Warning: Explicit language
- Channel One News wants kids to buy and listen to Dead Sara songs so they can vote on their favorite song.
From Dead Sara’s Myspace page:
“Ironically, ‘We Are What You Say’ is Dead Sara’s poppiest song, ‘though it’s still kind of gnarly and sleazy,’ Medley notes. ‘It’s like, “Hey, you want pop? This is our pop, so fuck off.’”‘ Adds Armstrong: ‘That song distills a lot of what we’re about. It’s melodic and accessible, but still intense and unruly. We’ve put up quite a fight to be who we are, and I think you can hear it in the music.'”
Interview with members of Dead Sara:
The Owl Mag: How long have you been singing? You were talking about being in bands when you were 12. How long have you actually been singing? When did you actually know you were going sing?
Emily: Oh, man, that took a while to know that. Years. When I was 12, when I first picked up the guitar, I was like this is what I want. I’m gonna be a guitar player. I’m gonna be the fucking best guitar player I could be. I wasn’t ever like a singer when I was younger. You know, like these people that are just like these fucking kids that could just sing so well. I’m like, how?
The Owl Mag: See I would have thought that you were probably one of those kids who started singing when she was two.
Emily: No fucking way! But I always loved rock and roll when I was young, always. I’d throw myself on the floor when I’d hear stuff and tell me to do stuff, you know, I’d do it.
The Owl Mag: And when did you get it and know you were really a singer?
Emily: When I was like 15, I really sat down just with my songs, just by myself, an acoustic guitar and I learned to use vibrato for the first time. I was like a late bloomer singing. I remember the first time I did vibrato, it fucking scared the living crap out of me. It just came out of me.
The Owl Mag: Really?
Emily: Isn’t that weird?
The Owl Mag: Considering how prevalent it is in your voice, yeah.
Emily: Just playing guitar and all of a sudden – I was just really into it and my guitars weren’t shaking. I’m all, what the fuck was that? I was like, what is going on, what was that? Like, I didn’t know, was there an earthquake? Like, it was the weirdest thing. And then, a little bit later, it happened again and then I realized it was like my body is convulsing into a fucking vibrato. It was the strangest experience singing, yeah. And I felt so in it. Like, the body just moved. And then, I’m doing this folk singing and I didn’t have a band. I mean, because I moved schools, but I’m still – like, I didn’t know anybody, so I would just write, play and sing and sing and sing. I did a lot of fucking Joni Mitchell covers and I was fully immersed into folk rock. I played, like, in coffee shops and stuff like that and then I met Siouxsie, and she listened to punk rock, but I loved her. She was awesome. I was like, this girl is so rad!
The Owl Mag: One question I have to ask before I forget is what’s Dead Sara? Where’d the name come from?
Emily: Oh, Fleetwood Mac. Stevie Nicks, “Sara”.
The Owl Mag: But why Dead Sara?
Emily: Well, in it, she said, “Said, ‘Sara, you’re the poet in my heart,’ “Never change” “Never stop”. Up near the end, “you know it’s gone.” Siouxsie and I always used to think it said dead Sara. We just kind of agreed on it. Dead Sara, it was like the only name that we could agree on and stuck in its ears.
The Owl Mag: What’s one of the worst names you came up with?
Emily: Oh, God. It has to be Masturbation Salvation.
The Owl Mag: No! Yeah, you’re not gonna get signed with that one.
Emily: Maybe to like a punk rock label.
Channel One News played the music of this band for an entire week in April in American classrooms. A snippet of one of their songs would be played as each show started. Another song clip was played as Channel One News entered the first commercial break. It’s at this point that students are shown the cover of their album, the name of the song playing, the name of the band and they are told that more information on the band was available at Channelone.com. The song continues as Channel One comes out of the commercial break. This is repeated for the second commercial break, and students for the SIXTH time in one day are forced to hear Dead Sara as the show comes to a thankful end.
