Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A Pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.
Chicago three-piece LOTEC (formerly Land Of The El Caminos) is preparing to release their fourth album, Squares, 3 February. The record will be the rockers’ first release since 2001’s Subourbon. Lead guitarist/ vocalist Dan Fanelli sat down with TGEFM for a short interview, explaining how the band came back into existence, the recording of Squares and what’s for the members of LOTEC.
Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. I think the first question has to be where the hell have you been and what brought everything back together after 20 years?
Great question! The original lineup of the band stopped playing together in around 2001 or 2002. I honestly can’t remember exactly. I think at that time we just hit a wall after three records and maybe not achieving exactly what we wanted to. I personally was a bit burnt out at the time and wanted to take a break. One thing led to another, and the band just dissolved. All that said, I never stopped writing songs, and I do a lot of home recording to keep the ideas going. After I had what I thought would be enough material for a record, Kenny and I started rehearsing again and then we brought Sean into the mix as someone that we’ve known forever, and always wanted to play with. And here we are.
Congratulations in advance on the upcoming release of Squares! What was the process like in fleshing out that record and bringing it to life? How did this recording compare to the experience of recording Subourbon?
I had demos that I recorded by myself at home for all the songs, and that’s really the typical process where I will record something, share it with the guys and then we will rehearse it and learn it. I also had some preliminary meetings with Mike Lust (producer/engineer) who is someone that we’ve all known for a long time but I never personally recorded with him before. We talked about what I wanted it to sound like, bands that we both appreciated, albums that we referenced, or liked the sound of. Then we just dove into it and started recording.
I think overall, this was a much better experience for me at least recording this record versus the last one. The last one was strange because we started working with Areos Ledesma (who recorded our second record) but midway through the recording he for one reason or another, had to abandon the project and so we kind of inherited another engineer. He was a fine engineer, but I think there were some decisions made that if I had to go back, I would’ve done differently. For this project, once Kenny and Sean had the bass and drums finished the rest of it was really, Mike and I holed up in his smaller studio doing all the guitars and vocals, which was really great actually. A lot of fun.
The world has been going through some shit over the last few years. What affect, if any, have the cultural (and/or political) landscapes of the last few years had on your music?
I can’t say that what’s happening culturally and politically has a ton of impact on the songs or lyrics I write, although the title track, “Squares!,” is referring to, at least, in part, some of the nonsense going on in the media, and a lot of the Puritanical opinions of some people in this country.
One of our obligatory questions in these interviews also tends to be the one I have found most important on a personal level. Who are some bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about, but you think they should know about?
One band that I don’t think it’s nearly enough attention is a Chicago band called Meat Wave. They’ve been in the scene for a while and have recorded several great records. I just love them. I also like the new EP from another Chicago band called Lifeguard. These guys are all really young, but the songs are great.
Not to put the cart before the horse, but what’s next for LOTEC after the release of Squares?
Now that the record (Squares) is about to come out, I’m already starting to collect all the ideas I’ve had for new songs and starting to flesh them out and bring them to the band. We will definitely make another record as soon as we have enough songs ready to go.
Was there anything we missed or that you’d like to put more focus on to?
Just that we are putting this latest album out ourselves but would love to partner with a label to help with booking and distribution.
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/
