We got a chance to sit down with Dillon Gorden and Drew Irwin who make up half of A Letter To You from East Lansing, Michigan. Find out the meaning behind the boys’ band name, a time they almost died on tour and more, all below the cut.
(Dillon Gorden = Guitar | Drew Irwin = Vocals)
Pick up their album Aimless | Facebook | Myspace | Youtube
Q: How did you come up with your band name, A Letter To You? Bottom line is music and most things now-a-days have lost a lot of sincerity and one thing that people don’t usually do anymore is write a letter to someone else. I mean now-a-days its like a text message or a phone call, e-mail, facebook chat, whatever. So A Letter To You is kinda just inspired by one true sincere act that doesn’t really happen anymore, and we’re trying to bring it back. You know, you hear someone’s band name and that’s like the first impression of the band obviously. We want like from start to finish, we want to be sincere in everything that we do, lyrically, musically, everything.
Q: How would you describe your music to somebody who has never heard of your band before? I would just say that we kind of cover all the bases, except for hip-hop we don’t do that. But on a serious note we’re just like a fun band, we like to have a good time and we like to try and write music that will help people. So healing music almost, but not really. It’s something that others can identify with easily, like relatable. We want the show/concert experience to be our relationship between us and the audience. So, however we can put that through amps, drums, mics and however else is how we sound I guess.
Q: You guys were just on the Dude Wheres My Guitar Tour , what was that like and how was it being on tour with Holiday Parade? Holiday Parade has been a band that we’ve known for quite some time, [A Letter To You] used to play with them like all the time so we kinda already had an existing relationship with each other. It was a short tour but it was another acoustic thing. We met a lot of cool people. It was great you know, it’s kinda what we’ve wanted to do for a while, just travel the country and meet new people stuff like that. This tour accomplished the goal so it’s great, I love touring, it’s awesome. We’d love to do it more often for all you bands out there, all you bands and booking agents.
Q: Any like funny tour/highschool stories that stick out? Last time we were here, last year with My Favorite Highway we went to Washington DC. And [Dillon] rode the train for the first time, the metro. It was actually Trevor our bassist and [Dillon's] first time. We were trying to decide where in the city like what stop we wanted to get off at. We went the day of the show so we had to get back at four so we were like “Alright we don’t have that much time what do you wanna see?” And then Trevor was like “Lets see the white house!” and [Dillon] was like “Lets see the capitol!” Or no, no no no no no. How did it happen? Okay, somebody said “Let’s go see the capitol.” and then someone else said, “Let’s go see the white house.” And Dillon tried to make everyone else feel stupid by saying “Dude, those are the same thing.” Because It was early in the morning I guess, so we cleared things up for Dillon and now he knows that in fact they are two separate buildings.
And, we almost died a couple months ago. I swear, legit the closest I’ve been to dying. There’s this place in Michigan called the Crow Foot in Pontiac, like the car Pontiac, you know? And we’re driving back from Pontiac, Michigan to our hometown of East Lansing, Michigan and it was February and it was really crappy weather and our trailor hit a patch of black ice. And when that happened the trailor starts to guide the van, so we were like fish-tailing for a minute, and then fish-tailing and then screaming. And screaming and like “OH MY GOD WE’RE GONNA DIE!” And so we’re fish-tailing and then somehow fish-tailing turns into alright we’re taking up all the lanes, we’re going [length-wise] on the highway. Semi’s coming left and right, about to hit us. It was crazy, I mean they were like slowing down and being good drivers, but so then Evan somehow like pumped the brakes and saved us all. Then, not even five minutes later we were like “Alright we gotta get off and check out all the gear,” like make sure its all okay you know because it could be very detrimental to our bands health if all of our gear was destroyed. We’re pulling off and our drummers still driving and he gets off at an exit ramp that’s 25mph but he takes it at 35 or 40 so then we start skidding again and we’re about to go into this like ditch. So it’s not even like five/ten minutes later, we’re about to die again. Words to the wise, just don’t drive in Michigan in the winter, period, it’s dangerous. Those aren’t even funny, they’re just interesting, breaking news. If Even and Trevor were here we’d probably have a lot more funny stories but, those are the members that aren’t here. Even and Trevor, bassist and drummer. The other half, the better half.
Q: So obviously it was a while ago, back in November right when you released Aimless, right? What was the recording process like? Well [the band has] already been through it you know, and this had been [Dillon's] first record ever that’s been released. Hence the tattoo which is of our album artwork. But basically it was great like it was crazy being in an actual studio and working with Ace Enders, who is a huge huge influence to all of us. He’s super talented, super nice. He’s a great guy, awesome guy. It was a little bit rushed and we were all sick. Even including Drew who had vocals, but he sounded awesome.
Q: How did you fans react to it, and are they any releases in the near future? I don’t know about fan reaction but I can tell you about friend reaction. We have this friend of a band called Way To Fall and check them out its just search Way To Fall I don’t know their link but we were playing a show with them like a couple months ago. It was the Dude Wheres My Guitar tour, it was like one of the last days of that and we were playing in our hometown with these guys and they go, “You guys did something like really different with this record,” stuff like that. And they were like, “Its really inspirational to us and so now when we release our new record we’re gonna wanna do it like you guys.” And so it was just weird like you know having people be influenced by us. So that’s a reaction off the top of my head. With the first ep that we did it was really like straight forward pop-punk and just poppy and catchy and this one we kinda decided to just do something different and we didn’t really know what and a combination of this, that, and the other thing and we ended up recording a bunch of songs that maybe didn’t fit together best and maybe didn’t get recorded like to the best of our ability but people definitely appreciated it. It was a different direction for us and at the time we were all like 18, 19, like I don’t wanna offend any of you pop-punkers out there but you know we’re getting a little old for it I feel like. I feel like I’m not like 14 years old in my basement you know? So like we just tried to do something different and it was nice because we’ve grown up and matured and our fans have as well so it was pretty well received you know. Like its kinda just like they’re not gonna stay 13 forever, we’re not gonna stay 17 forever. Isn’t that a song? No pun intended. Yeah, so I mean I don’t know, it was just really convenient how it worked out I guess.
Q: Okay and anything that you’d wanna let the fans that are listening/reading know? We’re writing a full length. Absolutely, definitely, but theres no time frame now, but we hope as soon as possible. We’ve got songs, we’ve got ideas for songs, we just don’t have the financial backings. We don’t have any money to do it. We’re still in debt from our last record so once that’s all payed off we can start actually making money instead of just bringing in money and then giving it away we’ll be able to move forward and get that out to everybody who wants it. We’re really excited about all the new songs we’ve been writing because they’re even just even more of a step from what we were and we’re pretty excited. Real quick though, I just wanted to let everybody know that we appreciate everything that anyone has ever done for us. I feel like bands don’t say that enough, and if they do then they’re not really sincere about it. We’re sincere, A Letter To You, remember? Remember the explination, just wrappin’ it up. Just rewind a little bit. No, but seriously, anyone whose ever come to a show, not even just anyone whose ever bought anything. If you’ve come to a show, if you’ve listened to our myspace or facebook, whatever, then thank you!
