A Day Without Love, how did that start out?

I’ve been playing guitar since I was 18 and the name A Day Without Love came from a poem that I wrote when I was writing a poetry book called 365 of Being Alive. I was playing music but I wasn’t doing it actively but around 19 or 20 I started doing open mics but I only introduced myself as Brian Walker. Then I went through all of my old poems and thought A Day Without Love because the poem was about a time that I witnessed spousal abuse on a campus I was on and I stopped the incident from happening. I thought to write songs around human conflict and most of those conflicts being ones of my own or things I’ve witnessed and/or experienced so I thought A Day Without Love because the first day you find without love is the day you find chaos.

 Solace is both the name of the record you’re releasing and the video we’re premiering. Talk about those a little bit.

Solace came from a lot of confrontations with inner demons inside and just where I’ve been musically and where I’ve been in my life overall. I’ve had a lot of big growing up and changes that have happened to me since the writing of the song, like, I lost my grandfather to lung cancer, I stopped drinking alcohol, I lost my first serious day job, I went through a band breakup. Even though the band is just me right now, I had two lineup changes and those lineup changes weren’t even out of personal disgust, they just had adult life things to do I wanted to do this full fledging. I had a lot of loss and a lot of friendships lost and systematic things happening, issues just like with life. So I know a lot of my songs prior are kind of like “I’m this young dude and I hate where I’m at” but now it’s kind of like, I have to face my fears, I have to confront these things I’ve been trying to hide away or drink away and pretend things are ok and I wanted to peace in myself while trying to overcome the struggle. The song Solace is about sticking true to your passions while realizing that your life might not be like others and knowing that not being like some people is kind of a struggle but at the same time its peaceful because you you’re not being define by society standards, thus the line “I know it’s not easy to live a life of insecurity.”

 You could hear that in the song. The song is somber and slow and reflects that mood. The slide guitar in particular really adds to that feeling as well. Where did the influence for that slide part come from?

It’s interesting that you say that because we were actually not going to have that slide in there at all and that was written by my producer Jake Detwhiler. He was mimicking my vocal line “let me live” because I said “yo, let’s figure out something that mimics that line” and at first we wrote is as just a bend but went back and forth between slide or no slide. My drummer at the time, who also plays guitar, was like “slide is cheesy” and then I realized, thematically speaking, this record is supposed to be the summation of what I’ve done before and how I’m going to move forward. The last time I used slide in any recordings was in my first record Island, so we thought to bring back the slide. Granted my music gets labeled as alternative-emo, I love the blues, so that’s how we settled on keeping the slide.

 I think that’s cool because you don’t hear that in this type of music that often, if at all. It’s unique and it sets you apart. Talking about your blog post titled “Being Black In A White DIY Scene,” one thing you wrote about are how your influences differed from other peoples, which I found extremely interesting because you were pulling in pieces of  BB King, Bill Withers and Motown and you can hear that influence. Do you think the way your influences differs from others attracts them more to your music?

I would say so. As silly as it sounds, if I got a dollar for every time someone came up to me and said and said “nice chords bro,” I‘d probably be pretty rich. For me, I’m just adapting the soul and blues and stuff I learned into my music. When I first started playing the guitar I had an uncle who played bass and he would come over and have me play Sitting on the Dock of the Bay for hours and it drove me nuts. And then we do a song by The Stylistics and all of these traditionally soulful songs of the sixties and don’t get me wrong, I love soul with all my power. I think the best way I can incorporate it into my music and the message I’m writing is trying to create those chords and making it rock. I didn’t grow up with Green Day. I listen t Green Day or The Ramones but it just wasn’t my staple. It was there but what’s at the home was listening to Bill Withers and Marvin Gaye and stuff like that.

 You mention that you decided to take part in the DIY community because of the impression to you than it actually ended up being and you ended up feeling otherwise.

My first DY show ever was at a coffee shop in New Jersey with this band called Track Royalty. They were the most accepting people ever and they were a 2007 MySpace type hardcore band. They said “I think you should try playing this” because I went to Penn State all I heard was Sweet Home Alabama and I thought that was all of music, you know, just coming to a bar and playing Sweet Home Alabama. So I realized that there was a community of people that was so much more accepting and will listen to you and care about you and are more appreciative of original music. That’s what I was taught about these people and coming from bars, it was very intimidating and not just because of how hard it is to turn a bar crowd but every time, someone would remind that I’m black. There were times I would play at bars locally in Philly or even at Penn State where someone work drop the N word and say things like “I’ve never seen an N word do that” or “I’m surprised a black guy is still playing guitar these days.” I know over the years of playing DIY scenes, granted I’ve had accepting experiences, I’d have some crucial moments where it felt no different than being at a bar. Another example, it’s very off-putting to be told your music is soulful when you’re not writing soulful music. My music is kind of angsty, grungey, alternative rock music.

 So it’s people just saying something because they feel like you’ll connect with because you’re black essentially.

Exactly. If I sang Ain’t No Sunshine at the beginning of my set and said I was soulful, I’d say damn straight I’m soulful because I just sang a soulful song but I’m not singing those songs. It’s not saying I cant but I choose not to because I think I wouldn’t be doing a service to the original type of music and to the art but I just think it’s a slap in the face. It’s almost as bad as when you hear a lo-fi recording of, say, a female artist and you don’t talk about the art but you talk about her gender. You say, “Oh that was beautiful and sexy” when there was nothing sexy about that song to begin with and I think that it’s disservicing to the artist. That’s another thing that’s different about this record because not once in any of my other songs have I brought up race. I needed to address that and I needed to talk about that because I’ve definitely gone through a lot of things in Philly and in other places over the years where I was approached with “oh, we thought A Day Without Love was a white guy.” I have definitely gone to venues and loaded in and people didn’t believe I was the person I was or “your voice doesn’t match your skin.” That being said to me, granted it sounds harmless, but it actually is pretty harmful.

 It’s interesting that you bring up women because of the amount that is currently being written about the inequality of women as well in the music industry. You don’t really see a black opinion in the inequality discussion in the music scene, at least not the extent that you’ve written. How do you see this issue moving forward and how do you think it should be handled?

I think in DIY scenes we’ve been talking about opening the dialogue and being aware for a long time but we’re not doing those things. I wish I had my own DIY house but I would be doing a lot of these things but I think it would be really productive if we did things to reflect the diversity that we desire and what I man by that is having shows that aren’t just DIY and punk because the thing is, if you want to have black people in a DIY scene, you’re going to have to include the type of music that black people are playing and you have to do that in a way that is so stream less that it looks like you’re doing in because you appreciate the music, not because you want black people in the scene. I know for a fact that I have black peers that appreciate my music but wont go to shows because of the demographics there which in itself is a problem. The point I’m trying to get across is the way we can eliminate and diversify and eliminate biased thinking is by creating diversified events where it doesn’t feel like its just one specific type of genre, one specific type of people, one specific type of community and then say that we’re open to all communities. At the end f the day you’re going to have people that like certain things because that’s their preference but when it comes to race and eliminating the biases that come along with it, I think the best thing you can do is try to see things for what they are and eliminate the language where you want to put someone’s demographic before their music because granted every demographic your are, that’s apart of what makes you you, but if you use a persons demographics to define a person I think that’s the part that makes people feel labeled and I think we need to eliminate that from our conversation, eliminate that from our actions. When I go to some shows, and I’m not going to say all shows, people are going to say “that’s A Day Without Love” versus “that’s a black musician that plays as A Day Without Love” I think it’s really bad when you see me as a black person playing as A Day Without Love versus just seeing me for the music I’m writing.

 It’s kind of the same thing when you bring in the issue of identifying a band with a female singer as female fronted instead of just whatever the band is.

That’s exactly what I’m saying. I think at least from DIY perspective we need to diversify the way that we operate our communities down to the houses we book in to the shows that we book to the people we collaborate with, without using demographics as a factor in how we’re going to diversify.

 Would you compare the lack of action you see in your scene to the facebook warrior who writes a million words about an issue but you never se that person actually outside doing something for the cause?

I definitely would pair it because at least in the DIY community I see a lot of thoughts and opinions but I’m not seeing much action and I think it would be very great if we could put a lot of those words and thoughts into action because after that action comes, a change in the way we think, the way we feel and the action becomes a real community brought together.

 You’ve mentioned that this is the first time you’ve written songs about race. Tell us about the background behind those and why you thought now was the right time to do that.

Granted, Solace the single, isn’t exactly much about race but more about dealing with depression, trying to find comfort in not being like other people and even though it wasn’t written directly about race, those feelings definitely come from it. There are four songs specifically about race on the record. I felt like it was the time to finally my time to come out about the truth of who I am, and that’s not saying I was never honest with any of my songs, but there were certain topics that I thought need to be brought about. My whole theme of the record was to talk about the inner things that bother me as a human being and literally make me almost hate myself and how I’m trying to find peace with that. For a lot of my life even outside of the music community I’ve definitely had events that have happened that have made me resent that I’m black. Like the song Constantly Ignored is actually about racism from the in-group and the out-group because I used to get bullied by black people for being educated. I did speech therapy when I was young because the catholic school said I had a very urban Philadelphia accent. I grew up in a black neighborhood and black kids would try and fight me because they thought that I thought that I was better than them and that’s not the case at all. I was raised to accept people for who they are. So that’s the type of thing I wanted to get across was me trying to find peace within myself. I thought, me as a musician and sticking with my mission of writing songs that make people think while still rocking out, it would be a great idea to talk about race because I think id be a liar to myself if I didn’t talk about my cultural or heritage type of thing that I’ve had to face. I think the song that speaks the most powerful is something I didn’t write but a track where my grandma spoke on, the interlude I Hop It Ends Someday, I literally hit record and asked my grandma “what do you think about racism” and she sat down in my room and just went on a rant. I think there are certain lines there that blew my mind. She speaks about not hating white people, she speaks about not being able to get a hot dog at an intersection in Philadelphia and she talks about police brutality. I definitely think in the emo/punk scene, the scene that I play in most often, that’s a topic that’s just not talked about. It’s seen all the time in hip-hop but it’s not talked about and that might have to do with the fact that a lot of the people in that scene haven’t experienced what I’ve experienced.

 Have you ever thought about bringing the dialogue about racism to your live shows?

I’m starting to but I haven’t started talking about racism yet, mostly because I haven’t played those songs and the records not out but in terms of depression, I’ve definitely been talking about Erica’s Lighthouse and the importance of being there for each other because I definitely have songs from previous releases that are about depression. Race is something I want to do but it will most likely happen this fall. I won’t lie, initially I was scared to start talking about race. Part of me making my difference in this world and giving to this world is trying to share the pain that I’ve experienced to other people can heal. You don’t even have to be black to understand where I’m coming from because you have to think to yourself, the underground punk scene is supposed to be a scene where people say they’re outcasts due to the fact that they’re marginalized, maybe they don’t have any friends due to a social issue or whatever it may be, but if I talk about what makes me feel like I’m an outcast or certain things that were out of my control that made me an outcast then I would hope the scene or the community would feel a little bit closer and little bit more understood.

 So what are the plans for A Without Love?

I’m going to be practicing with a full band and I’ll be doing a full band show in Philadelphia at Everybody Hits with a few local bands. On top of that, I’ll be spending two weekends per month traveling in the Midwest and northeast to spread my message. Another thing I want to do in the near future is write an EP about my body image because that’s another thing I’ve struggled with. I’m going to continue what I’m doing but b a little bit more proactive about it.

 At the end of the day, music is your outlet and how you cope.