Top of the Hill

Interview With Minor Disillusion

Hacienda Heights

From Issue 1.1, September/October 2004

After guitarist, Nicolas Mendoza’s mom told him to go to bed one night, he stayed up anyways.  He ended up watching an Unwritten Law music video that featured the song “Shallow Disillusion” and thought it would make a cool band name.  Lead singer, Brad Didway, switched “shallow” with “minor,” and Minor Disillusion was born.

Playing as a band since 1999, Minor Disillusion saw the exit of their bassist and drummer over musical differences according to Didway.  Now joined with their new bass player Adam Gorsline and drummer Greg Head, Minor Disillusion is in the midst of writing more music ready for a future of touring and record deals.

The band has an unofficial demo out which includes seven tracks and is a good example of the spectrum of talent this band plays to.  There is significant experimentation with  scales and tonality between the instruments.

Track six offers perhaps the widest array of musical capability within this band because of the communication they have with each other and between their respective instruments.  The end of the song is several seconds worth of just the drums and guitars seemingly talking to each other. 

It is an incredible sound when one takes into account it is rare for songs these days to spend so much time on the actual progression of the music.

Perhaps, what makes this band worth a listener’s time is that their music is formatted differently from mainstream music.  Minor Disillusion music seems to stray from the basic opening, lyrics and sudden end song pattern.  Instead, both the lyrics and the actual music grow in entirety.  

“Hopefully, they [fans] see us as something unique to see with a lot of energy and a lot of skill.  I mean, we have a hell of a bass player.  We’ve got Nick  throwing in all these guitar riffs.  We’ve got Greg on drums just rocking out,” said Didway of his bandmates.

For a band whose main goal is to write, eventualy get signed to a label and to be bigger than Ashlee Simpson, it seems likely Minor Disillusion is on its way to weaving its own niche in an industry oversaturated with hype and everything else irrelevant to music.

“I don’t like a lot of the mainstream stuff that’s been coming out.  It’s more capitalistic and a lot of the bands sound so over-produced. 

“But, I think there’s a music revolution just waiting to start.  Like the Coachella music festival is a good example.  I can tell something’s going to happen.

“A lot of the songs [in the pop genre] are shallow and they lack the ability to get too creative.  They’re limited by the chords, but like I said before, that’s just a stereotype of the genre,” said Didway.

Mendoza seemed to agree.  “I’ve never heard of genres that suck-just bands that suck,” he commented.

Gorsline added, “If I like it, I turn it up.  If I don’t like it, I turn it off.”

Didway, who writes lyrics to the band’s music, bases each song around emotion and a “personal connection” to whatever he may be feeling at the time.

Didway and Mendoza, who are credited with starting the band, actually played music before there even was a Minor Disillusion to speak of.  They played together in their high school marching band.

Didway has been playing the guitar for the past eight years and plays the saxophone (from his days in marching band).  Mendoza has been playing the guitar for the past six years and began playing when his dad gave him a guitar and he began taking folk lessons.  His high school days saw him playing the trombone for the marching band. 

Gorsline has been playing the bass for four years and took lesson for two years.  He also has experience playing the drums.

Head, who remained fairly quiet during the interview, has been playing the drums for three years and picked up the craft from a friend.

Head was formerly of another band and likes listening to the Wu Tang Clan- a sound that is very different from the music of Minor Disillusion.

“I play pretty much whatever,” said Head.  “I like the beats in a song.”  However, Minor Disillusion’s drummer is far from being just a background, methodical “beat.”

As with all the instruments, each sound is given a fair chance at being heard in the songs without sounding as if each musician is screaming to be heard over the next person.

The band is planning on a nine-day tour in December in an effort to build up a local fan base.  From there, they plan on submitting their work to labels.

This band definitely has its sight set on accomplishing its goals.  Whoever said marching band was for nerds, obviously never met the talent that is Minor Disillusion.