Rock in Detroit’s

October 2024

Band of the Month:

 

CHERRY DROP

 

Cherry Drop was chosen for October 2024 Band of the Month because they have been playing stellar shows and drawing more and more new fans. Each performance progresses beyond where they’ve taken the music and the audience ever before. Cherry Drop is not just a band, it’s a spectacle!  And Cherry Drop is not just a bunch of musicians. There’s a palpable comradery–they actually do stuff together besides just music. But of course, the music always does come first. So let’s talk to Cherry Drop about Cherry Drop!

ROCK IN DETROIT: Thank you for coming together, guys, for this Rock in Detroit special interview. Let’s go around and you can introduce yourself and state what instrument you play.

Lucas: I’m Lucas, and I do words.

Zach: I’m Oz, and I play strings.

Dale: I’m Dale, and I’m the bassist.

Corey: I’m Corey, I play guitar.

Jake: Name’s Jake, I play the drums.

ROCK IN DETROIT: Where did the name Cherry Drop come from?

Lucas: I’ll start. First off, thank you for having us as band of the month, that’s really cool. Thank you for that.

The name kinda came from just not knowing what to name the project. We had a lot of different names that we thought about before naming it Cherry Drop. There was talk about naming the band “Michigan Cactus.” There was talk about naming this band “Uncle Luke’s Space Cabin.” And “Heavy Stash” was a working title for a while. We had a show coming up, and it was our first show as a band, and we just had to have a name, and I think Dale came up with Cherry Drop, actually. At the time we were thinking “Oh yeah, that will work for this one show,” but then we just never changed it.

ROCK IN DETROIT: How long have you all known each other, and how did you come together to form the band?

Corey: First off, me and Lucas are brothers so we just know each other . . . .

Zach: Dale grew up with them, and I met Jake just a couple years ago, but I had to, like, blow Lucas up all the time to get him to play, because I wasn’t very good. It’s really through him, he’s the catalyst. I didn’t know anybody or have anybody to play with.

Lucas: That, but like I was playing in a band called Harry Queen and I quit that band and I was just in a slump. And Zach (Oz) texted me every day, seriously, for like 6 months. That’s not exaggerating. And then eventually, I was like, “Ok, fine. Let’s get together.” And then it ended up being really good. But me and Zach are the only two original members of this band left.

Jake: I started out as a fan of Cherry Drop. I started coming to their shows. I think it was their second show at that Packer DIY collective. And I came to that and Zach and I were already buddies for a few years. We had jammed together in the past, and I just tried to get in his ear, like “Hey man, if you ever need a drummer, give me a call.” And just finally that day came, and yeah dude, it’s been awesome ever since.

ROCK IN DETROIT: We’re you guys in any previous bands?

Lucas: I played drums in Harry Queen when I was 18. But that’s actually how Dale is the bass player for this band. He and I were in a band in high school called Dartmouth, I played drums. He played bass, and our fried Josiah played guitar and sang. But that was our high school project, I guess, since I was 15 or 16, Dale has always been my bassist.

Jake: I come from a band from several years back called The Loons, shout out to Ethan, shout out to Matt, Matt’s my brother–I love him to death. Great people but things didn’t work out, unfortunately. We tried to carry it on, it also didn’t work. So I lay dormant for 2 years, working, y just building my life and whatnot, getting married. Then I get a call from these guys, and I jump on it.

Dale: I was in this hardcore band. I wrote a couple bass riffs for a couple of their songs that’s on their album. I was in their band for 2 or 3 months. So I rarely talk about them because it didn’t work out. But before that I was also in Dartmouth. And then I took a little hiatus myself for a while, until Lucas came to me with Zach, and then Cherry Drop started.

ROCK IN DETROIT: What makes Zachary Wood such a vital component to the Cherry Drop sound?

Lucas: He just drives. He not only keeps his blues in love, in his roots, but he puts all of that into heavy rock’n’roll. And he’s not apologetic about it either, he just f-ing does him and that’s what this band is all about, just unapologetically rocking! That’s just his whole personality.

Corey: I second on that, dude, it’s his personality. He such a vital part of our sound.

Dale: Drive. We may not know where the drive goes, but it’s driving, fast, with steady speeds. Zach drives that, for a big portion of the band. With ideas, his solos, his cues, and the, how should I say, the response. He’s really easy to play with because it’s almost like growing.

Jake: Zach to me is like black velvet whiskey…(everybody laughs)…you know, it’s a cheap time, it’s great time.

Lucas: Hard to get down but smooth when it does.

ROCK IN DETROIT: What is behind Lucas’ ever-evolving stage attire.

Zach: I got this. So, this guy is just an enigma of like energy and creativity and manic thoughts. So there is no plan. He plans like a day out, he’ll start thinking about it. But really he just wears whatever hits him right in the moment. He says “you know what, that’s who I am today” and then he fills it with energy. Sometimes he choreographs it, but it’s in the moment. There’s not a lot of planning. but you can’t fake the funk.

Lucas: It is super in the moment, like I wear men’s clothes and women’s clothes and skirts and makeup sometimes, sometimes I don’t wear that stuff. Like anybody else that walks the earth, I am a confused individual. I like the idea that it’s already been done before, man! Like Bowie, and Lou Reed, and Iggy, Bon Scot, Kurt Cobain, like, it’s, you know, I mean I’m covering my package, what’s the problem? They’re just clothes anyway and if it’s gonna define something to you about what I am in the bedroom, then that’s your problem.  If I feel pretty, I’m gonna wear makeup and a skirt. If I feel being ridiculous and just being a man all night, I’ll put on my jeans and my collar and I’ll take my shirt off. That’s what I like to do.

Dale: Lucas told me one thing one day that stuck with me, and it pertains to his fashion sense in particular. He said that conformity made him uncomfortable, so um, in a sense of like, uniforms, or something mass produced, or everybody wears at once on the same day, and it kinda stuck in my head. I don’t know if you still live by that.
Lucas: Yeah doesn’t that make you feel weird? When you like see a dude in the store wearing the same t-shirt as you, and you’re like “Well fuck man, how many other people wear this shirt everyday?”

Corey: He’s a true frontman.

Jake: Not only is he a true frontman, but he’s not putting on a mask pretending to be someone he’s not. And for me, it’s the acrobatics. I love the handstands, I love when you climb on stuff, I love when you flinging yourself into the audience.

Lucas: That’s it too, the movement. It’s the element of surprise. I remember when I first wore a dress, it was at the old Miami. I was onstage sound-checking and I could hear people in the front row of the audience going “He does handstands, is he wearing underpants? I wonder what he has under that dress?” Exactly dude! The element of you don’t know what the hell is gonna happen next.

Dale: You never seen a guy with lambchops and blue hair, in a school girl outfit, with a choker on and a crack whore t-shirt, doing handstands, while he’s singing. Or in the fetal position, while he’s singing. The fashion sense is a statement, but it’s also a reflection of like who this is and he is fucking sporadic.

ROCK IN DETROIT: What is an audience favorite at your shows?

All: “Loaded”

Jake: I disagree. Lately it’s been “Let Loose.”

ROCK IN DETROIT: Is it one of the tracks you’re going into the studio with?

Lucas: Yep. We’re gonna go into the studio and it will be on the new record. But I mean before we started doing “Let Loose,” “Loaded” was a crowd favorite. But now, we’re doing “Let Loose” and I say it too, I’m like: “Hey, this is a new song that we haven’t recorded yet,” that gets a really good reaction from people, they move around, and the crowd seems to like it and all different kinds of people, so…

Dale: “Springhill Ave” is an old knee-jerker.

ROCK IN DETROIT: What kind of inspirations are influencing your new record? What is the new music inspired by?

Lucas: I’ll say that I don’t know whom the music is inspired by. For me it’s all kinds of things. But going in to the studio with the idea of, okay, we want to spend time on this record. We don’t wanna just spend two weekends and then put it out, like we want to really take time . . . .

Jake: To make a beautiful record!

Lucas: . . . To make a good a record. We’re really making one on purpose that represents what we’re doing right now. We really messed that up with the first record. You know, it’s not a bad record by any means. But we did two recorded sessions for that record, it got mixed, and then you heard it. It didn’t go through mastering. We didn’t take time to go back and do things and stuff. This new record is fixing to be a really long, and like a fun, creative process. We’re so excited to get just get our hands dirty, and just mold this clay.

Zach: It’s a big growth too. It’s a big step up in sonic sound from what we started with. We only really have two recordings that capture the band in its essence of what it is now, so, I think, I agree with that – we’re very excited to do it the right way, because last time we kind of just crammed it in. We were very quick because we play so much, so we’re very confident .

Lucas: When we go to the studio, we are confident with what we are doing. It’s no f-ing around thing, it’s “okay, we practiced this 30 hours last week, we’re gonna get this down hopefully in 4 takes and we’re gonna get done and get to workin’ on it,” like it’s very meticulous for us.

Dale: I’ve been listening to a lot of 70’s funk, and that’s my inspiration for the new record. So like Billy Cobham, Herbie (Hancock), the usual.

Zach: I’ve been listening to like Eric Johnson.

Corey: I want to say the inspiration for this coming up album is the band itself and all the people I’m around. Hanging out with the Snakes (The Velvet Snakes), and seeing other bands live.

Lucas: The Detroit scene is the inspiration for this record. All of our friends, the freak parade, all those . . . Glass Chimera . . . The Velvet Snakes . . . Sugar Tradition . . . .

Zach: The End of Ends . . . .

Lucas: Fen Fen, Sonic Smut, just everybody, yeah all of those guys. The Detroit record is the inspiration for this record.

ROCK IN DETROIT: What does the concert schedule look like for the rest of 2024?

Lucas: It’s looking good. We got stuff all of October, and we got stuff through December, but after December this band is taking a very long and needed break. We’re gonna take a month or two off, and just write and try to get the next record done. The rest of the year’s looking good, we’re booked up a couple times at least each month, but then that’s it. But after December, you’re not gonna get Cherry Drop until next spring. Next summer. 2025.

Jake: We’re going to be stowed away, creating.

Zach: (Laughs) It’s going to be good. I think, we only know how to go one way and it’s up. We don’t know how to go backwards, we’re not very good at anything else. So we got 5 people that put it all there, you’re gonna get somewhere, you know?

ROCK IN DETROIT: Anything else you guys would like to say?

Lucas: Thank you for choosing us for band of the month for Rock in Detroit dot-com. That’s really cool.

Lucas: Just thank you to the Detroit music scene, you know, it’s been around for a long time, there’s old guys, there’s young guys, there’s brand new guys, and guys just getting back into it after 20 years, so this is just a garden for heavy rock’n’roll and we want to thank you guys for helping show us the way, and helping us along the way.

Zach: I second that motion.

Jake: I second that and I’d like to add that I just want to keep rock n roll alive, I want to keep progressive music alive. I want to spread what Detroit has throughout other cities, so get ready other cities, we are going to come in you.

All: (laugh)

Jake: Be ready.

Lucas: Be ready, baby! It’s heavy dangerous rock n roll. Unpredictable. Until the end of time!