Dan Sugarman

I've had my heart broken, yes - but never by a "hoe". I have too much respect for any ex of mine to even say that as an insult haha I'm a picky motherfucker, so for them to even have been in a relationship with me means the level of respect and trust I had given them was so far above and beyond that which I give most females that approach me. That isn't to say that every girl that approaches me is in that category, because that isn't the case. I'm more saying that girls that approach me at a show or because of who they think I am are as fucking see-through as their skimpy ass shirt and I'm not trying to have any of their left over herpes or daddy problems. I enjoy getting to know someone, and I don't let myself stoop to the level of even being in the position to entertain a hoe, and I'd rather not waste my fucking time even explaining that - so let this be a warning to all hoes hahaha I am not interested and I am in a relationship that is far more fulfilling and rewarding then your STD's and "band member's I've fucked" list. I was raised differently then to treat girls like hoes by womanizing them and taking advantage of their situation (or them taking advantage of mine... and I was also taught to see through the bullshit facade of make up and fake vibes to see the hoe they really are underneath the layers of caked on face paint... So by those accounts, I've never been in a relationship I've deemed a hoe, and I've never given a hoe my time. In reading this back to myself I probably come off like a high and mighty asshole... but the truth of the matter is that I've had my heart broken in just the right way to know if someone is worth my time or if they will leave me in the gutter. A hoe is not that type of person. A hoe will never own my heart, and a hoe will never be in the position to break the intangible. Long live true love. Fuck a hoe!

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A new beginning indeed! We definitely plan on coming back down to São Paulo (and more of South America) to see you guys, so hopefully we'll see you there my dude! Not quite sure what you're asking, but from what I gather you're asking me how it feels to have somebody say that I am the inspiration of they're guitar playing or musical creativity? The answer to that question is simple - the purest form of happiness and appreciation known to man. I am washed with emotion and overtaken by the raw power of that statement. I know what it feels like to have an inspiration, and I know the level of admiration and goal setting that comes from having someone to look up to. It's a crazy thing to hear out of the mouth of another person - to hear that something I've done has touched their life so tremendously... I don't take that role lightly, and I am greatly humbled and honored whenever I hear this from anyone. And to be honest, this is the reason I set out to do what I do, and why I am still here today pushing the envelop. I spent years and years tinkering away at my instrument alone in my room trying to make something happen with it, and in the moment of it all happening, the only thing I want to do is express to the world my gratitude and appreciation for the opportunities presented. Some say luck has to do with it, but to me luck = preparation + opportunity, so it's one part in your control and one part in the control of the universe. It is my goal to show everyone that you too can achieve anything you set your mind to with hard work and the right mind set. You see, what I do is really not so special. I fiddle some strings attached to a piece of wood on a platform with lights on it with a fence separating me from those whom I so desire to connect with... that aspect of what I do has nothing to do with my drive to keep moving forward. My motivation, my mission, and my life's passion is to spread the inner and outer acceptance of self - to spread the unbounded love and positivity that fuels each and everyone of us that gets exchanged from one person to another when one has achieved something great in the eyes of others. For me, that is what success is. Success is a contagion that positively drives you and those around you. Negativity is the same thing, more on that another time haha

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For me though, my greatest achievements in my life so far have been connecting with my friends across the globe who I'm privileged and quite humbled to say are supporters of my work. I've even had more then a handful of experiences talking to people who say that lyrics or music I have written has helped save their life and changed their minds from suicide to life and love. It still feels so weird to say those words, it actually just happened again last week and I am so grateful that my friend chose life... But in all honesty my dream of helping others achieving their dreams starts like this - So thank you my brother from São Paulo! I appreciate you... hangs in SP?!

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The story of how I joined ABRB. Hmm... Well I guess it started when Chris Bartholomew (current vocals for ABRB) left my old band Fallen Figure and I had to find a new vocalist. I wound up getting in touch with Sonik through MySpace believe it or not. At the time he had been the merch guy for ABRB for some odd years, and he decided to leave tour early and come back to LA to audition for FF. We hit it off, and he soon quit ABRB as there merch guy which I guess raised some antennas over at the ABRB camp as to who I was. After awhile, Sonik and I created something pretty fucking special, and ABRB was going through some very rough patches. Lech had just been kicked out of the band for personal reasons. Sonik and I decided to reach out to him on a whim to see if he would be down to come to a Fallen Figure practice just to see what we were up to and maybe point us in the right direction. He wound up loving what he heard, and he and I discussed terms for what would be our relationship with him has our manager. In hindsight, it totally seems like Lech was just scouting me and taking me under his wing haha but at the time, his help was beneficial and I learned a whole shit load about how to build a name for yourself, how to lead a band, how to market your brand, the sacrifices it takes to actually do this, etc. A few years passed with him as our manager, and in that time he rekindled his relationship with the remaining members of ABRB. In that time period Fallen Figure had some serious label offers and touring was becoming a regular thing. I started filling in for ABRB for shows here and there, and after awhile the atmosphere started to change with Lech, and soon I recognized that he was scheming on something haha after some time with him back in ABRB, he popped the question to me right as I had just discovered the perfect line up for the band with Nick Ursich on drums (current Volumes drummer) and Carlos Ariola on bass (ex-Abysmal Dawn bassist) and we were in talks with several labels and booking agencies. The stress of the situation literally caused me to break out in shingles. I shit you not. That is an auto-immune response that the old and sick get typically, but my stress level was so high that it caused me to break out in the rash of firey death. Deciding whether to leave my baby that I hand reared from birth into a child worthy of being in the league of signed bands OR join a band of legendary status and a year and a half planned out in touring was weighing greatly on me. In what I see now as a power play move, Lech called me up one night and said that he found another kid that wants the spot and was going to fly out the next morning to audition. I hung out, thought about it, and called him back saying "Fuck it, I'm in". I called a band meeting that night for Fallen Figure and let them know the news... I planned on doing both bands at the time, but the schedule of being in a full time band with work was too demanding to juggle both. So here I am...

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Ground Zero is a powerfully aggressive and highly emotional album with much more to offer in terms of lyrics and music then albums we've released in the past. I definitely think a lot of people will agree - and a lot of people will disagree... lets see which side of the fence you're on haha Another thing about this record that I personally really enjoy is the melodic side of things, as well as the technical aspect of the actual playing itself... I think a lot of you guys will have a shit ton of fun learning these songs, and in turn you'll walk away with a lot of new ideas that I've been incorporating into my playing lately. Another thing for me that sets this record apart from the last 2 albums is for 1) I had no part of Allegiance. I grew up in the metal community watching all these bands come up, and I definitely was a fan of ABRB before I was offered a position in the band, but again, my specific finger print is on none of those songs - though I highly enjoy playing them live and definitely do my fair share of making it my own.
And for 2) by the time I joined the band, Instinct was already written musically and recorded (drums, bass, rhythm guitar). The vocalist at the time was in the studio recording vocals when I joined the band... trying to record vocals I should say. It took him over 3 months to get like 80% of the album done before we had to go on our first tour with him, where he quit within the first two weeks. Tour life is hard, no denying that... but in doing so we were left high and dry on tour without a vocalist, and clearly all vocals and lyrics he had written for Instinct (though it hadn't been named yet) had to be scrapped. We decided to fly out Sonik, my old vocalist from Fallen Figure, and he filled out the vocal position for the band for that era of the band. From the time we got home from that tour, we had a two week time period to write lyrics for Instinct. I buckled down and wrote all the lyrics for that record in what was an extremely stressful and testing time period - I definitely blame the situation for being the catalyst for me to write such positive and motivating lyrics. Without writing those lyrics down I very well may have never completed it considering the wall of obstacles we were facing at the time. So being a part of Instinct in that way was really cool, on top of the fact that I was able to write/record all the solos for that album which at the time was really cool for me. But what makes "Ground Zero" so different this time is that I was able to write about 80+% of the music as well as majority of the lyrics, with a lot more help from Greg this time, as well as our new vocalist Chris Bartholomew (surprisingly the original vocalist of Fallen Figure before Sonik). This effort definitely has my finger prints all over it. I hope you guys are as accepting and stoked on this album as I was in creating it. I just want to say I'm extremely grateful and humbled by the opportunity and I am so thankful for you, yes YOU

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Honestly, I've had to overcome an array of obstacles... a lot of them I'm sure you've experienced as well as some others more specific to my body/mind. For instance, legato always came naturally, but in realizing that I was relying on it too much I decided to become a strictly alternative pick style player. That for me was a huge struggle as I had already let my left hand become a sharpened mind of its own while my right hand slacked off and focused on muting techniques to keep excess string noise down to a mum while my left hand danced around the fretboard. Little did I know that my years of relying on that had left my right hand atrophied and weak in terms of its capabilities and Hand IQ. After I saw what dead ends that put me in, I developed a large amount of my own exercises and approaches to overcoming my specific problem. I came out of it stronger then I imagined, and with the ability of using both legato and alternative picking at my whim - and because of it I tend to come up with more interesting percussive/dynamic passages in my playing. In my search to get my right hand up to speed with my left hand, I stumbled on Directional Picking (economy picking as some might call it)... I took some time developing that in my own way and since then use all 3 techniques mentioned above, as well as some hybrid picking when necessary or desired. Thats just one instance of some of the walls I faced in my playing that in turn affected my playing all over. Another problem that I faced (that I also don't think is too specific to me) was that I always used to play too hard with my left hand, and because of that I would exhaust myself too quickly and lock up. In searching for ways to go about solving that problem I discovered a really cool way to teach myself how to use the lightest amount of pressure and least amount of energy possible while using economics of motion and my using my hands/muscles ergonomically. Since finding that solution I've begun teaching it to a large amount of students I've had over the years and have found it to be extremely beneficial to those willing to take the steps in learning from me. If you're interesting in overcoming any of your own problems don't hesitate to hit me up on facebook or email me at dansugarmanlessons@gmail.com

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It depends on the situation... sometimes I'm working on a technique and after I've built up my muscle memory of the idea I'll start coming up with a lick that uses the technique so that I can transfer the muscle memory of a combination of mechanics and movement sequences into creativity that flows in and out of these new concepts with other passages cushioning it with seamless transitioning. When the creativity part kicks in is usually where shit gets cool, and sometimes I'll get a wild hair up my ass and turn it a riff, or build a song around one of those ideas.

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From what you've heard of the music I've written for the ABRB so far, the lead on our ending track "Instinct" is definitely one of those kind of things, as will many of the new songs on "Ground Zero".
Other times though, something just flows through me and out of my ass comes a polished turd that some call the language of the universe - music.

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That's a really tough question to answer, to be honest I'm honored and privileged to have played anywhere outside of my hometown: where I dreamed up the life I'm living now, and from where I continue to dream. But the first thing that pops to my mind at this very moment is when we went to South America to play Colombia and Brazil. The moment that comes to mind was when we went to visit the top of the Andes Mountains in Bogota, Colombia. I remember almost getting hypoxia and passing out, thankfully someone handed me a coca-leaf tea and that seemed to cure just about anything. I could only upload one photo of about two dozen breath taking pictures, but this one seemed to cover the feel of the place. On the other side of the picture to the left is complete forrest, just as expansive of a view. Fucking unreal. I sometimes can't believe some of the places that I've been in the world all because I can twiddle a git-fiddle. Blows my mind. Thank YOU, thank everyone, thank the higher power(s) that may or may not be, and thank the universe. I love you all.

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