Review Fix Exclusive: Dark Station’s Kyle Ort Talks ‘Villain’ And More

Review Fix chats with Kyle Ort, guitarist of Dark Station, who discusses the band’s upcoming album and single, Villain.

Review Fix: How did you the band get together?

Kyle Ort: Most of us played together in a previous band from 2012 to 2015. I left that band, joined another, and played with them until 2018. At that point, I wanted to start a band that I could consider more of my own than the previous bands I’ve been in. The other guys that I had left in 2015 were still playing together and it just so happened they were looking to replace their guitarist. I mentioned the idea of starting something new, from the ground up. They had a new song they were working on, so I asked to hear it. It was exactly the sound I was looking for. After that, we went into the studio and expanded on that first song by writing a few more. Everything just came together so easily I knew we were on the right path.

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Ort: On this album, our producer/writing partner Gus Cryns and myself would get together and write the instrumentals. Every time we got together we would try to get a new song idea down in the 2-3 hours that we were together, and usually we succeeded. Then sometimes we would come back the next day and spend another 2-3 hours refining the song, or we would bring our singer Nathan Spades in to give his take on how the vocals should be. We didn’t really have a set path when we started. We just wanted to write songs that we liked and we think the album reflects that with each song standing on its own.

Review Fix: What inspires you?

Ort: Seeing other bands go up on stage and just kill it definitely inspires me to make Dark Station as good as we can make it. There’s nothing like going to a show and the band, the sound, and the visuals all come together to create an amazing experience. We will be perpetually trying to create that feeling for our fans. Speaking of fans, the reaction from our fans inspires me as well. The validation that people enjoy what we’re doing makes us want to continue making music and pushing the bar higher.

 Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you?

Ort: We draw inspiration from the late 90’s and early 00’s rock bands that we all grew up with. You’ll hear influences from Korn, Deftones, My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park, and Breaking Benjamin mixed with some newer bands like Motionless in White and Nothing More.

Review Fix: How are your live shows different from your studio work?

Ort: I’ll let you know once we play a live show. A tour is in the works!

Review Fix: What inspired your latest single?

Ort: Our latest single “Villain” is about the movie “Venom” and the relationship between Eddie Brock and his dark side. The line “I love fear on your face..the taste” specifically comes from the trailer when Venom sticks his tongue out and licks someones face. That’s what inspired the song, but the underlying message deals with the classic good vs evil scenario which can be applied to many situations.

Review Fix: What are your goals for the rest of 2019?

Ort: We’re looking to head out on our first tour in November, so I would say our biggest goal for this year is to successfully make it from one side of the country to the other, while playing shows for all of our fans, without any disasters. Fingers crossed!

Review Fix: What’s next?

Ort: We started writing some demos for the next album recently. We always want to stay ahead of the game when it comes to writing and content creation. Outside of that, we hope to be touring for the majority of 2020 supporting our debut album “Down in the Dark.”

Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add?

Ort: Our album drops October 25th, 2019. All information to our social media as well as pre-order options can be found at www.darkstationband.com See you on the road!

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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