Band To Watch | Dino Gala

Rapid-fire Questions

1. What have you been listening to lately?

Forth Wanderers, Fog Lake, Ovlov, They Are Gutting a Body of Water, Raavi & the Houseplants, Bladee, Title Fight, Weed, Ecco2k!!

2. This one time I ate at Waffle House with my mom. She watched me eat an entire All-Star Special. The disappointment in her eyes still haunts me to this day. What is your go to meal at Waffle House?

Anything but the meat cause it’s rancid.

3. Who is Melk?

We went through a lot of band names and Melk was the longest-lived one, but we ended up landing on Dino Gala. The name before that was even worse (roach war).

4. You can only choose one. Blake Shelton or Shake Belton.

Shake it up

5. What is the first album you remember buying?

Slipknot self-titled (alex), the color and the shape by the foo fighters (bailey), tokio hotel mcdonalds happy meal mp3 player (miguel), mothers of invention live in sweden 1967 (martin)

6. What are you most excited about currently?

Swimmin

7. I’ve refused to download TikTok for years, but I feel like I’m falling behind. Should I give in? Should I do it? I’m getting old.

It’s a great way to connect with people and for the most part people are really genuine which I haven’t really found on other social media platforms. Also I don’t really think you can be too old for it cause there’s people from every age group on there! It can also be like a serious drain on your life though. It’s endless in a way that no other app is and it kinda sucks.

8. I just got my second dose of the covid vaccine and I’m planning a trip to Boston specifically to go to Cheers. Any other places I should check out?

Go to the other cheers bar in faneuil hall, fast eddy’s smoke shop on harvard ave, night star convenience, looney tunes records, maybe just walk around Cambridge honestly.

9. Can you guys do a cover of the Cheers theme song?

We’ve got a slowcore/hyperpop remix in the works rn we’ll keep you posted

10. What Boston bands should we check out?

Raavi & the Houseplants, Ozlo, Seed, Rusty Mullet, Bedbug, Tada!, Pisha, Sweet Petunia, Salty Greyhound, Boston, Aerosmith

Can you introduce yourselves and give us your role in the band?

I’m Martin and I sing and play a few instruments on recordings

I’m Alex and I sing and the play the fender stratocaster

I’m Slick or Big Boss and I play guitar

I’m Miguel and I play melodica

Is there anything in particular that motivated or pushed you to create music?

All of us don’t feel like there was really anything else we’d want to do for an extended period of time besides music. Also we really wanna tour

While I was doing some research on the band, I saw that you changed your name from Melk to Dino Gala because you were going in a new direction as a band. What does that direction look like compared to your previous work?

Under Melk we made garage rock type stuff that was really energetic and fun to play at shows, but we got attached to sections of our songs that were more melodic and pop punk-sounding. So we’ve been going in that direction and kind of making music that’s more influenced by what we listen to.

I’m in the middle of this coffee shop watching your covers on TikTok. There’s so many great bands like Radiator Hospital, Modern Baseball, Field Medic, and Joyce Manor. What bands would you say have influenced the band the most?

Definitely title fight, joyce manor, blink-182, modern baseball, field medic, pup. Those are like the common ones between us at least.

Are bands like Mobo and Joyce Manor considered like classic bands now? Am I old?? Am I my prime? I broke a tooth trying to skateboard last week and now I’m questioning everything.

I guess so because their best music is like getting close to 10 years old and they’ve inspired a lot of the newer emo/pop punk bands. You’re not old til you’re like 65. You can definitely keep skating.

Speaking of your music, you recently released a couple of songs! One called run it back and one called fire escape. Can you give us some background on each of those songs?

Both songs were written and recorded in a way that’s pretty unusual for our band, so what’s coming out going forward will sound a lot different. The synth part in run it back is something that Miguel recorded in like 2018 and it just kinda sat on my computer for a while. Then in the summer of 2020 Martin and our friend Jordan (who isn’t in the band) recorded some other parts for it at home. Our band lived in a house with like 10-12 people total for a few years, and the lyrics are about that experience and the difficulty of maintaining friendships through it.

Fire Escape is a song that Martin wrote in 2018 when we were all still at Berklee. We used to play it live as a full band as Melk. We basically just wanted to record one of the acoustic songs we have to use as a B-side for run it back

Is there a feeling, or a message that you’d like to transmit through your music?

totalitarianism

Can we expect an EP or an album anytime soon?

We have two singles that are already recorded that are coming out fairly soon, and probably a small home-recorded EP in the fall !

Have you been able to play a show together as Dino Gala yet?

We played an acoustic show recently, but we haven’t had the chance to play with the full band yet.

What would your ideal tour look like?

Ford E350, goin aourn the hwoe damn county

Is there anything that you’d like to collaborate with?

Whoever wrote the Cheers theme

This is Gary Portnoy. The guy who wrote the Cheers theme song. A true legend.

What does success look like to you as far as your musical career goes?

Being able to go on tour and have a lot of people at each show

And to wrap things up, do you have any questions for me?

Who are your favorite bands from whatever scene is near you?

There's this band from my hometown that was around in the 60's called Murphy and the Mob. They have a song called Born Loser, and I didn't know anything about them until like 2 years after I started the site. They remind me of The Kinks.

You guys wanna see an x-ray of my broken tooth?

Yes yes dm