DD Verni is probably best known as the crushing bassist for east coast thrash legends Overkill. A few years back he started a new project called The Cadillac Band that saw him pivot from metal to swing. DD is back with Buckle Up, the sophomore release from The Cadillac Band and recently took some time to talk about it.
Please press the PLAY icon for the MisplacedStraws DD Verni interview –
On how the first record was received – It was received really well, almost, I would say by everyone. I was kind of a little skeptical on how the metal community was gonna be, if I was gonna get, “What the hell are you doing or what are you thinking?” But instead, it was, maybe because a lot of metal heads are same age bracket as me and they’ve come through the same ranks as me and they’re in a similar place in life. The energy that you feel in a big band and this kind of record they can relate to. Because I’m writing for Overkill, so I’m also writing for this. There’s gonna be a certain energy that’s in the song that I think will come across the metalhead. So, I got a bunch of calls from guys in bands and a bunch of fans everywhere we go, “Tell me something about the Cadillac this or Cadillac that”.
So really the reception to it all the way across the board was pretty good for the metal community. But then even people with the rockabilly community and the people that kind of do listen to this kind of music, the stuff that I got that I heard quite a bit was, “It sounds like a band that’s been together for 20 years. It sounds so seamless and so effortless it and confident.” And I’m like, “Well, that’s great if that comes across because it’s definitely new ground”. So, it was really good, really good all the way across the board.
On if he was able to record in person or remotely like the first record – No, this, this one was even more remote. I would, again, love nothing would make me happier than to just say, “Here’s a big old budget. Fly everybody out to la, get in the studio. We got a month.” It would be so much fun to do that. But even for Overkill and a lot of bands, it’s kind almost like a forgotten art form to do it that way. I count myself lucky that we got to do so many records that way where I would go away with the guys and it would just be us locked in the studio and we’d sleep there. We’d be in the studio 18 hours a day, and it was a lot of fun. We got to do music that way. It would be a lot of fun to do this too. But this one was not done that way. It was done with everybody in different locations sharing demos, sharing files. That’s the way a lot of times, even with Overkill records, a lot of the work is done. You get together when you can. There’s still no completely replacing that, I feel like, anyway. That’s the way this one was too.
On if there were new additions to the band – It’s a lot of new people. On this one Johnny Hatton, who played bass on the first record, he also played on this one. But Bernie Dresel came and played drums, who is just one of the guys that invented the genre. There is a genre for rock swing mixed together rock and roll and swing. But he is just an amazing, amazing drummer. He killed it on it. So, I was so happy to have him along. One of the biggest changes was I had a different horn arrangement guy. I worked with a guy named Jim McMillan on this record who did the last record. I really liked what was going on with the horns, but I was kind of new to it. So, this one I had more of an idea of what I wanted. I wanted this one to feel a little bit more big band-esque in the arrangements. The last one were more like rock and roll horns, where they were just playing big riffs in unison. This one the saxes and the trumpets kind of playing off each other. I wanted more of that kind of vibe. This guy, Jim, I sent him, maybe I sent him one or two songs just to kind of see what he could do and if we could connect or whatever. I got arrangements back pretty quickly that I was just absolutely blown away, both of us, he’s like, “I love these songs”. I was like, “Oh my God, I love these arrangements”. So, it was it was really good. We clicked well and worked well together. He’s also a trombone player as well as an arrangement guy. So, he had some guys that he had worked with on the West coast that did the all the horn parts.
I did most of the guitars. Then I had Kingston and GreyStarr, the two ladies who sang on the first record, they sang on this record too. So, they’re kind of the OG of the band, they’ve been there since the first demos I did on every show I’ve done. They’re kind of part of the nucleus of what I do and they’re great. They’re beautiful and they’re easy to have, fun to be with. So, I’ll keep them around as long as they’ll have me. So, some people yes, and then a lot of new faces too.
On these songs having more of a rock energy – Everybody that I work with, like when I had first done the demo, I had played all the guitars on it and I thought to myself, “Well, I’ll get like a more kind of a jazzier guy. I’ll get somebody to play more of that kind of chords and that kind of stuff.” But it seemed like everywhere across the line from Jim who was doing the horn arrangements and then Angus Clark, who plays guitar, some guitar on it, and he plays guitar in the band and live band, and Bernie even, and John even, really were kind of pushing me towards, “No, don’t do that. Keep those guitars, you play those guitars. That’s the charm of the demo. That’s the charm of the songs I’m hearing is that it’s kind of like that.” I kind of just embraced that and I said, “Well, just play how you would play and what you would do, and we’ll pile it all on and see where it goes.” I think that’s what gives it, like you’re saying, some of it’s personality and some of it’s different from. Some of the other stuff that you may hear like this because I really don’t have any jazz roots, especially in my playing. I’m not gonna bring that to guitar playing. I’m gonna bring rock and roll to my guitar playing and they can bring some of those jazz elements and big band swing and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, that was exactly the approach, and I just stuck with it.
On duetting with Jim Heath on “Two of a Kind” – Well, actually I had that song that I wanted to put that on the first record. We just kind of ran out of time. We ran outta space. We just never got to it. So, I put it off on the side and when I started getting things together for this record, I said, “I really would still love to do that song”. But it’s a duet. So, you know, it’s like, who are you gonna do it with? There was talking with all kinds of people, just wife and friends and guys in the band. “Who could we get, who could we ask?” Everything from let’s ask a guy in a metal band that you would never expect, to somebody who maybe makes sense, or we even thought about having a woman. It’s like “Two of a Kind” doesn’t have to be (guys). We kind of explored all kinds of things and, Overkill was playing up at the New England Hardcore Metal Festival up in Massachusetts. The night before the festival Reverend Horton Heat was playing the warmup show across the street and a promoter called and said, “They’re playing”. And I’m like, “Ah, geez, we drove up, you know, because it was a one off for us. I’m just gonna crash”. Harry’s like, “It’s right across the street”. I’m like, “All right, I gotta go check it out. That’s just too easy to pass up.” So, I went there, kind of just walked in. The club was packed, and they came out and they killed it. I was like, “Wow, what a great fucking band.”
As we started going down the line, I said, “I wonder whether Jim would do it?” I didn’t know him. We have never met, we’ve never spoken, never anything, nothing. I got ahold of his agent, somehow, I got an email for his agent and just. Wrote him out of the blue and I said, “This is DD from Overkill. I’m doing this. I know it seems crazy, but I think Jim would be awesome on this. I think it would be a lot of fun. Can you pass me his info?” He passed me his info. I wrote to Jim and I don’t know, a day or two later he’s like, “Oh, I would love to this. I love this. I love Bobby Darin and Johnny Mercer especially, and I love the way this is going”. Then we got into logistics because they tour a lot, like, “When do you need it by?” And that kind of thing. It all just kind of started lining up. We did the recording and it was awesome. Then we were starting to put things together for a video and they said, “What about this song?”
Looking at their schedule, he said, “Oh my God, they’re gonna be in Jersey”. We made the video, I think they had a day off before or whatever, and I said, “If we were doing the video this day, you guys were playing Jersey the next day”. He’s like, “Hell yeah, let’s do it.” The first time I met Jim like that, we shook hands and said, “Hey, how you doing?” was on stage at the video shoot. That was the first time. So we’re like, “Well, let’s just see how it goes”, but we had a great time. We really connected telling stories, kind of laughing. It was a good time. Then I went to see their show in Jersey the next day. Met the rest of the guys in the band. The great nice guys too. Had a great show. It was fun. Jim was a lot of fun. His band was a lot of fun doing the song and the video were a lot of fun. That’s really what this whole project is about is having a good time.
On choosing an ABBA song to cover – I guess it’s a stretch. There’s a song on there “Jambalaya” too, it’s a Hank Williams song. If you hear the original on that, it’s like, “What the hell? How are you doing that?” But for some reason, that doesn’t seem like as much of a stretch to people. I get asked this a lot about the Abba thing. Number one, I’m a fan, hate to say it, but I am. I just saw Mama Mia a couple weeks ago. Took my kids into the city to go see it, and it was, it’s great fun. They just have great songs. Yeah, a lot of great songs. Some of the disco stuff is a little much, I was like, “Ah, not that so much”. But if you listen to a lot of their stuff, there’s songs that are kinda rock and roll edge, even seventies. But I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. I must have, maybe I had Spotify or something and that song kind of came on and just grabbed my ear and I was like, “Hmm. That sounds like something I could do.” So, I started spending a little bit of time with it and it came together pretty quickly where I said it almost feels like one of my songs.
So, I kind of gravitated to it. I knew I had the girls in the band too, I said, “Oh, they could lend some vocals to this too, that would kind of pull it together.” So just little by little, it just kind of came to fruition, but wasn’t looking for anything in particular. I always have an ear open for especially this kind of music. Even if you listen to the Setzer records, it’s like, “Oh, I love that one. I love that one.” And you find out they’re old songs that you don’t know, you’re not aware. You think of them as his songs because the arrangements and they’ve just, they’re changed so much. But at the core, like we said, like those old songs, old Hank Williams songs is just three chords. That’s all it is. So, it lends itself to kind of what I’m doing too. I keep my ears open. Even this, I had, I had thought about doing a Motorhead song for a while, that I had a big band arrangement, and it was like, “Wow, this is really out there”. But we went with this one instead. But who knows? Maybe that’ll show down the line. You never know.
On if he writes separately for Overkill and Cadillac Band or if he just sorts it out after – Yeah, that’s totally the way it is. I never know what kick I’m on. It could be that I was watching a lot of movies and so whatever I’m taking in input where you’re hearing a lot more orchestrations and that kind of thing. So maybe you’re subliminally hearing melodies like that. So you’ll be like, “Wow, okay. There’s a whole bunch of stuff. I don’t know what this is gonna be. Definitely not Overkill stuff.” You’re humming into recorder or you’re playing along, or maybe, like recently I’ve just been listening to a ton of Bobby Darin, and so it just kind of puts your head in that space and then your hands are playing more that kind of thing. Your brain is thinking more that kind of thing. When you find some new metal record that you’re really into, that’ll plug into that. So, when you go back and listen to tapes you can almost see segments. It was like, well where was I? Wow, this is a whole two months of no overkill stuff and material at all because I was on a different kind of head space. But yeah, that’s usually what I’m doing is just always kind of putting stuff down and then I’ll sort it out when I need to.
On when there will be a new Overkill record – We are demoing stuff right now. We probably have maybe nine or 10 songs kind of scratched out that I gave to Blitz a little while ago. Usually, the process goes I’ll demo everything up musically then I’ll give it to Blitz. He’ll spend some time with it and kind of do his thing with them. Then we get everybody together. I gave it to Blitz maybe not too long ago. I would think next year for sure, just when will it be spring? Will it be fall? Somewhere in there. But 26 will definitely be a new Overkill record.
On if he’s planning more shows with The Cadillac Band – Well, we’re talking about it. If you’re gonna round everybody up, you might as well try and put a few around it. We have that one in the books now and kind of working through what the set is gonna be and that’s Christmas, a few things in there for that. But yeah, you can keep your eyes open, or we’d love to put some more shows around that and do a little bit around December to see how that goes.
On if he would ever write a book – For me, I would never do that. Anybody who knows me, I’m a pretty private guy for the most part. A pretty shy person to begin with. The idea that I would put anything like that together is just no matter how much money, no matter how many zeros were put up in front of me, there is. You can put that one in the book says 100%. Not that anybody would give a damn anyway, but there is absolutely 0% chance that that would ever happen for me. That’s just the way it is.
