Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country is on the road for a busy fall tour including the band’s second appearance at the legendary Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ celebrating its 50th anniversary on Friday, October 18, 2024. Cosmic Country will also perform 2-night (October 19-20) at the Ardmore Music Hall in Ardmore, PA (outside of Philadelphia, PA) and a 3-night run at Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg (Brooklyn) NY on October 24-26, 2024. I was able to sit down with Daniel Donato to discuss all things Cosmic.
Daniel, hi, how's it going today?
Very well. How about you?
I'm doing well. I'm getting excited for fall!
Me too man!
How would you describe Cosmic Country musically for people who are who are maybe not as familiar with the band?
Well, country music's kind of like 3 chords and the truth. And the cosmic part of it is all the notes. And the truth? There's kind of a unification of simplicity with complexity.
What are your musical roots?
Traditional country music is my biggest root. Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb. Dolly Parton, Bob Wills, Willie Nelson, those are my biggest roots.
How did growing up in Nashville, TN influence you musically?
Oh, in so many ways. Just living in a town like… and getting to play with the musicians that make the economy of that town. You hear so much.
What other artists do you draw musical inspiration from?
I love Willie Nelson. I think Willie Nelson is kind of the best really. In terms of being attuned. His guitar, having his own voice, having his own personality. For his own vision, staying consistent with his own songs.
Is there anyone else?
Yeah, there's plenty. There's so, so many, it's really an impossible task to kind of denote all of any one person's influences here, because there's also things that aren't directly credited to personalities that are influential in part themselves. You know, some of those have just as much equity. In terms of what influences me over people like books I’ve read, or you know places that I've been, things like that. There's… I think any artist, really or anyone that's creative on any level, kind of the whole sum of their experience is influential to them. If you're really staying open to everything.
I read on your website that the game Guitar Hero also influenced your music. Can talk a little bit about how Guitar Hero has influenced you?
What it did do was help me get interested in playing guitar. That was a big one, you know, cause if it wasn't for that, I probably would have just tried my hand at becoming a skateboarder, which would not have led to as many interviews and shows.
You also talked about grinding for years on your website, to find your sound in reference to your album Reflector. Can you expand on that concept of grinding?
I'm still going. I think you always are. It's kind of tough.
What does grinding mean to you?
Working hard, working hard and staying patient, persistent positive and trying to fulfill a vision that is bestowed internally. You know, so it's integrating the internal and the external in a way that's harmonious for progress and growth. Not retro aggression and diminishment. Because you know, you never, you don't have the luxury of staying stagnant in a realm where there's space and time, you're either growing or you're progressing or you're retrogressing. It's 1 of the 2. Is it God? It's sinful to realize very few things in life are very simple to quantify. But what that is… I think I'll probably always be working for as long as I live and trying to get down to the bottom of what it is and stay a student of what it is. Everything that we've done this year or past years that I've done achievement wise, externally I love those things and I'm grateful for those things and I take inventory of those things but, I don't focus on them. Like we just did the Grand Ole Opry. I got a sign and a poster from doing the Grand Ole Opry for the first time that I hung up in my house and all that. It goes into a place in my house where I do a lot of my work, and so I use all these things as fuel to keep going forward and to keep working and to stay a student and remain a child. This is actually quite difficult.
Congratulations on that accomplishment. How does practice and playing and performing factor into that concept, into that philosophy?
I think all these things are… the practice is more a science really and then playing in itself, I guess it would be part of the philosophy which lends itself to the spiritual experience of creation as a whole. So, practice is more of a technical focus, and it's delegated to a different part of the mind. It's more of a measurable mind, it's more of the regiment-based mind with the order part of mind, which I kind of lean towards, the strength within that domain really easily with discipline and everything. So, I like to do that quite often. Playing is a true expression. It should be a true expression of how one is feeling and when, where one is at in that day, the same with writing. It's kind of just a flow of what it is really, and I think all of these things are really just eternal. I don't think there's an end to these things, which is kind of fascinating. The longer that you do it, the more you realize how long it is. Very strange activities really, I view them in a completely different way than what I did when I was 14.
Does the cosmic portion of your music factor into that, you know, infinitesimally? Kind of philosophy?
Yes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's a theology too. Ultimately, philosophies are. I think the order of it goes something like science is concerned with facts. Philosophy is concerned with meaning. And both are those things render one’s individual theology. And I think it takes a great amount of accountability to kind of realize that and to accept it. And I do tend to notice that, where individuals claim that there's a disconnect between those three things the truth of that statement is even greater. Not ironically enough, so it all renders into my belief system, into my theology.
So that's basically the grind of the universe, the grind of your beliefs. That's really fascinating.
Yeah. I mean, it's very clear that the cosmos is concerned with us to get to work and to bring forth something into creation that is meaningful to us. There's a lot of reasons why I think that. I think one of the most obvious things is that everybody that I talked to really would agree that on many levels, their lives are much more complex as they grow older in contrast to when they were a child. So that definitely says that the more space and time that you invest into your life, the greater the complexity grows, and the work never seems to really slow down and everyone that I talked to pretty much agrees that the work is never done. And so that to me, it is a relative transpersonal pattern of reality that everybody is sharing, despite the personal differences and essences of what makes each person a person. So, if everybody is different yet we're all experiencing the same phenomenon on some level, then that tells me that it's like a cosmological concern that we're being exposed to and being asked to be accountable for. And I love that, you know, that's all I ever really want to know is how can I be accountable? Where can I put in my energy? Where can I put in my spirit and my devotion to what I do? Let me add it, I'll get right to work and that's always been that way, you know, even unconsciously my whole life.
Speaking of accomplishments, Vance Powell produced your album Reflector in 2020. Can you talk a little bit more about who he and how he came about producing that album?
Yeah. Well, we actually cut that back in 2022, and it came out in 2023. For what that's worth, Young Man's Country came out in 2020, and that was with my friend Robert Ford. Two very different albums, different people, different bands, different songs. How it came about was Vance is kind of black sheep on some level in regard to his relationship to Nashville in the music machine that is involved with Nashville. Vance works with a great variety of artists in his portfolio. He has Chris Stapleton and then Jack White, and he also has Phish, so it's kind of hard-to-find relativity between all three of those artists, and yet that there's one producer that's found at the bottom line of all those artists’ records. He has this ability to just find whatever is truthful in the artist and bring it out in the way that is most pungent for whoever that personality is, and I was always attracted to that value by Vance and we just been friends for a while because when before I started doing Cosmic Country I already had a reputation in Nashville and being kind of a hot shot guitar player, every producer in Nashville needs to know all the hotshot musicians, you know. We had already always known each other and when it came time to make a record, he was my first choice to ask. Our next record is also going to be with him fortunately.
How did the current lineup of Cosmic Country come together?
It was like, it was just through, like it wasn't in the traditional sense of the band, like, you know, bands go to college together and they all, like, eat ramen noodle soup together and like do that kind of a thing. I kind of had already been doing Cosmic Country and doing my own thing for years, for five years before I met the band that's with me now. I just looked around on different occasions. John Kelly, I met at Roberts’, he had taught me how to like, identify a great musician. Over a musician that is just kind of a general musician. He taught me how to listen for that spark of personality that's live with everybody and that's what I had always wanted in my band. That seems to make up, you know, that that seems to be the factor that makes great bands, is that they're not just great musicians, but actually great personalities musically on stage and the instrument is secondary to that. So, I had met them all just on different occasions. I met Nathan Aronowitz, who plays keyboards. I saw him at a VFW playing. Will McGee, who plays bass, I met him doing a session once back in 2021 and he came in and played bass and I heard that spark in him and then Will Clark who plays drums, I met him on Jam Cruise. At 3:00 in the morning, during a jam set, just improvising, you know, not being able to go to sleep and just going and playing with some friends on a cruise ship. He sat down at the drum set and the whole room started dancing like it wasn't 3:00 in the morning. Everybody was awake all of a sudden, so everybody kind of has this spark of personality and a light in them and I can hear those things right away and am very lucky to have those guys in my band. They're all amazing musicians.
Wake up and rage, right? So, on stage you guys have a real act to present. So how did your nicknames and overall style on stage come about?
It was just probably always there. It's just the continuation of our personality. That's the thing about music and theatrics, it is really not an act for us. I know we are called that, it's like a musical act and everything, but I'm really concerned with that analogy and meaning of words, always have been. It's really not that. It's more something like the way we play. Like even psychologically, there's a whole hemisphere of the brain that mammals have that that's engaged when people are when beings are playing, and it's called the play circuit. And that's a true expression of personality, which is something you're born with. That’s a true expression of something that is unconsciously offered inside of you that you don't really, that you don't, that you never chose to start it just kind of was there always. An act is something that to me is something that's like you. It's like, it’s more like a subjugation of yourself to get in with like a character, to like promote a character or something that is more of a more of an idea as opposed to a self. So, we really like truly playing up there, which is why I think it's living. It's like living music. There's no act really at all like it. And that's kind of like at the fundamental values of Cosmic Country that it's purely truthful. It’s what we're trying to go for and this is something that's very true to who we are as people. And there's a great price to pay for that accountability and responsibility and not a lot of other musical bands or artists have that. They're more or less, like a lot of the times in Nashville or just general domain of the music industry, there's kind of a persona that happens when one person gets on stage and you know, like the clothes they wear will be very different than the way they'll act, and their mannerism will be very different on stage. That is not us at all. I want us to just be people up on stage. You know, and it's really a humanist value, which is essentially like you know, what the Declaration of Independence is, you know, a belief in the individual and humanism and the righteousness of one personality becoming the best person they can be. So that whole thing was brought to the table for me. That was something that I wanted because I had a lot of experience. Playing in Nashville and being asked to be different people or to sound like different people, or to act like different people and I never liked that. I never got what that was about, really. I never saw, like an enduring value and that I could see how it might work for five years, or 10 years, but I don't see how that how one could create something in their life so meaningful to where it lives on past their life by pursuing that value structure. It seems to me that the people that create things that outlive their temporal lives, or people that are really just concerned with being who they are inside any external gravity to negate the blossoming of that personality, you know.
It's so interesting to hear you say that because I think that what really stands out about you is how original what you're doing on stage is. It's exciting to hear from you that that's really coming from a place of personal truth.
Absolutely, absolutely. And all the truth I’ve covered is through an experiential sovereignty of just having gone through the paces and not having skipped any wrongs on the ladder. So, in all those times where I was very, you know, inquisitive and perhaps frustrated as to why. I had to, you know, I was playing on a Tuesday night to 50 people for $100, you know, and it costs $300 to get there and it's like I can see now why. I can see, I can make sense out of the context of all highway miles that have been ran up at this point and thank God for that too. I'm glad to have taken those steps. It's fantastic. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
How has your summer been?
Yeah, very busy and focused. Very focused summer, we've been just nonstop with everything we've been doing, and it's been a great time, it really has. It's kind of what we dreamed of doing as young musicians, like young kids growing up and now we're actually getting to do these things and they're coming into fruition on our Google calendar, it's awesome.
I've seen and heard a lot of collaborations between Cosmic Country and other artists and bands this summer. Beginning with the performance with Lotus in Vail, Colorado, what has that process been like collaborating with so many artists?
Well, I think that's something that I've always done. Growing up in Nashville, like here's our tradition, that country music and traditional country music and bluegrass music share. Every musician that plays in that genre kind of knows the songbook of that genre really well and you just kind of know all the songs and then you get up and play with everybody. If you learn how to play with others, which is very valuable and hard to do, actually, it's not very… There's a way of doing that and so now that Cosmic Country is out on the road, it’s no longer in Nashville, people, kinds of personalities exist everywhere. I just take this… I bring it elsewhere. If anything gets written down as to that, it's a great honor and that's it's great fun to just be able to meet other people play music with them.
How was it having Tim Palmieri from Lotus sit in?
Easy, really fun, Tim's a great musician and he's a great person from what I can tell. He has his own way that he sees things and so therefore he has his own way that he plays things and it's great to hear some things take. On this infinite thing, that is, you know, playing and communicating, he has a great way of going about it.
You also toured with moe. and Neighbor during the Best Summer Eva tour in July. How did that collaboration come about?
I don't really know how these things start. I think the guys in moe., I think maybe Al, I definitely think it was Al, because Al Schnier, was kind of the guy in moe. that I had the most connection with and we spent the most time talking and philosophizing on concepts and values and music. Routines and regimes and things like that. So, I think he probably saw Cosmic Country somewhere and then put in a word to management, we’re on the same management team. you know, then the agents crunch the numbers, and they sent, you know, 50 emails back and forth to each other then we go on stage and we do this thing. Thank God, that that happened because moe. has been a band for over 30 years so to be able to see how they go about working… What they do is invaluable to a young band like us and a young artist like myself. It's invaluable to see that, it's truly something you can take with you forever.
That tour opened at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park. Was that your first time playing at the Stone Pony?
I think it was. Well, when we had played at the Stone Pony, we sat in with the Tangiers Blues Band after Sea.Hear.Now (Music Festival). My friend… and then my friend Danny from Greta Van Fleet, came and sat in with us too, Jenny Wagner. So, we had played, we had sat in at the Stone Pony and played a couple songs, but we had never done like a full set there. So, July 4th of this year is our first full set there and then Danny Clinch came in and sat in with us again too as well because Danny's a brother.
Danny Clinch sat in on your set then you also performed with him with moe. So how did that collaboration come about?
You know, my answer to always how did these things come about, always delegate them to… So there's act and then there's effort. You know, and so I think the efforts are made by people, but to me, the act itself is a very spiritual causation for me, I don't really believe in coincidence of any kind. So, whenever we get the chance to meet somebody or play with them, I always view that as me just kind of stumbling along humbly into a great opportunity of something that has a causation that could be sourced to something that is invisible or see through. More or less, then it's just like, well, that I knew this guy, or he knew this girl. And then, you know, we met. And then, you know, worked for this person at one point in time that, you know, we meet then we play and it's always… but to me, it's all just the cosmicity of this whole experience. Getting to meet people that you were supposed to meet, you know, and try to learn what it is you're supposed to learn from them. Everybody has something different to tell you know. What Danny Clinch has to teach me is something different than Tim Palmieri has to teach me and that is different from what moe. has to teach me, you get what I’m saying.
Yes, that's awesome. What was it like performing on the Stone Pony Summer Stage during the 50th anniversary of the Stone Pony?
So righteous, so righteous. My family's from New Jersey. My mom and parents are from New Jersey, and so are their parents.
Where are they from in New Jersey?
My dad is from East Brunswick and my mom from Atlantic City and my dad grew up in Lavalette in the summers and then before we moved to Nashville, the family had a beach house in Seaside Heights when we lived in New Brunswick. So, New Jersey holds its place in my heart, and there's a lot of values that are alive in the community and peoples of New Jersey that influence who I am as a person. Going to go and celebrate a symbolic gathering place of the peoples of New Jersey that is the Stone Pony, one of the most legendary places in the whole state for such a great event, 50 years for a venue to be running, especially in this economy, it's an amazing thing to witness. It's very rare. Like, that something like that gets to happen and so it was a fantastic time. It was very fun and I loved the 4th of July. I love this country, and I love the values that this country was founded on so it was a great day. One of those days that you just remember forever.
I agree, it was an awesome show. What was it like performing with moe. each night during that extended Best Summer Eva tour?
They didn't have to do that. They didn't have to get me up on stage with them every night. That was very nice of them. Yeah, I'm just one kid really. And so they, you know, they have a devoted fan base that's been following them around, supporting them for 30 years. I'm eternally grateful for that notion. You know, they were essentially giving me a music lesson each night that I was up on stage with them, and they didn’t have to do that. We've toured and opened for a handful of bands, and I've done it as a solo artist prior and I would say the collaboration that that we experienced with moe. was the most sophisticated and personal and benevolent that that we, I've had the sum total of my experience and that was so not necessary on their end. I'm so grateful for it and they're brothers to me forever. It was a music lesson each night I got to go up on stage with them. It's, you know, to play with the band like that has been successful for 30 years, to actually share the stage like that and be vulnerable with them is amazing.
What are some of the other bands that you and Cosmic Country have performed with this summer?
This summer we played with Widespread Panic. We played with Umphrey's McGee, we played with the Kitchen Dwellers. We played with Eggy, the latter 2 bands being more peers of ours, and our friends that are on a similar level to us. We've opened up a few shows for Greensky Bluegrass as well. There's another legendary band.
What about the collaboration with Leftover Salmon?
I was just going to say Leftover Salmon at the Capitol Theater (in Port Chester, NY). That is insane too, and that was another. and then Phil Lesh too. And Mike Gordon from Phish. See, when I say all these things it sounds crazy to me because it's just like so many heroes of mine that I've been listening to for so long. With Leftover Salmon, that was really a special night because we got to do that at the Capitol Theater and we got to do it in celebration of the life and music of Jerry Garcia, who's kind of the primal causation of this whole scene really. That one person, really. So, to me, it's all very special and it's very sacred to me. It's very sacred. And I really try to do my best to not to take a single second of it for granted. You'll find me, you know when we're doing things like this, if there were to be like, a camera on me there would be a lot of moments where I'm just kind of walking around the building by myself with my eyes closed and just breathing and being grateful for this whole thing. And the fact that you know, I guess I get to take my spot in line and just be a part of whatever is happening right now. It's very great. It's very nice, man. Leftover Salmon, again another band that's been together for 30 years. We also got to open up for them at the Blue Ox Music Festival up in Eau Claire, WI, which is a festival we've been playing consistently for the past three years and we're going to play next year too. It's just a lot, it's a… it's really a lot. I'm very grateful for.
What is the difference in the band's preparation when you are performing just one set a night compared to when you're performing a full 2 set show?
Well, the one set show we usually don't write a setlist for those because we're usually doing festivals for those, so the arena of the mind and the psychology of the of the situation is very different, a hard ticketed, headlining show. Both for the listener and the artist. At a festival, there might be a lot of people that are there to see you but also people who might just be there otherwise and happen to see you. At a headlining show, no one's really there by accident, so the value structure is kind of similar. There's a lot more preparation that goes into headlining shows and I write the set lists and it's usually the first thing I do in the morning. I wake up, get some coffee and I'll start reading and then the setlist will also come to me in that time, and I'll write it down in my notebook and then it goes into the computer, and then I sit on it for a while and then things end up changing. Usually by the time you arrive at the venue, at around 1:00 or 2:00 PM, the setlist is done and ready to go. And it's quite a lot, you know. Like we just did Levon Helms’ studio and in Woodstock, NY and I try to have the setlist… The thing with Cosmic Country is that you know, live music is… if you really think about what the word symbol means you're actually better off calling it living music. All we ever are doing is living life, so I try to have life be an informative factor and collaborator into what goes into the setlist. So wherever we're playing, the history of that place is going to inform what's going on with the setlist too. So, like when we played at Levon Helms’ barn and Woodstock this past weekend, that was a two-set night. The environment, the physical size of the building informs the setlist. The history of the peoples that went out to make the narratives and story of that place also informs the setlist where we pulled out, you know, Lefty Frizzell’s Long Black Veil and then maybe we do Quinn the Eskimo or we'll start to set off, you know, more acoustic to try to compensate for the volume that's in the room. And then we'll lean into things more cosmically and electrically as the night goes on, as opposed to us playing like Red Rocks or something where we can just come out at, you know, 9900 decibels right out of the gate. It's a very nuanced living situation. Each time there's a lot that goes into it, you know.
When you're not touring and grinding musically, what are some other activities you like to enjoy during your downtime?
I love spending time with my girlfriend. I love hanging out in my cabin. Reading, hiking, cooking dinners that are healthy and not greasy like gas station food is that we eat so much (laughs) you know, things like that.
Not that you have a lot of downtime since tomorrow starts a very busy fall tour. What are you looking forward to most or what are you looking forward to during fall tour?
I really like, I really love the opportunity that that any one night of music can present to anybody and making that the most that it can be. There was a fan, there was somebody that's in our community that came up to me when we were in Richmond a few weeks ago, at the beginning of somewhere in August, for a jam-packed festival. He came up to me and told us that during one of our sets, one time, he was in a nursing home with his mom, and his mom was on his way out and she knew, and he knew, and she wanted to listen to some music. She saw that we were streaming the show. That we were playing that night, and he wasn't obviously at the show, but he could listen digitally. So, we started our set and it was our Luck reunion set from Willie's Ranch down in Luck, Texas. It was a 45 minute set and we started the set and by the time the set was over she had passed. So, that means that the last… That the last series of music that she had ever heard came from my hands and my voice and my band's hands in their voice. That's important. At least to me, you never know what it is, that what you're doing is actually, objectively. It's obvious that what you're doing is… you know there's meaning for you on a person level and there's meaning you know you can try to project what it might mean to you on any given moment, but you might not. To know what it objectively means to the sum of the whole is, well, not impossible really, so I'm just looking forward to playing music with a very sacred devotion and consecration to making it. This is just the most truthful, cosmic that it can be. You know, we never know what's going on in the hearts and souls of any one person in our community on any given night that we're playing. So, any night that we are playing is an opportunity for music to be a spiritual experience for somebody. So that's a great sacred gift. And I'm just looking forward to receiving more of those opportunities, making the most of them.
Yeah, that's very profound, thank you. Thank you very much for sharing that story.
Absolutely, absolutely.
I'm very excited about the fall tour leg through Jersey, Philly and New York City starting with the Pony show. What is it going to be like for you returning there this fall?
It's a great opportunity. You know, wild legendary nights of music happened in that building. So, we get to be a branch on the tree. It's great! Or maybe just a leaf, I don't really know metaphorically how we contribute to it. Bruce Springsteen is at least the branch on the tree. But maybe we're more belief then at that point. It's great… It's a great privilege because coming from somebody who started busking on the street, you know, playing on a street corner, really. It’s great to be able to play places, venues that have a history and are sacred to people. It's very nice. It's a great privilege and none of it really is lost on me.
This section of tour also includes multiple nights in Philadelphia at the Ardmore Music Hall and then a three-night run at Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg (Brooklyn, NY). How does the band prepare differently for multiple nights compared to a single show?
Well, it gives us more time. It gives us more time to take our time. And with that you could have a greater payoff. You know, and that's the challenge unto itself that we're really happy to find ourselves in now, something that I've always wanted to do is to do residency runs of 2 to 3 nights, 4 nights at places I find our community really loves it. They love setting up shop, making stickers and posters and shirts. They love seeing their friends. They love guessing what the setlist is going to be. People, the personalities that make up our community are very intelligent, intuitive and imaginative, creative people. They're not on autopilot when they're at our shows like there… it's a very collaborative experience between the 2 of us. Between the community off stage and then us all on stage so, there's more of an intimate thing. There's more of an intimate experience and transaction that happens when we get to set up and play for a couple of nights in the same town. I'm very excited for that. How do we prepare differently? I would say as we just take it… I personally, just try to take in all these variables into consideration and just let that inform how I feel as a human and just play from that place and stay connected to that place. Know what I'm saying?
Yeah I do. How is recording in the studio different than live performance for Cosmic Country?
Well, I'll put Ansel Adams as an answer. So, like as a gateway to the answer. I've been able to go to some of the places that Ansel Adams took photos of. Zion in Utah? Yeah. The National Park in Jackson, WY. The red, you know it's in California. And so, you know, in order to…this is kind of forced to create a crystallized relic of what it is that they're actually, physically experiencing. I would say going into the studio is like more or less taking a picture of the forest, of the Redwood Forest. But then, like playing live is like actually getting to be in the Redwood Forest and smell it and fill the air to appreciate the grandeur and feel the humbleness of one's own size and contrast to size of the whole. That's a living thing. That's a fluid. And then to contrast, the fluid would be a crystallized experience, which is capturing it in a frame or capturing it within according to the same thing. Functionally speaking, the way that you would measure a photo is different than the way you would measure recording, but functionally they serve as the same thing. So, it's kind of like that really. Kind of… Just like it's a, it's a fundamental difference between a fluid living situation as opposed to like a crystallized relic of some sort. I love playing live way more than I love making records and I love making records, but I would prefer to play live all the time.
That that's a great metaphor that you used and coincidentally, Ansel Adams is my favorite photographer...
Yeah, I love Ansel Adams. Well, it feels like that to me. It really does. You know, because when we get to play these songs live, I can feel the emotion and actually see the emotion in myself and other people that the song wants to break forth into people's lives and I can't do that with records. I can only just make it think that it feels right and that it feels good enough and then send it off. I can't really see our fans listen to our music. Or anything like that, you know? So, I prefer the human living communal part of it way more than I do the record side of it. But I understand that that both are necessary and I do love making records, but I really love playing live, that's also just where I shine the best too. I'm not really that great at recording artist if you ask me. I'm more about the live.
Is there any work upcoming for the band in the studio?
Oh, yeah, yeah. So, we're going to get together with Vance Powell again at Sputnik Sound, his studio in Berry Hill in early January and we're going to knockout this record and this record is going to be not, we're not going to get in our way in any way that’s measurable at all. We’re just going to do what we do live and just leave the rest to chance (laughs) and just hope Vance turns on the board when we're all on a good take, which he will.
So where does the saying dern come from?
Where does dern come from? Is amazing so that is a... So, you know, ok, so that's wild, that's the first time I've ever been asked about dern during an interview. Dern came from our tour manager, Joe Lentini. He’s been out with us on the road ever since we started touring as a band. We did one run without Joe and that was at the end of 2021 and the start of 2020. He's from New Jersey and he drives like somebody from New Jersey. So, he doesn't really like, let anybody get in the lane in front of him and he'll try to cut somebody off if he's turning left onto a main road, flips people off, yells at them, tells them have a small penis, you know, things like that. And it's great. It's a… little terrifying at times. There is this one period of time where Joe had ordered like 64 red clown noses off of Amazon and was putting them on at just random moments. Try to like freak out people at the venues and like let people know the venues to, like, have fun. Remind them that, you know, we're here to have fun, and that would be nice. And so, we were at a Buc-ees gas station once and we were late to a show, so we had to kind of get there fast, so Joe cut somebody off turning left out of the Buc-ees and the person started flicking him off and was getting all mad. Joe turned around, and then all of a sudden put on the clown nose and then rolled down his window and yelled, how ya dern at him and that terrified the person, so the person stopped messing with him and just let him go. And we all thought that was so funny that, and we just kind of never let it go. And then how ya dern got consolidated to dern and I don't really know what it is now. Think it's probably just symbolic of how language is a living thing that's fraught with symbols of abstract meaning. Yeah, the fans have it now. It's unbelievable that people are getting it tattooed on their arms. It's crazy, like Jesus H Christ, you know, that's the thing about our communities, like, we're… they're in it with us just as much as we are, like we share the same language. You know what I mean? It's the greatest cosmological gift that I could ever have asked for in my life. It's all I've ever wanted.
That's awesome. Is there anything you would like to say to your fan base in anticipation of the fall tour?
Yeah, that I love them in a place of no space and time and I'm so I'm so grateful for the time that they invest to fill up space with us. Beyond that, I take each and every one of them into full accountants and none of it is for granted, that without them none of this happens.
More information about Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country is available here including information about their upcoming fall tour.
ALL PHOTOS BY CHRIS PAUL
