Ceramic Animal, the band composed of a couple of real nasty boys, Dallas Hoesy (bass/vocals) and Anthony Marchione (guitar) plus three out-of-this-world handsome brothers from Philly, Warren Regan (vocals/guitar), Elliot Regan (keys/vocals) and Erik Regan (drums), have been on the road co-headlining with Spendtime Palace supporting their new album, "The Horse", which was released in August of 2018.
When this wolf pack of studs are not breaking hearts and turning heads with their razor sharp suits, they are unabashedly plotting their next move toward world domination.
We sat down at Dangerous Delicious Pies in Washington D.C. with the internationally acclaimed, kinda cute, kinda hot, kinda sexy, hysterically funny, but not funny-looking nasty boys of Ceramic Animal to see what they had for breakfast, here’s how it went down:
What did you guys have for breakfast?
Elliot: That is a great question.
Warren: Shake Shack at 4 PM.
That is a pretty good breakfast.
Dallas: I had a bag of lemon wedged cookies.
Elliot: And black coffee.
"I heard you have you been getting used to black coffee on the road."
Warren: Yeah, It's an adjustment, you know what I mean? You have to have your favorite truck stops where you prefer coffee from.
Elliot: Love's and Pilot
Warren: Love's and Pilot, pretty good, everything else is a crap shoot.
You guys have been ceramic animals for three years now, what’s a Ceramic Animal and how does it feel to be one?
Warren: It feels so good.
Anthony: It feels great.
Elliot: Why does it feel great?
Warren: To be a Ceramic Animal?
Anthony: It's just great, you know? It feels good.
Erik: You get to play rock shows.
What does a duck with overalls fishing, an owl that has room to plant and a small cactus have in common?
Warren: They are all ceramic animals. You did your homework, you read up, studied up.
So, out of the bunch, who’s the nastiest boy?
Warren: That's Dal Diesel.
Elliot: That's probably Dallas.
Dallas: Truthfully that's me.
Why do you think that is?
Warren: Just take one look at him, you can smell it on him.
Dallas: That's just the Old Spice.
Elliot, in past interviews you've brought up your dream of having a puppy farm what puppies would there be?
Elliot: Most of them, most of the puppies. Listen, I am also a big wolf fan, so really as I get older the puppy farm evolves into the wolf sanctuary dream. So it will be a bunch of part wolf pups, a bunch of Nordic dogs like huskies and stuff. That kind of thing.
How was South by Southwest (SXSW)?
Warren: Fun, the weather was nice, music was good
Dallas: There's always so much going on.
Elliot: The weather was a little bit chilly, but it was manageable.
Erik: Food was good, music was good, crowd reception was good.
Anthony: I got like a 105 fever.
Erik: Oh yeah.
Warren: Yeah but you also broke that fever, you broke it while we were there.
Anthony: I beat it down.
Dallas: You channeled the energy of SXSW.
Anthony: Yeah I got everything in there, in my head and burned it out.
So I want to let you guys know that when you search for “Ceramic Animal” is now completely filling the first page of results in the Google, how do you feel about your new found SEO success?
Warren: We totally took over the first page?
Anthony: Erik was worried about it so...
Warren: We are going to be able to relax and have a great show tonight.
Erik: It's not easy.
Warren: You are coming with nothing with great news. Lots of research and great news, we should do this more often.
We would love that. Now that you’ve tackled SEO, what’s the next big goal?
Elliot: Page two.
Erik: Yeah, page two.
Everyone laughs.
Warren: How about hashtag Ceramic Animal on Instagram, that would be a tough one.
Dallas: That would be a good one.
Anthony: Let's do it.
Eliot: Start pumping out the content
Warren: I'll pump it out, yeah, yeah. We got this.
We have a scenario, have you guys seen the Lobster? Pretend your life depending on the success of reaching a goal and if you didn’t reach said goal you’d be turned into a ceramic animal. What animal would you choose?
Elliot: Lobster, nah, just kidding, got to say wolf now.
Dallas: I'd go goat.
Warren: That's nasty.
Erik: That's a great animal, underrated.
Anthony: Sea Anemone.
Warren: Anenome?
Elliot: Anemone?
Erik: I'd be a cactus with a cowboy hat.
Warren: That's a good one.
Elliot: Damn that's good.
Warren: I only had dolphin, I had the longest time to think and all I got was dolphin?
What is the biggest challenge in becoming full-time musicians?
Dallas: Too much fun.
Elliot: That's clearly the biggest challenge.
Anthony: Maybe the beers, lots of beers.
Erik: Coffee is though, a lot of bad coffee.
Elliot: Like motor oil coffee.
Dallas: With powder creamer.
Warren: We are at four weeks of tour at this point so our answers are a bit tainted.
Is your music for moving people or making people move?
Elliot: Like leave the city?
Erik: I think a little bit of both.
Warren: I think it's fair to say both.
Anthony: I think they are a little contingent upon each other.
What is a question on interviews that get on your nerves?
Dallas: Superpowers, spirit animal.
Everyone: Oh, yeah, sprit animal, spirit animal!
Warren: I hate that.
Anthony: Super powers, is BAD.
Erik: Forever boner is the answer.
Where do you guys pull the inspiration to keep on truckin?
Dallas: I don't know what else I'd really do, besides music.
Warren: I mean it's fun on a personal level and then its also really encouraging to see how people that you have never met before in your life all over the world interact with something that you are making in a positive way, it's really neat.
Erik: It's a lot of work at times, but you get like a constant drip of reinforcement, whether it's other bands you meet playing a good show or meeting a lot of cool people getting to talk to them, it's neat.
Your latest single “All my loving” was released on my 30th birthday.
Warren: Nice.
Elliot: Happy birthday, belated.
Thanks, so listening to it, I was in shock to see that it was 9:50 long so thank you for that, I really appreciate it. Is this a single for your upcoming album?
Warren: To be determined.
What song in your careers are you not that crazy about? We know in other interviews they ask what "the" favorite song to play is. We want to know the flip side, out of curiosity.
Dallas: Can we go covers?
Elliot: That's a cop-out.
Warren: This is a good one; this is a tricky one.
Elliot: Skiffle?
Warren: That's a cover.
Erik: I don't know, they are like your kids how do you..
Warren: How can you only hate one?
Are you looking for investors for your Business venture?
Warren: Which one? We have a lot.
"The Taste of daFeet".
Warren: The foot fetish lounge/venue! We've had some conversations, you know, we have had, we are speaking monetary support to that end. We would be happy to partner up with someone who kind of knows...
Elliot: The in and out of the foot.
Anthony: Not really my thing but...
Warren: There is a market for it.
What is the relationship status between Ceramic Animal and their audience?
Elliot: We love them, they are great. We couldn't be doing it without them.
Warren: It be tough to do.
According to The Rolling Stone the Album format is fighting for its life, and I quote “The album is in Deep Trouble and the music business probably can’t save it” as the death knell rings for the album what is Ceramic Animal doing to save the day?
Warren: To save the album?
Yeah, to save the album, because your albums are fucking solid.
Elliot: I think we are going to succumb to the will of the market and not worry about the album, necessarily. But releasing songs in a collection that kind of represents a period in time I think it makes sense and will still be viable like people love Vinyl, people collect Vinyl. So I think we will always keep doing that and that's fun to make, Warren designed both of those, and they are cool artifacts that represent a period of time.
Erik: Something I had the hindsight to do this when it was a little too late but, if we could have saved and not release the first album on Vinyl and then kind of release them both as like a double, I think that would be a better thing or like you release a bunch of singles, and then you can put that into a vinyl at some point I think that's kind of closer to what is happening.
Warren: It's weird because Spotify and YouTube and all the digital players support the release of singles, but a lot of times if you want a lot of PR companies don't want to shop singles they want to shop albums because a lot of outlets are not interested in every single, single that comes across their desk, so it's kind of push and pull there. So until media outlets make the jump too and start embracing singles, I think albums are still going to be there, and we are not going to stop pressing Vinyl for everything we do.
Music is art, and as an expression that also serves as consumption, how do you guys consume your music?
Warren: We are in the van a lot, I actually use youtube for music for some reason, unless I'm going to listen to an album cover to cover I use Spotify for that, but I use a lot of Youtube.
Dallas: I do as well.
Warren: I like how YouTube at home, you can project the YouTube through your TV with like a Google thing. However, I also have a record player and a bunch of Vinyl as well.
Does everyone here own record players?
Erik: I do.
Elliot: I have one by association
Warren: I do.
Anthony: I don't, I wanted one. I've never had like a record player of my own and I've never been in the habit of putting a record and doing things around the hose or something.
Dallas: It's good for like cleaning.
Warren: Well, first you have to start doing stuff around the house and then you put music to it, it's not the other way around.
What are your favorite records?
Dallas: "Abbey Road"
Anthony: The first Doors Album, my favorite of all time.
Erik: Probably "Dark side of the moon".
Warren: T-rex, "The Slider"
Erik: I'm going to say, the Horse by Ceramic Animal, available online..
Anything else you'd like to add?
Anthony: Exited for the show, wait, you mean add overall or throw out like an extra album?
Dallas: Maybe "The white album"?
Anthony: I can get behind that. But what about the show?
Warren: Are you sticking around?
Yeah, I'm photographing it.
Warren: Very excited to have you guys here for that.
Elliot: I didn't know you guys where staying, we would have been nicer to you.
Photos and interview by Xavier Dussaq.