Darkest Days are over for Christopher Hall with The Dreaming

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By Kaiya Morrison

With a singing voice that pounds into your soul, I was surprised to learn Christopher Hall’s off-stage personality is as charming as he is reserved, and is as prolific as he is soft-spoken.

Hall is best recognized for his work with Stabbing Westward, which is an industrial rock band that formed in 1985 in Chicago, Il. Although Hall has been touring for the majority of his adult life, after countless trips to cities across the globe, he made his first ever visit to Baton Rouge on Wednesday, Mar. 19 for a performance at Clicks Billiards with his new band, The Dreaming.

“The Dreaming formed four years ago, and this is only our second tour,” Hall said. “We had a couple years off where we didn’t tour anywhere but the west coast.”

“We missed it, but when you actually get out here and every day becomes wake up at 11 a.m., drive to the next town, eat Waffle House, load up your stuff and then go home and take a shower, then get on stage, play a show, meet all the fans, then go home at three in the morning and you try to go to sleep but you’re so wired from the show so you can’t sleep, and then you wake up at 11 a.m. and do it all over again - it’s like a weird Groundhogs Day,” Hall said with a laugh.

The Baton Rouge show marked the halfway point for The Dreaming’s current tour.

“We’ve had some terrible luck, followed by some really good luck,” Hall said when explaining the details of a recent travel horror story. “We were driving in a blizzard, and our bass player is one of the worst drivers ever. He was driving too fast and he tried to pass a semi on his left, but there was a tow truck pulling a car out of a ditch and the semi had to get over so he wouldn’t hit the tow truck. It was a blizzard so you couldn’t see him, so we had to go either under the truck or into the ditch, so he went into the ditch.

“When the van finally stopped, I looked out the back window and the trailer was on its side,” he added. “We got out; we couldn’t see the underside, but we could see there wasn’t any gear on the road. Luckily, the same tow truck that caused the wreck unintentionally was able to pull us out of the ditch and put us back on the road without much effort.

“We were able to get to the gig [in Pittsburg] and play with five minutes to spare,” he said. “We just walked in wearing big coats and loaded right up on the stage with the audience waiting.”

Fortunately, the accident is now only an interesting road story and The Dreaming has been able to continue on without further incidents. The tour is to support the band’s first full-length album, “Etched in Blood,” released independently on January 21, 2008.

“When we did this record, I think we were stuck in the old mentality of getting a record deal,” Hall admitted. “A lot of the thought process was to make the songs more radio friendly, and cut the songs short. But I like short songs because I have a short attention span.”

Including Hall on lead vocals, The Dreaming consists of members Jinxx Bost (guitar), Carlton Boast (guitar), Brent Ashley (bass) and Johnny Haro (drums). Although each of the members had initially hoped to sign with a label, Hall said they have since decided to remain independent.

“Every time someone buys one of our records, it puts gas into our tank,” Hall said while conducting the interview at a makeshift table in the band’s van. “There are a lot of shady people out there that call themselves labels, but they’re just trying to take your money. Some of the biggest indie labels out there, I wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. We can take better care of ourselves.”

Finances aren’t the only reason The Dreaming has decided to remain independent. Maintaining complete creative control is the main objective, which is a reality becoming more appealing with every passing day for modern bands.

“We’re writing new songs now, and they’re going to be a lot more eclectic because all we have to do is please our fans and not some A&R guy, who usually have the worst taste in music ever,” Hall said with a smile. “They usually listen to whatever is on the radio that week and then say, ‘Can you sound more like them?’ And we say, ‘No. We can cut our hair like them, but that’s probably the closest we can get.

“Stabbing Westward was cursed with that,” he added. “They always wanted us to sound like Nine Inch Nails, but we were more of a rock band.”

Hall is not hesitant to discuss his past with Stabbing Westward, but he wants to find fans of his new music, not rely on a past project. For Hall, Stabbing Westward ended in 2002.

“All the same reasons every band breaks up,” Hall said when asked why Stabbing Westward came to an end. “We were sick of each other. The music became watered down, and it seemed like it was only going to get worse.”

“Even though I was miserable at the end, I didn’t break up the band,” he added. “The very last gig we played was so sad. All you had to do was listen and you would hear the death rattle.”

The Dreaming has been performing one Stabbing Westward song at their shows. For the Clicks show it was the encore song, and they performed “Save Yourself,” off the “Darkest Days” album.

Hall said fans can anticipate a new full-length album from The Dreaming every year, and the band will be touring with regular frequency from now on.

“I would like to do one every year, because doing one every two years is stupid,” Hall said half jokingly. “I think people’s memory and attention span is too short, and frankly I don’t like playing the same songs that long.”

To learn more about The Dreaming, visit TheDreamingOnline.com.

Send your comments to editor@tigerweekly.com

Originally Published: Issue 601 - March 26, 2008

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