Legend of the Seagullmen
Biography
Legend of the Seagullmen is a genre destroying super-group featuring Danny Carey of Tool, Brent Hinds of Mastodon, director Jimmy Hayward (Jonah Hex, Horton Hears A Who) on guitar, and Pete Griffin of Zappa Plays Zappa and Dethklok on bass, lead vocalist David Dreyer, and synth player Chris DiGiovanni.
Joining forces to make cinematic psychedelic rock, the Seagullmen sing of ship wrecks and giant mutant squid, crafting conceptual rock ‘n’ roll hymns of epic proportions on their full-length debut Legend of the Seagullmen.
“I first met Brent Hinds through [Kyuss and Queens of the Stone age mastermind] Josh Homme,” begins Jimmy Hayward, who spearheads the band.
“When I was working on the comic book film adaptation Jonah Hex, he asked me what I was listening to, and I said ‘Mastodon on repeat.’ So Josh connected us, and Brent and [drummer] Brann flew out to New Orleans to visit me while I was shooting…. Eventually I put him in the movie and we played guitar together and formed a lifelong bond based on a deep passion for music and indefinable love for chaos.”
“When we came back to L.A. to record the film score together he introduced me to vocalist and artist David ‘The Doctor Dreyer,’ who had a vision to do nautical rock with deep lore. We discussed doing a nautical spaghetti western, so I wrote the “Deep Sea Diver” music with him and we connected musically on a whole other level.”
“Meanwhile, Brent had been dabbling with Doctor’s Seagullmen idea and after a few jams we all played together at a surf contest in Florida. Brent claims that the band really got going when he gave Doctor a rare custom guitar he calls the Seagull, which Doctor plays to this day. Brent claims it still belongs to him, but it hasn’t left the Doctor’s side in years… It’s a band talisman.”
“I had already been jamming with Danny Carey for a few years at both of our studios, so naturally he joined in to really make it seaworthy. You can’t have half a ripping rhythm section, so we enlisted Pete Griffin, who’s a mind a bending bass player. Maddog came in on analog synth because he’s wizard status and Tim Dawson rounded it out for additional sonic hugeness.”
Says Carey of joining the band, “I like bands with a finite theme and vision. The Seagullmen is a very communal and openly creative environment and all the members have large contributions. Working with my bros and making cool shit is what my life is all about.”
He adds that the music creation process in the Seagullmen is a far different beast than his work in Tool.
“In Tool we start everything from scratch jam sessions rather than having principal song writers. With the Seagullmen, I’m usually presented with a pretty solid framework for a song and then asked to develop it as FAR as possible. Both methods are equally satisfying and I feel like the work in each one feeds off of the other.”
Coming to life in February 2018, the self-titled album will be available on vinyl, CD, and digitally in a variety of packages. Engineered by Toshi Kasai (Melvins, Big Business) and mastered by Gavin Lurssen (Queens of the Stone Age), Legend of the Seagullmen sees the band unveil massive sonically pulverizing slabs that decimate expectations since Rolling Stone excitedly leaked two demos back in 2015.
“The year we converged, we wrote an albums worth of material and had started tracking. At the time, Doctor’s brother Frank, who designs a lot of our visual material, put together a site with two demos on it that we were sharing privately with media outlets and some other folks.”
At the time, fate would have it that Hayward was in the midst of directing the video for OFF!’s “Over Our Heads”. Produced by David, “the Doctor” Dreyer and OFF!’s own Dimitry Coats, the video stars Jack Black. You all know the one: it features skydiving, LSD trips, grizzly bears, and broken bones!
“Rolling Stone caught wind of what was going on with Legend of the Seagullmen, and without telling us, wrote a story about our band forming and leaked the two demos,” says Hayward. “We didn’t know the site was still active so we were caught off-guard. Although we were bummed the demos leaked, we were excited the world was learning about the project we were all putting so much love and work into. It just showed us more than ever that we needed to bust our asses and bring the Seagullmen fury to the people with full force.”
“We doubled down and brought it to life and are totally fired up to release this album and play it live,” Hayward says.
He concludes, “For full excess, we brought in Dom Lewis who had scored a film I made called Free Birds that Danny actually voiced a part in and played on the score. We went out to Hans Zimmer’s place Remote Control and Dom laid in massive orchestral elements in a few of the tunes. It’s ready to pop, it’s thirteen months pregnant and we couldn’t be more stoked.”
FUCKING LEGEND!
Legend of the Seagullmen is a genre destroying super-group featuring Danny Carey of Tool, Brent Hinds of Mastodon, director Jimmy Hayward (Jonah Hex, Horton Hears A Who) on guitar, and Pete Griffin of Zappa Plays Zappa and Dethklok on bass, lead vocalist David Dreyer, and synth player Chris DiGiovanni.
Joining forces to make cinematic psychedelic rock, the Seagullmen sing of ship wrecks and giant mutant squid, crafting conceptual rock ‘n’ roll hymns of epic proportions on their full-length debut Legend of the Seagullmen.
“I first met Brent Hinds through [Kyuss and Queens of the Stone age mastermind] Josh Homme,” begins Jimmy Hayward, who spearheads the band.
“When I was working on the comic book film adaptation Jonah Hex, he asked me what I was listening to, and I said ‘Mastodon on repeat.’ So Josh connected us, and Brent and [drummer] Brann flew out to New Orleans to visit me while I was shooting…. Eventually I put him in the movie and we played guitar together and formed a lifelong bond based on a deep passion for music and indefinable love for chaos.”
“When we came back to L.A. to record the film score together he introduced me to vocalist and artist David ‘The Doctor Dreyer,’ who had a vision to do nautical rock with deep lore. We discussed doing a nautical spaghetti western, so I wrote the “Deep Sea Diver” music with him and we connected musically on a whole other level.”
“Meanwhile, Brent had been dabbling with Doctor’s Seagullmen idea and after a few jams we all played together at a surf contest in Florida. Brent claims that the band really got going when he gave Doctor a rare custom guitar he calls the Seagull, which Doctor plays to this day. Brent claims it still belongs to him, but it hasn’t left the Doctor’s side in years… It’s a band talisman.”
“I had already been jamming with Danny Carey for a few years at both of our studios, so naturally he joined in to really make it seaworthy. You can’t have half a ripping rhythm section, so we enlisted Pete Griffin, who’s a mind a bending bass player. Maddog came in on analog synth because he’s wizard status and Tim Dawson rounded it out for additional sonic hugeness.”
Says Carey of joining the band, “I like bands with a finite theme and vision. The Seagullmen is a very communal and openly creative environment and all the members have large contributions. Working with my bros and making cool shit is what my life is all about.”
He adds that the music creation process in the Seagullmen is a far different beast than his work in Tool.
“In Tool we start everything from scratch jam sessions rather than having principal song writers. With the Seagullmen, I’m usually presented with a pretty solid framework for a song and then asked to develop it as FAR as possible. Both methods are equally satisfying and I feel like the work in each one feeds off of the other.”
Coming to life in February 2018, the self-titled album will be available on vinyl, CD, and digitally in a variety of packages. Engineered by Toshi Kasai (Melvins, Big Business) and mastered by Gavin Lurssen (Queens of the Stone Age), Legend of the Seagullmen sees the band unveil massive sonically pulverizing slabs that decimate expectations since Rolling Stone excitedly leaked two demos back in 2015.
“The year we converged, we wrote an albums worth of material and had started tracking. At the time, Doctor’s brother Frank, who designs a lot of our visual material, put together a site with two demos on it that we were sharing privately with media outlets and some other folks.”
At the time, fate would have it that Hayward was in the midst of directing the video for OFF!’s “Over Our Heads”. Produced by David, “the Doctor” Dreyer and OFF!’s own Dimitry Coats, the video stars Jack Black. You all know the one: it features skydiving, LSD trips, grizzly bears, and broken bones!
“Rolling Stone caught wind of what was going on with Legend of the Seagullmen, and without telling us, wrote a story about our band forming and leaked the two demos,” says Hayward. “We didn’t know the site was still active so we were caught off-guard. Although we were bummed the demos leaked, we were excited the world was learning about the project we were all putting so much love and work into. It just showed us more than ever that we needed to bust our asses and bring the Seagullmen fury to the people with full force.”
“We doubled down and brought it to life and are totally fired up to release this album and play it live,” Hayward says.
He concludes, “For full excess, we brought in Dom Lewis who had scored a film I made called Free Birds that Danny actually voiced a part in and played on the score. We went out to Hans Zimmer’s place Remote Control and Dom laid in massive orchestral elements in a few of the tunes. It’s ready to pop, it’s thirteen months pregnant and we couldn’t be more stoked.”
FUCKING LEGEND!
Members
- Danny Carey - Drums
- David Dreyer - Lead Vocals
- Brent Hinds - Guitar
- Jimmy Hayward - Guitars
- Pete Griffin - Bass, Additional Vocals
- Chris DiGiovanni - Synth, Additional Vocals