Prints of Darkness is the one that started it all. This one the one that introduced me to DAS and I was immediately hooked. I actually bought the album because of the cover art and the name, at the time I didn’t know anything about the music. The other reason that I also bought this one was because it was on Blonde Vinyl records which was one of those labels were I felt one just couldn’t go wrong. The music here is classic goth, dark, ethereal and brooding, but held together well by Healy’s deep vocals. So how did this one end up coming to fruition to begin with? I’ll let Healy tell you in his own words.
“I was friends with producer Thom Roy for years and he always liked the bizarre songs I would create for the outgoing messages on my answering machine. At that time Whitefield studios was adding a second studio that we had been building upstairs. Thom asked me after ten years why was I the only one of his friends who never asked for free studio time. I’d never really thought about it, but frankly I’d seen so many other people hit Thom up for studio time and burn him, I just never wanted to use him that way so it never really came up in my mind. Well, he needed someone to beta test the new room and asked if I wanted to do it. This was based on my musical taste and the answering machine stuff. I had worked on other people’s recordings and knew how to use most of the gear so I started recording Prints of Darkness with a drum machine, a cheap keyboard and vocals. I sort of built a record backwards, later bringing in bass and guitar. The next thing I know this is actually turning into something. At the time Thom, myself and another guy were managing Gym’s band Boys Club. I brought in Jeff Sheets, their keyboard player, and replaced my one finger lines. Next thing I know another one of my friends wanted to join in the fun. So there was this four song cassette floating around called ‘The Demo From Hell’, and it fell into a distributors hands. They called and said turn it into an album, we’d like a bunch of them. So Ojo, Gym, and a bunch of other friends and I when back to the studio and pounded out the rest of what became “Prints”. Somehow one ends up in the right hands and we are invited to play our first gig at Cornerstone and it’s a hit. Next we get asked to play at GMA and the rest is history as they say. I was simply very lucky, had these very talented friends and some songs and they all got what I was doing and it worked. That’s been the pattern since I come up with the tunes and lyrics. Take it as far as I can go, add friends and stir = album.”
[1990 Public Records | 1991 Blonde Vinyl Records]
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