The Rockin’ DIY Special: A Look at Aberdeen is Dead

These days, new rock bands are popping up like weeds in the front yard. Some of these bands are covers and some recreate the sound of a band from the past. But some figure out a way to create something truly unique by pulling from their favorite bands while injecting their originality. This is what the Dallas based band, Aberdeen is Dead, manages to do. The music coming from these guys are clearly inspired by the grunge sound of the early 1990s but has a fresh take through other genres like psychedelic rock.

Aberdeen is Dead consists of two members Jake Linder, singer and guitarist, and Matt Bolling, rhythm guitar and singer. The two have known each other since high school and have slowly made a name for themselves with their DIY approach to musicmaking and promotion. While the two make the band, they often pull from outside musicians to play parts like drums.

Matt 2021 rhythm guitar and sing and Jake 2020 sing and guitar (Aberdeen is Dead) Live guys drum, write the drum parts

Interviewer: What made the decision to work with different drummers for live shows? Is it logistical?

Jake: I guess so. Also, working with different people is fun but it has to do with location too. If we’re doing a show in Texas, there are a couple of drummers we would use. And if we’re doing a show somewhere farther away, it might be more fun to get someone new. But we are the ones who are doing the drumming in the songs.

Matt: Yeah, we have a set of live guys with us but if it comes up, we’re always down to expand with people.

This is one of the aspects that makes this band so unique. It’s the DIY attitude like this that makes Aberdeen is Dead its own thing.

Interviewer: Where did the band name “Aberdeen” come from? I saw it was changed a little bit.

Matt: Our name was Aberdeen and Jake took inspiration from Nirvana and Kurt Cobain but there was more than one band with the same name and as we are starting to get more into the business, we had to separate ourselves so, we added the “is dead” to the end of the name. And everyone still calls us by “Aberdeen” but it’s similar to the whole “Prince” thing. It’s for business reasons.

In an environment where it’s so easy to put out your own music, having a name that makes it easier to distinguish yourself from others is more important than ever. Jake and Matt note how, unlike in the past decades, having a rock band was very uncool.

Interviewer: How did the band start?

Matt: It was my freshman year and Jake’s sophomore year and we met in TV broadcast class. And it was really a big year for rap and there weren’t too many kids into rock. I was wearing a Green Day shirt and it immediately spurred a conversation and we started hanging out and recording stuff in Jake’s room. We eventually got a gig and had to find a bassist and drummer for that show. That’s kind of how we started playing as a band. And we just took it from there.

Interviewer: So, it wasn’t cool to be in a band in Texas?

Matt: This was 2017, 2018 so the Soundcloud era was still going. It’s funny when we tell people but we legit got made fun of in school for being in a rock band. But now those same people are going to Knotfest.

You have bigger rock scenes, even if they’re underground, in cities like Los Angeles and New York City. But places like Dallas can make it harder to find a footing. However, the community can sometimes be even stronger than in bigger cities with the scarcity of bands compared to other areas.

Interviewer: What’s your experience been with being a band in Dallas?

Matt: It isn’t that big; there’s a few bands doing some stuff but it’s mostly an underground scene. We’re trying to bring it back into Dallas and with social media, it’s a lot easier to set up shows with other bands. But I defiantly think using social media and setting up shows have started making things alive.

Interviewer: Do you try to play with bands similar to your sound?

Matt: We try but it’s not a huge pool of bands like us around here. So, we just try to get as close as we can to us. Usually it’s been indie, psych, and fuzz rock. We’ve played with some 90s, grunge inspired bands or pop rock. It depends but we take what we can get with whoever can bring in a similar crowd.

Every musician has those first artists that got them into music. Jake notes that Michael Jackson and the Beatles were the first artists that perked his musical curiosity. He got into drumming from the Blue Man Group, you know, those bald, blue dudes that used to be on TV commercials for Universal Theme Parks. He brought a drum kit but didn’t start to get serious until he met Matt.

Matt, a year younger than Jake, was a freshman when he met his bandmate. Matt points out that he had always been into an instrument, playing the guitar in the second grade. But he didn’t get serious until high school when he started getting into pop-punk bands like Green Day and Blink.

Interviewer: Influences with the band’s sound?

Jake: Nirvana, mainly the grunge bands. Later, when we started writing Bliss, I got into Psychedelic rock. That’s why Bliss sounds heavier and trippier.

Matt: It’s like psych-grunge, that album is.

Interviewer: I can see that. Do y’all go into a studio for recording or is it more DIY?

Jake: Everything we’ve done has been recorded at home.

Matt: We’re working on something that I think is our favorite so far. And it’s the last home recorded album we plan on doing, at least for now. We’re so excited for it but we don’t want to say too much!

Interviewer: (laughs) Is this coming out soon?

Jake: I don’t know honestly.

Matt: Yeah, we don’t even know.

Jake: I don’t want to say much but I want us to make the best music we can make right now. And then take more time in between to really work on it. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but all of our music is pretty close together in release. We release a lot, frequently. But after this next project, I hope to wait and mature as a person. Grow and have a new perspective on writing whenever we approach it on a studio album. But for now, the home records are where it’s at. We love doing it, it’s fun, and we don’t have to pay for it.

Aberdeen is Dead has toured mostly in and around Texas but are embarking on their first West Coast tour this December.

Matt: We’re planning on doing more tours outside of the state. But it’s a lot harder to tour nowadays than it was back then. It’s a lot of money. Bands have to make money. It’s not just a hobby, it’s our livelihood so we need to be bringing in money back home to feed our families and get gas in the car. So, our goal is to write the best music we can, promote it the best we can, and go out of state to as many locations as possible. We wanna go big with this one.

It's becoming more challenging for bands to separate themselves from the rest with the rising popularity of rock bands and younger musicians recording rock music. A band needs to not only find an original sound but grow from it.

Jake: Our whole thing started from the sound of the early 90s. We love that 90s grunge, but we want to be more original now. I hope our new music is starting to speak to that a little bit, but I know for sure that this next project will show that we are growing from that grunge thing. I love grunge and the message behind it, it’s why I named the band what it is. But, with this next album, I really wanted to express the fact that we’re different and we are willing to switch things up. That’s a problem I have with a lot of bands I like. They will put out three albums that sound the same and then twenty that sound like shit. I’d rather have fifty albums that sound completely different from the same artist. That’s interesting. That’s engaging.

Matt: Yeah, but you don’t want to stray too far from your influences.

For the past 15 years, the majority of popular rock bands amongst the youth has been a slower, softer, indie-rock sound. But I’ve noticed that there is now a growing popularity for louder, rawer rock that hasn’t been as common around youth culture than compared to 35 years ago. Aberdeen is Dead is an example of a young band that has been making (literal) noise on social media and streaming services.

Matt: The problem with popular music is that, now more than ever, it’s a bunch of industry plants. Rap, pop, whatever. And people are rejecting it because they know it’s not real and it’s not something they can relate to. And people who have been through absolute shit have something to say too. So, I think the industry will shift dramatically in the next five years because people are sick and tired of the plastic bullshit that’s being pushed, and they want something relatable that’s not Cardi B. You know what I mean?

Interviewer: That WAP.

Matt: Exactly. Even rock music is like that right now. It’s too polished. It’s just about who can make a hit.

Interviewer: It’s similar to the state of rock in the late 80s with the MTV, hair metal. And I love hair metal, I’d take that shit over the stuff we have now any day. But that’s why there was such a big shift in 1991.

Matt: It was like the era of the human, you know? It (music) was so real and raw.

Interviewer: Exactly. What has it been like as a rock artist right now? Trying to make your stuff listened to in 2022.

Jake: It’s been both a blessing and a curse because everything is a lot more complicated and there’s a lot more that goes into making your band a business and making it professional. But at the same time, we’ve used that to our advantage, and we haven’t spent a single dollar on promotion. But streaming services don’t pay their artists well. It’s definitely had a negative impact on the music industry.

Matt: I agree with him, Spotify sucks. And they keep reeling people back in by putting out these little pie charts for who listens to the artists per month. I’ll be honest, they have in depth analytics and stats that makes it user friendly, so it keeps people reeled in. But then they have more power to take away since they have so many people signed on to it.

The relationship between streamers and artists is a tricky one. It would be helpful if there was a show or some piece of media that promotes bands like how Beavis and Butthead pushed a lot metal bands into the mainstream consciousness.

Matt: I think there are things that promote artists nowadays, but they only accept people who have a manager, who reaches out to them and already has a relationship with them. Artists like us or others who don’t have the connections aren’t getting any coverage simply because the people are waiting around for managers or PR to hit them up. They’re favoring connections.

Interviewer: Are you guys open to getting representation if it was offered?

Jake: That’s what we’re trying to do right now!

Matt: Yeah, we are trying. But we are pretty big on being independent. If you’re good at promotion and touring, then there’s no reason to sign. It can all be self-learned. I mean, we all have a phone that can tell us anything in .3 seconds. Just researching and the trial and error. A lot of bands will be lazy and sign and give up 50 percent of their earnings. But we’d rather go the more conservative route and just do it all ourselves.

Aberdeen is Dead has released two albums, Lamb (2020) and Bliss (2022). One of the singles on the album, Rock is Dead, and You Killed It, has gained momentum, hitting over 300,000 listens on Spotify.

Jake: The song is about gatekeeping music and shitting on new rock music whenever it comes out and not giving it a chance. I mean, there’s tons of talented new rock bands, coming in every single day and people are shouting “Hey, you sound like ___!” And the whole point of the song is like, “What do you want from me?” I’m a 21-year-old who’s trying to write rock music that makes me feel better about life. It’s really not that deep, people take our band way too seriously. It’s nothing short of therapy for me and Matt. That’s it. But people online will scream hate all day long. And that’s what the sing is about, what the hell do you want from us? We’re just doing what we know how to do. You know?

Interviewer: Do you guys get that? People being annoying to you online.

Jake: It’s hard to tell because with some of our Tik Tok’s that blow up, we can have a shit-ton of hate comments and then the video will blow up because of the hate comments. And then we will gain a bunch of new fans because of it. And a lot of people are like “You’re getting a bunch of hate, man” and I didn’t even know. But we have a lot of supporters, and the haters can provide the supporters. But it can be annoying.

While the rock community is notorious at gatekeeping, it’s also the most inclusive and supportive community in music.

Jake: I mean, you have these pop icons that seem untouchable, but they are just one person that’s surrounded by a team of people that help them with their business and craft. And that’s why I love our shows so much. We don’t have this attitude or barrier like it’s us against the crowd. We are the crowd. And we’re never going to become that where we are seen as something that is above the crowd. That’s why we pride our DIY approach. It helps with the connection with our fans and the thing I notice most at shows is that people are curious, and they really do want it (music). They just don’t know how it’s going to come yet. And I think us, and other bands are going to help contribute to a shift in the music industry soon. Hopefully soon.

Interviewer: Maybe like 30 years ago, when all those bands were so big.

Jake: Gods. Some of those bands were like Gods. And that’s a great thing if you’re trying to sell records. But I’m not necessarily after just that. I’m after peeking people’s interest in rock music. And helping a generation understand that it doesn’t have to end. And you can continue what these great bands have started but with your own style. That’s what we’re trying to do.

We’ve noticed a lot of people are starting bands now and that’s freaking amazing to me. Because two years ago, people were making fun of us. Literally shitting on us. Now we get people asking us how we did it and are doing it.  And it’s super cool.

Aberdeen is Dead has a West Coast tour next month called “The December Blood Tour”, hitting cities like Denver, Las Vegas, and Santa Ana. All their music is streaming on Spotify and Apple Music. Check them out on Instagram @Aberdeenisdead.