New York, NY (Top40 Charts/
Diablo Royale Official Website) - Gritty Hard-Hitting Rock N' Roll is what
Diablo Royale is all about. With their sophomore release, GREEDY DOGS, the New York City based five-piece band further hones their sound into something original and 'in-your-face'. When guitarist Eric Choy and drummer Mike Sankari met guitarist Gerard (G-Man) Steixner, the seeds of what would become DR were planted. The three hunkered down in their basement rehearsal studio appropriately named 'The Sweatshop' to write songs and find other musicians. As Choy recalls, 'We wrote and auditioned twice a week every week for two hours every rehearsal�we must have seen over 100 people.' So after countless auditions over the course of nine months, the trio finally met vocalist Adrian Barrios and
Diablo Royale was formed.
In a short time, the band cut their teeth in the local NYC circuit, and managed to put together a ten song self-titled demo. Over the course of the next year, Diablo Royale would go on to play the Northeast as far out as Ohio while building a strong fan base back home in New York. 'Before long we were seeing Diablo Royale stickers on cars and I was being stopped on subway trains by complete strangers,' says G-Man.
Playing to packed houses at such venues as Highline Ballroom and Gramercy Theater, their live performances are known for being powerfully energetic and brazenly unapologetic. They have been featured twice in Revolver Magazine and Pop-Times Magazine, played on Sirius Octane Satellite radio, was No 7 on RXP 101.9 FM's 'Top 9 of '09? countdown and won the Fliptup Best Fil-Am band of the year.
The title of the album was inspired by the current economic climate we find ourselves in. As friends of the band were losing their jobs and the news headlines got more and more depressing, Diablo Royale went back to that same basement studio and wrote the tracks that would become their latest release GREEDY DOGS. Barrios explains, 'A lot of the inspiration for this album came from all of the crap going on. Big companies getting their asses kissed while the little guy is hung out to dry. That's why I made the artwork the way I did, the people that are acting like they are looking out for us, just aren't.'
That being said, this isn't a political album, rather, the idea was simply to remain genuine to what was going on in the heads of the bandmembers, both lyrically and instrumentally. 'We wanted to write focused songs, and keep the lyrics matching what was going on underneath' says guitarist Eric Choy. This shines through in 'Serpent' which is a darker, slower song with lyrics hinting at the sort of thoughts that people tend to keep to themselves. That being said, Diablo Royale's lyrics are pretty straightforward. Choy explains, 'This band is all about the music and giving fans something they can get off listening to it, not something deep and intellectual you need to take hours to understand.'
Choy continues, 'The strength of this band is its live show, so when recording and producing 'Greedy Dogs' we did everything we could to make it feel like the band is in the room with you when you listen to it.'
With their new release, Diablo Royale is looking to the road to continue making the transition to national act, spreading their word, and rocking the masses.
