1) Describe your music for those who aren’t familiar.
We play a mix of “Melodic” Hardcore and somewhat modern “Screamo”. I use both terms loosely because we’re never really quite sure what genre to put ourselves in. We kind of like it that way though, keeps people guessing. (We hope)
2) Who are some of your biggest musical influences?
We all come from such vast musical backgrounds. Each of us have had our share of experience in bands, none of them remotely close to what’s being played now, and none of them alike. Personally, Two Gallants and Killing The Dream influence me the most. There are a lot of Cormac McCarthy and Oscar Wilde rip offs in our lyrics as well. As for the rest of the guys, there’s Mike’s obsession with American Football and Randall’s constant search for the heaviest music ever written. Justin loves As Cities Burn, and none of us really know anything about Matt (steven); He wears a The Carrier windbreaker sometimes.
3) What are some of your favorite parts about the music scene that you come out of? What are some things that you wish you could change about the music scene?
Greenville/The Upstate of SC has a pretty dull music scene. Luckily there are a hand full of individuals with the passion and drive to fight against the always impending death of our scene. It has gotten better, and is probably currently the best it’s ever been (strictly speaking in terms of attendance at shows). Some of us in the band have recently teamed up with friends from the area and opened a new venue right outside of downtown, so hopefully we can build something that has a little bit of potential.
If I could change anything it would be the general attitude of how people see touring bands around here. I’d like to see more relaxation and less “idol-worship”. I get tired of seeing bands treat the people at their shows like “fans”, as opposed to how we view them: “friends”. Same thing goes for the kids at shows. Just because someone’s standing a few feet above you banging their head, doesn’t mean they’re any better than you, so calm down, and treat them like a normal sweaty guy/girl who just happens to be on the stage.
4) How did your band get started?
Strangely. The original line-up was almost completely different. Matt (bass) and I (vocals) are the only two members still in the position we started in. Justin (drums) used to play guitar, until the original drummer left. Then the other original guitarist left, so we asked Mike to join, and we were a four piece for a while. One day at our old practice space, Randall was just hanging out and picked up a guitar. So that was that.
We also played very different, much less original music for the first 6 months, until Justin quit chugging and Mike started making weird, spacey noise.
5) What are you most excited about for the future of your band?
We’ve always been the type of band to get immediately bored with whatever we just wrote, so, that being the case, we’re always writing new music. We’ve recorded (and kind of “released”) one demo and 2 e.p.’s. Currently we’re writing some new songs for what we hope will be on a 7″ sometime in the distant future. Touring is the one thing at this point that we really want/need to do, so we’ll probably be doing that this December, maybe sooner.
Mainly I’m just excited that it’s lasted this long, because we all like to bitch at each other constantly and are all so different.
6) Â If you could change one thing about the music industry what would it be?
From SC, we love all of the guys from In Regret and Blacklines. They just put out a split on Downside Records (also from SC) and are both extremely hard working. Overlooked are from Wilmington/Myrtle Beach and are also an incredibly underrated band.
We are only a couple of hours from a few really great scenes, each of which have several awesome bands. Just Die! from Asheville, Fingers Crossed from Johnson City, and Advent from Kernersville all immediately come to mind.
If you like what you hear from us, you need to listen to Touche Amore, Pianos Become The Teeth, Comadre, La Dispute, and Killing The Dream. We all consider those bands to be incredibly influential to us as a whole.
We’ve toned down the amount of shows we’re playing to focus on writing new material, but the next show is in Columbia on Sep. 27th with Rotting out and Soul Search.
