Our intrepid reporter Lisa Fox recently had chance to catch up with Shayley Bourget of Dayshell on their 2014 tour at Glasgow’s ABC. Shayley reveals details about what its like being on their biggest UK tour, his split with Of Mice and Men and much more.
This is Lisa Fox from Rock Sins and I am with Shayley from Dayshell.
How are you?
I’m pretty good how are you?
I am fine thank you. So how is the tour going?
Oh it’s going awesome man, this is the biggest thing, the biggest opportunity this band has yet to see and to me I am so grateful and I feel like you know we don’t even deserve to be here yet but we are given the opportunity and people have faith in our music and want us to be at this level. So I’m so thankful and it’s going awesome man, killing it as much as we can.
And this is only the second time Dayshell have been in the UK but it is the second time in six months, so you must like it here?
Yeah, we were here in December, what are we now, in April? Yeah the first time it was completely different, we were with a smaller act but I loved that tour. I was with my best friends, bands that I grew up with in this music and scene and developing myself to getting here, like I got to go back and hang out with them. It was a blast, it was pretty much summer band camp with my best friends.
It was really intimate and really close, yes Dayshell were always the odd one out, they were heavier bands, nobody rocks out for us but I don’t give a shit. There were still kids out there that really liked us and came to see us, bought shirts hung out all night. Either way man I got to hang out with my boys.
You said when you left Of Mice and Men that it was because your heart wasn’t in it, is that still how you feel?
It wasn’t for me any more, I was starting to fall in this pocket, this really depressing pocket because I hurt my back and everything went downhill from there. I’ve always struggled with a lot of other anxiety and depression and that tumbled over. There was no respect in the band. Nobody knew each other before that. That band was built, not created, I don’t know how to put it…
It didn’t come together organically?
Yes, it wasn’t organic. That’s a good word, I need to use that. It wasn’t organic, it was chemically made. And I think that was the biggest problem with that band. You know I made my mistakes, but when people make mistakes your friends are usually there to pick you up and love you. I felt like I was just picked on and teased, and besides they partied too hard for me. They partied too hard for me and I can’t live that lifestyle because when I get sucked in to it I party too hard. I don’t do drugs or anything I just drink, in that band I drank so hard. And it just affects me, my whole body system, to the point where I just can’t physically function. But they can keep going, and I just can’t. So I had to get the fuck out man, and plus it was just fucking with my head. I didn’t feel loved.
Do you feel loved now?
Oh yeah. I have a lot of amazing friends in this band. I grew up with all of them, I literally did. So I am really honoured to be here, on the other side of the world with them. And who would have thought? I told them, I made a promise to my bass player, I said, “One day dude I promise you I’m going to pick you back up and we are going to go”. I’m not saying we are a rich but I took him and I fulfilled my promises. That was one of the promises that I made that I wanted to live for or live by, and succeed by and I did it. So I’m pretty proud of myself.
Definitely I think that’s a big success story. A lot of people with depression get into the rut and can’t find the energy to break free from it. I think that you’re a positive message for everybody out there.
I mean there’s never really a cure. There is no end to it, it’s just you’ve just got to find things to distract you and if you can barely get by then barely get by. To me I barely get by and that’s good enough because at least you’re getting by. I’m somewhat of a role model to people so not only am I barely getting by, but I’m barely getting by and inspiring people to at least barely get by instead of just cutting it out, dying, killing themselves. For me, I’m living, I’m alive.
Doing something you love has to help. Being with a band of people who you know and love.
For sure but I think that there comes a fine line between love and when depression takes over and consumes everything, where you don’t know what you love anymore and you’re kind of numb. I’m kind of there but this is all I know and this is what I do and I know that I love it and I know that one day, one day I’ll be content. I love this don’t get me wrong. With depression you love what you love, but you get so lost, you get so lost in self-loathing that you forget what you love, but if that’s all you know you think you love that. I know I love this, I just don’t feel it but I know I love it. And I know tomorrow maybe I’m going to wake up and I’m going to get right back in that fucking hook again and keep going. You’ve just got to go, you just got to, I don’t know man it’s a hit or miss.
People cope in different ways I suppose.
Yeah, I guess you could say that. My favourite thing about coping is music, creating music. I feel like I’m in control for once. It’s not, playing shows is awesome and it’s cool, like this is awesome, I get to hang out with my fans and I get to lose myself talking to them. Just losing myself talking to you, you know. But my favourite thing is when I sit down and I create something, I am for that second a god. And I create something and I have complete control over it. It’s weird to say…
No, I think that’s cool. Because there’s so many things in the world that you’re not in control of.
I know, right? But I get to do that for a little bit.
DayShell’s sound reminds me a lot of early Incubus, like around the S.C.I.E.N.C.E sort of time. Would you agree with that?
I wouldn’t necessarily agree with it but Incubus is one of my all-time favourite bands in the world, with Incubus, with Led Zeppelin, with Rush, and I guess it’s a collaboration but it’s totally a compliment because those are my idols and I know I express that through my music so it’s cool. I guess you could say I agree with that.
And you recently made Tyler Shippy a full member?
To be honest he was never supposed to be in the band, when he joined we were just like I don’t know man this guy is like we don’t know him, he was a scrawny little dude, like who knows what the fuck he’s gonna do. And throughout time, he just kept staying dedicated and it was my call. I had to convince the other dudes, and he proved himself. It came to the point where he was like, “Dude I don’t know if I can keep doing this”, I was like “Well you know the only thing that you’re lacking is like a contribution to the music. Which we don’t really need because I read all the music but I would love to hear that”. And he put his stuff forward and I was like alright cool, and then he kept putting another step forward and I was like “Okay cool well you know what fuck it dude, we need for a people anyways man there’s only three of us I can’t do this alone”.
It’s hard to get the depth of sound and still keep it real on stage and not have lots of track playing, with only got three people.
Yeah, so I was like alright dude let’s just get him, and we’re stoked. I’m really happy to have him, he’s a very mellow person. I’m stoked. He’s a cool addition and he’s a mellow person, an easy person to tour with, he doesn’t fucking argue. He just chills. He’s a great person.
So DayShell, I’m guessing it came from your name, Shayley?
It’s a name type of story. My dad told me you know, “When you get older and you become a rocker you need to change your, you need to have your stage name DayShell”. And I was like yeah, because in my first name is Shayley and it’s so fucking weird but…. I took that into consideration, I think it’s a cool name, DayShell.
What are your plans for the rest of the year, you’re doing the Warped Tour?
Yeah, we’re going to do the Warped Tour. And after that we have some things in mind that we can’t talk about. But it’s really big.
Have you picked up new fans as DayShell, or is it Of Mice and Men fans coming to you?
I don’t know, no of course yes. But there’s a lot of fans, I mean there’s certain comments that we see that are specifically based around, I mean not to say, I didn’t like Of Mice and Men but I fucking love DayShell. I liked Of Mice and Men but I only liked them for Shayley’s voice, and I heard DayShell and I love the whole fucking band. And that’s like, you know that’s obviously like cool. And yeah, there’s a few people that said I’ve never heard of you guys like this is fucking radical and they like us. So I’m sure we’ve picked up the good probably 20% of our fans. So that’s good.
How has the music gone down live?
I want to say about like 20% of them are grooving, the other people are going “When’s Halestorm going on?” But at least we got that 20% and that’s good enough. Because that at least what I was expecting. So if we can get the at least I’m happy with that.
20% of a few thousand people?
20% of 2400 I’m down for it, so that has to be like, what’s 20% of 2400? 480. 480 people dig us. So that’s good.
That’s good, that’s definitely good. If you’re not into partying what do you do after the shows?
Me and Jordan hang out, sometimes we ride dirt bikes. Pretty much write music when we can and we drink some beers, smoke some cigs, once in a while hit the greens and yeah kickback and I guess try to prep. But there is really no kicking back, we are always having a stress out and taking about what are we going to do tomorrow, tomorrow we’ve got to do this, or we’ve got to do this what are we going to do? We are always doing something somehow. Whether it’s thinking about it or doing it.
Do you plan a lot ahead?
We don’t have a lot of time to plan ahead. That’s the problem. We barely knew we were going to play this tour what? Two weeks before, officially. We were booked, we were on the bill, but we wouldn’t know we were going to actually do this about two weeks before so we were all just sitting on the edge of our seats like “Is this really going to fall through or follow through?” And it did. So that’s our life.
What can we expect from the show tonight?
Tonight you can expect four guys rocking the shit out, me jumping around like a dumb monkey and are trying to sing and hoping to God that my voice doesn’t blow up. It seems like it’s getting a little bit better.
Whiskey is meant to be quite good for that.
That’s what I hear.
And you’re in Scotland.
Yeah but it’s expensive as shit here.
Is it? Compared to the States?
No, it’s actually the same price.
Cool, are you looking forward to playing the rest of Europe?
Yeah of course, of course I’m looking forward to it but I know our last experience was, the venue is that we played it was a little weak, the UK is just fucking insanity, you guys are crazed for music and it’s so beautiful. When you go to Europe they seem to be a little bit not as attracted to going to shows I guess you could say. And I’m not talking shit but the people that do come fuck yeah man, those kids are fucking awesome. But then again we are on a whole different level in the tour and now we are going to this, so I’m sure it will be awesome. Either way we are here, we are going.
Just to wrap up, do you have one final message for everyone out there?
If we come out here again we need choneys, we need socks. I like sunflower seeds, what else do we need?
You know you’re just going to get people throwing sunflower seeds at you now.
That’s about it. Those are the three essentials. Socks, choneys, sunflower seeds, and we’ll love you forever but you don’t have to and we all love you.
…whats a choney?
See, I knew I should have explained that. Its underpants.
Yes definitely an essential then! Thank you very much indeed
