EVAN STANLEY & SERGIO ORTEGA of THE DIVES: Bowie, Bars and Instant Gratification
An interview by Sarah Kidd.
What happens when four musicians get together and just click? Magic happens, that’s what. The Dives may still be relatively new to the block but they are making waves with their recently released EP ‘Everybody’s Talkin’. With its mix of alternative rock n roll that has just the right amount of grit to it, the songs are infectious enough to have you hitting repeat upon its conclusion. Based in NYC, The Dives have hit the ground running with tour dates in not only the states but The UK.
I caught up with vocalist Evan Stanley (yes that Evan Stanley, son of the infamous Paul Stanley, lead singer of KISS) and bassist Sergio Ortega to discuss their debut work;
Congratulations on the debut EP ‘Everybody’s Talkin’ guys, it’s a fantastic glimpse into what’s to come for the band I think! So how long from inception to completion did it take?
Evan: Thank you so much! It’s actually been a bit of a drawn out process; we started recording all of the basic tracks in January, we recorded all the guitars, bass and all that and I did a couple of my new vocals there and brought it back to New York to add a few overdubs. But in the middle of that I actually had to get minor surgery to fix some sinus problems I was having so that kinda stalled things and added about a month and a half because I was out of commission; so it took from about the end of January til end of March. It would have been a lot quicker had I not unfortunately had to do the surgery but we didn’t want to rush to finish it, even if it meant stalling a month while I recovered; we wanted to make sure we put out the best product we could.
There’s a real connection that can be seen and heard between you Evan, and guitarist Mike Lefton that certainly adds to the quality of the tracks, how did you guys get to that point?
Evan: I gave Mike a call after hearing nonstop for about a week how great he was playing a set so I finally gave him a call and he came over to my apartment and we started jamming. We clicked guitar playing pretty quickly, but where we really noticed something special was when we started singing together. We grabbed a couple of acoustic guitars and we started to play Simon & Garfunkel and when we started harmonizing that’s when we noticed like ok, this is something special and this is something that neither of us have felt with anyone else before so let’s hang on to it. I brought in Sergio, he brought in Jimmy; it was kinda a mutual moment when all four of us got together, it just felt really right, there was something there that was an intangible sort of ‘Ah-ha!’
I love the fact that on your guys bio its states that when you were looking for a bass player you asked Sergio “to sit in for that show” and then you “never let him leave”. So effectively you were kidnapped Sergio?
Sergio: Oh yeah there was duct tape you know and like … drugs (laughs) No honestly, I didn’t think too much about it, it just seemed like an easy decision. Obviously they brought me in but Evan and I had known each other already for like a couple of years. I did the first rehearsal with these guys and not only was everybody easy to get along with there was just something there; going back to what Evan said earlier we just kind of clicked, that kind of magic doesn’t happen every day.
The Dives is a great band name – was it a group decision or was it a meeting of the minds so to speak?
Evan: I’ll let him tell that one … we were struggling!
Sergio: That was actually the hardest part, just coming up with a name that we all loved! One day we were sitting in this club, probably subconsciously angry that we hadn’t come up with a name yet; and you know it wasn’t the nicest of clubs and I was just like what about ‘The Dives’?
Evan: You know looking back on it, it always felt like a drawn out process, but it wasn’t even that long it was just so frustrating. By the second rehearsal we had a full set of songs ready to go, I mean I was dying to start a band so I had all of these songs in place. The band was already in place, we were all very much on the same wave length and knew exactly what we were going for, there was never any question as to ‘who are we’, ‘what are we doing’ or trying to do it was just, ‘how can we be as good as we possibly can be and what do we call it’ and WHAT DO WE CALL IT IS SO HARD (laughs)
Sergio: Yeah it was frustrating but you know, I threw it out there – what about ‘The Dives’? I mean we were sitting in a dive bar and that was the one everyone went for!
‘Man, Oh Mandy’, what a track, an absolute sing-along anthem! So who is Mandy?
Evan: Mandy is actually Mandy (laughs) it’s a very, very literal song. (Sergio laughing in the background) It’s about a friend of mine when I was down in Nashville; a friend who I think I liked a little more than she liked me (Sergio laughs even louder) but uhh, then I wrote that song and I played it to her the other day and now I think she likes me just fine! So it’s kinda like instant gratification but I’m pretty happy I wrote the song, it paid off (laughs)
During The Dives live performances, Evan, you share many of the vocal duties with Mike, who it appears also has serious vocal chops.
Evan: Yeah I think it really is something special that a lot of other bands don’t have. It’s rare to have four vocalists in a band, four people that can really hold their own which is something really cool! I mean there’s never a question of ‘oh can you sing this part’? It’s always just ‘here’s the part’ and everyone always pulls it off great because we all work very hard to make sure our harmonies are locked in.
It’s an interesting dynamic that Mike and I have because on one hand I’m the lead singer and I sing all the main melodies, but at the same time Mike is almost always singing with me. It was one of the things that may have sparked that chemistry initially is the fact that we both can sing well together and he always catches the littlest of inflections.
You guys do an amazing cover of David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ during some of your live performances and I know that audiences in New Zealand would just love to hear it, any plans to head down this way?
Evan: The plan really is to get down to Australia and New Zealand in the next few months! We just got back from the UK and we have a national tour here in the beginning of August. Selfishly, I would like to get away from the New York winter and maybe come down there, enjoy the sun and play some shows. I’ve never been to New Zealand and I’d love to go; I’ve heard it’s beautiful. So if we’re down there I promise we’ll play ‘Heroes’
Sergio: Yeah it’s definitely on our bucket list you know, have heard nothing but beautiful things about New Zealand.
The Dives have just released their debut EP ‘Everybody’s Talkin’, out now on Castle Communications and available for streaming on Spotify and iTunes, with physical copies available from your favourite record store. For more information on The Dives, you can visit their website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.