Ep473: Damon Che and Kristian Dunn of Yesness

The Vinyl Guide Interview - For Record Collectors & Music Nerds

Yesness is a 2-piece featuring Damon Che (Don Caballero) and Tristan Dunn (El Ten Eleven). We discuss their formation, writing and recording their debut album "See You at the Solipsist Convention", math-rock, post-rock, other dirty words and lots more.

Topics Include:

• Formation of Yesness
• Kristian and Damon struggle to find musicians to collaborate with
• The “California No”
• Making an album from different parts of the country
• Meeting for the first time in the recording studio
• Over recording and having a lot of material to work with
• Working with instrumentals vs music with vocals
• Album title origin story
• Songs start as riffs, song titles come much later
• Strange song titles
• Using extra songs for b-sides
• Origin of the band name “Yesness”
• The band almost became “Keister Island”
• What does Damon think of the title “Math Rock”?
• Genres become limiting
• Not listening to Post-rock or Math-rock
• What’s on heavy rotation and playlists?
• The Spotify algorithm still struggles to satisfy
• El Ten Eleven’s “New Years Eve” coming after 3-LP set “Tautology”
• “New Years Eve” and “Valley of Fire” were conceived together
• The “Yesness” debut always needed to be a full length LP
• Can the Yesness LP be played live?
• Yesness challenges playing live – equipment stuffups
• Will they tour overseas?
• Selecting the album cover
• Damon recently upgraded his vinyl system
• Looking for records
• Status of the Don Caballero master tapes and reissues
• Damon’s YouTube video channel
• Grab all the pressings of your favourite albums
• “Everything in between the speakers and stylus is snake oil”
• Interview wrap up

Vinyl copies of Yesness "See You at the Solipsist Convention" can be ordered here.

Photo by Berto Campus

Extended, Commercial-Free & High Resolution version of this podcast is available at: www.Patreon.com/VinylGuide

Listen on Apple: https://apple.co/2Y6ORU0 Listen on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/36qhlc8