A Time for Chemicals. A Quick Chat With Sean Danielsen of Smile Empty Soul

Smile Empty Soul have proven to be road warriors the last few years. In fact our own Jason Horne caught up with the band in Louisville, KY here. But in addition to being road warrioers, within less than two years of their last album, the band released their sixth album, Chemicals. Which I reviewed here, late last year if interested. I’ve long been a fan of the band and I recently had the chance to speak with Sean Danielsen, frontman and guitarist for the band.

For the release of your latest album, “Chemicals”, you formed an imprint called Two Disciples Entertainment. What lead to your decision to start your own label?

Like you said we’ve been on the road for over a decade now. This is our sixth album and we feel we know the process pretty well, and we know we have the ability to handle it well ourselves. And the opportunity kind of arrived for us to do it. It’s always have a spot in the back of our heads. We were able to write exactly how we wanted to. The opportunity kind of perked up and we jumped on it.

It must be pretty exciting to be able to utilize that opportunity.

Yeah that’s right. We make all the decisions. We got the process down everything and we have our hands all over It.

Can you tell me a little bit about the processes you went through to write and record “Chemicals”?

It was just like any other album cycle of ours. I tend to write rather frequently. I always have a backlog of new material at any point in time. It’s only a matter of picking songs out of the material I’ve already written. We actually picked a couple of older songs that it never made it to any other previous album. We reworked them and recorded them as well.

What do you feel you accomplished as a band with “Chemicals”?

I think we accomplished releasing our sixth album. We just like to get on the road and keep doing it.

You have had a pretty busy tour schedule this year, already. What are your plans for the summer and fall? Are you going to hit the road, or stay at home, to relax and recharge?

We actually have a new single coming out. Our second single from this record. It’s the song “chemicals”, the title track. Going to go home for a few weeks, And get back on the road toward the end of April. That will go through a couple weeks into June. And we have a couple of summer things planned. We really have a lot of shows to do this year. Were going to promote the record the entire year and just tour.

Musically, you have your own brand of post-grunge and hard rock. What are some of your influences that have helped you define the band’s sound?

Bands like Alice in Chains, Tool, Deftones. All of the really great bands from that era. All kinds of bands from all different genres. We all have a diverse taste. I

You released your latest record less than 2 years after the previous one. What was your mindset for this?

The reason we did that is because We thought the previous album cycle was going to be worked a certain way. It didn’t go that way.The label we were on kind of gave up on the record very early. We just decided to move on, you know? We went through all of this really quickly where we started the label and went into the recording studio to make the new record.

We usually end things with a random question or two. Today, I want you to pick two musicians to be your parents. Who are they, and why?

if I have to pick two musicians to be my parents, I would have to pick my actual parents. They both weren’t famous musicians but they played in a variety of bands during their high school days. That’s actually how they met, and I’m a product of that. I wouldn’t change it around for anybody.

Sean, I really appreciate you taking some time today to speak with us. Good luck on the tour and the rest of the year, man.

Keep up with Smile Empty Soul below:
Official Website
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Twitter

Preview or purchase Chemicals from iTunes below:

Smile Empty Soul – False Alarm