306 .2 J AN 2014
A LT E R N AT I V E
BAYSIDE ARTIST
P R E S S
OF THE YEAR
ANTHONY RANERI
“AND I’LL SMILE AGAIN THE DAY THAT YOU FIGURE OUT I WAS ALL THAT YOU HAD.”
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SPENT ALL MY LIFE WAITING FOR A MOMENT TO COME 82
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“This is a new chapter, a new beginning for us” -Jack O’Shea
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ayside lead singer/rhythm guitarist and founding member Anthony Raneri has been waiting 10 years—since he formed the rock group in Queens, N.Y. in the winter of 2000—to make an album like Killing Time, which represents a number of firsts for the band named after his hometown. The album is the band’s debut for new label Wind-up Records after four releases on Chicagobased indie Victory Records, including Sirens and Condolences (2004), Bayside (2005), The Walking Wounded (2007) and Shudder (2008), steadily growing their following through tireless touring. Recording their latest at Dreamland Studios in Woodstock, N.Y., and Water Music in Hoboken, N.J., with renowned producer Gil Norton [Foo Fighters, Counting Crows, Pixies, Jimmy Eat World], Bayside finally had the time and resources to fulfill their creative vision. The group turns Raneri’s acoustic songs into full-blown, deceptively complex rock epics that touch on bitter endings (like that of his marriage on the first single, “Sick, Sick, Sick,” and the angry, full-throttle rocker “The Wrong Way”), fresh starts (“The New Flesh”), band camaraderie (“It’s Not a Bad Little War,” “Sinking and Swimming on Long Island”) and even a hopeful ballad, complete with a 20-piece orchestra and a horn section (“On Love, On Life”). “This is a new chapter, a new beginning for us,” acknowledges guitarist Jack O’Shea, who joined the band in 2003 and has played on all five of their albums. “This feels like our debut release. Gil really encouraged us to push the boundaries of what we do, and not to become timid. Having that kind of encouragement from someone so accomplished really gave us the confi dence to be more creative.” One can hear that in O’Shea’s various guitar sounds, from the Dick Dale/Link Wray surf guitar rumble which opens “Already Gone,” to the gnarled, twisted solos in “Sick Sick, Sick” and “It’s Not a Bad Little War,” to the pneumatic rush of “Sinking and Swimming on Long Island” or the frenetic jam that ends “The Wrong Way.”
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“We wanted to make a big, detailed record, but still retain the pop sensibility that makes us who we are,” states Raneri about the studio process. “Gil helped us stay on an aggressive rock track without losing sight of the music’s commercial appeal, its ability to get on the radio. To achieve that balance was the plan.” For Bayside, the rest of its career leading to this moment feels like Killing Time, according to Raneri. “We had the time, the producer, the label to support it and fans who are ready to hear it. Everything was in place for us to make our masterpiece.” Indeed, Killing Time takes everything Bayside has learned in its decade in the music business and puts it on display for all to hear. On “Mona Lisa,” another song Raneri wrote about his ex(“Someday, I’ll forgive you/But it still hasn’t happened yet”), he tried an experiment in writing. “I half-jokingly call it my greatest accomplishment,” he laughs. “It was an attempt to write a song with as many chromatic key changes in it as possible, without it sounding like mathematics. I was sure it would never make the album, but everyone seemed to love it.” There are also glimpses of the hard road Bayside has traveled to this point in “It’s Not a Bad Little War,” a song about being on the front lines and trenches with your bandmates (“We are the only friends we ever had”), and “Sinking and Swimming on Long Island,” about all the ones that got left behind (“The harder you work/The harder you fall/You wake up one day/With nothing at all”). “Seeing Sound” has an operatic, almost Queen-like vibe, reflecting Raneri’s own love of Broadway show tunes, while the dramatic “On Love, On Life,” is driven by piano and acoustic guitar, with pop tunesmiths Bacharach and David and Welsh crooner Tom Jones as the touchstones. The title track shows off the band’s metal chops, with ominous Blue Oyster Cult overtones. “I really think this album has the best elements of all our previous releases,” says O’Shea, whose own guitar heroes include metal speedsters ALTERNATIVE PRESS ALTPRESS.COM
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“Everything has been leading up until right now”
RELEASE DATE: 2/22
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KILLING TIME Bayside
-Anthony Raneri like Metallica’s Kirk Hammett and Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine as well as Slash, along with such jazz-rock muses as Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Allan Holdsworth, Al DiMelola and John McLaughlin. “It’s the most representative of what we’ve always gone for as a band. It encompasses what our fans like best about us.” With 10 songs weighing in at 38 minutes, there is no filler on Killing Time, an album, while not a concept, with songs that are organically connected and of a piece, like Green Day’s American Idiot or Nirvana’s Nevermind. “We were trying to make the perfect album,” says Anthony. “We’ve been trying to make this record for 10 years. We finally had all the elements we needed to do it. We wanted these to be the 10 best songs we’ve ever written.” “Now I don’t ask for much/But this could define a lifetime” - “It’s Not a Bad Little War” “Everything has been leading up until right now,” says Anthony. “Killing Time is about new beginnings, changes. This is our moment, the album we were supposed to make. A lot of bands that came up with us, we’ve watched form, get signed, get huge and then disappear. And we’re still here… People continue to listen and care. We’re living the dream.” On Killing Time, that dream becomes reality. “We’re all just excited about the possibilities of what the next year holds for us,” concludes Jack. “We’ve always approached our career with a cautious optimism. We hope for the best, but we’re OK with whatever happens. We roll with the punches… but this time it all seems so much more tangible.” What is your favorite song or lyric that you have ever written? And how do you come up with such intricate lyrics and melodies? It would be hard to come up with a line that is my favorite, but I have always really liked the lyrics in “Popular Science.” That is one of those songs that I listen back
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Bayside’s fifth album on their new label, Wind-Up Records, is produced by Gil Norton, influencing the sound of their new album with more of a harder, punk rock edge. The themes present on Killing Time aren’t too in-depth or out of the norm for what you might expect from Bayside, but this band has steadily improved on the lyrical front as it has released more music and Killing Time is no exemption from that rule. While the band might sound particularly confident on Killing Time, this attitude never turns into cockiness. (ALTERNATIVE PRESS; alternativepress.com)
GO DOWNLOAD + “ALREADY GONE” Bayside have announced their sixth studio album, Cult, which is to be released on February 18 via Hopeless Records. Pre-order packages are available now from the label and iTunes. 1.Big Cheese 3.Hate Me 5.Pigsty 7.Stuttering 9.Objectivist On Fire 11.The Whitest Lie
to now and think “Man, how did I think of that?” I write lyrics just like I talk, really. My lyrics start out as journal entries. Sort of a stream of consciousness so the words themselves are just words and phrases are ones that I would use if I were talking. The melodies I’m not too sure of. That’s just how I hear them.
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2.Time Has Come 4.You’re No Match 6.Transitive Property 8.Bear With Me 10.Something’s Wrong
Who were your top three favorite bands to see live when you were growing up? When I was younger I would go see Lagwagon just about every time they came to NYC. Them and Bad Religion were my favorite live bands, I think. I also grew up seeing Glassjaw about every month or so in Long Island.
Q&A WITH ANTHONY RANERI What music are you listening to when your trying to find inspiration for your music? What’s a band or artist that’s a guilty pleasure of yours to listen to? Most of the music I listen to these days are guilty pleasures. When I’m writing I listen to a lot of pop music and anything weird I can find. I listen to a lot of Abba, show tunes, and foreign music. Stuff like that. My vision for Bayside has always been to be interesting music with pop sensibilities. What’s your favorite song you have written, but have yet to play live? We have played most songs live at one time or another. I really like a B-side we did called “Don’t Come Easy.” I’d like to try and do that live sometime. I know that you devoted pretty much everything to Bayside and your music. I’m curious, if it didn’t all fall into place, what was your backup plan? I never really had one. I have been in Bayside since I was 17, so I never really had a chance to start thinking about a backup plan.
What band(s) are you currently listening to at the moment? Any recommendations?
If you had the choice to tour with any band, active or disbanded who would they be?
I’ve been going back to some older stuff I haven’t listened to in a while. I’ve been big on the Superdrag “Headtrip in Every Key” record that I loved growing up. I also really dig Say Anything’s new record. As far as new bands, I’ve gotten into some Hostage Calm and a local NYC band called Bodyface.
Smoking Popes were always a band I dreamt about touring with and we got to do it. Other than that, I would love to go out with Green Day.
How big of an influence was the New York Hardcore scene growing up? Are there any bands of that scene that you wish were still around? Not much of an influence, actually. I was never big into hardcore. I was into Madball, No Redeeming Social Value and a couple of others, but mainly I was always into punk. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? It depends on your definition of a kid. When I was 10 I wanted to be a baseball player. When I was a teenager I wanted to be in a band.
I’ve seen a million (approximately) Bayside tattoos on the internet or people at shows. I know I love mine. How awesome is that for you to see that level of dedication from your fans? It’s amazing. It’s truly the highest level of devotion for a band. We set out 12 years ago to start a band that would be remembered by people and that people would want to tell their kids about. When people put our lyrics or logo on them forever, it tells us that we have the staying power and timelessness that we set out to have. We made a lot of decisions that may have cost us more success or more money in the name of being important and things like tattoos let us know we made the right choices. alt
BAYSIDE BAYSIDE ANTHONY RANIER @anthonyraneri JACK O’SHEA @jackbayside NICK GHANBARIAN @nickbayside CHRIS GUGLIELMO @chris_bayside
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WE ARE GLAMOUR KILLS
ANTHONY RANERI BAYSIDE PHOTO: MATT MUNSEY