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Diversions

Q&A with Drug Yacht

It was 1997 when Dave Heller, Dave Bjorkback and Dave Cantwell joined together as Drug Yacht to play four shows across North Carolina. It was 1998 when they broke up. Almost 15 years later, the Daves are back at it, including playing Raleigh’s Hopscotch Music Festival last year and an upcoming show this weekend at the Pinhook.

Diversions staff writer Kristina Kokkonos sat down with them to talk about their history and experience playing together.

DIVERSIONS: Why did you all decide to get back together?

DAVE CANTWELL: Well [Heller and I] were talking about playing together and we said, “Should we ask Bjorkback if he wants to play with us?” So I think we mentally had a short list of drummers we wanted to ask, assuming that [Bjorkback] would turn us down. We asked him anyway, and he said yes so we didn’t even have to use our list. So we just started up again and didn’t have to think of a new name, that was the best part.

DAVE BJORKBACK: Yeah, thinking of band names is the worst.

DIVE: That’s one of my most important questions, is where that name came from.

DB: So when these guys were in [the band] Analogue and I was in a band called the Cruise Control Pills, we had a song called “Drug Yacht.” I wrote the words and sang it but I didn’t title it; the guitar player from that band came up with the title. These guys loved the title and thought it was hilarious.

DAVE HELLER: It was a very ridiculous, dramatic song.

DIVE: I think it’s great. How would you describe the differences in sound between what you guys produce now and what you originally got together and played?

DC: I think it’s probably exactly the same.

DB: It’s probably very similar. We just don’t know – back in the day, not only did we not properly record the songs, there were just no recordings at all.

At the time we played the songs we knew them, but after a year had passed we just forgot them and forgot how to play them.

DIVE: You just sort of started over — so then how would you describe your sound now?

DB: Awesome.

DC: It’s aggressive I think, and we try to be subtle when we can but I think mostly it’s just —

DB: It’s pretty bombastic.

DIVE: Are there any bands that you would compare yourselves to?

DC: I was thinking about that, like the “influences” question, and it’s going to be hard to find one band that all three of us are really, really into.
Like Dave [Bjorkback] and I, last summer we went to see Ke$ha AND Steely Dan in like a two week span.

DB: We were pretty confident that we were the only two people that saw both Ke$ha and Steely Dan.

DC: It was really good! I mean she was fantastic.

DB: So much glitter.

DIVE: I can imagine. So what do you guys see for the future of Drug Yacht?

DH: We’re going to keep going to a metal shed every week. That’s what we do, every Thursday we go into a metal shed, like a storage shed. We try to write songs.

DC: I don’t see us going on tour or anything like that. We’re just going to play around here like we’ve been doing for the last year or so. We like doing exactly what we’re doing.

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