Interview w/ Dan Barrett
By Nick Caceres
Published 02/01/2025
The 17th anniversary of the critically acclaimed multi-genre sensation, “Deathconsciousness,” has just come and gone. This album, known for its compelling display of Gothic Rock, Post-Punk and Shoegaze invoking deep feelings of dreary emotions and existentialism, has experienced a steady rise to popularity across the internet, whether it’s 4chan’s /mu/, Rate Your Music, Sputnikmusic or strangely…Tik Tok? I’m not pulling your leg, this underground classic has dripped into circles that would have otherwise overlooked this specific palette in previous decades, even going as far as appearing on the Billboard Tik Tok charts last year. One of the two masterminds behind this album is Connecticut’s finest, Dan Barrett, who’s story goes beyond this checkpoint.
As an everyman in a world of pretension, Dan Barrett has experience in a variety of professions outside of just music from education, marketing and real estate. However, he’s mostly associated with his artistic aspirations, which started in the 1990s while still a rebellious teenager playing in various Ska/Punk bands around his home base, Glastonbury, Connecticut. After hitting it off with Tim Macuga, Barrett would form Have A Nice Life in 2000 and begin working on acoustic emo ballads, evolving into what would become “Deathconsciousness” years later in 2008. As any true underdog story goes, the self-advertisement of this project landed on deaf ears and sparse reception in the earliest days of Have A Nice Life. Barrett would even launch a self-funded label, Enemies List Home Recordings, early on to circumvent any rejection. Miraculously, both the band and project would find a dedicated fanbase on forums and image boards such as 4chan in which anons connected to the relatively dense literature and philosophies that “Deathconsciousness” pulled from. Barrett would then continue to release music through a variety of aliases, phasing through different narratives surrounding depression and introspection throughout the 2010s, proliferating from coverage by TheNeedleDrop and various other commentators and publications, so much so that almost every terminally online music fan has a Barrett project in their favorites. If that’s not a lesson in patience and consistency then what is?
Nowadays, Barrett enjoys hosting a series of courses surrounding self-help and career growth through dissecting philosophical realms of thinking along with a podcast and is happily married with kids, as all good endings go. The following interview took place over a joint effort between email and Loom during the latter-half of January, where we discussed these current activities along with past projects. For both professional and personal reasons, this has been one of the most full-circle things that I’ve ever worked on. Grab those cocktails and benadryl capsules and enjoy!
Dan Barrett performing with Have A Nice Life at Regency Ballroom in 2024
Photo Courtesy of Zachary Chelsea-Seifert
Nick: Hey Dan, how’ve you been?
Dan: All right my friend, how are you? Thanks for being flexible with the format of this, I appreciate it. My schedule is still all over the place, so it's useful for me to do it this way, so I appreciate that.
Nick: No problem, since this interview sort of materialized out of us previously meeting here, could you give a rundown on a recent cult you’ve launched? (To the folks reading this interview, do not be alarmed, we’re not committing arson on important religious landmarks or anything of the sort. Dan Barrett is not going full Black Metal!)
Dan: Yeah so for the last several years, as an outgrowth of my blog, which is called Better Questions, I had done an end of the year course series of lectures on the most useful thing that I'd learned that year. It's always been pay what you want. Anybody can jump in and I found that I just really enjoyed it. It was one of my favorite things to do every year. The group was really amazing. I was a teacher before I started doing what I do today and I love teaching. Teaching also has a series of secondary benefits, you know, structuring your own knowledge in order to teach. It's really one of the best ways of internalizing it.
Nick: You know, it makes so much sense that you used to be a teacher. When I was in your class, you reminded me of a lot of my professors in the department I studied under. I thought that was only Tim’s thing. Where did you used to teach and what was the subject? How did you end up becoming a teacher for a period of time?
Dan: So before I started doing what I do now, which is running my own marketing business, my career trajectory was to be a teacher. I got a Master's degree in history and education and I got certified to teach for years. Before that, I was working as a substitute teacher and I was a paraprofessional for eight years. I was a classroom aide for special needs kids of various types and ages. Then I did my student teaching in Middletown, Connecticut. The only time I really “taught” and this is like a go-to joke for me, so I was teaching under history and so I was picked to teach African-American experience...because who better to teach the African-American experience…than this guyyy (laughs). So I didn't end up full-on teaching high school history for very long. I never got full-time employment. I am a certified-or I was certified to teach, but that experience was such a-for a variety of reasons, I was like, “I think I'm gonna do something else.” But I do love teaching, I miss it. My mom was a teacher, my aunt was a teacher, my grandmother was a teacher, my uncle was a teacher, we have a lot of teachers in our family.
Nick: Going back to the present, what’s something you’re planning on changing with this collection of mini-courses? How did it come about?
Dan: So I was getting all these benefits from it, having a blast, people were getting a lot out of the courses, I was learning in the process, and so at the end of last year, I was just like, “why do I only do this once a year?” I think as I transition into this middle period of my life, I'm much more focused on doing what I like and what is fun. There was always a joke that it was gonna be called “Dan's Secret Society.” So that's what we call DSS (Dan's Secret Society). It's extended throughout the year. I'm doing three lectures a month. I have a whole year of curriculum built out of the most important stuff that I've learned over the course of my life in terms of being an effective person, being a powerful person and being someone who can change the world around you for the better. It's a super supportive community. That's the other thing. There's a real lack of community, at least for me. and social media, I think, is so toxic and destructive. I'm addicted to it like everybody else and I've been desperately trying to claw my way out of that hole. I was like, “I want to make a community that I feel actually connected to and supported by.” So that's what it's meant to be. It's an experiment. Still pay what you want. Highly encourage people to check it out.
Dans Secret Society Logo
Image Courtesy of Gumroad
Nick: Switching over to music, I recently caught wind that Have A Nice Life dropped a single in 2024. You guys made an appearance with the cover, “When I Go Deaf,” on the Low tribute compilation, “Your Voice Is Not Enough.” Since I’ve heard he’s more tapped into the underground currents of music, was this Tim Macuga’s idea?
Dan: It was just Tim's idea. So we were asked by Flenser to be on the comp. That song was Tim's choice, yep. We both love Low. Lowe is just such an incredible band. Originally the song wasn't one that I was super familiar with, but when I heard it, it sort of immediately became one of my favorite Low songs. You know, I listen to the Low “Christmas” album every single year and I had done a Giles Corey cover of, “Just Like Christmas.” So to call them a phenomenal band is to undercut it for sure.
Have A Nice Life - "When I Go Deaf" (2024) single cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
The Flenser (Various Artists) - "Your Voice Is Not Enough" (2024) compilation cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Nick: I also saw that you made an appearance on the single and additionally the music video for “Car Wreck” by the Brooklyn Indie Rock band, Bear Hands. According to an Instagram live you did with them, you and Tim go wayyyy back with this band so I’m curious to know the backstory of that connection.
Dan: Yeah so, Val Loper plays bass in Bear Hands, TJ Orsher, who plays drums, are two of my oldest friends. We grew up together. We were in bands together, almost starting towards the end of middle school. Val and TJ and I were all in In Pieces together. So In Pieces was a hardcore band out of Connecticut. They (TJ Orshcer and Val Loper) had formed In Pieces. At some point, Scott Gibson, the original singer for In Pieces, left and I was in college at the time. I'd already met Tim and we were songwriting together. I remember I played a really early Have a Nice Life song, the song, “Knife Throwing Contest,” I remember I played it for Val at a party. He dug it and was like, “Hey, you should audition to be in In Pieces” and I did and joined and played in that band for several years, which was just an incredible experience. That was really the first touring band I'd ever been a part of. I still love the music of that band. The album that I was on is called "Lions Write History” and is still something I'm insanely proud of and it should be seeing a re-release this year. Actually, the first In Pieces record is called, “Learning to Accept Silence,” which is an amazing, sort of melodic, Hardcore album. Both of those albums I think should be seeing re-releases this year, which is really cool. Val and TJ are still super dear friends of mine. Tim sort of became integrated with the band, toured with us a few times doing merch and stuff, so he's also friends with those guys. So last year, Val asked me if I wanted to do guest vocals on “Car Wreck” and I love Bear Hands. After In Pieces broke up, I continued to focus on Have a Nice Life. Val and TJ moved to New York and hooked up with Dylan Rau, who is the sort of primary songwriter and vocalist for Bear Hands. We sort of split off at that point, I mean not as friends, we're still super close, just band trajectories. So when they asked me to guest vocal on that, I was super excited. I love Bear Hands. I think they're fantastic. So it was a no brainer, to get to do the video with them. I'd never done a legit music video, with a director and stuff. I had such a blast. I really was just like, “oh, I get to spend a few days hanging out with these people that I really love and respect!” Dylan I had met several times who didn't know super well. Ironically, Dylan was going to Wesleyan University around the time that I was living just off Wesleyan campus around the time we were recording “Deathconsciousness.” So we were really close, proximity wise, but I never really hung out with him a ton. I met him a bunch of times, but I got to spend extended amounts of time with him and he is a fantastic, super smart, super creative person. It was one of my peak experiences of last year.
Nick: Do you find any parallels between the thematic roots of Bear Hands and Have A Nice Life?
Dan: I don't know if there's a ton of parallels necessarily. Dylan, who writes a lot of the lyrical stuff for Bear Hands, has got a very different life experience than I do. I think we've talked about this before, but I think it's really interesting that we went in very different directions musically. Bear Hands went the more traditional label route. Obviously Have A Nice Life couldn't have done that even if we wanted to. We had this label interest but no one gave a shit about anything, right? So we went in very different directions. To connect again 20 years later is beyond insane. They’re an incredible band.
[Bear Hands]. (2024, October 16). Bear Hands - Car Wreck (Feat. Have A Nice Life) (Official Video) [Video].
In Pieces - "Learning To Accept Silence" (2002) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
In Pieces - "Learning Lions Write History" (2005) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: Let’s dial it back to your earlier shenanigans. Departing from the 2002 release, “Have A Nice Life vs You,” there was a short lived project called Gate where you and Tim Macuga created a batch of hardcore punk tracks. Did Gate serve as an outlet to bring those influences from In Pieces into the specific sound and style that you were trying to cultivate for Have A Nice Life without straying away from the main project (“Deathconsciousness”)?
Dan: So Gate was just kind of an experiment. It was just us being like, “can we do something else?” Essentially, we really liked making new bands. When you're a home recorded thing, you can just make a new band and it was fun for us because we got to write songs. Particularly Gate, I don't know if all the Gate songs are just me. I think Tim's on some of them, but a lot of these were just demos I kind of threw out there and made some cool artwork and mess around in Photoshop. I don't know if I had a super specific thing other than like, “it's gonna be real fast, real fast and real simple.” That was the idea.
Nick: I know that the EP containing all of the known Gate tracks was fan-made in 2014. Why did these tracks not get a fully-fledged release at the time and does that fan-made EP have everything or are some of those tracks currently lost on your end?
Dan: I'm pretty sure everything's on the fan EP. It's hard for me to remember to be honest and I was throwing a lot of that stuff on my blog. I'm sure I had stuff I didn't put out or didn't finish or whatever, but pretty much everything that was ready to be listened to is on the EP as far as I know.
Nick: Would you ever consider reissuing this obscure release through The Flenser in a similar vein to “Nahvalr” or “Voids?”
Dan: I think there's some plan, maybe, to include it somewhere. I don't know how serious that is. I want to record new Gate, that's really my thing. There's like several bands called gate. So I don't want to be the fifth band called Gate. I don't know, but I'd love to do something. Every now and then I write a song and I'm like, “this is gate song.” I still really like that mode of writing and I would love to do a Gate show, but we'll see what happens.
Nick: Are you alluding to creating new music in a similar fashion to Gate?
Dan: Yeah, I would love to either revive Gate or, I don't know, even some of our stuff is more Gate influenced or whatever. I don't know what form it'll take. It's just feeling it out. But yeah, I like that project.
Gate - "Now, While They Aren't Looking, Tear It Apart" (2007-2014) EP cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Nick: We’ve finally reached “Deathcon.” Something that I’ve always been curious about is the fact that it was made throughout half a decade, 2002 to 2007. How different do you think the album would’ve sounded if it was recorded within a few weeks in 2002?
Dan: Very different, very different. Our sound changed a ton over time. Most of the things that people point to as unique aspects of our sound and or our production, I think it's pushing it a bit to call it production, right? But a lot of that is a function of the fact that we recorded over time. It's not like we recorded a song and then there's a huge amount of time and then we record another song, we are constantly tweaking and layering on different songs, bouncing around. So it's not like there are songs that are like ready and we're holding on to them necessarily. So I think that if we just put it out, for example, you record all at once in 2002, it would have sounded a lot more basic. A lot of the earlier stuff that I figured out to deal with the shortcomings of our equipment wouldn't have been there, right? So I think it would have sounded very different. I think our songwriting and aesthetic changed a lot over time, as we got better at doing what we wanted to do or just figured out different things that we could do. Our structure of songwriting has been the same forever. We go long periods without writing anything, we hang out, we write. It's very piecemeal and that's okay. Probably with the exception of Sea of Worry where we sort of workshopped a lot of those songs with the band.
Nick: What were some of the earliest songs written that ended up making the final cut for “Deathconsciousness?” How early are we talking here?
Dan: So the song that became “Earthmover,” we had just an acoustic version when we were still at UMass…I’m trying to think. It's hard to remember because a lot of these got re-recorded or whatever. I can't remember exactly which ones are the oldest on there, but for sure a bunch. I think most of the record was really written or finalized when I was out of college, so think 2005 to 2006, living in Middletown, Connecticut.
Nick: You’ve mentioned over the course of many interviews before this one that the contents of “Deathconsciousness” were salvaged from what was left when you serendipitously (Dan: (laughs) yeah “serendipitously”) lost the master recordings. How did that exactly happen and how much of it is, to this day, permanently lost? Is there a collection of tracks that are essentially gone forever?
Dan: Yeah so, I mean, literally what happened was I just never made backups and my hard drive died, (laughs) that’s it! I wasn't making backups of the logic projects. So what we had were bounce downs to MP3s of the songs in a variety of different states of being done. We would work on a song for a while and then we'd bounce it to mp3 so we could listen to it and so what I had was like, “here is all the stuff as it was last bounced and this song's from two weeks ago, this song's from a month ago, this song's from yesterday or whatever. Just stupidity on my part. There's really nothing much to say about it. That's how it goes
Nick: What are your thoughts on the insane increase of people getting acquainted with “Deathconsciousness” through Tik Tok within the past few years. Last year the opening track, “A Quick One Before the Eternal Worm Devours Connecticut,” debuted at #30 on the Billboard Top 50 TikTok (Dan: That's truly insane). It seems like the fandom has expanded into places outside of just 4chan, Rate Your Music, and Sputnikmusic into spaces that have previously ignored or simply weren’t aware of this type of music. Therefore, do you find it interesting that an album like this is now seemingly entering more mainstream circles? Where have you felt this shift the most?
Dan: I still wouldn't call it mainstream. I don't think Have A Nice Life is close to hitting the mainstream, but it's certainly more popular and has reached a lot more people than ever before. At pretty much every point we have been carried along by the technological shifts of the moment. Like when we were first putting out music, we put it on Myspace. We were able to make CDRs because I had a CD read, write drive and could get CDRs from Kinkos. Then it was the blog era, the live journal era or whatever and I was sending CDs to blogs to get reviews. Then you've got forums and 4chan and Sputnik, stuff like that. That's all the blog or message board era. Then you have the emergence of social media and you have the emergence of like Reddit and sort of meme culture, which kind of carried it along. Then you've got algorithmic music recommendation like Spotify. Then you've got Tik Tok, right? We've got people reviewing it on YouTube. None of these are things that existed, right? Even Anthony Fantano, reviewing the record relatively early and really giving it a big bump. Props to Anthony Fantano. I saw him at the climbing gym a couple of months ago, super sweet person. Fellow Connecticut dweller. Really nice guy and hard working. In any case, we've had this pattern of being lifted by the technology at the time and besides the early stuff, all that's happened without us which is incredible. I think that there's a level at which you could look at that and say that's amazing. It's a level which I think makes it hard for new music sometimes, but I'm certainly grateful for it. I wouldn't be doing this. No one would care. I wouldn't be getting to play shows, like none of that would be happening if it weren't for those things so that's incredibly gratifying. I will say, it never feels like anything until I play shows, because it's not like I'm walking around and people are like “you're Dan from Have A Nice Life!” That never happens, right? The way I’ve felt it is over the last five to six years or so since we've been playing larger and larger venues, that's where it's felt to me. I saw one guy at my local mall with a Have A Nice Life shirt. He was on his way to the Apple Store and I walked by him. I was going to stop him and then I was like “yeah, just let him live his life.” You know what I mean? That's the first time I've seen a Have A Nice Life shirt truly in the wild, which was fun.
Have A Nice Life - "Deathconsciousness" (2008) album cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Nick: Two of my personal favorites off of “Voids” were the tracks “Sisyphus” and “Human Error” which sounded like they were pulled from earlier iterations of “Deathcon.” I believe a huge chunk of them were pulled from that 2006 promotional demo, “Powers of Ten.” I’m curious to know why some of those older tracks never made it onto the final product of “Deathconsciousness.” Was it simply because they didn’t fit into the pacing or narrative?
Dan: I mean it's already such a long record, right? I think we always felt “Sisyphus” wasn't quite ready for primetime. That was one of the ones where we didn't re-record it. I love that people love it. I love that song and it's incredibly meaningful to me. We performed it last year for the first time and that was amazing. In fact, the first time we played it, I had kind of a breakdown on stage. It was really wild. But I think recording wise, it wasn't anywhere near as far along. I think a lot of these were just that we didn't think they were as strong as some of the other material or didn't fit. I think “Human Error” probably came after most of the “Deathconsciousness” stuff was done. It's just that pacing a record is tough. I mean, it's ridiculous to put that many songs on an album. You have to make your choices somewhere.
Nick: Speaking of “Powers of Ten,” since it was a promotional demo released a few years before “Deathconsciousness,” where did you share it? Was it online or in-person?
Dan: I think we put it on Myspace or something like that. We made CDRs of it, but…nobody cared (laughs).
Nick: Was “Powers of Ten” those CDs that were left on the ground after you guys passed them out at a show? How does that story go again?
Dan: Yes, I believe so. There's another demo from around that time, so I can't remember exactly which one it was, but very close together in time. Tim and I went to go see Isis play with this band Zombi at a hall in Connecticut, so not a real venue, like a VFW hall or something. We brought the CDs and we were just handing them out and I still remember when we were leaving the show, we just found a bunch of them on the ground, like nobody took them home (laughs). It’s pretty funny.
Have A Nice Life - "Voids" (2009) bootleg compilation cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Have A Nice Life - "Powers of Ten" (2006) promotional demo cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Nick: It seemed like the follow-up EP, “Time of Land,” had a more honed approach in regards to complex melodies and drone textures. Is this a fair observation?
Dan: Yeah, so “Time of Land” are the first post-Deathconsciousness recordings we had put together. We were just gonna sell it at our very first serious show. We played at The Stone in New York City, which was a big deal. I think it's more focused. When you're doing the first thing, no one knows what the thing is or what the contours of it are, right? What are the boundaries, what counts as “having a nice life” and what doesn't, right? So in the aftermath of that, again, it's not like the band's super popular, but some people like it. So it's a matter of following this up to prune away at the core. So yeah, a little bit more experimentation there and a little bit of editing.
Nick: My favorite track off of “Time of Land” and maybe HANL in general is “Woe Unto Us.” I felt your voice really came out in a beautiful fashion towards the end of that track but I’m curious about its relation to your home state, Connecticut and this harsh stagnation that surrounds it in the lyrics. Is Have A Nice Life secretly a spy-op to keep people from moving to Connecticut???
Dan: Uh no…I love Connecticut. It's fine, it's totally fine (laughs). It was zero degrees when I woke up this morning so there you go. I think Connecticut shows up a lot in our lyrics. But “Eternal Worm,” that's Tim's title, not mine. But I talk about Connecticut a lot because it's my home state. So most of the stuff in my life that I refer to happens here. That's just how it is, right? You write about where you're at. But you should come to Connecticut. It's lovely. It's between New York and Boston.
Nick: You’ve mentioned on Enemies List that this is one of the rarest physical HANL projects, with only 100 copies of the cassette being sold (Dan: Yep) at the first ever shows at The Stone in New York City. Considering that this EP was rather unexpected at the time, what was the initial reception like with “Time of Land” at both the show and post-show?
Dan: Uh…I don't remember what the reception was. I think people dug it, but it's like with a lot of this stuff, it's become a much bigger deal in hindsight, right? So at the time, we weren't like, “Oh my God, we're putting out our second!” It was just, “here's more stuff from us,” right? It was my impression but I’d have to go back and really look, you know, do an archeological dig and figure that out.
Have A Nice Life - "Time Of Land" (2010) EP cassette cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Nick: While we're on topic, what was it like performing and documenting “Deathconsciousness” live for the first time at The Stone?
Dan: Yeah, it was amazing. The Stone was so cool to us. Performing was awesome. Our friend, Justin Donais, I'll talk about him in a second because you asked about him, the filming was amazing. The performance is all over the place. We had no idea what we were doing. I had no idea how to bring the sounds from the record into real life. It was just a real mess. The PA that we brought, we brought it there, we blew that thing to hell multiple times before we even played. It was really messy and weird. I don't think I sang well and I'm off-key all the time. It was an incredible experience, an emotional one.
Nick: Why that venue in particular over something more local to Connecticut?
Dan: I think we got asked to play. So John Zorn is the one who kind of owns and runs The Stone. Tim particularly was a big Zorn fan. He's Avant-Garde and super cool. We were like, “oh my God, we get to play in this little tiny space!” It was just cool. By the way, nobody in Connecticut asked, nobody cared, right? You got to remember still, not that many people cared. We can fill the stone. It's like a 50 person spot, right? Not even a hundred people. So small audience, New York's more central.
Nick: Where do you know Justin Donais from?
Dan: Yeah so Donais from Glastonbury, Connecticut, where I grew up. Same place that I know Val and TJ from, he’s in the group of friends. Super smart guy, incredible person, so talented and he was into videography very early. We were like, “hey, do you want to do this?” and he was all the way in. Even though that was quite early, you can see his creative direction there. The dude is incredible, so talented and still so talented. You should Google him.
Have A Nice Life - "Live at The Stone/Glastonbury Kids" (2010) DVD cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
[Glawackus]. (2024, February 8). Have a Nice Life- Wizards of the Black Hundreds, Live at The Stone NYC [Video].
[Glawackus]. (2024, February 8). Have A Nice Life - Hunter, Live at The Stone NYC [Video].
[Glawackus]. (2024, February 8). Have A Nice Life- Earthmover, Live At The Stone NYC [Video].
Nick: What did “Glastonbury Kids" have to do with Have A Nice Life?
Dan: Not really anything directly. There's these kids in Glastonbury where I grew up and where a lot of these people are centered. Donais directed it and was trying to get it into film festivals and stuff like that. I knew some of the kids, although that's like a couple of grades below where I was. I thought it was excellent. The whole business model for Enemies List was, we'll pay to print it, we'll split the profits, we don't take any of the rights. So it was a way of putting this out and being like, “we really like this thing and we're going to put it out.” There were no limitations on what we could do or what we could work on, it was whatever we liked and I really liked that documentary. If you can find a copy of it, it's worth checking out.
Justin Donais - "Glastonbury Kids" (2009) DVD cover
Image Courtesy of Discogs
Nick: Will do. I also saw that your brother, Will Barret, was playing the synthesizer and backup vocals alongside Tim. I know that around this time, you helped release his album, “A Ticking Clock I Couldn't Stop,” through Enemies List. How would you describe your musician relationship with your brother and what are your thoughts on that album of his in retrospect?
Dan: I'm not sure what the chronology is of “Ticking Clock” to that Have A Nice Live performance. In terms of musician relationship, I don't know if we had much of a musician relationship per se. Will in high school wasn't super musical. Will is in a lot of the same friend groups that I was in, a little bit different because we're separated by a year. We're two years apart, but we're one year apart in grade. So obviously he had his own friends, but there's a ton of overlap between his friends and my friends. He knows Val and TJ, we were all going to shows a ton. Will was really into music and would turn me on to music and vice versa. Will probably knew more bands and stuff than I did, I think. He was probably more into going to see live music than I am. He knew some keyboards and stuff, so again, we were in the phase where we're like, “who will do this? (laughs) Nobody will do this. Will will do this. gotta get him in there.” I love Will. It was super fun to play with him. Thoughts on “A Ticking Clock?” It's criminally underrated. I think it's an incredible record. The thing that's cool about that record to me is I don't think Will had ever written songs before. It's not like he's writing songs all the time and now he has a record. It was out of nowhere, completely out of left field. Again, really just experimenting in Garageband, almost the exact same way that we were doing, right? I still love that record.
Afterlives - "A Ticking Clock I Couldn't Stop" (2009) album cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Nick: Staying on live performance, under the Giles Corey moniker, how was “Hinterkaifeck” recorded throughout a trio of live sets? Where were those sets?
Dan: So Hinterkaifeck is not live. There are live performances of me playing the songs from Hinterkaifeck, but the original EP was just recorded the way that all my EPs recorded, in my room. We have since played live shows with the entire Have a Nice Life band, but just as Giles Corey and a handful of solo shows where there are some live recordings etc.
Nick: How and when did you first find out about this century-old Bavarian cold case? Why did it pique your interest?
Dan: Uh…I don't know. I found out about it probably online like everybody else. I remember somebody was theorizing about it that essentially the murderer had hid in their attic. To me, I found for whatever reason that image really stuck with me and was very evocative. I sort of obliquely reference it in some of the lyrics. I thought it was cool. The thing about music, when it works well, it’s not describing an emotional state or experience…it is the experience, it is the emotional state, right? Music is direct and unmediated in the sense that when you hear something, the music gives you the feeling that the music is there to describe rather than simply describing the feeling to you. A lot of the things that we do in our stuff, we do in our recordings, stuff that we choose artistically, right? It's not entirely an intellectual exercise where I'm like, “here's the connection, here's the connection, here's the connection,” although sometimes we do that. It's more like that's the feeling I'm going for and it kind of doesn't matter what the actual subject is that evokes that feeling. This is one of those situations.
Nick: In practice, this event seems to only be overt in the name. Is there a double meaning with “Hinterkaifeck” when attached to Giles Corey?
Dan: No, like I said, it's evocative in that sense. There's connections in the lyrics and stuff. There's a line like, “oh my love, my ancient son pacing your attic floor,” right? So there's references there, but to make it explicit kind of ruins it in a way because then you're intellectualizing it. You can intellectualize art, it's very fun, but ultimately that's a very different experience than experiencing the art directly.
Have A Nice Life - "Hinterkaifeck" (2013) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: I know that compared to earlier releases, “Sea of Worry” had a much cleaner sound that many fans weren’t used to which unfortunately caused it to be commonly left out of discussion within the same online communities that praised “Deathcon.” This sentiment is not coming from me, this is just from my observations regarding how it’s been treated online. By any chance were you ever worried about how this album would be received while making it?
Dan: We're always afraid about how albums are going to be perceived. Anybody who's like, “I don't care how thi-” it's bullshit, it's bullshit. Everybody cares about how their stuff is received. You want people to like your stuff. Everybody wants people to like their stuff. You just can't allow that to dictate what you do because the thing is, you can't. If you try to do what everybody likes, they won't like it and if you don't do what everyone likes, they won't like it either. You're just kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't.You've got to do something that moves you directly. So we were like, “Goth Surf Album!” and that's what we did.
Nick: It’s interesting that you bring up goth since that’s an aspect of your sound that’s been brought up countless times. I know a section of your fanbase associates with that subculture. Do you consider yourself goth?
Dan: I mean, I don't consider myself much of anything, right? I wouldn't count myself as Goth, I mostly wear what I consider to be the “modern life is war” outfit as they say in the song “Dead Ramones” or they say, “black shirt, black jeans, black shoes.” That tends to be my thing. I'll put it this way, I'm not really interested in identifying as anything in particular. I try to keep my identity as small as possible. Because what you'll find, behaviorally, is that identity beliefs tend to go the furthest in terms of driving subconscious behaviors. So if you identify as a healthy person, you're more likely to work out and eat a certain way, right? You don't necessarily need to consciously make yourself do such and such a thing, it follows naturally from your identity. Your actions in some way seem to stem from that you have an identity statement and then extrapolate from that the kinds of things that you can do. Youth culture is so sub-genre or sub-culture oriented, partially because as a young person you're experimenting with different identities and feelings towards what makes sense. As you get older, often, but not always, you'll find that you're some kind of mix of identities. There's no real pre-existing subcultural identity that explains who you are or what you do. When I was in high school, I was listening to Ska, we were in a bunch of Ska bands and going to Ska shows and Punk shows and Hardcore shows every single week. So I'm mostly identified with that and that's mostly what I was into. When I got to college, Tim was the one who really turned me on to Joy Division, The Smiths and Built To Spill, these bands that really fundamentally had a huge influence on us. I still remember, I was in New Haven, and I was out and I went to some club and they were playing music as they were goth dancing. There were very few people there and it's not the kind of place I'm going to, this is a one-time thing. They were playing this music, and I was like, “holy shit, what are you playing? What is this?” And the DJ was like, “oh that's Sisters Of Mercy.” And I fell in love HARD with Sisters Of Mercy. I had a foundation of Punk and Hardcore and Ska that I was coming up on, which is where a lot of my live performance tendencies come from. I mean, Have A Nice Life is basically a hardcore band pretending to be a goth band that wants to be a hardcore band. Then as I got into college, that's when I got into Joy Division. The Smiths, My Bloody Valentine, Built To Spill, which I mentioned before and then man…Sisters of Mercy threw me personally for a loop. A lot of Deathconsciousness-era stuff is trying to rip off Sisters of Mercy, like I want to rip them off…so bad (laughs). I have zero…zero regrets, just rip off that band. They're fucking amazing. So, you know, I don't consider myself anything at this point, but there's a lot of Goth music influences, you know, Christian Death, Siouxsie & the Banshees and even stuff like early Danzig and shit. We’re pulling in from that place and then we're sort of pulling in from a middle place. Tim was pulling in a lot of his Black Metal influence which I came to very late and I still don't particularly love. We're just pulling a lot of things from different places. I think in some ways what makes the music work is that it's a conglomeration of so many different things. But, you know, my day-to-day life, black shirt, black jeans, black shoes… that’s what I'm wearing…or a cardigan all day.
Nick: Going back to the album, I find it interesting that some of these tracks were not new. Both “Trespassers W” and “Destinos” were previously demos featured on that “Voids” compilation around a decade before “Sea of Worry.” What did you and Tim see in those tracks that made you want to revive, evolve and adapt them to the album?
Dan: Those were songs we knew we wanted to re-record. They were always songs where we were like, “we want to do a real version of this.” “Trespassers W” and “Destinos” were both demo versions that were out, but we wanted to do a fully fleshed out one. “Sea of Worry,” the way it was structured, was half the full band, half just Tim and I, and they just kind of fell into both of those categories. It's sort of a function of the way that we record over these long periods of time. Sometimes you don't get to stuff or it doesn't get finished in time to get put out and they're just on your to do list. Those two were definitely like that.
Have A Nice Life - "Sea Of Worry" (2019) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: You’ve mentioned in the past wanting to be more mindful towards the type of content you put out there, in regards to removing yourself from past mindsets that have been documented in previous albums like “Deathconsciousness.” Is this a reason why we haven’t seen an album since “No Moon?”
Dan: No, it's just hard for me to write music. I've got kids, I've got a wife, I'm trying to work out, I've got a business, I've got the Dan's Secret Society. We've got a blog, a podcast, a lot of stuff going on. It's just my adult ADD. It just takes longer and I have less time to put towards it. That's kind of it.
Nick: Should we expect a new full-length from you in 2025-2026 ish?
Dan: I don't think a full-length will be ready in 2025, but we are actively writing and recording, so hopefully, yes. I do think the In Pieces stuff will get re-released, which would kind of be cool. I think we might put out a single or something as a part of different things. It just takes time for us to put stuff together.
Nick: Outside of that, any upcoming live performances? Festivals?
Dan: Have a Nice Life is doing a European tour this year. I'm so pumped. We're doing the UK, Ireland, we're doing…um…not all the dates are announced so I don't know what I can say, but not like the biggest tour in the world. We're still not a band that plays a lot, but we're putting time into getting abroad and Roadburn in the Netherlands. I've never really played in another country, so I'm pumped for that. We're also playing Canada this year at Prepare the Ground.
Nick: I appreciate you and everything you do Dan. This was a fun opportunity, thank you for your time. Anything you’d like to leave us on?
Dan: I will leave you on what I try to leave most people on which is you should just put stuff out. Put stuff out into the world. Do that. We need it, so do it. Alright, cheers man, bye.