Diandra Interviews Darkminds: Determined To Receive Good News

Being positive is not easy. It is a strange feat that is often confused for denying darkness or never getting sad. The truth is when you become positive you flip the script. Instead of being a sad person with moments of joy, you become a happy person with moments of sad. You seeks good news while accepting bad instead of seeking bad news only to fight good ones. In Darkminds debut, Good News, the felt determined to give positivity a sound that shows it is loud, bombastic, vivacious, rhythmic, and as memorable as a sad song. 

Diandra: What has been some good news you have heard, recently? 

DANIEL: Thanks to the millions of people who have been vaccinated and having one of the lowest transmission rates in the country, California officially reopened today! GREAT news!

CHRIS: DARKMINDS just released their debut album on June 4th, and they are already back in the studio working on new music!

DANIEL: Definitely my wife, Beth. I like to think of myself as a fairly optimistic person, but she has me beat in spades. Her eternal optimism about the world teaches me to try and be a kinder and gentler person every day.

CHRIS: That would have to be my father. He’s taught the importance of perspective. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” – Proverbs 23:7

Diandra: What has overcoming adversity taught you about love, and even changed how you love? 

DANIEL: Dang. Coming in hot with the heavy questions. I like it. I think the sad and difficult moments in life often teach us the most about love. In my life, they have always served as a reminder to love as hard as possible because we’re only here for a brief moment in time and none of us know how long we have. We should tell our loved ones that we love them as much as possible while we know that we can. I try to live by that. I don’t always succeed.

CHRIS: Overcoming adversity quantifies how much you really love something or someone. When I think about the sacrifices that I’ve made, the willingness to endure the hardships really speaks to the amount of love that I have. 

Diandra: What do you feel you bring out of each other, as persons, that can be heard in your music?

DANIEL: As a musician and producer, Chris inspires me to always strive to be better and to never stop learning. I’ve never met anyone as passionate as he is about continuing to learn the craft of production. I like to think you can hear that in our music. Two people who are always pushing to be better and more dialed in as a band, as musicians, and as producers. As a person, Chris’ enthusiasm and optimism is infectious. It absolutely plays into how I write when I’m around him. It’s not my natural instinct to write super optimistic and hopeful songs, but when we’re together it’s the only thing that makes sense to write. That’s just the energy in the room. 

CHRIS: If you listen very carefully, you can hear our roots. Daniel is such a great songwriter and he makes it so easy to collaborate. There is such a seamless flow of thoughts and ideas every time we work. I think the best part about DARKMINDS is that the listener gets to hear our individuality in the music. I never tell Daniel to write or sing a lyric in any other way than how he would write or sing naturally. It’s complete freedom of expression for each of us and it works really well!

Diandra: If you could dedicate a song to each other, off the album, which would it be and why? 

DANIEL: I’m gonna have to go with “Ready Let’s Go.” It’s the song that really put DARKMINDS on the map. It’s also the first DARKMINDS song we did that was really so completely different than anything I had ever done before – it was basically written as sports anthem. I love how it pushed me out of my comfort zone in the best way. It’s been used in ads, movies, tv shows – it only made sense for it to close out our very first album.

CHRIS: It would have to be, “Give It My All”. I think the lyrics are just raw and honest. And the title just speaks to the level of dedication and work ethic that we both share. 

Diandra: If music is about self-expression, what is the most surprising thing you have expressed about yourself, that even surprised you? 

DANIEL: If we’re talking about DARKMINDS specifically, I’d say I’ve surprised myself with how much I enjoy writing positive and uplifting songs – whether they’re about overcoming adversity, being in love, whatever it may be…from a mental standpoint, it makes me an overall happier person. That being said, I love sad, dark, and brutally honest songs more than anything. I still write plenty of those, believe me. I think I’ve just learned that, for me, it’s important to have both outlets.

CHRIS: I would say my willingness to just go and follow the music wherever it leads. For instance, when we wrote “Give It My All” I had no idea at the time that I would actually pen lyrics and rap the verses, but it was just Daniel and I following the music and it took me to a very vulnerable place and I think it was important that I reflect and share those feelings with the world. 

Diandra: What are 5 facts about yourself that you say, “if you don’t know this, you don’t know Darkminds!” 

DANIEL: 1. We’re both trained keyboard players. I grew up studying classical and finishing college with a jazz degree. Chris grew up in the church playing gospel. 2. One of the big reasons I moved out to LA from Nashville in 2019 was because of our first session we had when I was on a writing trip out here. I can’t fully explain it, but it was like I knew that we had more to do together. 3. We’re both proudly independent artists who fully own all of our own music and run our own businesses. 4. We never talk about what we’re gonna wear for photoshoots – somehow every time we have one we manage to complement each other perfectly. 5. We both have amazing dogs. Arguably the best dogs on the planet. 

CHRIS: I agree 100% with Daniel on all 5 of these answers.

Diandra: What is your favorite childhood memory with music? 

DANIEL: So many. Too many to count. I come from a very musical family. Sitting around the piano at my aunt’s house playing blues songs with my uncle until all hours of the night. Christmas caroling with my entire dad’s side of the family every year. The list goes on…

CHRIS: Gigging all over Atlanta with my childhood band, Treble Clef. It was such an explorative time period in my life and I was falling so deeply in love with music and it just took over my life in the most beautiful way.

Diandra: If Music became a person, what would you do if you could take them out for the day? 

DANIEL: Whoa. I’m gonna be completely honest – I’m either too stoned or not stoned enough for this question. I suppose I would take music to my favorite seafood restaurant and buy it whatever it wanted as a thank you for being such a massively important part of my life. Did I do this right?

CHRIS: I’d just give them one big THANK YOU and a long tight hug from the bottom of my heart.

Diandra: If being an artist was the same as becoming a comic book hero, what would be your origin story, catch-phrase, and literal powers? 

DANIEL: As a child, Ellsworth’s story begins with musicals and piano lessons and choirs. So…so many musicals and piano lessons and choirs. It was there he honed his superpowers of being really good at memorizing things and impressing friends with his musical abilities that overshadowed his shortcomings as a husky out of shape football player. His catch phrase: “Looks like you’re in the wrong key and I’m about to play you like a piano.”

CHRIS: Chris’s story begins in the South, Atlanta, Georgia to be exact. Some call it the Bible Belt, and sure enough the church is where Chris developed his super powers. Catch phrase: “If I hear it once, I can play it back to you forever”. The super power is the ability to fix anything with sounds.

Diandra: Making your debut, what do you hope to introduce to the world about yourself, what do you feel are its core messages about life?

DANIEL: With DARKMINDS, I’m introducing to the world that I love creating pop/hip-hop/r&b songs as much as I love creating left-of-center indie rock as much as I love creating sad singer-songwriter music. I don’t know if there’s one core message from DARKMINDS’ music, but what I hope people take away from this album in particular are feelings of joy, positivity, optimism, and that with the right mindset that they can overcome anything. 

CHRIS: We just want to put a smile on people’s face. There’s so much negativity in our world and DARKMINDS music really shines a light of hope, joy, and pure happiness.

Diandra: As a writer, the start of our journey begins from an inner urge and a belief that we could be like the ones we admire. Who were the songwriters who most inspired you to become one? 

DANIEL: There are a TON, but what comes to mind right now is: Paul Simon, Prince, David Byrne, Sam Cooke, Tom Petty, Otis Redding, Oscar Peterson, Wilco…

CHRIS: Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Pharrell Williams, Timbaland in no particular order. 

Diandra: What is a movie, book, or tv show that you feel would be a great concept album? Why and from what angle? 

DANIEL: First thing I can think of is Sound Of Metal. I’d make the music reflect the journey of a musician learning their hearing. Start loud and bombastic representing having hearing, eventually gets quieter and more introspective representing the loss of hearing, leans into experimental/noisey representing botched hearing aid attempts…Might be too much of a rollercoaster ride but…most of my favorite albums are.

CHRIS: The 2004 Crime/Drama: Crash. It’s such a great movie and very relevant today as it speaks to issues in our society. If one was to make this into an album, it would be interesting to hear completely different and unfamiliar sound textures working together in perfect harmony. 

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