Yellow After Rain

As their name implies, Yellow After Rain’s music is perfectly suited to the passing of an afternoon rain storm. The Lincoln band’s dramatic riffs synthesize visions of April showers rolling down your back porch windows, and its peacefully delivered lyrics conjure melancholic feelings of cloud-ridden stormy days.

The band manages to create this vision with a complex musical toolkit of unusual math rock time signatures and a steady grasp on music theory. The band markets itself to “musically knowledgeable individuals” and takes pride in its stripped-down and cleaned-up take on Midwestern emo music.

The band formed around guitarist Cole Kempcke and drummer Dylan Gearhart in May 2017, later bringing bassist and singer Daniel Kuchar into the mix. The band’s lineup also incorporates revolving fourth and fifth members, adding imaginative instrumentation such as trumpets and synthesizers whenever possible.

Yellow After Rain made its mark with its Oct. 11 release, “Condemnation.” Having only released demos in the past, “Condemnation” marks the band’s first full-fledged recording endeavor to date. The 11-track album exhibits the intricate instrumentals and poetic verses that Yellow After Rain has mastered in the past year of bandhood.

The album kicks off with the first and only single, “I Would (Hear You Out Were it Not for My Tinnitus).” The track explodes with a harsh, yet intriguing chord progression that evolves into a bubbly guitar melody. Kuchar paints his vocals on top of the meandering riff as he sings, “There’s no excuse for how I’ve been, and what I’ve said — it’s a problem.” Out of the gate, the lyrics showcase the sensitive and emotional subject matter Yellow After Rain is known for. Introspection is an underlying theme, weaving its way through the band’s songs in one form or another.

The third track, “Fortress of Raw Skin” builds upon this idea, but this time through rap vocals by Keshawn Stubblefield, who also plays synth and trumpet for the band. He flows through his parts with the precision and quickness needed to make a math rock-rap crossover work well. “But you’ll never see me ever change, metamorphosis got me feeling awful strange,” he sings, before Kuchar marks the end of the verse with his mellow howl of “The moon pulls the tides like a rocking horse in the night.”

“Elton Lux” showcases some of the album’s most memorable riffs, with complex bass and guitar interplay that bounces through the verse but pauses and rests right when you least expect it. The song climaxes with Kuchar’s powerful scream of “Take me where you go, I swear I’m yours. Fix these broken souls,” which is then followed by 30 seconds of beating one chord into an intensely sustained version of itself. A silence follows before a tiny burst of a classic math rock riffs away, and concludes with another beating of a single chord.

Perhaps the most indicative line of Yellow After Rain’s melancholic lyrical theme comes from the fifth track, “June,” where group vocals yield a sentiment felt through the entire album: “I like the feeling of feeling sad.”

The album’s B-side is rich with spoken word samples and sonic experimentation, which is exemplified on tracks like “Proposal” and the album’s title track. These tracks provide soundscapes that thoroughly solidify the melancholic and novel sounds Yellow After Rain hopes to share with its listeners.

The album comes to a conclusion with “Digital Love Affair,” which begins with seemingly normal instrumentation for the band before a gloomy spoken-word soliloquy flows onto the top of the track. The voice concludes with a desolate sense of longing: “And if my human lenses could gaze upon your digital lenses as we fall asleep, to never wake up.”

Yellow After Rain is a talented group of young musicians with a knack for building meaningful lyrical messages and beautifully complex melodies. “Condemnation” showcases those talents and more in a perfectly emotional — and catchy — record. - The Daily Nebraskan

Lincoln’s music scene consists of diverse, young and outgoing bands and audiences that make the city’s downtown music venues electric places to be. DIY bands are known for drawing in enthusiastic crowds of all ages, and local emo band Yellow After Rain does exactly that with its first album, “Condemnation,” which was released on Oct. 11.

Yellow After Rain got its start when Dylan Gearhart, a freshman computer science and math double major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, met Cole Kempcke through the Lincoln Northeast High School jazz band. Gearhart played drums, and Kempcke, the guitar. Gearhart had song ideas and guitar riffs that he introduced to Kempcke, a current senior at Northeast, and they decided to join forces and start making music.

“Our school needed a pre-show act before the play production, and after we did that, we decided to keep going,” Gearhart said. “We were solely an instrumental group at first, but switched it up later. We have a debate all of the time about what type of genre we are, but we settled on chamber emo.”

Chamber emo translates into brief, explosive moments of guitar and drums winding into melodic, small-group ensemble sounds with each instrument relying on the others to support the sound. The band’s lyrics relate soft, but impactful messages about mental health and sad, anxious feelings.

“We mainly talk about suicide and depression in our album,” Gearhart said. “Because we first started doing this in high school, we didn’t have the grounds to talk about mental health, and school counselors aren’t exactly therapists.”

Kempcke wants Yellow After Rain to represent mental illness in a style that is different from other artists.

“We try to talk about it in a way that isn’t cringey,” he said. “We’re trying to be more thoughtful about this issue that lots of people are facing.”

For nearly three months, the band spent hours upon hours in Kempcke’s parents’ basement, writing and honing the songs that would make up their debut album. They self-recorded in the basement, but got professional mixing and mastering help from Jeremy Wurst, who has made records with local artists like Evan Bartels & The Stoney Lonesomes, The Way Out and blét.

The album can officially be listened to on most music streaming services, including Apple Music and Spotify.

“It was seriously a group project,” said Kellen Smith, the band’s vibraphone player. “It took all summer, and it feels like so weird to be done making it and releasing a whole album.”

The band’s hard work paid off at their album release show in front of crowds of high school and college kids who came together on a cold night to embrace the intimacy of the music.

Yellow After Rain held their album release show in The Bourbon Theatre's Rye Room, where the audience sang along and cheered for the chord progressions that the band members executed harmoniously. People slowly danced while the drums hushed and the bass took over, and jumped around when all of the instruments came together for the climaxes. When frontman and bassist Daniel Kuchar sang about sadness and grief, the whole room fell silent with understanding.

The songs discussed the complex issues the band places value on, but in a catchy way that, after first listen, didn’t scream dark or depressed themes.

Yellow After Rain’s important message calling for mental health awareness shines through on the record with pleasantly abrupt guitar riffs and drum fills that blast the listener.

“We’re dedicated to making our music complex, while trying to be service level catchy,” Gearhart said. “Deep down, it’s more intricate, and we mask it with accessibility.” - The Daily Nebraskan

Yellow After Rain is a local band that uses its lyrics to show people that talking about mental illnesses such as depression is OK and should not have the stigma associated with it.

The band is comprised of five members, all living in Lincoln or Omaha.

On drums is University of Nebraska-Lincoln freshman physics major Dylan Gearhart, bassist Daniel Kushar, guitarists Cole Kempcke and Trenton Miller and synthesizer/trumpet player Keshawn Stubblefield.

The group classifies itself as a mixture of emo and math rock, influences which mainly stem from Gearhart.

“We like to take it to places that people wouldn't expect, and that puts us in a category of math rock or emo,” Gearhart said.

While attending Lincoln Northeast High School, the group met up after classes to mess around with the instruments they owned for a few hours at one of their houses. The group at the time consisted of Kempcke, Miller, Stubblefield and Gearhart, along with a former member. From the moment they formed, the group meshed.

“There was a riff idea, and from that we started taking it really seriously,” Gearhart said.

Each member of the band started playing instruments at a young age, cultivating a passion. Miller said he used to use chopsticks as drumsticks and the table as drums in restaurants.

“I played drums for years, and then I got into guitar, and now I’m here,” Miller said.

The group's sound finds inspiration in life experiences and what speaks to them emotionally. Gearhart said his moods, specifically sadness, have an impacted the group’s sound.

“I do most of the writing in the band, and then Daniel does most of the lyrics,” Gearhart said. “But the music stems from me, and the lyrics stem from that.”

Utilizing instruments like trumpets and synthesizers, Yellow After Rain uses non-traditional sounds for emo and math rock bands. With a vibrant music scene in Lincoln, every band has to find a way to make a name for themselves.

“We just have a lot of sounds that we like to incorporate, so that you might have heard the melody before, but not the way we play it,” Kushar said.

In July, Yellow After Rain put out a demo EP called “EC-620,” which was recorded in Miller and Kempcke’s basements. With their own material, the group wrote and recorded the demo independently. After the hours of production, the group said they were happy with how the demo turned out, but agreed they can do better in the future.

“[The recording process] was pretty rough,” Gearhart said. “But it’s more to put some material out there.”

Kempcke said the group's music is aimed at letting people know it’s normal to be sad. They said the songs’ lyrics, usually on the sad side including topics like suicide, are based off personal experiences from the band members, giving the songs more meaning.

“I think that a lot of people don’t want to talk about [being sad] sometimes, and they kinda look to music for that,” Kempcke said. - The Daily Nebraskan

One of my favorite aspects of Bourbon Theatre is its versatility to accommodate for intimate shows that feature local artists and bands getting their start. At 9 p.m on Friday, the stage in the front part of the venue hosted a CD release show for Jacob James Wilton. The show featured three bands and a DJ.

DJ Reggie opened the show, followed by math-rock/emo band, Yellow After Rain, Ambulanters and finally James Jacob Wilton, ending the show as the headliner. The best thing about the front stage is always feeling like being in the front row. Even if you are standing behind people on the floor, it’s a simple surge from people who feel the beat drop in their bones to fling anyone to the stage. If the close quarters aren’t ideal, a small balcony looks down on the stage with seats and leaning space available.

Lincoln band Yellow After Rain followed DJ Reggie’s short set. The group is comprised of drummer Dylan Gearhart, guitarist Cole Kempcke, bassist/lead vocalist Daniel Kuchar and trumpeter/synth player Keshawn Stubblefield. The emo/rock band started off the night with a set of sad melodies completed with beautifully resonant chords. With this combination, the band largely reminds me of Death Cab for Cutie with a heavier focus on instrumentals. The complex guitar riffs between lyrics kept me on my toes waiting for the next melancholy words.

The spacey, upbeat songs during their set included spoken word, serene trumpet and complicated rhythms. Yellow After Rain ended its set with an aura of peace.

Ambulanters followed shortly after. The sad-rock quartet captivated me with their uptempo songs featuring electric beats and heavy drumming. The band made up by guitarists/vocalists, Jim Rhian and Sam Costello, drummer Jarvis Davis and bassist/vocalist Robert Specht, may have played sad-rock, but the only thing I felt was euphoria.

With a slow build on its first song to explode into a wave of melodic angst, the second song also started slowly with a light melody that is repeated through a pedal, skipped and then dropped into the full chaos of the band with the intense energy of a field of flowers on fire.

Each song seemed to go on forever without losing energy or attention. The band members displayed their skills by experimenting with expansive pedal boards, experimental guitar techniques, like changing pedals with the head of a guitar, and an array of vocals from singing, screaming and speaking to the crowd. At the end of the set, the Ambulanters announced it would be its last show for a while.

At this point in the night, it felt like I left my body behind to be guided through the cascade of sad rock emotions from both the bands and the audience.

Jacob James Wilton took the stage at the end of the night. The project led by Jake Newbold, also features musicians violinist Marina Kushner, bassist Aaron Lee, drummer David Mcinnis, guitarist Grant Daily, synth player Claire Delaney and musician Travis Ahrenholtz.

The first thing that caught my attention with this band was its lyrics. Opening with a song titled, “Revelation,” Wilton provided lyrics like “heavy load let that weight roll off,” and, “Time could just swallow us, don’t worry about the city that I live in it’s chiller now,” direct and relatable lyrics that invite listeners to pour a bit of their own lives into the composition.

All of the bands got my knobbly knees moving, but for stragglers who just weren’t feeling the vibe yet, the melodic rock streaming from the band got everyone’s blood circulating a bit more once the tempo picked up leading to a quasi-punk mentality accumulating into a mini-mosh pit.

The combination of instruments the band presented, especially the violin, added a feeling like I was torn in half by the contrast of sad droney electric tones and elegant soaring melodies. The set was short — about 6 songs — and after they thanked the crowd, they were responded with wild yelling until an encore was put in place. For the return to stage, Jacob James Wilton played a short, sweet, to-the-point song titled, “Hey I Don’t Wanna Die,” which wrapped up the night’s vibe exquisitely.

The lead vocalist and creator of Jacob James Wilton, Jake Newbold, said music has always been a big part of his life.

“I grew up with a very encouraging musical mom,” he said. “She would take me to the old Homer’s records out in west Omaha like once a week and let me buy records. Then at some point in middle school my family got really fed up with me beating up furniture with sticks around the house so they bought me a drum set, a guitar was soon to follow, then GarageBand became a thing, now I do this.”

The project’s name, Jacob James Wilton, was Newbold’s full name before he was adopted at the age of 6. While the band has performed with 2-20 members, sometimes Newbold plays solo. He writes all of the songs.

Newbold said he was influenced by the music of Starflyer 59, Chaka Khan, Sparklehorse, Norma Jean to name a few.

Jacob James Wilton’s new album, “Distant,” is available at jacobjameswilton.bandcamp.com. - The Daily Nebraskan

Dietrich: It is my pleasure to be here with Yellow After Rain, a local band here in Lincoln, let’s start with some of the basics… When did you guys... form? Was it always you three, or were there other [people] in the band?
Cole: ...The original lineup hasn’t always been this way. We had a bass player before what you see here now…
Dylan: Yeah, Adam*, he played in jazz band with us in Lincoln Northeast High School, it was my senior year, Cole’s sophomore year and Keshawn’s junior year, and we all got together before an event “Rock Show”, which is a big mash-up between the jazz band and show choir, and they needed a pre-show act, and I had been writing some music, and Cole and I got together and started something, and we asked Keshawn to play with us, and Adam was the bass player of the jazz band, so he kinda stuck his foot in the door. From that, we also had Trevor play with us for awhile, he played guitar, but after a falling out, with people moving off to school and stuff, we kinda conglomerated back into just Daniel, Cole, Keshawn and I.
Dietrich: Is Daniel still in the band?
Dylan: Yeah, he’s just not here right now, he plays bass and sings in our band.
Dietrich: So, basically, you guys were all doing jazz/show choir-related stuff at your school, and you had to write something for it, and you were like ‘hey, this is cool, let’s keep doing this’, was it kinda like that?
Dylan: Well, it was more like, Cole and I used to play in an experimental band called Paternalism, where we were just pushing each others’ chops as far as we could, a lot of progressive-sounding music, and I was getting kind of frustrated that no one liked our music *laughs*, and so I wanted to write something more accessible, and the guitar parts I was coming up with, I’m not a guitar player, but they were pretty emo and sad, and Cole took to it pretty well, and so from that, y’know, as a drummer writing guitar riffs, they weren’t super intricate at first… of course there were like, odd time signatures and stuff, and interesting ideas rhythmically, but I couldn’t play the guitar well, so I had to stick to some pretty basic melodic ideas, and using things like reharmonization and stuff, we kinda took the songs further than they were… So that was kinda the first half of it, and then we had this whole other section, where we were instrumental for our first three shows, then we got to add a vocalist on top of that, and so that adds, like, two extra layers; lyrics and vocal melodies. Just trying to make stuff more accessible.
Dietrich: Okay, so you guys started kind of a long time ago, but when did you guys say ‘Okay, we’re Yellow After Rain, we’re a band’, about when did that happen?
Dylan: Sometime in 2017… We haven’t been a band much longer than a year… I mean, we started at Rock Show last year, and, I mean, we played a show at a graduation party, so if that gives you the season of events, we’re really at the tail end of last year.
Dietrich: All right. Thank you Dylan. So, about another pretty important part… genre/genres of your group?
Keshawn: Emo, experimental… math rock… shoegaze..
Dietrich: Emo, experimental, math rock, and what? *all laugh*
Dylan: I’m gonna contradict everything Keshawn says, we’re predominantly emo music… and I just want to add, most of the time when people hear us, like any local band, it’s hard to pigeonhole into one genre… Like, Keshawn has a hip-hop verse during one of our songs, he like raps, I don’t think that’s emo, exactly… *laughs* but, y’know, a wide variety of influences, but to distill it down to one adjective or genre… it’s sad.
Dietrich: Sad, I hear you… have you guys released anything, is there anything on any music platforms you have?
Cole: Yeah, we released a demo last summer, around July, there’s about five songs on it. Four of those songs will be on our upcoming record that we’re working on.
Dietrich: That’s awesome, do you have an estimate on when you’re record will be out?
Cole: About two months.
Dietrich: Two months! That’s soon! ...Okay, all that was kinda the “boring” stuff right? Like the really basic stuff, what genre, what’s the name of the band, like, duh, right? So next, these are some of, for lack of a better word, “drama” questions/interesting questions/philosophical questions…
Keshawn: *laughs*
Dietrich: I personally think they’re fun… Anyway, here’s one that Riana came up with that might be interesting to discuss… Have there been conflicting interests between members of the band-
All: *laugh*
Dietrich *laughs* Okay, did that speak for itself?
Keshawn: I mean, I think that’s pretty self-explanatory, just with like, human interaction in general...
Dietrich: Nothing major though, right?
Keshawn: Nah, nothing major…
Dylan: Uh, yeah, hell yeah, what do you mean?
All: *laugh*
Keshawn: I mean…
Dylan: Okay, so there was one conflict, which is pretty much the reason Trevor’s not in the band anymore, is like, we had a pretty big creative difference, so there was an event that happened that I won’t really go into detail, but is the reason we don’t have one of the members in our band, and, that’s fine, I think what I really value actually at this point is, we all can constructively and efficiently critique each other, it’s like, we don’t really harp on one thing, like, if I disagree with a vocal line or something, we’re all close enough in our creative thought that we agree on a lot of things, and when we don’t, we’re open to each other’s opinions, which is nice, it’s really nice. So the four of us right now, I don’t think we have a lot of issues.
Dietrich: Okay, so, we’re in a pretty crazy world right now... in the digital age, more and more people can can have their music released on public platforms. The cost of making a record has really gone down, there’s so much music… It used to be like, if you were really talented and wrote a really cool song, you could go rags to riches like Elvis Presley. Nowadays, not so much. Anyway, in this day and age, how do you guys try to distinguish yourself in your music?
Dylan: Well… as you’ll see, we write music for musicians. Through things like counterpoint and reharmonization… hemiolas and rhythmic dissonance, we’re all geeks about this stuff, I mean, we’re all, like, more classically trained musicians, trying to approach this kind of like… I guess, there’s an idea where, you can pick up a guitar and start playing it, and that’s really righteous, that’s really cool that anyone can learn three chords and play 50% of music, but we’re trying to take a more classical arrangement approach to the genre that doesn’t really get nurtured that way… So, we use our instrumentation really specifically, we’re not just playing guitar because we can, but because it fits the atmosphere we’re trying to create, and, when you have four people doing that across five or six instruments, it can be really effective, and I feel like people don’t always capitalize on that, and they’re just playing guitar because it’s there, not because it actually has a melodic or harmonic role.
Dietrich: Thank you Dylan, I really like how you worded that. So, as I said, music has changed a lot, the music industry has changed a lot, but not just the music industry, but like, the entire freakin’ planet, you know? It’s a crazy world we have right now, I mean, obviously it sound like I’m gonna start talking about politics, and I mean, that is always crazy, but really everything! So, what do you guys think makes your music important right now, you know what I mean?
Keshawn: Well, we make a platform for other people, especially musicians, to know that it’s okay to be sad.. You don’t have to feel like you can’t tell anyone, you can’t be open about your sadness, because now, with you saying we live in a digital age and everything, people will go and “tweet” their problems, post about their problems on their Snapchat story instead of having actual social interaction…
Dietrich: I feel attacked right now…
Keshawn: *laughs* I mean, we’re all victim…
Dietrich: God bless Twitter.
Keshawn: ...We wanna make it like, so, you can stray away from the digital age and be more upfront about it with others, too…
Dylan: I think, going off of what Keshawn is saying, Cole and I have both kinda nurtured this idea, whether through AP Lang essays or otherwise… *laughs* Like, technology really connects us, but simultaneously disconnects social interactions, in terms of depth of a social relationship… I remember when I was a kid, my brother would get together with his friends in real life, and they’d play Super Smash Bros. Melee on the TV, whereas, in the age that we are growing up in right now, I mean, I played Xbox Live, I never actually talked to anyone, I mean, of course over the microphone and stuff, but I don’t think it’s the same as meeting up with friends and playing D&D or Smash, or anything in between, and, you can draw that a lot further, it’s not just video games, but I think going further, a lot of people feel isolated, socially, and, we touch on that in our music, and we go to something of extremes, but… at least Cole and I have discussed for a long time that the message we want to get out is, being in real life, and in real human contact, is much more fulfilling and necessary, than the image that people try to create on social media all the time… getting past an image and knowing a person for who they are, is much more valuable and, at least I reflect, it gets harder and harder to create deep relationships with people online… Not to say that you couldn’t, but it is a lot more difficult to escape the facade of an image…
Dietrich: And you guys try to reflect that? Or figure out how to sorta combat that in your music?
Dylan: Well, the main thing we touch on is, suicide through a lack of connection, that’s what I was saying with the dramatization, y’know, going so far as depression among millenials is at an all-time high, I feel it, a lot of the members of the band feel that, we’ve had friends kill themselves, family members kill themselves, and, it’s really kinda overwhelming how omnipresent it always is, so our music kinda reflects what we see and feel, and hear, in the day-to-day, and, it’s to a certain extent for a lot of us, a coping mechanism, but it’s also a good way for us to get together and grow our personal and intrapersonal relationships.
Dietrich: Well, this is all very powerful and very well-said, and feels very relevant. I’m very impressed with how, for a lack of better word, meta, you guys try to make your music…
So, we’ve got one more question… This question is something that Riana and I thought would be kinda fun… It’s more about you guys’ philosophy than what the band’s music is… So, in terms of artistic philosophy, we’ve all heard about the art vs. the artist, right? For example, some people aren’t too big of fans of Kanye, some people think he’s very cocky and rude, some people still bump his music even though they have these opinions on him… But it goes beyond music, other forms of art have it, like, one of my favorite examples to bring up, you guys remember the whole Louis C.K. thing, you guys remember that, no? I mean, that guy is clearly a very skilled comedian, but God, what a mess, right? So, how do you guys feel about that, that is, separating the art from the artist? What do you think, should we be allowed to enjoy art created by people, even if we don’t really agree with the ideas that they have or the actions that they take?
Keshawn: I think art should be a direct reflection of who you are as a person, and whether people like that or not, I think that’s ultimately up to you to decide that you like it, and that you wanna put that out there for the world to see, whether, like, it takes them a day to like it, a week, or a year to like it… so it should be a direct reflection of yourself… I mean, like you said, with the whole comedian thing, a comedian making music versus a musician making comedy, it’s a whole spectrum-wide thing with the whole art scene, so you gotta start from somewhere.
Cole: On what Keshawn said, I think when someone enjoys a piece of art prior to something crazy happening with the artist, or scandals or anything, I think, at least for me it’s easier to forgive… I don’t know, because art helps people get through things, it helps me get through things, and when something tragic happens, it’s hard to be like “Well, so-and-so did this, should I still listen to this music, should I still appreciate their art, their time?” And for me, I think the answer is yes, you should.
Dylan: Well, I think you could draw a hundred parallels, I could say, Charles Manson, if he made a song, if it’s an objectively good song and you like it, sure, maybe, but then there’s things like Brock Hampton, you mentioned Louis C.K, there’s Bill Cosby, there’s a whole, like, spectrum of things, but going further, there’s so many things! Like, you could talk about [how] Miles Davis has rape allegations against him, and there’s the XXXTentacion thing, I just think that… I think that when you value art the same way you value the person making the art, in the sense that, if the person’s a bad person, or if you don’t agree with the person, then you can’t enjoy their art… That, for me, and maybe this isn’t a well-accepted idea, but yeah, I feel like it’s no different that trying to keep music connected to a church during the renaissance, like there was this whole separation of state vs. church, and that ties so closely to art and it’s like, post-renaissance art is like so much more secular, there’s a lot less religion behind it, and if I’m a religious person, can I still enjoy secular art, and the answer is yes… Not everything has to be about God, and not everything has to be attributed to God, just like not everything has to be attributed to the person making the art. There’s so much more influence that it has, Cole mentioned. No one will ever know what role Kanye played in my life, regardless of how he played it in someone else’s life, in the sense that maybe Kanye is the world’s worst person, but if he, y’know, kept me from ending my own life because I could connect so deeply with his music, this is a very ridiculous example, but still remains! At a certain point, I think the biggest difference is, should you support the artist? Maybe you enjoy their art, but am I gonna buy their merch, if they’re a bad person. And I’m gonna say, the answer for me would be no, I’m not gonna buy some serial rapist’s merch, I’m not gonna do that, but if a song comes on, I’m not gonna be so Orwellian as to censor myself from it, like, I don’t think it’s a good idea to limit your artistic intake because you disagree with a person’s actions or beliefs. I just think that’s so close minded... I also want to mention further, I think XXXTentacion and R. Kelly got pulled off of Spotify’s playlists, which generates a lot of revenue for the artists, and a lot of commercialization and popularity for the artist, but it’s like, Jim Morrison of The Doors, or anyone in Led Zeppelin, or, I already mentioned Miles Davis, I could draw from any corner of any genre, there have been allegations against certain people, and if XXXTentacion and R. Kelly… XXXTentacion very specifically, I don’t like that person as a person, but, very specifically, he only has allegations out right now. He was on house arrest, I think, for awhile, but the whole domestic abuse… allegations, and y’know, [with] the late passing of him, I’m not sure if they will ever come to full light, but my point is, at what point do you stop censoring content? And it’s like, even if the artist is a bad person, does their art necessarily reflect that, and of course, if a white supremacist is preaching hate speech in their music, do I think that should be commercially promoted, like no, I don’t think that’s a good idea, but do I think that person should be stopped from saying what they have to say, no. And, personally, I’ve been a long-time member of the ACLU, and there’s a banned book festival that we have here in Lincoln, and every time there’s something people disagree with in a book, and they just turn it off, they just get rid of the book, it’s gone, and I feel that so closely to music, and even if the artist is a bad person, you can reflect from their mistakes, and so that history doesn’t repeat itself, like, you see someone like Bill Cosby and be like, ‘Hey, I don’t wanna be like that guy, that guy’s not a good guy’, and I mean, maybe you don’t need that for something so ridiculous, but it is, and really it hits too close to home for me to censorship, I don’t think that you should ever boycott art, but I don’t think you should support bad people, does that make sense? So, I think it should still be available… Do I think it should be held on a pedestal because it’s a bad person, like ‘oh, this is the ultimate white supremacist song’... like, no, that’s nonsense, I don’t think that should happen, but I do think, very strongly, that art shouldn’t be censored. And, I think when you get to this ‘art versus artist’ idea, and then we connect it to things like Spotify, you can really get close to this, as previously mentioned, Orwellian viewpoint of shutting people down because you disagree with their previous actions or current philosophies, period.
Dietrich: Well, definitely a very good way to end our interview, some very interesting thoughts and good information to hear from Yellow After Rain, it’s been good to be here with you guys! That’s our time, hope you guys have a great rest of your weekend! - KIND Magazine