PropertyOfZack spoke to Dallas from Maylene And The Sons Of Disaster a week or so ago for a brief interview. Dallas and I discussed the band’s new record, being on tour with Thursday for their final run, future touring, and more. Read up below!

For the record, could you state your name and role in Maylene And The Sons Of Disasters?
My name is Dallas, and I sing in Maylene.

The band is currently out on Thursday’s final tour. You guys obviously weren’t aware that Thursday were going to call it a day after this tour when signing up for it, but how have the shows been now?
They’ve been good. We’re in the middle of the tour now. It’s added a certain vibe to the shows, for sure. It has a warm at home feel to it.

What has your set list been like?
It’s been good. It’s been a lot of fun and playing with those guys in general has been fun. We’re playing a lot of songs off of our discography. 

Are you playing many songs off of the new album?
We’re playing about three to four a night. We change it up. We try to spread it out.

Before this tour you did some dates with Aficionado in September and October. How was that run?
That tour went well and was fun. We’ve been fortunate enough to do some pretty good tours recently.

IV was released in the end of September. How has the reaction from fans been to it?
I think it’s going over pretty well live. I think live too, it’s not that much different from the other stuff. On the record it’s different, but there’s still that aggression on the live show. I think it’s a grower. People are starting to like it a lot more now.

Would you say the reaction has been better than it originally was for III?
It’s been basically the same kind of reaction. People really like and don’t like every record you do. This record has been along the same lines of reaction.

Was the writing process for this record different from any past material?
We wrote like 20 songs for this record. We trashed all those songs when we went into the studio, rewrote it, and recorded it. We also went into the studio this time with a different producer. It was the first time we ever used a different producer.

Did it give you a different vibe in the studio?
I think it made it more hectic at first because we weren’t used to it. We had a relationship with our old producer. Once we got into it, it was relaxing and easy going. It ended up being awesome and it worked out well.

Can you discuss the decision to not use the songs the band originally wrote for the album?
Our drummer had left, and we had a studio drummer with us. We worked on songs and trashed songs. We wanted to make the record feel right. Once we were in the studio and were with our producer we realized that the songs could be better and wanted to write new ones. It was good to get another opinion.

In a press release you guys mentioned that you wanted people to question their lives and how they do things due to the album. What made you guys rethink Maylene for this release?
Writing the third record, I was going through a divorce. It was a pretty rough one. I had the house, the dog in the front yard, the kid, and all of that. It was the pretty stereotypical thing. To go from having a cookie-cutter life to getting a divorce and going through the complete opposite was a big shift. I had a lot of stuff to say about life. It helped me to question things and to find happiness. Out of nowhere, nothing made sense and nothing was stable. I had to find out how to fix that. It’s a darker record. I wrote it when I wasn’t seeing any happiness.

What should we expect in terms of touring following the end of 2011?
We’re either going to do a support or headlining tour at the end of January or February. We hope to be out on the road full speed and non-stop. We’d like to go to the UK in the summer and other places soon as well.