INTERVIEW: Life of Dillon Talk Release of New EP, Debut Single, Meghan Trainor

Life of Dillon’s debut single “Overload” is making its way to becoming this summer’s smash single. The UK trio comprised of David Keiffer and brothers Joe and Robert Griffith is the first group signed to Disruptor Recordurds a venture from The Chainsmokers’ manager Adam Alpert. It is obvious why he wants them on board!

DN: Where did the name “Life of Dillon” come from?
Joe: Last year we went to Brazil, that’s where me and my brother were born. We went to go have a little bit of a holiday and while on the beach we met this guy-Dillon. He comes over and starts talking to us, while were having a couple beers and drinking coconuts. His lifestyle was very much in line with where we wanted to be.

David: We were coming from London where everyone is hustling, working hard and its cold. On the other side of the world there’s someone just enjoying life and not caring too much, a bit of a free spirit. We saw that our music kind of fit in to what we were doing. It’s like a choosing a name for a baby, what do you pick?

Joe: I think that one of the big things for me at least, if not for all of us is that we wanted to live that kind of lifestyle. Man, who doesn’t want to be in Brazil, surfing, drinking and living carefree? I think that’s one thing that inspired us.

DN: I could really see that in the Overload single, its very care free and just an all around happy single.
Joe: Exactly! There’s so many people today putting out sad music, and we didn’t want to do that. We wanted to put out happy, positive stuff. There is a lot to be happy about, there is a lot of good stuff in life and we wanted to reflect that back in our video. Which was basically meant to portray a perfect day at the beach with summer vibes and good times.

DN: Who influenced your music style?
Robert: We all collectively have different influences. Me personally, I listen to some hip hop tracks and Timbaland beats. 

David: I’m more into acoustic, rock and folk like tracks like John Mayer.

Joe: I’m into all sorts of stuff. I think the greatest artist of all times is Michael Jackson. Hands down! I also listen to a lot of Nigerian music, afro beats and hip hop. All of this stuff feeds into what we are doing but besides us coming together and meeting in the middle between our musical influences.

DN: From an unsigned band to a priority for a major label, how did you get to where you are now?
Robert: Working in the music industry for so long, it was a series of logical steps but not something we necessarily were looking to happen, it kind of just happened.

David: We emailed hundreds of people. We were actually looking for management and not a record label. We wanted the right management that would look after us and believe in our songs and music. Adam Alpert. got back to us and he was really feeling the music, one of the first people before anyone else did. He helped us move it into a priority situation.

Joe: We write a lot of music and that’s all we focused on. We didn’t try to be artists, we were just writing and I think deep down we did want to be artists but it seemed so unattainable. How do you get from being in northwest London to be on someone’s TV screen?

David: You have to remember there’s hundreds and thousands of kids doing what we were trying to do and we were trying to do what made sense to us. We didn’t see a career out of making music, so making songs and pitching songs sounded acceptable. Robert had a publishing deal with Sony so we had a few opportunities here. So that’s when we decided to seek out as many management opportunities as we could.

Robert: At the end we had all these songs so we thought why don’t we just make a band out of it and push it forward to an artist project.

DN: You guys have so much talent in the UK, was it your intention to go directly to America?
Joe: 100%. Any serious musician wants to get to America because that is the epicenter of the music industry. If you want to make it big in the music industry you want to get to America. Having said that, when we were emailing people, we weren’t just emailing Americans, we were emailing successful people. It just so happened that most of them were in America.
Robert: A lot of guys come out of the UK and struggle for a long time with a record and then go to America only to fail. We just happened to be lucky enough to get a deal.

Joe: I think that one of the things that constantly contributed to our success this far is that we focus on music. There are so many artists that are focusing on everything and they cannot even write their own music. They are out on the socials, getting followers but the truth is they do not write their music.

DN: You write a lot of your own songs, do you write for other people as well?
Robert: I wrote for Cheryl Cole and some other people who are coming up now.

Joe: I was about to get my first cut with David in South Africa. This is about the time, we were emailing a bunch of people and we were pretty desperate at this point. We were under pressure from all this music because we haven’t made any money from it so we get this opportunity to sell some of our music to this South Africa artist who had just won X-factor out there. To us, it sounded like a great deal. It was 2000£, which at the time was a lot of money for a couple tracks.

The day we get the contract to sign it away, one of the people we were emailing convinced us not to do it. He said we were going to give our sound away and if we do that the guy could end up in the spot instead of you. We may have burnt a few bridges because of it but I’m glad we did, now we have our own artist career ahead of us.

DN: Do you guys ever experiment with your singing voices?
David: That’s one of the main things we do. When we actually got signed, they thought there was 5 people singing in the band. When Joe sings, he has his own voices, when I sing I have a few different voice and Robert has his own unique voice.

Joe: The voice is an instrument, and there are many ways to play it. You have to step out of your comfort zone sometimes. When you’re trying to sell something to other people like Cheryl Cole for example. You write it and try to sing it in a way you imagine her singing it and that’s the way we wrote songs for a long time. It was only natural from there we learned to sing in different styles.

DN: So there’s a lot of buzz going on with your new single “Overload”, tell me more about it. Did you expect it to be such a big hit?
Joe: Absolutely not,  “Overload” was just another song we made. We wrote it in the summer when we were about to get thrown out of where we were staying. It embodies some of that frustration, not being able to control what’s happening to you. It’s open to some interpretation but that’s what was going on through our minds. I didn’t want to go out and get a real job, I wanted to make music and make this happen.

DN: “Overload,” has an organic sound. Is this the sound that fans will be expecting from your upcoming EP, “Prologue“?
David: Definitely! We love to bring in that organic sound with a modern twist.

Robert: We all focus on that sound but we do have a couple tracks that are more electronic, one that is more country and a couple that are folkier.

DN: You’re going on a 29-city tour across the US with Meghan Trainor, a big deal here. How did you guys react when you were put on her tour?
David: Crazy. I would pay myself to travel around the US so to have someone else pay us to travel around the US is insane. We love America so much that we would just love to see the ins and outs of the different states. Being able to do it with such a great artists who writes her music and a great singer I think this is going to be amazing.

Joe: I couldn’t really believe we are going on tour so quick. It’s only six months ago that we were nowhere. We’ve only been to NYC and LA, we haven’t seen anywhere else in America so we’re going to see all these places, do what we love to do, and actually connect with fans which is going to be a crazy experience.

Robert: This is a whole new experience. Being able to play live in front of so many people is scary but we are really happy to do it.

DN: Where would you say is your largest fan base? Is there a certain US city you are most anticipated to visit while on tour?
Joe: I think David really wants to go to Nashville.

David: I do want to go to Nashville. It’s crazy, my sister is actually getting married on the day we are playing in Nashville but I wont be able to go to her wedding because we are going on tour. I also want to go to San Francisco; I lived there for a year doing college. To be able to go back and see all my friends that I haven’t seen in about three years now is going to be insane.

Robert: I recently just heard of some of these County State Fairs and when I hear County State Fair, in the UK it sounds like a collection of 50-100 people kind of sharing recipes. From what I hear it’s going to be tens of thousands of people, weirdly enough it’s kind of exciting.

DN: Where do you hope to see yourselves in the next few years?
David: As scary as quick as everything comes, it can as quickly go and we just want to be working hard, making the right decisions to have a long career. We’re not trying to shoot too quickly but the way things have moved we’re trying to make sure to hold on.

Joe: It’s a marathon, not a sprint. We’re really in this for the long haul, we have a lot of music ready but we want to make a lot more. It’s our passion.

The trio will join Meghan Trainor on her The MTRAIN Tour starting in July and hitting 29 cities across the US. Make sure to grab tickets! Tour dates provided below.

7/3  Atlantic City, NJ  The Borgata
7/4 Uncasville, CT   Mohegan Sun
7/7 Lansing, MI   Common Ground Music Festival
7/9 Detroit, MI   Fillmore
7/12 Chicago, IL   Aragon Ballroom
7/14 St. Louis, MO   The Pageant
7/16 San Antonio, TX  The Tobin Center for Performing
7/18 Denver, CO   The Fillmore
7/21 San Francisco, CA  The Masonic
7/22 Paso Robles, CA  California Mid State Fair
7/24 Los Angeles, CA  The Palladium
7/27 Harrington, DE  Delaware State Fair
7/29 Troy, PA   Troy Fair
7/31 New York, NY   JBL Live at Pier 97
8/2 Columbus, OH  Ohio State Fair
8/5 Philadelphia, PA  Festival Pier at Penn’s Landing
8/6 Boston, MA   Blue Hills Bank Pavilion
8/11 Indianapolis, IN  Indiana State Fair
8/13 Hamburg, NY   Erie County Fair
8/15 Nashville, TN   Ryman Auditorium
8/16 Atlanta, GA   The Tabernacle
8/18 Raleigh, NC   The Ritz
8/20 Louisville, KY   Kentucky State Fair
8/22 Des Moines, IA  Iowa State Fair
9/1 St. Paul, MN   Minnesota State Fair
9/3 Syracuse, NY   New York State Fair
9/4 Essex Junction, VT  Champlain Valley Exposition
9/6 Allentown, PA   Allentown Fair

Watch Life Of Dillon’s “Overload” video below: