Danger Radio

Danger Radio is a high energy power-pop band whose songs will soon be playing in everyone's head. The band is made up of vocalist Andrew De Torres, keyboardist Spencer Phillips, drummer Nico Hartikainen, guitarists Andy Brookins and Elan Wright, and bassist, the newly added Robbie Cochrane replacing former member Marvin Kunkel. They are currently touring in support of "Used And Abused" their newest release from Photo Finish Records.
Their live set is a much needed breath of fresh air from the monotonous sounds of the radio bands. At a Danger Radio show, ANYTHING can happen including breaking out into a cover of Britney Spears' "Womanizer" or Oasis' "Wonderwall". Andrew bounces around the stage with the energy of a puppy and the rest of the band follows his lead. The crowd is showered with high fives, hand holding and a bountiful amount of smiles. The show ends with a crowd favorite and as the lights turn on, you get the feeling this is a band that will find their time to shine very soon.
I caught up with Andrew De Torres before the show started and asked him some questions about the challenges of being in a band, his love for Taylor Swift and the future of both Danger Radio and The Scene Aesthetic.

Middle of the Plank: What is the story behind the name Danger Radio?
Andrew De Torres: There isn’t really a story behind the name. I was a sophomore in high school and we had started to get more serious about the band and we decided that we needed a name because before the we were doing pretty much just talent shows so we got together and made just like a huge list of names and it was the one that we liked the best so we ended up just going with it and it’s been with us ever since high school.

MOTP: What has been your biggest challenge as a band?
ADT: I’d say our biggest challenge as band has been you know, staying encouraged. You’re out on the road and you get really discouraged when you’re out on the road and you’ve been doing something for so long and everything so it’s good to know, like we’re all pretty much family and we back each other up with everything. So it’s just hard to be away from home half the time.

MOTP: What’s your favorite thing about being signed with Photo Finish Records?
ADT: Honestly the staff there is just really amazing. Everyone that we’ve been like working with , everyone’s just super awesome, they’re just really supportive, they’ve become like really good friends. It’s been, like, really cool.

MOTP: What is your dream tour like?
ADT: Dream tour? I don’t know it’s kinda hard to say. I love Taking Back Sunday and a lot of the guys feel the same Way. I would just like to tour with a band that I grew up listening to like Taking Back Sunday or Brand New or New Found Glory or something like that. We’re also a huge Paramore fan. We love Parmore, we love her. That Paramore DVD makes my heart melt. So, I don’t know something along there.

MOTP: What are some of your favorite venues to play?
ADT: This is hard. There’s a venue called the marque theater in Denver that I really like and the kids are always really cool. And then obviously like home venues, like there’s a venue up in Seattle called El Corazon that, where I’ve been going to see shows at since I was like 13. It was kind of an interesting thing for me, like when we finally started playing shows there

MOTP: What was the experience like at the first Danger Radio show?
ADT: It was…interesting. Like, it was kind of weird because we’d been a band for a little just not under Danger Radio we had undergone a lot of member changes and everything so the first initial Danger Radio show was at this teen center called Ground Zero on Bellevue and it was crazy, it was so much fun. There were a lot of kids there and it was a lot of fun.

MOTP: What are the future plans for the band?
ADT: Well, we are just finishing this tour up right now. Like, tomorrow’s the last day of the tour and then we’re going to be home until like, November writing for our new record

MOTP: Your side project, The Scene Aesthetic recently covered Love Story for Rockin’ Romance. What made you choose to cover that song?
ADT: I love that song. I never really listened to Taylor Swift a whole lot but my sister likes to listen to her and I downloaded the album and it’s just crazy how many good songs are on there, it’s just crazy to me. And then I was like there’s no way she wrote these songs and then I looked them up online to see who owned all the song publishing and she had written every song by herself. I have this immense respect for her. She’s a great songwriter and just awesome. I love that song and I like that record so I kinda went with it.

MOTP: How do you plan to split your time between Danger Radio and The Scene Aesthetic?
ADT: Carefully…Like, in July Eric and I are going down to LA to record our new record and it kinda works out. He’s on tour with us, like he does merch with us, so we’re constantly writing while we’re on the road together and now we have a little bit of time off so we set aside some time for Eric and I to do a little tour and record our record so it’s like whenever one is off we’ll be doing the other or hopefully I’ll get some time to myself eventually.

MOTP: There’s such a large difference between the styles of ADT: The Scene Aesthetic and Danger Radio. How do the lives shows differ between the two of them?
It’s completely different. I think something that’s really cool about it is they’re completely two different bands. They sound nothing alike. It’s just kinda like, The Scene Aesthetic shows are more like camp sing-a-longs and Danger Radio shows are more fun and upbeat and everything.


MOTP: Thank you so much for doing this interview!
ADT: No problem.