Vents MagaZine Music and Entertainment Magazine
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Rock ‘n’ roll causes a physical response. Hips sway, feet tap, heads nods, and hearts race. On stage and on tape, Whole Damn Mess provokes a primal reaction. Packing a potent punch with timeless songcraft and unbridled energy. The Los Angeles band—Don Miggs, C. Todd Nielsen, Lawrence Katz, and Greg Hansen (along with a permanent “ensemble” of drummers and bass players)—forge an instant connection that’s as lively as their performances.
After canvasing the country alongside iconic acts and releasing fan favorite projects, the group ignites a tried-and-true approach with a fresh fire in 2021, beginning with the release of their latest song and video for “Nothing In The World Feels Better” and more songs on the way.
Welcome to VENTS! How have you been?
Don: Like everyone else!!! Stir crazy…
C. Todd: Super, how are you?!
Greg: Fantastic! How are you?
Lawrence: Doing great thanks!
– How did the four of you come together?
Don: Lawrence and C Todd came to my studio for a writing session. We clicked immediately and a few months later I brought Greg as my “plus one” to C Todd’s birthday dinner and they hit it off and 3 became 4, as the saying goes.
C. Todd: Myself and Lawrence were introduced to Don through Kevin Held who runs Don’s publishing company and was my former manager. He thought we would hit it off and he was right. Lawrence and I went to Don’s studio in Tampa for what was meant to be a weekend writing session but by the end we had three songs and decided we should start a band and make an album. Soon after Don began writing with Greg and introduced him to me by bringing him to my birthday dinner. The chemistry was immediate, and the rest is history.
Lawrence: Todd’s answer sums it up best. Todd and I had been working on a lot of music together and occasionally we would work with other writers and producers. We were introduced to Don for a pretty standard writing session, but it quickly became clear that it was anything but that.
Greg: I met Don in a writing session and we just hit it off. Like we’d know each other all our lives or something. We immediately became really close and started working together all the time. We found out about 6 months later that we both grew up in the same town of Bayshore, NY. Which would explain a lot!! WDM was already a band and they had just dropped The Queen and The Outcast. Don asked if I wanted to play some shows with them; To which I replied Abso-Fucking-Lutely! And here we are.
– Can you talk to us more about your latest single “Nothing In The World Feels Better”?
Don: It’s a song that feels like it was always there. We got the chance to play it live every night, right before the world shut down, when we toured with Cheap Trick and ZZ Top and then with Candlebox and the reaction from the crowd was like they knew it. Always a good sign.
Greg: It’s the first single off our new album coming out this year! Our first release of 2021.
Lawrence: It’s a perfect example of what happens when all of our influences and skill sets come together perfectly.
– Did any event in particular inspire you to write this song, if not what was the inspiration?
Don: Greg had the initial inspiration and then we all chimed in and ruined it, or made it better – depending on who you ask… One of my favorite lines in a song is from this one: “You’re diving in deep but you’re coming out dry.”
Greg: It’s weird. The song just kind of showed up one night. I was taking a shower and I started humming that post chorus instrumental part – this little melody in my head. After that the song just sort of spilled out. I honestly don’t really remember “writing” it. The first thing I sang was “Nothing In The World Feels Better.” When I sat down to actually produce the song, I started with a bass. Which is a great way to write because you don’t know if the chords are minor or major. You can just focus on where the roots go and how the chords move. The verse lyrics were inspired by my fiancé. At the time, we were so broke, and we were trying so hard, but we were stuck. I just wanted to write a love letter to that time in my life. About how struggling year after year is really fine when you’ve got love in your life. The song feels that way to me too. The drums and bass are kicking and punching the entire time but the music and the melodies kind of float above undisturbed. Once I had a good working demo, I brought the idea to the band and they all really liked it. Don wrote most of the second verse and we all wrote the bridge together.
-Who came up with the video concept?
C. Todd: I can take some credit for the video concept I suppose. We were trying to suss out what a full-length video narrative would work best for the song when it soon became abundantly clear that a massive budget would be needed to do anything close to what we thought would accurately represent the song and the band. It then dawned on me. Who is really watching entire music videos anymore? Most people catch the beginning and just skip around to the end. We don’t have the attention span. So, from there I thought, maybe we take what budget we did have, and spread it out over as many shorter vignettes as we could get, all of which gave you the feeling of “Nothing In The World Feels Better.” From there we would have many individual assets that worked well for social media, still looked expensive, and then could be creatively combined in the end to still get a full-length video from because they were all united by the same basic theme.
Don: We didn’t want to do a full traditional video. Instead, we did little vignettes and then C Todd wondered why we didn’t just tie them all together and, damn kid had a solid idea. It worked as a complete piece.
-Tell us about your recording and writing process?
C. Todd: This is a constantly changing and evolving process as the band is a bit of a four headed monster, all of which are producers and writers in their own right. Plus, we all live in different places. Don splits time between LA and Tampa. Greg is in LA, I’m in Las Vegas now (from LA) and Lawrence is in Atlanta. Whenever any of us can get in a room together some form of writing and demoing starts the process. In some cases the demo or writing even gets started by one guy alone. From there, we typically send said demo to each guy to do his thing on it. Again, all being producers, we all add and subtract what we think the song needs until we think it’s ready for our secret sauce…Mark Needham. Mark has become “the fifth Beatle” if you will as he organizes and mixes our ideas into shape so we can see the finish line more clearly.
Greg: It’s a bit more like the Beatles than the Beach Boys. Someone will get inspired or have an idea then bring it to the rest of the band. Four heads are better than one and the other three guys are so fucking good. There’s nothing like being in the room all together.
Lawrence: Because we’re all in different places we do everything remotely. We’re fortunate in that we’re all capable producers. We all kind of do our individual part in the process with a lot of ideas and communication back and forth. I think we’d all prefer to be in the same room but we’re also able to stay pretty productive this way.
– Since you all live in different cities, what is your process when working on music, do you feel like your different locations help all of you to bring something a little different to your music?
Don: It is a challenge and sometimes it’s better that way!! We are a room full of chiefs so distance can make the heart grow fonder! What makes us unique to me is that it’s four producers, four writers, four engineers, four players of multiple instruments and four singers. Lots of options and we all have our 10,000 hours of experience and a million influences so it’s like a high-performance engine when we are all together. To make a bold statement- I don’t think there is a band better than we are at playing rock and roll. Might be a few as good. Lol!!!
C. Todd: I think we would still all prefer to be in one place, it makes things go faster and you can exchange ideas better in person but being in different places definitely means you’re exposed to different things that find their way into the music. The other benefit is that working remotely allows each of us to take as much time as we need to experiment and work on ideas for each song and do so from our own studios with our preferred tools and workflow.
Greg: It’s a bit of a Postal Service vibe where we email ideas back and forth. I would say that it has its advantages and disadvantages. It’s great to flesh out ideas on my own but I’m missing the “in the moment” sparks that happen when we’re all together. Hopefully that changes soon.
Lawrence: I’m not sure our locations influence the sound of the music. It does however give us all the opportunity to individually explore what we want to add to the songs. Because we are in our own spaces we have the comfort level of being able to engage in our individual processes and I think that definitely brings something to the table.
-Tell us about the band’s evolution from “Nothing In The World Feels Better” from your previous album and EP and what’s coming next?
Don: The first record “The Queen and the Outcast” and the follow up EP “Princes Turn To Thieves” were mainly me, C Todd and Lawrence figuring each other out with Greg coming in for the last track we recorded for the EP (Another Sad Reminder). Then the four of us got together and started to work on the current record and got a batch of tracks together before Lawrence moved and then C Todd moved. We decided it was too easy to just be in the same room, so we made it as hard as possible to get things done!!! All this happened just as we really honed the sound we were going for and now we feel like we know what a WDM song is before we finish it.
-So…what’s going on with the upcoming album release?
Don: We’ve got 8 tracks READY. We feel so good about these songs. The first four are like members of the same family. If you like Nothing In The World, get ready for the rest…
Lawrence: The full album is just about complete. It’s filled with songs we are excited about.
C. Todd: This new batch of songs really shows the growth we found from touring together and finally writing more as a unit.
-Any tentative release dates or song or album titles in mind that you can share with us?
Don: That is above my pay grade. All this year. That I feel pretty certain about.
Greg: Stay Tuned!
-With touring on hold due to COVID-19 can we expect more videos, live stream shows?
Don: All of that. The hope is one of these big arena acts want a band that will get the audience all revved up and take us along. Until then, all the typical 2021 things- videos, live streams, etc.
Greg: Definitely expect some live performance videos coming up with the new releases.
-Can you talk to us about what’s coming next for the band?
Don: The future is a mystery, isn’t it? But I can tell you my favorite thing to do if I am not with my wife and kids is to be with these guys – in a studio, on a stage or on a tour bus, and if the stars align, I hope to make music with them until the day they die (since it turns out I’m living forever).
Greg: Waiting to get the green light so we can get back on the road. We’re a touring band and these songs are meant to be experienced in a live setting.
C. Todd: In terms of what’s coming next, as it pertains to all of the questions above, I’d say wait and see…also, I don’t know yet! I just know we love to play shows and make music together and we all can’t wait to do it again soon. Wear a mask. Stay socially distant. Get the vaccine. I want to play with my friends.
