Josh “DANGO” Cellan of Amber Pacific

This article has been imported from chorus.fm for discussion. All of the forum rules still apply.

This past week I was able to schedule a Zoom call with Josh “DANGO” Cellan of Amber Pacific to discuss the band’s returning single, “Young & Reckless.” We also chatted about the legacy of the band and their key albums, their plans for touring, key memories from the band’s height, and what the future holds for Amber Pacific. The band were recently signed to Manic Kat Records and more new music appears to be on the horizon.

Thank you so much for your time today. Let’s start first by discussing your great new returning single called “Young and Reckless”, which comes out this Friday. What went into writing this track, and how cathartic is it to be releasing music again as Amber Pacific?

Man, it’s really exciting. Thanks for having me on to talk about it. Will’s our main songwriter on all the records of Amber Pacific, he writes almost everything, and he’d been writing the last few years, and we stayed in touch. We’re all really good friends, but we sort of talked about, what if we do new music again? What if we look at this idea? And then I kept telling everybody, it’s our 20th anniversary, and I was pretty nostalgic about it as well, and sort of pushing for let’s do a few shows. Let’s celebrate the idea that it’s been 20 years since our first album came out. And so he started writing and then sending us stuff. And we were just like, “Whoa, Will, this is some of the best stuff you’ve ever written! We need to do this stuff. We need to record it”. So we started talking through the process of what could that look like? Where would we do it? How would we do it, all kinds of details in general. And so we finally decided this summer, let’s pull the trigger and start doing it. So we started to work on it. And I live in Nashville, the other guys are in Seattle. We ended up agreeing on Nashville being the place to track it all. So the guys have been flying down back and forth. And the cool thing is, we’ve been able to do some stuff remotely as well, and it’s just been a really fun process to do again. So yeah, the first single comes out soon, and I don’t want to say too much about it, but it sounds very much like Amber Pacific, but 20 years later, with a little, newer twist and newer production, newer sounds and ideas, but it’s still totally in the vein of what people would expect us to do in like our band. You’re not going to hear it and think it sounds like Coldplay or something. It still has a very much sound in the pop-punk world, which is what we were going for.

Yeah, it sounds good! I got an early listen to it…

Oh, I want to know then, what do you think about it?

I love it! I think it’s very authentic to what you guys have done in the past, and also provides a clear indication of where you guys can move forward.

Well, good. Thank you! I appreciate it, and people are gonna have different opinions on it. Some people may or may not like it, but people who did love us back in the day are gonna say, “Yeah, it sounds like Amber Pacific.” And hopefully we win some new fans, which is the goal, because there’s been this huge resurgence of pop-punk in the last year.

What have you noticed from fan interactions online since you guys have started to kind of reboot yourselves for this new era?

Man, it’s been really rewarding to see people even the last few shows. We’ve been doing a handful, and we just played a festival with Story of the Year and Yellowcard and Hawthorne Heights, and talked to some of those guys. And, we’re around 40, they’re around that age, and seeing how fans interact with us at shows, but especially online, you see more so many people are just like, I never got to see you play, and I would love a chance. But probably the most amazing thing I’ve heard at shows is we played Tulsa last weekend, at Kane’s ballroom, and it’s a pretty iconic place. So we played there with Sum 41 we had, I mean, there must’ve been 10 or 15 people who were like, “I saw you guys play here last time. I was so excited to see you again.” And they’re now 35 and I was just thinking, I can’t believe people saw us in that generation, essentially, and are coming back to see us. So that’s been super fun. The cool thing when your band’s been around a long time is you get less negative crap from people. I think because it’s so hard to stay together, it’s so hard to keep doing music, and people just take it less seriously, from the standpoint of they just appreciate that you’re out doing. And I think I feel the same. I used to be particular about my love of this band. I don’t like this band. Well, I don’t like all music. Now, when I see a band who’s been at it, especially as long as I’ve been into music, I’m just like, “wow, I can’t believe they’re still playing.” I respect that they’ve stuck it out. So that’s been really fun, just to see people be positive about us returning. So I’m excited, because I think even though it’s an era hard to put out music and feel like it’s gonna get heard over the millions of other albums out, it’s still like, man, we had people who believed in us, so we’re at least doing it for them. Even if we didn’t make a single new fan, there’s people that are gonna be glad we did this. So it’s totally worth it.

It seems like a lot of people are excited for the new single to come out and hear what you guys have been up to. So one of my favorite records during the emo/punk boom of the early 2000s was your guys’ The Possibility and the Promise. What are some of the most vivid memories you have from recording this scene-legendary album?

Oh man, thanks. I don’t know if I would say that, but we appreciate it, because that is definitely our first full length album that came out in 2005 and there’s so many good memories, because it was such a life-changing experience for us. And that was the first we had an EP out before that. That was the first one that got a lot of traction. And so recording it was fun. The guy we did it with, the producer of those first three albums in Seattle, he taught us so much as a band and about recording and how to do things, and on those first couple records, we had the Seattle Symphony Orchestra playing on some of the tracks. So the opening track, everything we were with the guitar riffs and stuff, there’s strings under there which are real. And back in that day, you couldn’t program stuff as easily. So you couldn’t just record at home, you had to go into a studio. We basically were in a nice studio for, I mean, a couple months, and I was 24, just out of college, and the other guys were like 20 and so it was just an amazing life experience to be doing that at that time or and I just had that experience. And then that record, that first year to the first kind of success we had, besides Warped Tour. That was our second Warped Tour. And then we started having songs on movies and TV shows that all came from that first album especially. And then it grew from there into Truth In Sincerity. But really, the first record is still obviously what you know most people are going to know us for and want to hear. So we’ve sort of said in our playlist, let’s go back and add a few more songs from that record, because let’s say that the only record people have heard of us. You know, you just want to make sure you hit those people, especially.

For sure! And that album actually turns 20 years old next year. So I was curious if there’s any plans within the band to do an anniversary tour, vinyl repressings, or any other additional ways to commemorate that album’s anniversary?

Man, that’s a great question. We’ve talked about trying to <do a repress> but that’s out on Hopeless Records, and so they have it <the masters>. They have it on vinyl currently. So we don’t have it available. We’d like to sell it ourselves, but I always try to direct people to buy it there. But it’s been long enough that we could re-record some of those songs. I don’t know that we’d red-o the whole <album>, but we might just do them for a new version of some of them. We definitely will do some stuff to celebrate. But as far as touring right now, on the 20th anniversary, just for the band, we’re going out with MEST this weekend, which would be fun, because I was a big fan of MEST. And then in October, just in a couple weeks actually, we’re doing a little tour with Hawthorne Heights, and they’re also celebrating 20 years of their big record. And so we toured with them a bunch back in the day. So we’re going out with them. We don’t have any official plans for next year. There’s a lot of talk about these Warped Tours that are coming back. And so we have definitely submitted for all of those through our booking agent. If we could do something with one of those and tie it in, it would be awesome. But who knows? That’s too far out to say. We don’t have any official 20th anniversary plans for the record. But that’s a great question, because I would imagine we’ll probably try and do something.

Yeah, and it looks like some of the gears are starting to be put in motion for that. So you guys released four full-length records, with the last one coming in 2014 with The Turn. Why did your band feel the time was right now to reunite and start releasing music again?

Yeah, another good question. Because it’s literally been a decade since our last record and the last one, we put out ourselves. The first two were on Hopeless Records. The third one, we changed singers, put it out on Victory Records, and that was like a whole shift in the band. And then when Matt <Young> wanted to come back, we did The Turn, and we were really proud of that record, and our fanbase liked it, but it was already sort of past the era of that music, doing well. And so I think just that we’ve played a couple shows in the last two years, and I think just seeing the resurgence of the music, and then talking about its 20th anniversary, we wanted to do something. But I think seeing these bands come back, and seeing just a lot of these bands like Fall Out Boy, All-American Rejects, all these bands still doing stuff, and then for my era of punk rock to see NOFX winding down their career after their 40th anniversary and and ending shows, I don’t know…just watching all that’s been like, “man, we should consider doing this again.“ I think everybody sort of missed it. And I was kind of telling you before the interview started that I’ve done music the whole time, so I’ve still toured. This is my 20th year of touring. But I’ve certainly missed playing pop-punk and punk rock, because I just have not gotten to do that in Nashville. I’ve been doing so much other stuff, and so for me especially, it’s rewarding musically to go, “oh, let’s get back together with the dudes that I kind of grew up with, and let’s play our music again.” That’s been the fun part of it for all of us, because we don’t want to look at this as a job. We want to go out and do it like a vacation for all of us to hang out together.

Really sounds like you guys are getting together for the right reasons then…

We’re trying to because, why do it otherwise? Everybody’s about 40. Why would you want to waste your time at this season of life if it wasn’t fun?

Exactly! What are some of your favorite touring memories over the years with the guys?

Man, great question. Everybody’s gonna have different ones, the Warped Tours. We did four of them, and they were definitely what put our band on the map, and we worked so hard. On those ones, we would drive all night and then set up at nine in the morning. Doors would open at 10, and we would sell <merch> at our tent for 10 or 12 hours a day, or whatever it was, eight hours, as long as the gates were open, we go play our set and all that, and come back and sell. We had so much fun. It was exhausting. We were young, but we were that’s why we sold as many albums as we did, because we were always out there pushing it. And as far as other tours, there were a lot of just a lot of cool little memories here and there. We did a tour with the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus when they were at their peak. That was one of our best tours. Did a lot of touring with Hawthorne Heights. One of my craziest memories of the road is when we were touring with Hawthorne Heights, and this was the tour when Casey, their guitar player, passed away. We were sharing a bus, and we were at the 9:30 Club, actually, and we just woke up that day and heard he had passed away during the night on the bus, and there were paramedics everywhere. I mean, it was tragic, obviously heartbreaking. And we in our early 20s, and to see a guy our age pass away and a good dude who was a normal guy that wasn’t like this drug addict and wasn’t an alcoholic, and just a tragic thing happened. And to see that was such an eye opening experience. It was sort of at the end of nearing when our band was like, “Man, do we really want to be doing this right now?” And our singer, Matt was kind of like…it just made us all put life in perspective. So I would say it wasn’t a “favorite” memory, but it was one of the memories seared in my memory, and then watching those guys and how they handled it, and how the Hawthorne Heights guys came through…it was super inspiring. And just as friends to watch him and for us to be there for me I just couldn’t really describe it as unless you were there. It’s hard to even say what it was like. It felt like you were in a movie watching the whole thing happen.

And I can echo those sentiments about Casey. I had the privilege of talking with him a couple times after shows and during the Warped Tour and stuff like that. He was a stand up guy, and a very authentic person. So I’m sure everybody misses him quite a bit…The last question I have for you is, what comes next for Amber Pacific? Are there plans to release another EP with some of the singles you guys are tinkering with, or doing some standalone singles for a bit?

Good question, yeah. We have some super exciting things coming down the pipeline, so all I can say is watch this space. We’ve also just announced our signing to Manic Kat Records, which we’re stoked for. I think our people are really going to love <the new material>. If you like Amber Pacific, I think you’ll love it. I think if you don’t like Amber Pacific, but you like pop-punk, you’re too young, and you haven’t heard of us, I’d say, give us a chance, because I think people like it, but they’re still kind of the punk rock guys like me. There’s still some fast stuff. There’s some of the stuff that sounds modern. It sounds like us. I think Matt’s singing better than ever, and I think Will’s written some of his best songs ever, and I’m so proud of all of our records and playing on them, but this is one that’s just like, wow, this is something different that I’m going to be able to give my kids, and just for me, being in my early 40s, how I approached playing on it…I think the way Matt said, I just all a more mature. I say mature, and you instantly think it’s not going to be catchy. It’s super catchy, maybe the catchiest we put out. So I’m excited because I think people will dig it, and then we’ll see where it goes from there, if it gets reception, if we end up getting some shows, more stuff out of it, great. I think the guys will be excited to do it. We’re not looking to jump in a van and do 200 shows a year, because we have kids and families, and that’s not worth it. But if we can do some shows, festivals, and Warped Tour kind of stuff that’s coming back, get on the nostalgia train…we’ve mentioned this before that all the bigger bands that we played with lately, like “Hey, we got a new thing coming out….” And in the last two weeks we had one of the guys from Simple Plan play on a track, and we’ve talked to Mike from MxPx, who’s my favorite band, to play on a track. And we’re getting it out there, and guys are hearing it, and I think it’s been really well received so far. So yes, I don’t know what next year brings, but I will definitely say a new record, probably right at the start of next year, because it’s almost done. It’s still being mixed, but final touches are going on, and it’s…pretty slamming.

That’s very exciting to hear! I wish you guys nothing but the best as you guys move forward in your career. I also look forward to hearing the new record, too!

Thanks, Adam!

more

Not all embedded content is displayed here. You can view the original to see embedded videos and other embedded content.