THE ATOMIC BITCHWAX

>> STILL RIFFIN AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

THE ATOMIC BITCHWAX

The band, which first started in 1992 and are now comprised of vocalist and INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST AND GUITARIST MARK “V” VECCHIARELLI BY JOSHUA MARANHAS

Eternal Echo is the latest release on Hellminded Records from veteran melodic hardcore trio Shades Apart. This record takes them back to where they came from more than 25 years ago—literally, metaphorically, and in the spirit of old friends. This is rock music pounding forward from memories wrapped in present thoughtfulness and wisdom. On vocals and guitar, Mark “V” Vecchiarelli hasn’t lost a minute of his life being dispassionate about art or music and has a ton to say about Shades Apart’s journey. “We started recording just for fun,” he says. “And as an experiment to get back into songwriting, probably two or three years ago. And we started getting more and more into [it]—got better equipment, better microphones, and we're making our own demos, basically. And from that, we said, ‘Well, you know, that sounded decent.’ And we were building songs that way, sending riffs, or sending song ideas to each other.” The album leads off with the track “So What Now,” about Dave Franklin of Vision and his death three years ago. With the melody and progression written primarily by bassist Kevin Lynch, drummer Ed Brown added the words that were hard to speak. “So, great timing,” Pantella jokes in light of what was to come in early 2020, with the “There was a memorial show that we the process goes back to their roots, pandemic messing up the hoped-for plans of a normal release and touring schedule.

“Even three months ago, we were talking about touring in September,” he relates. “But we’re really happy about the record. I can’t wait for people to hear it. It really

INTERVIEW WITH DRUMMER BOB PANTELLA BY JANELLE JONES

In late-August, New Jersey-based bassist Chris Kosnik, drummer Bob progressive, hard-rocking trio The Pantella, and guitarist Garrett Sweeny, Atomic Bitchwax released their eighth have started working on the material full-length album, the blistering and for Scorpio around August of last year. insanely fun Scorpio, a 10-track bruiser They recorded in November and mixed on Tee Pee Records. it in December.

came out great.” The band had a big touring agenda planned for the record, including a U.S. tour and hitting Australia and Japan. They have played Australia before (“It’s brutal getting there. But beautiful. Maybe next year in the fall,” the drummer mentions), but haven’t played Japan yet.

As for potential future plans, Pantella says: “We’re hoping for June of next year in Europe. That was supposed to be this year. We postponed it a year, so hopefully that comes together.”

Scorpio marks the third record the band have crafted since they discovered a formula that really works for them. Pantella says that now, it’s “a lot less scatterbrained. We basically get together and start playing riffs.” Sometimes Kosnik will just bring in a chorus and verse, and then they’ll all add to it together, while other times, it’s “just us three in a room hashing way stuff comes out. And you're just happy riffs out and recording, like, 50 different things and filtering out what we don’t like.” They “whittle it away” until they have “a good, solid, 10 songs.” The band have a penchant for keeping “everything lean and mean.”

“We like doing short records, 35 minutes, nothing longer than that,” he laughs, “And if a song happens to be too long, we just speed it up.”

And if you think things are fun and intense and hyper on their albums, Pantella says the live experience is on a whole other level.

“We’re fun and ridiculous,” he laughs. “When we’re playing live, of course everything is triple. Our whole thing was, let’s try to keep it together. If it’s right on the edge of flying apart, perfect. Right on the edge where everything’s going to blow up. Just teeter-tottering.”

Reminiscing about the aspects of touring, Pantella says: “When we’re on tour, it just gets better and better every night because we’re playing so much. We have fun when we play. We’re laughing at each other, like, ‘I can’t keep up.’ Sometimes I’m going so fast I’m not gonna make it!’” ��

SHADES APART

and I get ‘the look,’ like, ‘I’m skipping notes. track “Turn It Back Around,” from Seeing Things, Shades Apart are moving forward—not towards a particular destination, but because they are free. They’re free to create in the basement and home studios, collaborate with old friends, involve family, and make great tunes.

“95” is such a connector song—midway through the record, a chorus, “Some things never change.” They’ve built a record full of daily life values the scene

“When those things happen, it brings a continue the relationships formed long lot of people together that you haven't ago at hardcore shows, including with seen for a long time,” Vecchiarelli says. his bandmates, and forge new ones, too. played for him. We actually did write “I would say that was always my favorite a song for the service and everything, I part of being in a band was making origthink that was kind of like a catalyst for inal music,” he says. “That part of it doesn't us to kind of say, ‘Maybe we should be feel different to me. I mean, I'm not going writing some more songs.’ Dave Franklin, to record stores and combing, trying to we came up with him from high school, find new music; that part is different. But and we used to practice in his mom's now more than ever, I do enjoy playing basement in the neighborhood. I guess music with my kids; it’s more home-based it just made us start thinking about than anything. I feel like you can definitely those times, and when we did start writ- feel the same way about the process, making ing songs, a lot of that came out.” a song that you really love, or like the way the Vecchiarelli is thankful to Hellminded with it. That part definitely doesn't change. Records for making things happen and That part is exactly the same, and it's the pushing the band to get out their next same guys. We figured out what works for us, chapter of new music. A great deal of obviously, after all this time.” in 1995 would see as essential today.

25-plus years ago, and the bonds that Eternal Echo is full of original thought. were formed back then. He’s grateful to Maybe evolving the meaning of their “I feel like the whole project was something that we kicked around for years and years but never really got around to doing because of so many things happening in our lives,” Vecchiarelli says. “To finally have it happened is fun. I mean, hopefully people like it. I don't know that we were ever super concerned that people were loving our music, but we were just wanting to do what we liked and hopefully connect with people. I can say that hopefully this goes well, and then I wouldn't mind making some more songs after this.”

Shades Apart have reconnected with the internal core, the heart, the things that raised their scene from the Mid-Atlantic states and brought it to the world. It’s a long way from playing in a friend’s basement to recording on your own— with Eternal Echo, they’ve navigated that road masterfully. ��