Early Day Miners
Interview with Dan Burton
Words: Susie Ulrey
Photo: Jeremy Hogan

Appearing:
February 12, 2008
Sluggo’s, Pensacola

February 13, 2008
Wayward Council, Gainesville

February 14, 2008
BackBooth, Orlando

February 15, 2008
New World Brewery, Ybor City

As it turns out, even indie rocker Dan Burton of Bloomington Indiana’s Early Day Miners is only separated from Kevin Bacon by six degrees.  In reverse order: Kevin starred in Where the Truth Lies with Alison Lohman who starred in Matchstick Men with Nicolas Cage.  Mr. Cage purchased a house from famed producer Daniel Lanois (U2, Bob Dylan). Burton not only worked for Lanois as an engineer but can boast of Lanois’ producing credit on several of his releases.  Oh wait; it’s actually only five degrees.  I was never good at math anyway.

That’s not all that impresses me about EDM, though it was an entertaining distraction while I compiled my interview notes.  There is a soothing melodic core to their songs and listening to them creates a sort of slow-leak catharsis in your gut.  It’s not background music, but it’s also not something you crank up and dance around the room to.  The vocals are a seamless part of the songs (if they are any at all) - an integrated part of the whole.  The band is “inspired by soundtracks, Brian Eno, Talk Talk, and classical arrangements, to start”, Burton said, which explains the way each track builds, swells and subsides into a landscape that forms the make-up an EDM album.

I can bear witness to the transportive properties of their 2006 release Offshore (Secretly Canadian).  While trudging through the inane duties of my day job, listening to Offshore made time float along a little quicker.  As one track bled into the next so did the afternoon.  I even found myself gazing out the window (gasp!) and not wanting to gouge my eyes out with a dull pencil.  Score: Early Day Miners -1 / visceral urge to see if working 8 to 5 has sapped my soul of all things bright and beautiful - 0.

Burton started EDM as “a side project to do something more lyrically structured” as opposed to the artsy, cerebral “installation project” that was his previous band Ativin (Polyvinyl Records).  Intrinsically, a side project implies more of a transient line-up and due to Bloomington’s college town population, that transience was less of a conscious decision and more of a fact.  “Indiana University has huge arts and music programs, so people are constantly coming and going,” Burton explained.  Though the revolving line up worked at first because the band was Burton’s brainchild, the lack of permanence made it easier for members not to commit. 

However, things are changing for EDM and have been for the last few years or so.  Burton explains, “The band is facing a new direction because we’ve played together for 3 years as a solid line-up (Burton on guitar and vox, Jonathan Richardson on bass, John Dawson on guitar and Marty Sprowles on drums). We’ve toured Europe and the United States together.  We’re more of a democracy.  Now we’re moving towards more succinct pop music – stripping the songs down. It’s a mix– taking the soundscape style and infusing it with pop music (Windsor for the Derby, Love and Rockets, Echo and the Bunnymen, Tones on Tail, Electrolane, German kraut rock, early 80s goth),” said Burton.

So why is EDM touring? “Just to play live,” said Burton.  That’s a refreshing notion – playing music, just to play it.  2008 marks EDM’s inaugural trek to Florida with a stop in Louisiana as they head south.  After experiencing the muggy goodness of our peninsula the band plans to swing through Georgia and Tennessee before heading home.

earlydayminers.com