FORMATION

Dyed Emotions’ first album, AQUA PURA was released three months after the band formed in 1998. Formally the idea of Michael Raven while working at a large entertainment corporation in Seattle. The second member of the band, Chris Groom, joined after responding to an ad on the company memo board. Raven played Groom a “lame demo of ‘Another Day’”, and Groom & his girlfriend seemed to like it. Groom later said he wasn’t terribly interested in the style of music but was dying to be involved in a Seattle band and play live shows again, like he had in his hometown in Montana.
Raven was informed by a close associate of “the perfect person to play keyboards”. She contacted former schoolmate & friend, Arn Poe, who was drearily plying his musical skills as bassist with a popular New England Goth band. Eager to get back out west and knowing he would get to keep the eyeliner and crazy hair; Poe shipped his gear back to his dusty hometown in Idaho. Within a couple of weeks, he was on a bus to Seattle. Poe became employed with the same large entertainment corporation then drove to Kuna to get his keyboard.
Meanwhile, Dyed Emotions were auditioning additional members, using another Seattle area bassist for a short time and even working with a talented female vocalist. This was short lived as Raven became disillusioned with where the band was heading. After a week of contemplation, he unceremoniously pulled the plug on the assembly.
Raven considered it a grim situation, and the band effectively dissolved. Several weeks later, Poe and Groom came back to Raven with a new plan: “Why not just the three of us?” Raven reluctantly decided to give it a shot, and despite being one of the few acts in Seattle at that time without a live drummer, it worked.

AQUA PURA

Dyed Emotions quickly recorded their debut album, and while the final few sessions were yet to be completed, they played their first show together: An opening slot with The Fixx at Seattle’s Fenix. Poe, used to hiding behind a guitar or mic stand on stage, and trying to ‘put on a show’ during his first appearance as a keyboardist, decided to jump up and down wildly while playing. The immediate result is best described by Raven:
"Apparently some chucklehead managed to trip over the power strip that powered all the keyboards and drum modules during our first song... I won't mention his name, but his initials are ARN POE. We were mid song when the music disappeared. Fortunately, guitars and vocals were still active. I remember making eye contact with a pretty girl dancing to 'Another Day' when it happened. We were both able to express a genuine look of horror and embarrassment in that brief millisecond. Perhaps it was her look that motivated me to continue the show - or perhaps it just happened so fast that I just kept going without thinking? Regardless of the reason, Groom and I continued playing while Poe frantically thrashed about on stage seeking the loss of power. After I sang the next few words, the crowd suddenly went crazy - clapping and cheering. We were golden at that moment. The sound guy was exceptionally grumpy, having just suffered a giant electrical POP to his sound system, but the crowd was now on our side. Greatest first song of first live performance EVER!"
Over time, Dyed Emotions became a popular local act, playing monthly in Seattle’s Pioneer Square & bringing in good size crowds. The music was upbeat, the band was at times bizarre (performing bag-pipe arrangements of their songs in kilts, Goth looking Poe speed rapping during ‘But Not for Me’, Raven pogo-jumping through the audience in a silver fireman’s jacket). Excessive fog and a light show were added, enhancing the act’s onstage appeal. The band was able to hand-pick the other bands performing at their shows, and did their best to request other local acts they enjoyed working with, especially The Endless Still, Tri State Killing Spree, Alexisland, Altered Engine and Lovesick.
Dyed Emotions later brought The Endless Still on tour with them when they toured some of the Western US.

ART OF REGRET

Being regularly booked with either “Goth” and “Industrial” acts or with revived 80’s New Wave acts, Dyed Emotions determined a ‘darker’ or ‘more mature’ sound was in order. One of the first tracks written for the (later titled) Art of Regret album was “Jie Shao”, an instrumental the band used as background music as they entered the stage in a thick cloud of smoke, enhanced by ‘lightning’ flickers of strategically placed strobes.
Where many of the Aqua Pura songs had been written by Poe or Raven and then introduced to the band for finishing elements, the new songs were, for the most part, written in skeletal segments. They were systematically enhanced with ideas from their live shows by each of the band members. Where Poe might compose music for a song, Raven would write the melodies, or where Raven would come to the band with a few lyrics and a bass line, Groom and Poe would flesh it out. A track that didn’t make it to Aqua Pura, “True”, was re-written and included on the album. (It’s also the only Dyed Emotions track to feature all three of the original band members singing.)
“Radio Static” was recorded direct-to-tape in an unnamed location by Poe while he was listening to the Art Bell radio program (now called “AM Coast to Coast”). The whispers at the end of the song – as well as some of the background noise – is a direct homage to the show. Raven later enhanced the track & chose to include it on the album. “Lurking in the Balance” and “Your Will” were both fleshed out primarily by live shows, and recordings of the bands performances during this time show very different versions of each song.
Versions of two of the new tracks, “Lost Like You” and “Frequency” were featured on CD compilations, one for Lexicon Magazine, the other for WXJL in New York. During the Art of Regret sessions, the band also recorded a cover of OMD’s “If You Leave” that was included on MESSAGES: Modern Synthpop Artists Cover OMD. Both “Frequency” and the OMD cover song were available for download through Verizon Wireless’ VCast Music service when it was first available.
Shortly after completing the recording of “Art of Regret” in 2001, Dyed Emotions went their separate ways. Poe & Groom joined Sean Sterling, Kristin Raven, and Cody Groom for a project they called “Saturn Would Fall” – a sort of space-punk outfit which played one show & whose best material was a cover of Britney Spears’ “Lucky”. Poe left the group to join Raven again, and the remaining members of Saturn Would Float formed “Nothing for Now” and played a handful of additional shows.
Soon after, Raven wanted to get back into the music and recruited Drummer Genghis Vaughns, supplemented with two members of peer band Altered Engine: a guitarist called “Toad” and keyboardist Jim Temple. The quintet played a single show in 2002 before geographic problems and occupational demands effectively stifled the band’s progress.
In 2006, Raven and Poe again had the ability to channel more time into Dyed Emotions, and the “Art of Regret” project was revived. In the first three months of 2007, despite heavy snow and difficulty getting Poe and Raven on the same continent at once, the duo mixed and refined most of the tracks that had been recorded 6 years prior. Some negotiation took place (mostly over whether or not “Sleepless (It’s Been Fun)” should appear on the album in its original form, due to some changes in Poe’s lifestyle & a distaste in the song since its inception). Finally, during a cold Seattle rain in mid-March, the photographs for the album artwork were taken in diverse parts of the Seattle suburbs. The album was released in July of 2007.

CELEBRATORY FIRE

Raven and Poe continued writing new material, but struggled with the geographical distance, other life obligations, and the unknowns related to performing as a duo. Though both play multiple instruments and the core of the music thus far had been the music the two recorded or programmed into their sequencers, there was a need for Dyed Emotions to be able to perform live as a band.
During the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, a fortuitous encounter between Raven and a pre-Dyed Emotions bandmate in the desert of southern Idaho solved part of the problem. Dent Leavitt, now a school music teacher and also talented on several instruments, was asked to join the band. A fourth member, Nevara, mysteriously appeared and Dyed Emotions began preparing their next album.
With songs mostly completed by Raven and Poe, the band met in a private location during summer of 2018 and recorded the new material, making small edits, and filming a short "behind the scenes" video to accompany the later release. Poe, Raven, and Nevara had another shorter gathering in the summer of 2019 to rectify some outstanding musical issues. Photography and artwork, mixing, and other duties were completed over the next several months, and the new album, Celebratory Fire, was sent for printing and distribution in November 2020.

Random Stuff:

• GPS coordinates to several key locations in Dyed Emotions’ history (photo shoots, shows, etc), as well as the location of Poe’s “EGN” are listed in the artwork of ART OF REGRET. They were added to fill in space …
• Raven began writing music in 1986 on a Commodore 64 computer.
• Poe didn’t even begin listening to music until the 8th grade, and began writing music that same year.
• Poe was once in a Boise band called Tek Tek Tek, and appears in Boise compilation “Rotating Tongues” under a different name. Songs penned by Poe & Tek Tek Tek during this time were featured on Boise radio shows in the mid 1990’s.
• Dyed Emotions have been reviewed internationally, have been featured on radio and television internationally, and in the first part of this century, their fan club was based in Malaysia.
• Originally, Dyed Emotions (Poe, Groom, Raven) were unofficially “The Tallest Band In Seattle”, each of them over 6’2”.
• To date, Dyed Emotions have appeared on seven commercially available recordings (individual band members have appeared on additional recordings not listed here).
• Dyed Emotions continues to release albums in compact disc format to provide fans with a visual extension of the music. Each CD has included "easter eggs" for fans to find, as well as elements of an ongoing story that may put some of the songs in different perspective.
• AQUA PURA, dE's first album, was released in 1998. The Seattle Rocket (may they rest in peace) hated it, while elsewhere the band received great reviews, including a review of one of their live performances in Germany's Onstage magazine. The album itself had an ethereal feel, and the overall sound of the album was a great fit with the Aqua Pura motif.
• The DRIP compilation was a diverse collection of Seattle artists & was released in a joint effort by SeattleSounds.com and DrDrew.com to raise awareness for two Seattle-area non-profit organizations, AD2SEATTLE and S.A.V.E. (Students Against Violence Everywhere). Dyed Emotions contributed their track, "Night" (from the Aqua Pura album) for the project. [NO LONGER AVAILABLE]
• LEXICON MAGAZINE released “Now Music for Pop People, Volume IV”, a collection of synthpop/electronic acts with issue #16 of the magazine. The CD included tracks from 80's bands BERLIN, ELECTRONIC, ABC, and A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS, as well as tracks from newer bands THE FAINT and BLACK TAPE FOR A BLUE GIRL. The dE track was a version of Lost Like You that differs in arrangement from the version later released on AOR. [NO LONGER AVAILABLE]
• “MESSAGES: Modern Synthpop Artists Cover OMD” was exactly as described - another collection of modern synthpop acts covering the songs of 1980's synthpop pioneers, OMD. Several great synthpop artists contributed to this CD, two of the better known were THE FAINT and WHITE TOWN. Dyed Emotions performed OMD's best known song, "If You Leave" for the CD.
• “WXJL Presents Music For the Masses Volume Two” is another compilation of Electronic/Synthpop acts released. The CD was produced wonderfully, and includes an earlier mix of dE's Frequency.
• ART of REGRET is Dyed Emotions' second full album. Originally scheduled for release in 2001, the album was delayed nearly seven years by various absences and other projects. The 2001 tracks were re-mixed (still maintaining the original instrumentation) and refined for several months, with the mastered tracks & artwork completed in July 2007.
• Aqua Pura and Art of Regret were both recorded at Megasound Studios in Seattle, Washington.

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