ECHOBRAIN Frontman Says Marketing Album As Featuring METALLICA Member Was A Mistake

In a recent interview with The Digital Noise Network, ECHOBRAIN vocalist/guitarist Dylan Donkin spoke about the recent decision to dissolve the band, and the positives and negatives of having ex-METALLICA bassist Jason Newsted in the group. Asked about the poor promotion and marketing for the band's second album, Donkin said, "They [the record label] didn't believe in it. What happens, just so you know how this works with a label. You gotta have somebody that's really into the record and really understands it. They didn't get it. They were going for the guy from METALLICA in the new band kind of trip. I think that's what kind of helped nail the coffin. Everyone thought we were a metal band. When the first record came out, they invested a lot of money into it and trying to make it this big thing by highlighting, 'Jason Newsted of METALLICA' on the front. That wasn't smart because we weren't. We're a completely different band. Once none of the metalheads were buying it, which I don't blame 'em for not buying it. If I was a metalhead, I probably wouldn't buy it either. I like metal music, but if I thought it was gonna be something heavy and it wasn't, I could see myself being like 'What?' If I wasn't into that, if I wasn't into the music like ECHOBRAIN. Once they got burned on the first record, they didn't want to do anything with the second record. Jason left and I was like, 'Okay, we're gonna cut this second record.' They were trying to get us to put out a hit song. We had this song ['Tommy Boy'] . . . They had this producer come in and they tried to make it into this pop song, this big hit, and it sounded so weak and fake. All their ideas I kind of shot down (laughs). They were trying to make it a pop record and I was trying to be like, 'No, I want to make this something I'm gonna be proud of for years instead of something I never want to listen to again.' Since we didn't take any of their ideas, we kind of miffed them a little bit. Then when it came time and the album came out, they didn't really do anything to promote it. They just put it out. They couldn't get us a tour, they couldn't get us anything because they didn't have the enthusiasm and also I don't think they had a lot of moxie. If you don't believe in something, it's really hard to sell it somebody. To sell it to like all the promoters and all the booking agents and everybody else involved, distributors and all that enthusiasm, it's not gonna sell. I think 'cause they didn't get it, that's why. That made a big difference. They didn't have the enthusiasm for it. Now, nobody believes in it. Distributors … I don't know, they didn't get it. Nobody got it really. So, I'm like, 'Fuck if nobody gets it, fuck it. I'm not gonna try to sell people a bunch of shit they don't want.'"

Read the entire interview at this location.