be."


t was always rock but with different members over time the sound kept changing. In the beginning we had a funky bass player so the sound was rock with a funkier bass line and then as different drummers came in they wrote more intricate parts. We really tried not to pigeonhole ourselves by thinking about what genre we were as a band. We just wrote what we felt and I think it has all evolved into to the progressive hard rock sound that we have now. As people we have a tendency to get bored so we write whatever seems to grab our attention. DOUG and I generally write the seeds of the song and the arrangement. Every song is written kind of differently. It might start with a guitar riff or we'll go in and mess with a drumbeat that we hear in pro-tools and then we'll mess it up and then write a melody to it. Once we have the general seed of an idea we take it to the other members so they can jam on it and we can see what spin they put on the song. We just rewrite it and rewrite until we're all happy with our parts."



ith the exception of me, none of the old members are in the band. It's completely new line up. This is no slight on any of the old members. With regard to the time it took to get things off the ground after the fire, peoples lives move on. Our former bass player SCOTT TURNBULL and drummer SEAN SAWLER ended up playing together in TRI-CITY VILLIANS which was the first band I  signed to the DALI VAN GOGH record label. Nowadays, SCOTT is playing with me again in a side project of mine. It's a grunge rock tribute band . MARCEL is playing in a band now called MONSTERS  ARE HUMAN who've got a new record coming out next year. The new guys are young guys. For years I was the youngest member but these new guys are in their mid-twenties  with the exception of our new lead singer JOHN SCOTTO. He's a classically trained vocalist and stage performer who studied Theater in Prince Edward Island. He's very flamboyant and fun onstage. JAAD STEWART is the new drummer and he's the most well-rounded drummer I've ever worked with. He can play anything from progressive metal jazz to blues, rock, funk and country. DEVON ROBERTS is our backing vocalist and keyboard player. He's just having a great time melodically. This band is giving him the opportunity to experiment more with melody and his playing is the glue that is holding our rhythm section together. We had a jam session the other day and the keyboard broke and man was there a difference . There were no keys in DALI VAN GOGH before . He has filled in the sound so much it's amazing. CYRUS ROBERTSON-ORKISH is our new bass player . He is a 19-year-old prodigy. He is a brilliant bass player who also plays mandolin, guitar and drums. He's probably the best musician in the band. He's a better guitar player than I am but he plays bass and he blows our minds constantly. I'm proud of this new line-up. They had some big shoes to fill as you know. We were no slouches before but now the band has taken another big step up.  We've got our first show coming up this Friday. I'm excited to be hitting the stage again."




n a funny note, I've got to say it's the members that we've been through. On a serious note, I'm blown away by how loyal and dedicated and awesome that people cane be when they become connected to music. Growing up in New York you don't get all of the hospitality that you seem to get everywhere else. It's a totally different mindset from where I grew up. When you start touring, especially throughout the Midwest or the South, there are people that really open their doors to you. The fans have given us so much over the years. They've even opened their doors and given us the key to their houses. They trust us so much simply because they love our songs and they'll let us stay in their houses without them even being home. It's a different mentality. No one in New York would ever do that. We've met some really wonderful people through this whole experience and that has definitely been one of the biggest surprises for me. Our minds have been opened to just how wonderful the human race can be."



'm really proud of it. I was like a ton of work and it's the first thing that we've created as a band that I feel was distinctively the product of all of us. It's funny looking back on it now too because we're not quite the same anymore and we can hear all of the things that we did and you might go "Oh, I might do things differently now." It's not just a reminder of things to improve upon. It's more like it a snapshot of us at the time and that was how we approached things then. And now I'm wondering how we do things differently now."



or me personally, if I could have each listener that listens to it be able to relate to something that would be great. I never want to just write a song that ends up being a catchy pop tune without any meaning. When I write a song I want people to be able to draw a substantial experience from it.  We're always writing. that is something we are always doing. we want to become better writers and composers. You can pretty much expect that we're going to keep releasing music. We're also going to be doing a lot of music videos. We're really going to be pushing the movement MUSIC HEALS a lot and engage fans in that way. Our goal is to simply bust our ass and keep working. If there is a show date that's open and they don't have anyone playing it then we'll be more than happy to jump on and show them what REMADA is about."



he last album REVOLT was really heavy and dark with D-tuning and stuff like that. It also had three ballads on it. Some people were like "What are you trying to do here? You've got three ballads and all of these other songs sound like you are going to kick somebody's ass." My thinking is, I like THE BEATLES and if they can play whatever they want, why can't I play what I want? Why be pigeonholed into one thing? But some people didn't get it. I loved the album . It was a good album, but this one reflects the music that I grew up with. I grew up on artists like MARVIN GAYE, JAMES BROWN, THE SYLISTICS and THE SPINNERS before I transformed into a hard rock singer. I grew up in Hayward, outside of Oakland. It was the stuff that people in my neighborhood listened to. As I got older, and was in high school, playing in bands, people weren't playing that kind of stuff anymore. It was stuff like LYNYRD SKYNYRD, LED ZEPPELIN, AEROSMITH and AC/DC. I conformed to that and I still love all of that stuff too. I always wanted to do a soul-type of record. People have always told me that my voice fits that. It's always been there at the back of my mind. Last year, I started writing guitar chords foe these songs and started adding 7ths, Major 7ths and Diminished 7ths and before I knew it I had some soulful sounding stuff. I've always wanted to make this kind of album and I did. I did a blues album about three or four years ago. called MOONSHINE and it was completely different from BABYLON AD. As I got older, I find that I want to do all kinds of music."



t's interesting. I've been working with EDDIE KRAMER, JIMI HENDRIX's producer, and I've got to say that the kind of live show that we have put together has never, ever been done before. It is the true combination of rock and hip hop live. Even more so than on the album. Don't get me wrong. The album is dope, but on the live stuff, it's like holy moley! What just happened? This is something that has never been heard of. before. EDDIE helped me to bring out the rock sensibilities in the music. We've got the computer playing the hip hop tracks with the band playing some rock stuff over it."




e have SPENCER and ZAC. Those two and I are the three full time members. ZAC is very common sense and very rational and calm. That is very helpful when we are working through decisions and stuff. He is very relaxed and thinks rationally. He is also a mechanic which is super helpful to us when we are out on the road because our van breaks down every ten feet an he is able to fix it. Without him we would've stopped a bunch tours already because he is able to fix stuff. And of course he is a sick bass player. We just track an EP in December which will hopefully be coming out this year and he finished all of the bass parts in one day and that was pretty incredible. The band is kind of SPENCER's baby and he is the only original member at this point. He's like a first generation, original member. He is also very thoughtful and rational as far as band decision making goes. Because of that we're able to talk things through and decide what we should do for our next step. He is also probably the hardest working person. He lives and breathes this band 24/7. A lot of the things we have we wouldn't have if it wasn't for his dedication and push. The combination of those two guys is pretty strong."



 feel very surprised by it. It brings me back to 2013 when we recorded it, and the songs are different from the ones off of our official LP REVIVAL. It's its own thing. It was recorded in a  couple of days at LONDON BRIDGE STUDIOS and we had a good time with it. It;'s different feel for the songs than we're used to. It's cool to look back and hear how we were playing these songs in 2013. After three years of playing them, it's interesting to to hear how our approach to them has changed. I'm actually in Seattle right now. It's been really somber. CHRIS CORNELL was that iconic, legendary singer that I grew up idolizing. It's so odd. It's so weird. When I was on the flight to Seattle the news broke and everyone was just bummed out. It was really surreal. You wake up one morning and look at the news and you find out that CHRIS CORNELL has passed away. It's weird. SEATTLE SESSIONS was done on a whim as we were touring. Seattle has always been that city and place that we've always gravitated toward. It's the history of  the city itself that gets to us, and the history of all of the people that have ever recorded at LONDON BRIDGE STUDIOS and all of the music that was made there."



t the moment, we're sticking with releasing singles because it's more affordable since we're doing this whole thing by ourselves. We're coming up with ideas, doing research and putting a lot of songs out there so there is something for people to listen to. Our stuff is everywhere online on things like iTUNES and SPOTIFY. We're doing that to keep fresh music rolling out. We've got a third single coming out soon but it's still in the mixing process. Before we went on tour we recorded two more songs. I think touring has helped in solidifying our music. There is no way that you can't get better playing five shows in a week. I'm happier with the reaction than I thought I could've been. I was worried because of my old band that people would expect that kind of thins. I'm proud of what I did with THROW THE TEMPLE  but I'm happy because people have taken to MANHIGH as well. One of the things we heard on tour was "We had a band from New Mexico play here once an they were terrible." When people  heard thirty seconds of our first song we could see them going "Oh shit! This is great!" People were excited to hear that we were from Albuquerque. No one knows that much about music in Albuquerque. Getting that reaction was really amazing. It let us know that we were onthe right path."




e've never had a team. It's always been us. Everything that we've  done up to this point has just been the band on it's own. We've had JESSE DUPREE as a mentor who guided us through the beginning stages of our career. He was there to tell us to go back and write more songs and to go back and rewrite songs and to stay on the road and keep pushing. He really put us through this old school artist development stage that no one is really doing anymore. We never had a piece of paper signed and he never took a commission or anything like that. He was just always there, like a friend.  It's pretty amazing because that doesn't happen anymore. This whole team of people we have now are all people that have proven themselves to us over the years. It's a crazy thought to have a whole team around you of people that truly want what is best for the band. That's the best part about this team.  We put our first EP WELCOME TO MY HEAD out on IRONWORKS which was JUDE COLE and KIEFER SUTHERLAND's label but that label had dissolved as they had put our record out and then they had stopped doing what they were doing. That was when we met JESSE and he took us under his wing. If you look at the word 'record', we're not talking about a black piece of vinyl.  It's a record of our lives so what you're getting is the lessons that we've learned and the stories that we have to tell and the ay of life that we have developed and adapted to. Nothing changes for us. Who we are onstage is who we are offstage. The things I say to you right now are the things that I say to our band members. We really live this lifestyle through and through. We're very proud of the brotherhood that we represent."




e did a video for KILLERS IN THE PIT. When we were in the studio, we wanted to write a song in appreciation for our fans. We wanted to make this mosh anthem. I'm really proud of that one. It's got a weird, cool flavor. People are really responding well to it. Another song would be BULLY which is a really personal experience of mine. So far it's connected with a lot of people. It has a really poppy hook. BROKEN ANGEL is our ballad. It has this epic rock sound. It's different from everything on the album I'm really excited to see what people's perceptions will be with this song coming form a more aggressive band.Our plan, after the release, is to tour in support of the album. After that we want to work on anew EP . We're going to go back into the studio with MIKE DOLING of SNOT . We're going to do a small group of songs with him. First and foremost though, we need to get on the road and sell some merch and get the music out there to as many people as possible. I want people to know that we are our own style of band and that we have a ton of flavor. We're doing things for fun . We want people to give it a shot and be open tot he fact that they're going to get different genres and styles of music within each track, as well as within the full album."




e wanted to show that the blues is not a particular thing. In as much as a song like PREACHIN' BLUES is the blues, so is WHO SHOT YA? It's the blues, bolstered by the fact that the person who wrote it lived as he died and put it all on record. If that's not a cautionary tale - if that's not a parable, which is what the blues is, I don't now what is. Songs like WHO SHOT YA? are very prescient right now. Right now! So is COME ON . I think a song like INVISIBLE is very prescient because we are talking about things unseen. Things that are perceived but not seen. Things that are felt but not seen. We deal with that on this album and that song speaks to that idea.There was this surprise that we would do something like WHO SHOT YA? and that we would even talk about it and that we would turn it around musically in the way that we did. We noticed the reaction to that. It's such a beloved song as well. I think people get it. And then the realization settles in and people are like "Right! Right! Who shot ya!" It gets you thinking about the shooting in Orlando and Sandy Hook or TRAYVON MARTIN or any of these things. Who did that? And why? Whenever we talk about the proliferation of guns, we talk about the right for people to have a gun and that kind of thing. But why? What do you  need it for and why? What do you not need it for? There is a question on both sides as to what is this really all about. For me, it seems like every solution needs a bigger gun. That is often times what I hear. When you listen to people talking , politicians and pundits and regular people on the street, it seems the only way we can stop these problems and issues is with a bigger gun. It's like you need a bigger fist or a bigger force to make changes happen when just the opposite might be the case."



y father was born in 1926 and he lived through the Second World War and all  of the songs on this album are based on the stories that he used to tell me about the war so the subject matter is very personal but at the same time it is the point of view of someone who was there and living that experience day by day.  It's such a  sad story but still, it something that is very rich. He's still alive. He's 91 years old. All of the songs are based on his personal experiences. I'll have an idea for a riff as does FELIPE. He's always got some great ideas. When we get together we start showing off our ideas to each other and then I'll get to thinking that we can start with this and then try that. Once that is done, we start composing with the band. It starts with an idea and then we start playing it to see how it sounds.One of the songs that has me the most excited to get people to hear is RIDDLE because the lyrics are based on personal experiences. Another song would be CELEBRATE ANEW which is the second song on the album. These two songs are special to me because of the stories. The whole album, from beginning, middle and end, tells a story. Like a concept album. Every song on the album is important."

very time we have a new album, it's always my favorite. But standing apart from all of that, JUNIPER ROAD in by far my favorite album of ours. When we finished it I couldn't listen to any of it for  a month. I just couldn't hear it for what it was at all. After about a month, I started listening to it and it's the first DISHWALLA album that I play over and over again. It's in the CD player of  my truck and I rock out to it when I'm driving around. I haven't done that with any DISHWALLA record, ever. I think it's the first album where we capture the full essence of us as a band. Our band has always been a complicated thing. . We've got five songwriters, multiple producers and multiple engineers. It usually takes us years to conceive a record.  We start with forty songs and then we start whittling it down. U2 says when they make records, the band is always on the verge of breaking up because it's such a ridiculous process. That's how we've always been. This time it was a little different. We captured things in a much more raw state. More than half of this record is live and first takes at that.  You are hearing GEORGE playing that drum part for the very first time or the first time that JUSTIN has sung that vocal part. We were able to get these amazing performances. We've always had an amazing live energy  that was so much bigger than us. That energy has always been an elusive thing for us to try to capture in the studio. On this record, we got it."

nterestingly, NYCTOPHILIA was just supposed to be an album cut. That was the original intention, but I liked it way too much and everyone who listened to it liked it too much. So I said "Fuck it! I'll release it!"  So this song is leading up to the release of the full length album. Part of the reason that I'm building it up this way is because I come from the post Generation X, pre-millenial generation that has fallen into this gap that still reads and appreciates books and still listens to albums. But this millennial generation doesn' thave the attention span for an album anymore. If you're making an album you better have a damn good reason to be making one, like if you're signed to a label where they expect you to have an album out. I'm not signed. I have taken great pride in not being signed for a while now. I value my freedom. I don't like explaining myself to labels and things like that. I'm trying to build momentum and do some shows and release some songs before the record comes out.  I'm going to release the record, but I just don't think that people have the attention span to take it all in just yet. The record is in the can. I am one full length album and 2 EPs in, as far as my recording goes. I'm sitting on music that's not released yet and I feel that it's too much of an overload and now with the way things are politically, attention spans are that much shorter. Everything is going crazy. Mother Nature is pissed off. Storms are happening everywhere and there are all of these wildfires. Shit is pissy right now. There is a lot of fuckery going on and an album is not the thing that people are going to be directing their attention to. So I'm just going ot release cuts from the record slowly over time. Even I don't have the attention span to release a full length album all at once. There are so many things that I want people to pay attention to."

CHECK OUT THE MUSIC VIDEO FOR NYCTOPHILIA

e've had this song (ALL YOU NEED IS A HEARTBEAT) for a while. I've always liked it and I'm just happy that it's out. People seem to like it as well. It's been on our live set for a while. When we decided to release the song we knew that the people who are STATION fans were going to know it. And now, they have a recorded version of it. The reaction to the song and the video has been great. It's been a while since we released new music and we were very nervous about it. Every time we release something new, it's a brand new day. You hope that people will care and we've been very, very fortunate to have people care. It's been a nice experience. [For the music video] We worked with a guy named IGOR PATRICK. I love music videos, personally. Outside of music and guitar playing, I like coming up with concepts for the music videos. We got together with IGOR and talked about doing a stark black and white video with pieces of color in it. We filmed it in an ice rink and in order to film it the way we had been talking about, we needed something in color to saturate. IGOR suggested coloring something on us. PAT went out and got a red shirt. I had my guitar and I borrowed my girlfriend's sunglasses and our drummer had tattoos. It was an on-the-spot decision and I think it came out looking really cool."

here are songs on there that I wrote myself  and those songs come from my life. There are certain experiences that I've gone through that inform my songwriting. I take whatever experience good or bad, pick up whatever instrument I have within reach and I start writing a song. Once I had the song molded, I spend any where from two hours to five hours working on a song. The process is very personal to me. With songs I co-write on, it's a little different. Other people's feelings and emotions come into it and that is what I learned in putting some of the songs on this EP together with people like RACHEL and LZZY HALE. I'm not going to question any input form some as amazing as LZZY. With each song, I hope they find something they can attach to and that something in the songs speak to them. That's why I make music - to share with the world. I hope they will listen and I hope that the music will help them out and make them feel like the song is for them. I hope they find a connection. When all of that is said and done, I hope they are super-energized by it . This EP is a very high energy collection of songs and I've been told that it's something you can work out to or something you can get pumped up to do something crazy. I hope people find the music useful."

e're starting to become selfish with our writing. We've found out what makes us tick and what our strong points are. It's like in sports when a football temas comes together with their quarterback and they become something that is unstoppable. We're starting to learn what makes us unstoppable. We kind of know what our fans want now by listening to them and listening to ourselves. We've created this whole new feel for where we're going. The biggest thing withthis new album is that we're goingto try new ideas that we weren't ready to try before. But now we're putting it on the fire. I truly think the fans are gonna love this upcoming album. It's weird speaking about a new album when we havent' finished promoting the live acoustic album yet. Our progress has been amazing. We just keep writing and playing shows. I think any band reading this will understand when you get the opportunity to do this, you feel really blessed."

hen I was in the fifth grade, my mom got me a saxophone, and that was was what got me into music. I started by learning classical music and reading sheet music. At that time, my brother FLIP was in a band called TWISTED FABLE. His band was one of the first concerts that I ever went to. But the first big concert I ever went to was THE DEFTONES. That was the first time I ever saw a giant crowd. I even did some crowd surfacing and moshing. I lost a shoe and my shirt was ripped off that night. CHINO was climbing up the speaker towers and was jumping into the crowd and going crazy. After that night, I was like, "This is what I should be doing! I need to be climbing on shit and jumping on people!" That was where I got my motivation for sure."

t's a mix of things. With the video and the song we were  taking a turn for a mainstream pop sound and most of our older fans have really gotten on board with this one. But there has also been some backlash. A couple of people are saying that the song is too processed  and that the vocals sound too electronically processed  and too pop sounding. People have always thought that  we were a metal band. We put on a heavy show  and we've got this outrageous look but we've never been a metal band. We are more of a pop rock band. Now we want our sound to mature as band and as people. There are always going to be people who like what you do and there are going to be people who don't like what you do. I think the song and it's video are just going to keep growing and growing."

CHECK OUT THE MUSIC VIDEO FOR CENSOR THIS!!!