Off the Record: Get to know Derek Day of Classless Act

The Get to Know Classless Act interviews were done in 2023 via Tuonela Magazine, with transcripts now found here

Check out the other interviews with Griffin Tucker (guitars), Franco Gravante (bass), Dane Pieper (guitars), and Chuck McKissock (drums)!

Hello once again! I am here for the final time to help you get to know Classless Act, so I am here, of course, with lead singer Derek Day. Here he is.

Good morning… world! [laughter] I dunno, I don’t know what to say.

So, first of all, we’ve done a few interviews in the past, so we’ve already talked a bit about your musical origins, but I would love to know some of the big, iconic moments that set you on the path to being a musician, because that’s such a tough choice to make, especially in the US. So what really planted that seed?

Man… I guess it was seeing how much fun you could have with so little, because I’ve mentioned this a few times before, but I like this question because it’s a different angle to look at it… I wanted to do it as a profession when I walked down the street and I would see street performers. There was something about that that was charming to me. It felt free. You could play whatever you want, do whatever you want and maybe you’ll get money, maybe not, but most likely you will if you’re doing it right. When I saw that, when I saw street performers, it felt really real. Of course now I enjoy the stage, but I’ll never forget that initial feeling, like, that looks like it could… I was a little kid too. It was like, “that could get me action figures” and “that could get me fun toys” or whatever, but also, I could have fun in this weird playground called music. So I think that was the initial, initial thing.

But then when songwriting came into play… I was so bad when I first started writing songs. It was the worst songs you’d ever hear in your life, but when I started making things up and putting my feelings into a song, that’s also another moment. I think I was like 9 or 10 when I first started coming up with ideas and I dunno, that just felt like… For an example, Tyler, the Creator mentioned in one interview, he’s like, “When I was a kid, I would make my own album covers. I would cut out pieces of paper and draw an album cover and put it in the sleeve and then I would pretend like I have an album, even though I’ve never did it before.” That’s what it feels like, it feels like this whole make-believe thing. When he said that, I related to it, because I was like, “Oh, cool I made something.” I used to put on fake concerts in a room with my brothers or just me. It’s this make-believe fun space.

So how old were you then, when you discovered a knack for singing, that you were just good at it?

Man, I feel like I never really… I was probably like 28 [laughs] when I realized that I was okay at singing, to be honest. And I’m 29.

Are you 28 yet?!

I’m 29. [laughs] That’s probably when I thought like, okay I can probably do this. Because I’ve been singing my whole life, but whenever I heard it back, you know, we’re all so self-critical, but I would really think, “eesh, it’s not there yet.” But I was about 11 or 12 when I first sang something. I remember I just started singing guitar solos, like Jimi Hendrix solos, and I would just [sings guitar sounds], sing it like that and that’s what made my voice elastic and comfortable with making noise in certain funny melodic ways. So around 11. But I really didn’t believe I had a knack for singing until now. Just right now, I feel like I’m finally honing in on it and I can control my voice, I know how to do it properly, and all that.

Have you ever taken a singing lesson?

I’ve had a couple of lessons, like 1-hour lessons, maybe three or four, or just two actually, just with people, in high school, just to make sure I’m not destroying my voice. But other than that, it’s all self-taught and I look up warm-up videos and stuff. And whoever I talk to, like a great singer – and I’ve been blessed to talk with some really good singers – I always ask them, “So what do you do in the morning?” or “What do you do before a show?” Always, always, always ask, especially if it’s someone I really like. If I like their voice, I’m like, “How do you do that?” I just ask and they give me advice.

I asked one of my favorite singers what his vocal warm-up was once and he said like, three beers and two cigarettes, and I was like, “oh no…”

That’s crazy! No, and I’ve heard that too. I’ve heard people say like, “Yeah, I just have a couple beers and I…” And there is a little bit – well, I don’t know about the cigs thing, but – there is a truth to it, because you want to be really loose and you want to be kind of relaxed, and that’s the whole idea. You want to not strain anything. But I can’t do that. If I drink anything or smoke anything, my range is cut in half and I can’t focus, I can’t push air throughout properly, I’ll be straining like crazy.

And there’s videos of like, Queen, and Freddie Mercury has beers on stage and he’s drinking beers. Same with Axl Rose back in the day, he would have a beer in between songs. It’s like, this is weird, how do you… this is insane. I would also see Amy Winehouse, there’s legendary videos of her being really strung out, really – like, not even on alcohol, like heroin – on stage at festivals. But she always, even when she was sober, she would sing behind the beat, sing slow and around the beat and stuff, that was her style live. But it was excessive when she was strung out, so I wonder how much of that was her intention and how much of that was uncontrollable. I always think about that.

So I understand that you’re a multi-instrumentalist and I saw in your bio that you can even play some trombone, so is there any instrument that you’d really love to learn to play that you don’t already know?

Well, I’ll start by saying that I want to get really much better at all the instruments I already sort of know how to play, ’cause I can play a little drums and piano and harmonica and trombone, but I really want to excel in those. I want to be as good at those as I am with… like each one is as good as the last. That’s my main goal, but if there was a new instrument to pick, I’ve always… they say you should get over your fears and I’ve always been scared of accordions, just the noise and shape of them, and ever since I was a kid they would frighten me, so I kind of want to learn the accordion just to face my fear.

How about, if you could integrate an instrument into a song for Classless Act, just a one-shot maybe, but is there anything you’d love to hear?

Oh man, some tympany, really done good. Yeah, I’ve always wanted certain kinds of percussive things in there. And maybe a theremin, but they can get a little squirrely, honestly. But no, yeah, tympany, you can really control the pedal and make a melody with it.

I’ve also heard that you have fifteen guitars in your collection…

Probably a little bit more, too, yeah.

Damn. [laughter] Do they each have a special purpose, or are some of them interchangeable? I know metal guys will have a guitar in drop-D or whatever.

Right, yeah, or different tunings, yeah. A lot of studios have that too, this one does that, this one has that. They do have different pick-ups and different tones. Most of them don’t work as of now, they’re just old little parts of my life that I used to have and I just kept them because they’re so sentimental. So really, like ten of the… probably, I think like twenty guitars work. I don’t know, some of them… there is some tonal things. I have a couple of different tunings, but there’s no real purpose, there’s no real intention there, I just have a bunch of guitars.

I’ve been learning the chronology of how you all joined Classless Act from all of your other band members, so in order to finish the story, I understand that Dane and Franco had just joined the band before you, so who was the first person from Classless Act that you met and how did they find you?

The first person that I met… I met the group, all together, in person in a rehearsal space. There was a different drummer at the time, different guitarist at the time, but Dane and Franco were there. Franco wasn’t there actually, he was somewhere else. So most of the band was there. They already had like two singers before, but each one of them reached out to me via social media and different platforms, so Facebook, Instagram, I think even Twitter, but each one did their own thing. Like, the drummer hit me up through Instagram, someone else hit me up through the band account, through their personals, so it was just like, everyone all at once, and when I met them, it was everyone all at once. It was very funny, it was like they kept bombarding me, and I felt honored because I thought, “oh, cool,” because this was a cool band.

I’ve forgotten exactly all of the songs that you wrote on “Welcome to the Show” and I know we’ve already talked about “Made in Hell,” but I know one that everyone asks about a lot is “Circles.” Did you do the lyrics for that one?

Yeah, I did the music and lyrics.

What inspired that and what brought that to life?

That’s a song… true story, I stayed up all night writing it in one go, on an organ, on a giant, fat organ that I bought for ninety bucks at a thrift store here, right next to my house, and I wheeled it home [laughs] and I think even that night or the next week I wrote that song. I hate saying this, but it was like a 10-hour, 13-hour writing session. ‘Cause it was really just when I was starting to understand how I like to write, so I just wrote from 10 p.m. to almost 10 a.m. and then I went to sleep right after. But it was just me jamming, in the sense like I take breaks and I hang out and chill, and I go back into it. That song started off like at 14 minutes long, it was a really long song, so really a lot of those hours were chiseling it at least down to like 6 minutes, and there were a bunch of verses and a bunch of musical parts and then I recorded the demo that night and I sent it that morning to my band.

So that song, it’s about what I think a lot of people are going through now and what I’m going through, especially now, and what I’ve been going through my whole life, really. It’s just figuring out what the right path should be for me, for myself, and not knowing at all and just being completely lost, you know, going in a circle, making the same mistakes as I always do – I’m constantly doing that. You know when you do something that you know you shouldn’t be doing, but you do it anyway? That’s what that song’s about, like, “I shouldn’t be doing this but I’m doing it.” Whether it’s something small like driving somewhere that is unnecessary or… I don’t know, just not being the best you can be, it’s about not realizing your full potential, or realizing it but purposefully ignoring it out of self-sabotage. But the outro is “just make it happen if it makes you happy.” The line is just a little blip of hope on the radar of life. It’s really just a reminder to myself and whoever’s listening that you’re going to keep doing it, but the things you should be doing is what’s really going to make you happy, so why not make it happen? Just, so what? Just do that. Do the right thing. It’s a reminder.

I love that, and I want to say I’m about 7 years older than you and it still holds true to this day. I don’t know if that’s a hopeful or bad thing to say [laughter] but it definitely has that universal appeal.

Aww, that’s so great. No, I’m so honored for that. No one’s ever perfect and no one will ever be perfect. That’s what life is, is just a long journey of mistakes. [laughs]

I know that the American music scene is hugely different from what we get here in Europe, especially in Finland, so tell me as best as you can, what does it take to go from playing on the streets to being a house band, to being on tour, to being on The Stadium Tour?

I think the only thing is just… a lot of people will say talent is something, but hard work is everything and it’s what’s going to keep you there, but that’s very vague. It really is a thing, you’ve just really got to put in the work. But I would say unlimited gratitude, just always find the positive, positive, positive in every little gig, whether it’s on the street corner or it’s at The Forum, or it’s at the whatever. You’ve just got to be like, “this is amazing!” You’re playing a little bar somewhere. Something about that energy really brings forth more opportunity. I don’t know what it is. It is like putting stuff into the air. And hard work, of course. Again, that’s really vague, but just keep doing everything. Do anything. Don’t be closed off to anything, but follow your instinct on what’s right and wrong, but even if it’s a bad gig, you should still laugh and be happy and do it to the best extent. Something about gratitude gets you more gigs.

I love that and I love your positivity. I feel like you’re a glowing light of positivity no matter what’s going on and it’s very inspiring.

Thank you! Thank you, you as well. I enjoy your positive presence.

So we’d love to have you guys over here to Europe… have you been to Europe before?

Not with the band. I’ve toured Europe myself with other bands and stuff and I love it. You’re in Finland, no?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so I’ve never been there, but I’ve been close, I’ve been to Denmark, Sweden, and that’s it [laughs], and central Europe and eastern. I love it and clearly music is plenty more appreciated over there than it is here in the States, I think; that’s what I’m getting from what I’ve learned. So I can’t wait to take the boys over and stuff and we’ll just wreak havoc.

Incredible, so you’re going to be the guy to show them all how it works in Europe.

Yeah, yeah, which side of the road to drive on and [laughs] I don’t know, yeah, all that jazz.

Which countries to avoid which foods in…

[laughs] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So just to wrap things up then, ’cause I’m almost out of time – I always feel like these go way too fast, it’s such a shame – but if you could pass one message on that you think isn’t too hard to pull off but would help make everyone’s lives just a little bit brighter, what do you think that would be?

Hmm, that isn’t hard to pull off, you say?

It might be hard to pull off, but let’s say something you can implement into your daily life to make life a little easier.

You know, I keep hearing this. I hear this from… I’m on Instagram and I follow a lot of inspirational pages, stuff like that, and on YouTube too, I subscribe to a lot of positive things and I hear this a lot and… oh, I heard Robin Williams say this and plenty of other actors, profound actors, say that life isn’t anything without people and life is worthless without other people and if you’re not doing something to help people, you’re really not doing anything at all. To be honest, I never related to that. Not in an evil way, I was just like, “I don’t get it, I don’t feel that, really.” But as I grow a little older and I meet more people, I think if you could just help out people, just call people or ask someone how they are, or not even that… never try to fix anyone, but just try to hang out with them and have a conversation with them and spend time with people that seem like they’re lonely or maybe they could use a day off or something. Not everyone needs it. A lot of people are very stable, surprisingly, but a lot of people aren’t. I think yeah, now I’m finally starting to understand that if you can help someone in some way, you know, like a homeless person or whatever, or someone’s stuck in a situation, they’ve popped a tire or something, you pull over and you just chill with them… I think it’ll really help you – as the individual – sleep better. You’ll wake up a little earlier and you’ll be a little more… I dunno. Don’t let people take advantage of you, but help people, in any way, any way you can, and I think that’ll help you as a person, I think. That’s what I’m learning more. That’s what I’m trying to do more nowadays.

I love it. Positivity breeds positivity. I keep saying it and I will keep saying it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Amazing, well thank you so much. I know you’re about the busiest guy on earth, so it’s awesome to get to talk to you and I hope we get to do this again soon.

Yeah, me too! Bear the Wiseman!