Before the Blizzard Comes After Dark.
Tommy Zadvydas

In the late hours of February 11, 2006 as a blinding snowstorm was about to bury New York City under almost of a foot of snow, another storm took place in the basement of the CBGB’s gallery. New York metal band After Dark played a solid, forceful set of horror rock; its unique brand of campy gloom and doom metal made your spine tingle and head bang hard.

The band has been playing around the New York scene since 2003, and has recently returned to the stage after some line-up changes. The group is preparing to release an as-of-yet untitled EP by the end of March, and is set to return to CBGB’s on April 8.

In the following interview, singer Alex Dementia discussed his band’s work, its reception in the New York scene, his experiences as a performer, and the group’s hopes for the future. Tommy Zadvydas, an aspiring music journalist and writer from Brooklyn New York, conducted it.

[Tommy] Tell me about your own personal influences for this band:

[Alex] Well the band is called After Dark, afterdark13.com, myspace.com/afterdark. What bands influence me? The band that changed how I feel about music was actually the Ramones when I was like 16. The Ramones didn’t get me into punk; I just really dug the Ramones for a while. After that I discovered the Stooges and stuff like that, then heard the Misfits at about 17, 18. I was definitely influenced by the punk scene, but then around that time I really got into White Zombie. I heard White Zombie and I absolutely fucking loved it. When I heard them I thought, ‘This is the band I would want to be in.’ I just loved the groove. Just the trashiness, the lyrics, the look of it, you know? I just read up all about the band and who their influences were, and that’s how I got into the underground shit, the old school shit, like Black Sabbath.

[Tommy] Black Sabbath, Corrosion of Conformity [was in the sound].

[Alex] I’m not really into COC, I dig COC but that’s not where I come from musically, but I guess it has that vibe. My producer pushed me to the next level and helped me open my mind musically. I never really sung before this EP.

[Tommy] What do you try to convey through your music? What do you try to across via the whole performance, lyrically, that type of thing.

[Alex] In going to the shows in my generation, I just turned 22, I was born in 1983, I just felt like with, this whole nu metal nonsense, music got really bad. There was like, nothing to say, all these bands lost that rock-n-roll vibe, I just feel music got really lame for a while and I just want to bring that rock-n-roll vibe back. I love Black Sabbath, I love the Misfits, I love the Cramps, I love White Zombie, I love Alice Cooper. Those are the bands that really influenced me. I want to bring back that energy. It’s also about not taking yourself so seriously. This is fun, you got to go up there and you got to go crazy, just give it all.

[Tommy] How long has this band been together?

[Alex] I started this band when I was 19 or 20, 2003 was our first show, at CBGB’s; it was a very different line-up. I’ve gone through two full line-ups with this band. I’m the front man of it, I founded it and when you’re young, you go through different musical changes, people come and go in bands. There was no bad blood or beef, it was just band stuff. Sometimes it ends sour, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes it just ends, but you know what, this band is who I am and I love it.

[Tommy] How was the scene in New York City treated you?

[Alex] It’s pretty much been the same, there’s a big scene in New York, [though not huge]. With like a, New York City rock-n-roll band there is more of a scene. There is a big hardcore, metal scene, that’s actually more in Queens though, you know? But we were never really in that scene. We played with a few of those bands but we were never a hardcore/metal band. There’s always about [After Dark] that no matter who the members were, there was always a —were not revolutionary by any means—there was always a good rock-n-roll spirit to it. Whether the band members who were in it dug it or not, we always kind of stuck out. I think the music scene in New York is growing, I think it has a lot of potential. The reception is always good even though there is not a giant scene in New York.

[Tommy] What themes do you discuss in your lyrics?

[Alex] It’s pretty dark ,campy, twisted, horrific stuff. It’s internal, psychedelic-type stuff. Sometimes my lyrics make sense, sometimes they don’t, but they always make sense to me. Mostly its about the fun stuff in life: horror, sex, violence.

[Tommy] How do you think this particular show went?

[Alex] This is our second show together, we’ve had three practices and we’ve just recorded a new EP, which is being released in March.

[Tommy] Final thoughts?

[Alex] Just keep pushing it, the scene is going to grow. I love playing, not enough people come out to these shows, and these live shows have a lot of fucking talent.

Tommy Zadvydas is a graduate student attending Bernard Baruch college and an intern at Crain’s InvestmentNews, a major newspaper that covers the finance industry. He is preparing to complete his Master’s thesis in fall 2006 and has written about popular music and covered bands in the Greater New York Area for the last three years. Moreover, he is drafting a manuscript of a book discussing his beginnings as a writer, and hopes to cover the music business as a career. He resides in Marine Park, Brooklyn.

Contact: Bellz1279@aol.com