Roll of the Dice: 9 questions with All Day Sucker

Last Friday, melodic pop-rockers All Day Sucker released their record Feel Better to a positive reception. To celebrate the release, the duo joined TGEFM for a Roll of the Dice interview. Check it out below and listen to the record here.

Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. Congratulations on the release of Feel Better! What can you tell us about yourselves, your sound and what makes you tick?

Morty: We are classic Pop mavens with an ear out for what we love in contemporary sounds. Having written and played with Jordan (and Dan, David, and Geoff) for so long we have a solid shorthand of aesthetics that turn us on.Ultimately, we hope to write standards that allow personal expression with some universal appeal. We worship at the altar of the history of popular song.
Jordan: Thanks! A review came out last week of “Feel Better” describing us as …“rewriting the Great American Songbook for an exclusively British audience“. It doesn’t encapsulate us completely, of course, but the accuracy of that really surprised and struck me because I hadn’t thought of us from that perspective. He got us in a way I didn’t and I agree with, so I’m adopting it for now.

Let’s talk a little bit about how Feel Better came into existence. What was going on at the time that helped kickstart the songwriting process?

Morty: Jordan and I had written so many songs since our third album, Denim Days. In the interim we had some personal triumphs, troubles, and tragedies that informed the trajectory of the subject matter. Denim Days was ostensibly about domestic bliss, friends, and family and shortly after many things went sideways. That’s how we came up with the album title after having several other ideas. With all the issues we both were facing we’d invariably end each call or text with “feel better” and then we noticed the title was right in front of us.
Jordan: I had some songs stockpiled in the bunker with hand sanitizer and toilet paper in preparation for the covid apocalypse. Once we used up the sanitizer and toilet paper we had nothing left to protect ourselves with so we broke into the songs.

What album or band or significant singles made you go “Yeah, this is what I want to do” Not just an influence but who or what was the catalyst?

Morty: We’re constantly finding and rediscovering songs from artists we’ve always loved. In addition I’m always excited and interested in anything new by James Mercer and The Shins, The Feeling, Blur, Gorillaz, and anything our old high school classmate Greg Kurstin works on. Also, we have so many talented friends that encourage and inspire us like Bebopalula, Jordan Zevon, Fernando Perdomo, Escape Artist Lovers, Jason Berk, The Motion, and Supreme Beings of Leisure.
Jordan: I think you are referring to when we started as kids. I saw Beatlemania as a kid and seeing the fake Beatles in concert made me want to be a fake Beatle which I still am and so is every other band to come after the real Beatles.

We’ve all got a few, what is your biggest regret? A gig you turned down, advice you didn’t take, what one thing do you wish you handled differently as a musician?

Morty: It’s not overtly profound and slightly crass but I wish we’d have had more success when there was still a record industry. We’d be on our comeback tour now like so many of our contemporaries and writing musicals.
Jordan: There is no one thing to regret. It’s the culmination of little choices we made, circumstances we could’ve controlled better, insecurities we let get too loud in our heads that might have made a difference here or there. We are pretty zen about it. Or we could have demanded a different A&R guy at Interscope Records. That asshole fucked us and countless others. Where’s the time machine?

You’ve been working together for the last decades, since high school.  Where do you see this project 20 years from now?

Morty: There’s significantly more longevity in aging as a songwriter as opposed to a performer. I hope we get the opportunity to continue creating songs and building our repertoire as well as for other mediums like stage and all screens. We also love writing for and with other artists.
Jordan: In 20 years I see us sitting on a park bench in autumn and finally getting around to finishing this interview. We will never stop writing and performing and collaborating. It’s not in our nature.

What have been some of the most memorable moments or experiences as a touring musician so far? What’s been the most unexpected? The weirdest?

Morty: Not to be evasive or vague but any time we’ve been accepted by and amongst our peers as well as those we admire substantiates the devotion we’ve applied to our craft. Sharing a stage and even backstage with other artists is both humbling and thrilling. Amongst so many others we’ve gotten to play with members of The Replacements, R.E.M., The Cars, Oingo Boingo, Jellyfish, The Bangles, The Attractions, Fishbone, The Monkees, Cheap Trick, Guns N’ Roses, and Supergrass and we’ve never taken a moment for granted.
Jordan: It’s true. We never have taken any of that for granted. There’s no one story so here’s a stream of consciousness of memorable and weird moments. Playing Brian Wilson’s songs to Brian Wilson in person, pre-teen Hansen starting a food fight with us on stage at one of our shows and the police being summoned, Rick James handing Morty his infant so he could sing “Down By The River” with us at The Kibitz Room, playing and partying at the Playboy Mansion, falling through the stage during a show and not dying, playing Letterman with Paul Schaffer and the Late Show band, Mick Jagger singing a line of “Monkey Man” with us at The Viper Room, selling our t-shirts to wipe the snow from the windshields of cars stuck on the freeway in a blizzard, and playing Royal Albert Hall and the Sydney Opera house. Fancy!

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?

Morty: I told you about a few but I always feel bad if I miss any of my friends or their bands. I’ll let Jordan answer because he’s too cute to hate.
Jordan: Morty mentioned some of them above. I don’t know them personally but I really like The Beths new record. Tampa, Matthew E. White, our own Geoff Pearlman and the remix of “Tim” by The Replacements.

What’s next for All Day Sucker?

Morty: Hopefully we can encourage people to listen to Feel Better, check out our other albums, and to come see us play. We also have more than an album or two already written so there may be newer music before we know it. Also a nap at some point.
Jordan: Feel Better came out Friday with some really nice write ups so we want to get behind it and build momentum to grow the audience for what’s to come.

Was there anything I missed that you’d like to share or dive deeper into with our readers?

Morty: Not to be too sentimental but it has been an honor to get to spend so much of our lives giving back what we received. I often still feel like the awkward teenager that got invited up to a band practice by Jordan and then co-wrote my first song with him. With so many songs and years behind us it’s still the thing that keeps me going.
Jordan: We really stand behind our history, catalog and everyone who played on it. Thank you for the interview and helping getting All Day Sucker some oxygen.

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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.