Rising Music Star Dan Hartman of The impliers On The Five Things You Need To Shine In The Music Industry
An Interview With Ming Zhao
It is important to build a world where the next generations see themselves represented in. And we have to go out of our way to do so, considering the less than diverse previous and current generations are running the show.
As a part of our interview series with leaders, stars, and rising stars in the music industry, we had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Dan Hartman of The impliers.
The impliers are a multimedia explosion of features sprawling psychedelic, electro indie-pop, comedic infomercials, cleverly hilarious visuals, and playfully tripped-out music videos. The impliers bring an art/pop/noir surrealism to contemporary music. Songs veer off into weird journeys, and their productions are thoughtfully layered, demanding multiple listens to take in the full majesty of their carefully composed soundscapes. These thickets are dense with oddly-tuned guitars, textured synths, electronic beats, rubbery bass, complex Beach Boys-esque harmonies, lushly textured soundscapes, atonal riffs, twitchy funk, and sublime melodicism. This is genre-defying music, yet, if you listen closely, you can glimpse strains of early Radiohead, NIN, The Beach Boys, Tame Impala, David Bowie, Sonic Youth, Depeche Mode, Blonde Redhead, Pixies, and Beck.
The multi-instrumentalists handle A-Z of the impliers output. Writing, producing, playing all the instruments; self-funding, managing, publishing and releasing their musical product; conceptualizing, directing, and producing all the band’s exuberant videos; creating its playfully retro-tinged visual imagery; and even developing its sharp marketing docket.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit about your “origin story”. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
We met in high school through a mutual friend. We were both in lackluster punk/metal bands, and ended out creating a speed doom metal band and started playing in our local scene. Metal wasn’t what we listened to at the time, but it was a way to play in local punk scene. After practice, everyone would leave and Charles taught me about alternate tunings, and I created one and we made a song, and our band morphed into an instrumental indie rock band, and somehow we were still invited to play this music in the punk/metal scene, we’ve collaborated ever since.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
Music just influenced us so much when we were younger, it really is something that is always in the background and a topic of conversation for us anywhere we are. We got to see really great bands at a super young age, and grow up in a really happening local music scene that churned out a lot of bands that are still insanely huge right now, and while we were able to see a lot of great bands at the peak of true expression, the way it made us feel was unmatched. When we learned how to play music at a very young age, and that turned into the ability to create music, it really is the best positive feedback loop, the act of playing alone is rewarding, but the act of creating is magic, especially the feeling you get when you create a great tune is unmatched, then when you match that with being able to now help people feel the raw emotion that comes from a song you love, the entire process is what led us here.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
At our very first show, one of our peer bands guitars was stolen by 2 brother skinheads (literal skinheads) Being the naive kids we were, we got in Charles yellow 72 mustang and tracked them down at the local punk rock house, and confronted them and almost got ourselves beaten down pretty well, luckily Charles brother knew well enough to follow us and helped keep things civil. We did confirm they stole the guitars, but never recovered them.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
We were complete idiots, like many 17 year old kids can sometimes be. We would show up at clubs in a conversion band, and drink outside until it was our turn to play, and then go right back outside to continue partying, never bothering to support our peer bands, or get to know the club owners. Our friends would refuse to get off the top of the van from the club owners request, Charles became increasingly erratic in the stories he would tell the audience in between songs, one time screaming into the mic as loud as possible until the club manager turned the breaker box off of the stage and kicked us out. It is really embarrassing to think about how little we cared back then, given how much we care about connecting with people and the purpose of the music, and appreciating those who are willing to pay attention to it. The lesson is in considering how much work goes into creating music, building an audience and professional relationships — you need to work twice as hard at maintaining it!
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
We have 4 albums in the pipeline following cocoon, we’ve outlined the sound, concepts for each of them from the very beginning and are in the refinement process. We have such deep libraries and we’re really looking forward to advancing these projects, which should come into fruition in 2023. We’re also releasing a few remixes from Cocoon in the first half of 2023. I have a solo project that will come out in 2023, under the name Glad Dream which is a little more dance focused, and Charles has a project in the pipeline under the name Bumpy Boy, but I don’t want to ruin much of the surprise there.
We are very interested in diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers about why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in music, film, and television? How can that potentially affect our culture?
1) It is important to build a world where the next generations see themselves represented in. And we have to go out of our way to do so, considering the less than diverse previous and current generations are running the show.
2) Perspective. The more diversity, the more perspective. Diversity doesn’t just mean gender or ethnicity, but we should have a diverse set of art coming from a broad set of attributes, such as age. The art that a 15 year old creates from the less biased mind created their own shapes, whereas art from a 75 year old reflects the individual unique experiences that have marked their mind over time — equally as beautiful.
3) You are what you eat, and if we have the same sounds and styles represented over and over, it is going to continue to fold in on itself and head down a singular path, which can get quite boring, and throughout the ages you see instances where that happened leading to a revolt. Think about all of the yowling white guy bands that dominated the radio in the early 00s, and how upset the world became at it.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
- The music & art industry is stacked against the artists. Considering artists can be less educated in business, the deck is stacked against you. There are leagues of people that know how to make money off of you, and you wont know what hit you. Educate yourself on the ins and outs of the business, work with people you trust with your life
- Nobody is going to find you. You will have to put effort into finding your audience on your own. Play out, grow your social, digitally advertise.
- PR companies are not going to help you find an audience. They are going to help you find an outlet that will carry your story, that YOU can share with the audience that you built.
- Play-listing services are not going to help you. Experiment with these if you have the budget, but you will not find an audience this way, people listen to playlists passively, and you might get a few likes/follows/saves. Get savvy with digital advertising and then you can start to find and build a global audience.
- You will have to put in the work, and the money. You will have to invest without an ROI for years as an independent artist. With the saturation of artists, you really have to stand out across the board, and that is going to take hard work beyond your songwriting, lyrics and ability to play.
Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?
- Fall in love with your purpose, and the doing, not the fantasy result. Just make sure you are doing it because you love it, and make that your primary goal. If you love creating and sharing music, and the reward you get from sharing it with others, than you have nothing to lose. You will be doing it anyway, regardless of the result.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
- In conversations asking the question “but what do you love about it?” when people are talking about things they dislike and why. We are such a cynical culture that likes to focus on the things we dont like, and the dumb things people do. Challenge that and ask people what they do like about a thing, why something is fun instead of dumb. There is a half full glass inside every half empty one.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
We got a lot of help early on from Bifocal Media in Greenville NC. This was run by a guy Charles Cardello, who was the guy on the scene that was trying to take things to the next level artistically and help people figure out how to monetize it, and invested in us. He put out a lot of videos and compilation CDs that we were fortunate enough to be featured on because we were part of the scene, and a lot of folks discovered us that way. Very thankful.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
- “Comparison is the thief of joy” we all tend to compare ourselves against perfection, or other people and it can often end out taking the wind out of our sails. We’re generally better off if we’re comparing ourself today against ourself yesterday (while realizing we are going to have bad days)
Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)
David Lynch. By far the guru of the art life and meditation, and someone we have really learned a lot from.
How can our readers follow you online?
We recommend instagram, as we have a whole host of sketch comedy, surreal and musical art, but you can find us on all social platforms.
https://instagram.com/theimpliers
This was very meaningful, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
