We recently connected with Casson Tate and have shared our conversation below.

Casson, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

When it comes to learning how to do music, the biggest hurdle I had was understanding that a professional approach to music is non-linear. I mean this in the sense that a professional approach to a creative path will not look the same as every other artist’s journey. I spent a lot of my childhood approaching music in an academic sense. Upon graduating high school in 2019, I got my own DAW (digital audio workstation), Logic Pro X, and began teaching myself. I’ve always found that learning by doing is the best for me. No amount of reading music theory or watching tutorials alone was enough. Eventually, I made the switch to the DAW, Ableton, and began learning alongside my bandmate, Trent. Thanks to Trent’s knowledge of audio engineering from his higher music education, I could pick up the “do’s and don’ts” of audio recording a lot faster. His ability to explain things constantly improves and challenges my knowledge of audio engineering daily as we produce new tracks for Diet Smiles.

Casson, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m Casson Tate and I am the lead vocalist of the surf punk band, Diet Smiles. Working alongside me are Sheldon Young (drummer), Trent Swartz (guitarist), and Liz Keune (bassist). As a whole, Diet Smiles is a fairly young project. About a year ago we added Liz to the group and had some other changes involving Trent moving from bass to guitar. This allowed me to start doing vocals full time which has helped excite our live performances. Everything we do as a band is DIY with an emphasis in our craft on achieving our definition of perfection in our sound while relying on our community. We do everything in-house, literally– All of our music is recorded from my house in a renovated living room/office space. It is the handle we have on the project that I think sets us apart from a lot of other musicians at this scale. When we learn something, we share it with our network of other local artists and they do the same. Whether that may be new recording tactics, connections, instruments for sale, or marketing; we all band together to improve and inspire the community.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The biggest lesson we face in music is that one day some artists will achieve success by being scouted at a live show or online for their musicality and will be signed to a label, paving their way up the charts. The reality we’re unlearning and sharing with our network is that while this is in part true, the recognition is only partly for the musicianship and most of it nowadays lies within the marketing of a musician. One day I had the opportunity to ask a mutual friend some questions about their history of working alongside a label to promote artists and I was faced with this understanding. It wasn’t the news I wanted to hear but I believe grounds us enough to keep our heads down and work on our promotion, marketing, performances, and sound.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

As a group, we in Diet Smiles all agree that going to local shows is a must. We’ve seen people dodge door fees/ticket sales left and right before as well. While we wish that people would always pay when coming to see us or our friends in the community, we’re aware that money is tight in the area and only going to get tighter around here. We hope that people who come to the shows try their best to pitch what they can financially either at the door or at merch tables. Above all, we always make it a point to support the artists we enjoy online. Take videos and pictures at the shows you go to! Post those clips online and tell all your friends. Be obnoxious and stick around to make friends with the bands. Many artists, including us, will tell you that we love it when people ask about what we do or just want to talk. It’s humanizing and all we’re trying to do is inspire people and build a community.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://DietSmiles.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/DietSmilesBand
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dietsmilesband/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@dietsmiles

Image Credits

Rena Salman