D&M: Home Again (And Now With Horns!).

Our Jillian Mallon spoke with Danny Fornasa of Drexel University-based alternative pop band D&M. He and the band’s other two members, Matt Klahre and Miles Mueller, accompanied by a whole bunch of new tricks, will play a “Welcome Home” show on September 25^th at the World Café Live to mark the end of the national tour they completed this summer. (Photo at Triumph Brewing Company by G.W. Miller III).

You are cited as a Drexel band. Did you meet and form as Drexel University students or were you making music beforehand?

Me and Matt (Klahre), our guitar player, met at orientation at Drexel. Everyone who is in the band all met at Drexel and formed at Drexel. We’ve all been playing music since we were very young and were lucky enough to meet each other at Drexel University.  I met Matt during an ice breaker game where you had to talk about your interests and stuff and we had the same musical influences and liked the same guitar players and we tried to jam once the school year started. We played together and we really enjoyed it. That day we decided to form a band and get rocking and rolling.

Who were your influences that you had in common?

We’re both big fans of John Mayer and his blues music. He’s actually a great guitar player. Then I had some songs of mine that I showed Matt and he played guitar on them. It was like magic.

So you just clicked immediately?

Yeah, it was great.

Are you glad to be making music here in Philly?

We love Philadelphia. We glad to be making music in Philadelphia. Drexel is a great place. I’m glad we met there and started there, but we’ve definitely kind of moved on from the Drexel University scene to the national scene which is very exciting for us. When we first started we played, I don’t know, like 50 shows in Philadelphia, and then we started to expand last year. Last summer. We started playing the rest of the east coast and the northeast. This summer we just did a national tour. We’re happy to broaden our horizons a bit. We love Philadelphia. That’s why we’re doing this “Welcome Home” show in Philadelphia.

What is your favorite venue in Philly?

We’re playing World Café Live. That’s our favorite. But we also like The Electric Factory. We’re hoping to play there.

What inspires you most to write music? What is the writing process like for all of you?

I would definitely say our writing is inspired by things that happen in our lives. Usually I’ll get inspired to write a song and I’ll write the song. It’s not really a thing where we sit down and try, like, “Today we’re going to write a song.” It usually just comes out of nowhere but that’s fun for us. I would write the melody and come up with some words and I would show Matt and he would play awesome guitar on it and I’d say “That sounds good.” And that’s about it. Then we’d show the rest of the band, see what they do, and then we have a song, usually.

Your band just recently toured this summer. How was the experience for you?

It was amazing. It was great. It was our first national tour. It was our first time in a lot of these places: California, Las Vegas. I’ve never been there. It was cool to be there playing rock and roll music. It was great. It was the best moment of our lives.

What was your favorite place to play?

What was our favorite place to play? We played a place called Amplify in Los Angeles, and we played with a great band called The Neighbors. They were such a cool band. We’d been talking to them for a while trying to set up a show. We got the show set up in L.A. and we played and it was a full room. It was such a good time. It was so cool to be so far away from home and to still be playing a big audience that wants to hear our music.

You recently recorded your Delawanna EP. Are you excited to play these songs? Have you played them live on the tour?

Yeah, most of the tour was in support of this EP. We’ve been playing them all summer. We’re really proud of what we recorded on this EP. We think it’s a good representation of us as a band. We love playing it live. If you listen to the EP and then hear it live, it’s a big difference. The live show is just a lot more electric and exciting. That’s why we’re doing this live DVD recording at World Café Life, because we want to show the rest of the world that hasn’t seen our shows what we sound like live. We think it’s really a unique “slash” great thing.

How is it different than recorded?

It’s just a different kind of energy. If a recorded song is four minutes long, then that’s the four minutes in the recording. But then when we do it live, that might take extra time to just go look beyond all of the guitar solos. It’s just more exciting, I guess? Not that our recordings aren’t exciting. I hate when I listen to a band on a recording and then see them in concert and they suck.

There are a lot of bands that when you see them live, you are just watching the record being performed.

Yeah, exactly, or even worse. You want to add live. If you are paying money to go – you can download our songs for free but if you are paying money to come see us live, there should be something more.

You are playing a recorded set at World Café Live on the 25^th, and that’s your “Welcome Home” show?

Yeah, we’ve been touring all summer. We actually started our tour at World Café Live in June. So now we’re playing World Café Live again. We have a great opener. We’re going to have a horn section. We’re going to have all this stuff. We’re trying to make it the best show we’ve ever played. We’re excited to do that.

Have you played with a horn section before?

No, we never have, so hopefully it doesn’t suck.

That’s exciting. How did that get set up?

We decided we wanted to add something else to the band, to the live show, that we haven’t had before, so we decided that we wanted to get a horn section. So we haven’t practiced with them yet but hopefully in the next week it will come together.

I hope so. Aside from that, what should fans look forward to seeing and hearing at the show?

Well, we’re going to be playing old songs and new songs. We’ll be playing songs from our first EP and from Delawanna, the EP that just came out, and then one or two songs that haven’t been recorded yet that are brand new. We’re really excited for everyone to hear that. We’ve been writing over the summer and on the road. It’s just going to be – every song played is going to be the best we’ve ever played it. If you’re ever going to see a D&M show, this is the one to see.