We Interviewed Our IT Guy About His Band so He Would Fix Our Computer

Our IT guy, Drew Diver. Photo by fellow IT guy, Derek Escobar.

VICE, as you may have heard, is hip. Our office is a veritable breeding ground for Williamsburg too-cools, walking around wearing clothing brands that don’t exist yet and listening to bands you’ve never heard of. Outside of the work we do in the office to bring you the latest HIP, EDGY stories about the sex workers of Hogwarts or underground fight clubs at the Vatican, everyone here also has a creative side project—our receptionist, our office manager, that weird guy in Tevas who bounces a tennis ball around the office and no one is really sure what he does. And of course, our IT guy.

IT people tend to get a reputation for being loner indoor kids with no discernable social skills, but here at VICE (which, again, you may remember is unlike other companies because it is so HIP), the people who protect our computers from DoS attacks are very cool. For example, one of our IT guys, Drew Diver, like most people in Brooklyn, is in a band. But unlike most Brooklyn bands, Drew’s band is actually listenable. The project, called Soda Shop, is a minimal dream-pop duo whose new album has been getting some attention lately from places like Nerdist and Elle.

Since I needed some tech issues resolved recently, and since Drew knows I write about music, it was sort of awkward to ask him to fix my computer without also inquiring about his band. The result was a little bit uneven, but I think it’s probably fine. Here is an interview with Drew Diver about Soda Shop and also some questions about tech problems.

Noisey: So how did this project get started and also, I just got a new iPhone and I can’t figure out how to set up my email on it.
Drew Diver: We've been a band for a few years, mainly just Maria and I. Before I moved to New York I had some demos without vocals that I knew I wanted a girl to front. We put out a seven-inch in 2011 and have since played a few shows and slowly have been working on new songs. 

As for your iPhone, just go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account > Gmail and put in your @vice.com email and password.

OK, I put in my password, d1ckf@rts, but now it’s syncing my contacts from my work email address, but I want it to sync the contacts from my personal account, and also, you were just written up in Elle Magazine. Is that surreal?
Flip the switch to turn off from Contacts inside the VICE mail settings.

Yeah! Pretty crazy with Elle and kind of ironic since the cover says “This is 30” and I’m all about to turn the dreaded number… 
 
Right. Totally, but also, my hard drive is out of storage space, what do I do? Oh and uh… let's see... the album has a very minimal sound to it. Why take that approach, musically?
I’ve always been a less is more kind of person, especially in today’s musical climate and the accessibility of all sorts of software, iPad and iPhone apps to make more and more layers of noise. Negating that and really working the arrangement makes it stand out even strong in my opinion.

As for your hard drive, you’re going to have to delete some stuff, maybe those 30 duplicate WeTransfer files all over your desktop. 

Wait, are you looking at my desktop remotely right now? If so, the files labeled “dave-grohl-kurt-cobain-erotic-fan-fiction.doc” and “dan-post-gym-selfie-chest-day.jpg” are for work purposes. Anyway, your musical partner is from Ecuador, how did you get hooked up with her?
We kind of met two ways, I was playing bass at NYC Popfest for the Swedish act The Embassy and sort of met her after the show. Later that week the Swedish duo Air France were in town DJing and they had a mutual friend who was at the time hanging out with Maria. We started talking about music and how I had some demos that needed a voice. I guess it’s history from there.

Finally, and most importantly, why is my computer running so slowly? 
Your computer is probably slow due to the fact you have 40 tabs open and about 15 Word docs running. You might want to close out the unneeded.

Never.

Dan Ozzi is on Twitter but it keeps freezing up. Please help him. @danozzi