Dinner and a Suit
They are part of my Top 10 this week and are growing to be a favorite of mine. I came across Dinner and a Suit at NACA’s convention in Nashville last week and after grabbing the free download of their single “Too Late,” I couldn’t get it out of my head. I caught up with Joey Beretta, one of the three cousins that make up the core of the band, earlier this week to chat about their current tour, recent album release, and what’s to come this year. Read our chat below, download the free song, and check out a show in your area.
Arin: What got you into music personally and how did the band come together?
Joey: Max, John, and I are all cousins and we all grew up together. We were kind of the founding members of the band. We actually grew up, the three of us, playing together in the church we went to and the different bands at church. John and I went to the same college after high school, and we formed a band there and that eventually turned into Dinner and a Suit. Anthony — or Max as we call him — was living outside of Phoenix in Arizona and we convinced him to move back and he joined the band and the rest is history. We found Drew, our drummer, three and a half months ago in Nashville. He’s the first permanent drummer we’ve had in Dinner and a Suit.
A: The album came out recently, so what has it been like to have that out?
J: It’s been great for us. The album is called Since Our Departure and it’s sort of like a chronicle of our departure from Philadelphia to the Nashville area. Kind of some of the things we were struggling with as a band and individually. We went into the studio with like three songs written, and while we were recording those three songs, we wrote three more songs and we recorded those, and while we recorded those, we wrote three more; and that just kind of went on until we had a full album. It was actually an interesting process because we worked for months and months before the studio and weren’t really happy with anything writing wise and music wise, and it kind of just all came together in the studio. It’s been awesome having music that we’re proud of to be able to play and to share with people.
A: When it came to writing music for the album, how did it work for you guys? Does one person work on the lyrics, or is it a collective effort, or does it just depend on the song?
J: It’s very different for each song. A lot of times, John or I will think of something like a cool riff or John will write a song just very basic melody and some chords, and then him and I will work together and flush out the idea; and then once it’s a little more developed, we’ll bring it to the band and then we’ll all work together on the song. That’s generally how it works out. I think it’s really important that everyone has their own input into the songwriting or their own parts that they’ve written themselves. That’s the best way to make a song feel real and organic is if everyone’s involved.
A: You guys are out on tour for a pretty solid amount of time this run, so what are you most looking forward to being able to see a lot of the country?
J: It’s been great for us because we’ve been different places before, but it’s pretty awesome to, all in one trip, be able to see everywhere from Boston to New York to LA. There’s different things in different cities that we love. We’re really excited to play New York; we always have a ton of fun in New York. I’m really excited to be able to, in one trip, eat a philly cheese steak, eat a burrito in California, all that stuff, all in one trip. I’d say New York’s probably our favorite to play.
A: What can people expect to see from your set in the live show?
J: We try really hard to make our live show interesting and add some stuff to songs. We try to add a lot of intros and outros to songs. It’s a lot of high energy stuff, so we love playing live and we work really hard on making it something that people want to go see.
A: Social media is obviously a huge part of being a band now, so how do you stay involved with?
J: It varies, but a lot of times, John tweets back and forth with people from the band account.
