Dry Kill Logic
By: James Wright
 When Dry Kill Logic, formerly known as Hinge, burst onto the scene in 1999 with their debut The Darker Side Of Nonsense, they quickly amassed a devout following. In a rare turn of events, the album went on to sell an impressive 100,000 copies without any radio support or music videos; a testament to strong work ethic. Every unit sold could be directly attributed to the band's breakneck tour schedule and punishing live performances.
The sales numbers, while quite impressive for a hard rock band, were a far cry from that of Roadrunner's success with Nickelback. With the label's bankroll getting fatter, Roadrunner insisted Dry Kill Logic write with other musicians in hopes of attaining a more commercial sound on the band's sophomore effort. Refusing to cater their sound to radio programmers and fair-weather fans, the band split with the label and became independent once again.
The split would prove to be beneficial to the band in multiple ways. Releasing their sophomore effort, The Dead And Dreaming, on vocalist Cliff Rigano's own Psychodrama Records allowed for overseas licences, as well as domestic, giving the band more creative control.
With 2004 behind them and an album to support in The Dead And Dreaming, Blistering.com decided to catch up with vocalist Cliff Rigano to discuss Dry Kill Logic’s latest, newfound independence and why he won't let any record label tell him when Dry Kill Logic is finished.
Previously, the band was signed to Roadrunner Records for The Darker Side of Nonsense and sold 100,000 copies with very little promotion, but a lot of touring.
Cliff: I think the key to it the record we did with Roadrunner’s success was the touring and the street team we had. When we were signed to Roadrunner, they had a really good street team and we just kept coming back around on tour and because of it we were able to sell quite a few records without any big radio or video campaigns. We feel that the fans we have are diehard because of the way we went about setting the pace.
The ironic thing is that Roadrunner wanted you to become more melodic, but after leaving the label you came up with some of the most melodic material you’ve ever written.
Cliff: At the time, Roadrunner’s business plan was aligned with bands like Nickelback, who are deeply rooted in the pop/rock radio world instead of the bands that were extremely aggressive and are not radio driven. Since then, they’ve kind of gone back to those aggressive types of bands with the success of bands like Killswitch Engage and Chimaira.
But the strange part is, the only band Roadrunner signed with a radio friendly sound that ever had any type of success was Nickelback.
Cliff: Yea’, but that is the way the major labels work. All campaigns are front-loaded and dependent on first week sales and radio spins. If a radio single attaches itself to stations and gets feedback from kids then they continue the work. With smaller labels, it’s very easy to build a band and sell 60,000-70,000 copies and earn credibility. I think it was just a matter of a difference in the way they did business and we didn’t fit into the plan they had at the time. Here we are 3 years later and I feel we’re releasing the record we want to release, in the situation we want to release it in. To be honest, if it wasn’t for Roadrunner releasing our first record and doing what they did, you and I probably wouldn’t be talking. I don’t hold any animosity towards them - it’s just the nature of the business.
What was it like to go from Roadrunner to independent?
Cliff: Honestly, it was pretty refreshing and up until we released our first record and again up until we released this record, I work for Universal Records as a product manager. I got a chance to work with everyone from Godsmack, Flaw, Hatebreed, Mushroomhead and what I came to realize was that for aggressive bands that don’t have mainstream marketability, a major label is not necessarily the best home for them. When we were looking to release this new Dry Kill record, we were looking to get into a situation where we’d have more creative control over it. More control over how money got spent, how we’re marketed and we just wanted a deal where decisions would be made based on career goals, rather than first week sales expectations. I don’t think we were looking to go with anything larger than say the Roadrunner of old, in the sense where it was very organic and homegrown. The way we structured our deals, we were able to do that by licensing the record through my label Psychodrama, which ensures the band has their own personal stamp on everything that gets done. I think if you compare everything that’s already happened with this record verses the way things happened with our last record; we have a video spinning on Headbanger’s Ball, we’re having more success at college radio than ever before, the touring is just as good and now the press is finally starting to kick in. We feel like this is a very onward and upward motion, rather than having the pressure of the major label world where it’s like, “What’s it doing? Where is it going to go?”
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