September 2013 interview with Serosia vocalist Lucas D'Agata by Todd Jolicoeur

It’s always fun to learn of a young band that has put in the work necessary to take themselves to the next level.  When that young band is praised by other rocker friends, I take an even closer look – with Serosia, I found a band that is well in my musical wheel house and I recently got to speak to lead vocalist Lucas D'Agata…

ToddStar: Lucas, how are you?

Lucas: I’m wonderful, how are you?

ToddStar: Good thank you.  First, I want to thank you for taking time out of your schedule for us, we really dig the EP that was forwarded to us, and are looking forward to seeing you guys on a bigger level now.

Lucas: Yeah, it’s been quite exciting. We’ve been doing Texas and around this region for quite some time, you know we’ve been biding our time to get on a national level, but with tours and the price of having the tour being expensive, we were waiting for the right one and I think we’ve nailed it down.

ToddStar: We’ll get to your tour in second, but let’s talk about the EP, Variables. You guys have had other releases, but this just seems consistent and strong from the first note to the last. What can you tell us about this EP?

Lucas: Well, first off it’s our fourth EP, and I think that with this one it’s the first extremely cohesive EP that we’ve done. Most cohesive work we’ve done as band for sure, in the fact that we started preproduction about 6 to 8 months before hand, with Christian Machado who’s our manager, we were sending tracks digitally to him, for over half a year. So when we went into the studio, with these songs, we were extremely confident that everybody knew them, was comfortable with them and it wasn’t the first time hearing them when we stepped into the studio. But as far as a recording aspect, it was extremely comfortable to record them and just the vibe in general was great. The songs themselves were inspired by life, inspired by our will to not only succeed, but to get our message of expanding your consciousness to a broader audience, and just letting people know that for us it worked in our life, and the songs kinda reflect what we’ve gone through, in that battle, to let the world know about the bigger picture rather than your just plugged in, 9 to 5, dumbed down reality that seems to be persistent in the world nowadays.

ToddStar: You mentioned that you even thought that this was the most cohesive release, and I would tend to agree, after going back and listening to some of your older stuff. Is it something that you think just over time you guys built up a better songwriting and playing, or is it bringing in someone like Christian, where he was there since the beginning, who’s been involved in the whole process, so it wasn’t just; show up and produce the EP. Which do you think it really was, or was it a combination of everything?

Lucas: Definitely a combination, right off the top of my head, the two most important factors for the first two EPs that we put out, we had a second guitar player, and different bass player, and that changed up after we released the second EP and we picked up Joseph Cuban, after which we did a 3 song sampler and Variables was the next after that. I think we got into our groove with Joseph, because he’s a major songwriter and extremely important in the song writing process. You know, there’s something to be said about having the perfect ingredients to make something, and with him, he just wafted in, he writes exactly like we do, and when I say we, me, Anthony and Derek. Everything just fit perfectly when we started writing this record. Not to mention Christian coming into play which was the other huge benefit, and was something we hadn’t done before, having a producer along for the ride, normally it’s just show up to the studio, throw the tracks down, they find out about them that day or maybe a week in advance and they’re not too attached. Christian was extremely attached to the songs, down to every single word that on there we talked about and discussed its meaning, you know, just tried our best to improve it without degrading the song too much from the original way that we had put it out there. I can’t say enough about Christian how much he’s helped us out, in shaping the record and in general who we are as artists, allowing us to be ourselves and not feel like as a producer he’s was coming in and just trying change everything and do a hits factory kinda thing. He was more rounding the band off and making us cohesive. And allowing us to make songs that all make sense together and directing us in that way, where if we stray from it a little bit he’d let us know and say, “do this here, and that’s gonna round it off a little bit better and make that edge smoother”.

ToddStar: Cool, you mentioned the tour, you guys have booked out a pretty big tour, and that’s kicking off shortly, and that’s with Sevendust? How pumped are you guys to be on that bill?

Lucas: It’s extremely exciting, you work your butt off for years, and it pays off. That’s another thing about our band, we’re work horses, we will work and work and work, into the wee hours of the night. Basically everyday of the week rehearsing and we’ve been doing it for many years, all playing music since we were single digits of age. So to get here to this level, is something that we’ve always wanted to get to, but it took a little bit longer than we wanted , but now that it’s here it’s all worth the wait, and everything in the past kinda it feels like it was all there for a reason and now couldn't be a better time to come out with this record, and with the momentum that we have with it, Christian and everything involved, it’s the right time for us; we couldn’t be more stoked honestly.

ToddStar: October 4th you guys are gonna swing through Flint, Michigan - which is not too far from where I am - and you’re gonna play The Machine Shop. Have you heard yet of The Machine Shop (http://www.themachineshop.info/?

Lucas: We have heard amazing things from all over the US, we have friends and bands that are national, that are regional and local, and from all they just have everything to say about The Machine Shop, they think it’s the greatest venue. It’s funny because merchandise people at The Machine Shop must be pretty happy too, because I’ve seen Machine Shop shirts from every show out here in Dallas, at least two or three there was somebody wearing a Machine Shop shirt, so when we booked that we were pretty stoked just to get out there for one to see what it looks like and what all the hype was about, and for two, it just seems pretty legendary, so anytime we can be associated with something legendary we’d love that.

ToddStar: I think you’ll be happy when you show off, the fan base is typically crazy rockers, and knowing some of the people over there myself personally I think you’ll be well treated. [Awesome] Speaking of other people I know quite well, Chris and Laz could not speak highly enough of you and Chip said, “Hey I’ve got these young guys looking for some exposure, what can you do?” and I got hold of Chris and Laz and they said, “Yeah, dude pump them up.” Any good stories you can tell me about Chris and Laz, out of the studios when were up at the Soundwars Studios?

Lucas: Well, I’ll give two. One being serious, one being a story they probably don’t know yet, but we’ll soon find out. One, being in the studio itself, and being pretty big Deftones bands, Chris and Laz have seen the world, and they’ve gotten to tour with bands that we could at this point only dream of, hopefully soon that’ll be a reality. But at that point, it was just kinda awe inspiring to hear some of the stories, it was kinda crazy for them to talk about, in passing, how they were invited out to parties that Chino Moreno had, and some activities that went on there, and how Chino was kinda wasted and stuff, and for us to hear that coming from them puts you into a perspective of, ‘I’m having this conversation right now,’. So on that level, being in the studio, being around true rock stars that have done it and are honestly some of the nicest people in the business, that was extremely cool. But as far as the recording process their professional all the way and they make it comfortable, it’s like hanging you’re out with a group of your friends that know everything about your band and only want you to succeed in the highest way possible. So speaking on the studio and Soundwars in general, I would recommend that place to any upcoming band who are dead serious about having a career in music, they absolutely killed it for us. As far as a personal story, we stayed at Laz’s apartment the whole time we were in Jersey recording the record, when we first got there he was like, “you guys are totally cool, you guys are awesome, just come hang out, you can stay at our place, or you can stay at my place, just don't trash it. Thing is, you guys’ll be getting in there at two, three o’clock in the morning, and the landlord is like the next door neighbor, so you gotta be quiet and respectful,” and just by nature, us 4 dudes are very respectful people, when obviously in a situation like that we’re not gonna anger the rock star, you know what I’m saying? [Sure] We get done the first day at the studio, we had driven 25 hours straight to get from Dallas to Hoboken, and I mean straight, we stopped for bathroom breaks and gas, but we got there and we’re all exhausted. We loaded in our gear got acquainted with the studio, got there around ten thirty, by two o’clock we had said our hellos, and kinda just going to sleep for the night, and were going over to the apartment because it’s in walking distance from the studio, and we get there and we’re still tired, but just completely excited about the entire experience that’s going on, and our guitar player Derek was like, “You know what, let’s just make food, let’s not buy food, let’s make some. We’re in New Jersey, we gotta just get with the spirit.” It sounded like a great idea, so we walked down to like these little bodegas that were open 24 hours, and bought all these fancy pizza ingredients. And we bring it back, get inside the apartment, and everyone is on a high from what’s going and getting pumped about recording the next day, and we start cooking this pizza and 10 minutes into it, we realize the apartment’s kinda smoky and just suddenly the alarm goes off, and it’s 3 o’clock in the morning, and the smoke alarm is going off, and it is LOUD. It just buzzed for, well we couldn’t get the thing out for 5 minutes straight, and we were freaking out like, “oh my god this is it! We’re getting evicted out of this apartment,” luckily nobody came by, but that was hilarious. It was one of those things in the moment, I can’t believe of all things that could go wrong, it was the smoke alarm that was gonna screw us here.

ToddStar: Very cool, that’s a good story.

Lucas: They don’t know about that so that should be funny for them to hear [laughs].

ToddStar: Yeah! [laughs] Let’s forward a little bit. 2013, you guys are finally getting some national exposure, which you’ve been lookingfor, and working really hard for, let’s be honest. At this point, what’s the meaning of life for you?

Lucas: The meaning of life for me personally, is to get my message and my lyrics, and my bands music, to have brought an audience as humanly, metaphysically, possible. My whole life has been about music, all the major events in my life can tie into some sort of musical connotation. My father was my reason I started playing music, he passed away a couple of years ago, suddenly. And when that happened, Anthony the drummer - my brother- and I made an even stronger pact than we ever had, that we just won’t stop. It doesn't matter if we’re successful or not, we just won’t stop until something goes with Serosia. So looking into the future, I know I not only have a drummer that’s in it to win it, there’s two other guys, head strong into making music The future is bright for us, I don't see us giving up I don't see us stopping at any point, I think that we’re gonna be a touring band. We just wanna tour, we wanna be out there playing shows all over, all over the world.

ToddStar: As you’re getting ready for this road trip with Sevendust, what’s the one thing that you plan on taking with you on the bus or van that you can’t leave home without?

Lucas: Well, aside from my phone, I guess the phone is something you need, I would say probably 5 or 6 large books. I’m a book reader so, I’m gonna hit up half read books or something and go get my favorite size book. I think that’s gonna be the most important, because I’ll be driving a lot of it. I like to drive and have that silence to myself, but when I’m not the books are gonna be all important. There’s gonna be a TV in there and all that stuff, really I’m just gonna put on some noise cancellers and read my book and I couldn't think of anything more attractive in my life than driving from show to show reading a book and then showing up and playing a rock show.

ToddStar: Awesome, well listen Lucas I really appreciate you taking time out for us today. Can’t wait to see the rest of the world pick up this EP and give you some of the exposure you want, you need you deserve and I really can’t wait for you to experience The Machine Shop on October 4th. I can’t wait to be there to watch you guys enjoy it.

Lucas: Thank you so much, and yes, I mean we obviously can’t wait to get out there and get some more Serosia family and fans, meet you and get everything going. So thank you very much for the interview, it was great.

ToddStar: No problem Lucas, looking forward to seeing you guys out there building the name and fanbase.

Lucas: Yes sir.

ToddStar: Alright Lucas, we’ll see you October 4th.

Lucas: Alright, have a good one.

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