Photo by Heather HansonThe Toads are back with their second release of 2017, the five-track, 13-minute EP It’s For You. “I’m Sorry” shows off their tasteful repurposing of ‘90s indie, punk and grungy goodness, hitting the mark on this self-described “slacker anthem.” These fresh song would not be possible without the hard work and dedication of guitarist and vocalist Matt Kane, bassist and vocalist Matt Dinaro, and drummer Dylan Valentine.
“I wrote ‘I'm Sorry’ just about a year ago,” tells bassist and co-frontman Dinaro. “It's pretty much about what the lyrics say. The speaker is tired of trying so hard and working so hard and getting what feels like nothing in return,” Dinaro says of a track that turns out to be many things but apologetic. “The lyrics in the bridge are important: ‘You seem proud but just wait a minute, what's the point of a dream if you get it?’
"For the past three years The Toads have existed, I've been pursuing my dreams, and I'm proud of myself for my part in the band, but it can be a depressing experience at times. You cross some goal off your list and there's excitement, but you can feel deflated, and so you set up a further goal, and sometimes you wonder if, paradoxically, you're happier when the carrot's out there dangling than when you actually snatch it,” he muses. Regardless of where you find your greener grass, this track is a fantastic carrot to draw a lister into the whole EP.
The Toads' new EP 'It's For You' is out December 15 and they'll celebrate that same evening with an all-ages show at Clinton Street Theater“Sometimes I almost miss when my ‘career’ in music was mostly just a fantasy,” Dinaro says. “You kind of kill a dream by making it come true. Or else you fail, and you feel like a failure—then, the dream kills you. And that's what the song is about. But it's just a momentary feeling, which is what most of my songs are. Of course I'm happy to be doing this, and not actually sick of working hard—tired, but not sick,” he laughs. “It’s a song of someone who's given up, but I haven't yet.”
“In The Toads, we write the songs separately and bring them to the band, and then we create something together that belongs to the band and not just the songwriter,” Dinaro explains of the trio’s writing process. “The most important part of ‘I'm Sorry,’ as The Toads play, is the tiny lead guitar line in the second verse that Matt K. contributed. It was nearly forgotten during mixing and had to be dug up. The song would have been ruined without it. Truly, everything rests on that one bar, even as it rests upon everything,” expounds Dinaro with his playful, yet serious philosophical outlook.
“We recorded in September 2017 with Hadrian Kindt at the home of his band Fire Nuns, which they call The Convent,” Dinaro says. Using an analog reel-to-reel Tascam “from the mid-‘80s” meant “if you fuck up, you can't fix it easily, [so] you have to make a good take straight through. Fortunately, we're a pretty well-worn band and it wasn't any more difficult to lay down good takes than with digital. There are no musicians on the tracks aside from The Toads, but it is our first recording session with our current drummer Dylan Valentine, who's been an official member of the band for over a year. By finally getting him on (digital) wax, we correct a significant imbalance in the Force,” reveals Jedi Dinaro. As if there was any doubt that he was anything but the complete opposite of a Sith lord.
