Guys Who Rock: Don Mitchell

Boys, boys, boys. Here at CollegeCandy, we love them. A lot. And being that we have a lot of time on our hands to search for them on the web, we thought we’d use it to our advantage and yours and bring you a little eye candy that not only makes us drool but also tugs at our heartstrings. So here’s your chance to meet some of the most talented guys in the world…who rock. Like, for real. (They’re musicians, people.)

By Tehrene Firman

Name: Don Mitchell
Age: 27
Location: Northampton, MA
Type of Music: Rock/Classical/Folk
Why He Rocks: He’s quirky, funny, and he’s in a band that has a unique sound that you won’t be able to stop listening to.

How old were you when you started singing and playing the guitar?
I started singing in a children’s choir and started playing the guitar when I was thirteen or fourteen.

Was being in a band something that you had always planned on doing as a career?
I didn’t really have a plan completely formulated, but I certainly didn’t think that I would ever be in a band. I did think that it would be great to be involved with music but I didn’t know what form that might take. It ended up being a pretty cool opportunity because some of the guys had been in a previous band together during college. Afterward it just kind of came around at the right time that I was considering what to do next and was applying for jobs and thinking about grad school and then I sort of went and visited a couple of the guys and they were talking about how they were forming this band. It ended up working out that we got along well and wrote good songs together.

What is Darlingside all about and what inspired the unique style of music the band plays?
I think our unique sound partly comes from all of the instruments that we happen to play. When you’re writing a rock song or a pop song and you want to use cello and mandolin and violin, and some crazy other instruments that we throw in occasionally too, it just automatically changes the sound. I think the other thing that’s pretty different about our band is that we all can sing, so we write a lot of things from the prospective of a singing group. We all have pretty different background from some classical, jazz, and folk, and we kind of bring it all together. We follow whatever style we’re interested in at a given moment.

Have you ever had any embarrassing moments while performing?
There have been a couple shows where our base player and lead singer have had some issues with electrical currents going through the stage, and it will shock him every time he gets too close to the mic. So it has had a very strange effect when there’s a big moment in the song, he will come up close to the mic and his lips will barely brush up against the mesh on the outside of the microphone and it will give him a little bit of electric static shock. He’d recoil from the microphone and it must have looked very strange to the audience. No matter what happens, we always make it work with a “the show must go on” kind of attitude.

Do you have any funny fan stories?
We have had some really cool moments with fans, where a fan has brought up a note and when we open it, it’s an awesome sketch that they did or a little bit of poetry or something. This gave us the idea to put a category on our website called “Open Mic,” which is sort of an area where we take submissions from our fans. It’s a fun fan interaction thing we’ve adopted recently.

Now some questions with the ladies of CollegeCandy in mind…

What do you look for in a girl?
I look for, you know, it’s cliché to say, but a sense of humor. But I think that someone without a sense of humor wouldn’t necessarily understand who I was. That’s a big thing. Also someone who’s patient, because with being on the road a lot and having a crazy schedule, you need someone who’s willing to roll with the punches a little bit and who’s willing to adapt to what’s going on. Another thing is someone that has an individual personality. Someone who’s not afraid to be a little bit different and be honest.

Where would you take a girl on a first date?
Hmmm. Well I’m into coffee, so I would probably go to a fun coffee shop that’s actually just about a mile from our house. So it’s pretty convenient for me and is a nice mix between an upscale place that has some sort of outdoor seating if it’s a nice day, that sort of stuff.

What’s the sweetest thing that anyone has ever done for you?
One time I arrived home to find that my living space had been just overhauled and cleaned within an inch of its life. Not expecting that and coming back to find that the significant other had done that was pretty awesome, because it’s not something that I would ever expect. It was a nice surprise to walk into my house and be kind of dreading unpacking then having this clean slate to work from.

What’s your biggest pet peeve?
A pet peeve in general is not speaking up for yourself in a given situation and then being upset about something later on because you didn’t say something at the time. That’s one I can mention because I do it all the time.

If you could date any celebrity, who would it be?
I might be intrigued enough by Joanna Newsom just to see what was going on there. Now, I don’t know if she would be that into me, seeing as her type of the moment is Andy Samberg, but I like her music a lot and I would just like to know what the heck is going on in her mind.

Like what you see? We figured you would. Check out Don’s music on Darlingside’s website or on YouTube. Also, make sure to Facebook him and tweet him at @darlingside!

And check out more guys who rock right here!