Substream Magazine Issue 47 Featuring Frank Turner

Drugs, drugs and rock ’n’ roll

#47 Aug/Sep 2015 US $4.99 CAN $5.99

THE GOOD LIFE

RADKEY

SORORITY NOISE THE GREAT DEPRESSION

25 YEARS OF

FAT WRECK CHORDS

S U B S T R E A M # 4 7 ( S E P 1 5 ) F R A N K T U R N E R + D A N A N D R I A N O • A N N A B E L • B E T W E E N T H E B U R I E D A N D M E • B R I G A D E S • D E F E AT E R • FA I L U R E • F I D L A R • F O R E I G N T O N G U E S • T H E G O O D L I F E • N E C K D E E P • J O H N N O L A N • R A D K E Y • S O R O R I T Y N O I S E

NO OTHER ONE

FIDLAR

stuck on reunion

very Emergency

power to the local dreamer

DEFEATER

BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME 47 (SEPTEMBER 2015) #

FAILURE DAN ANDRIANO JOHN NOLAN pushing hardcore’s boundaries

SEPTEMBER 15

52

FEATURES

BETWEEN THE 28 BURIED AND ME FRANK TURNER 32SORORITY NOISE 36 DEFEATER 40THE GOOD LIFE 44FIDLAR YEARS OF FAT 4825 WRECK CHORDS ON THE COVER

Metal’s standard-bearers up the ante once more. Are you ready?

We tag along for a whirlwind day in New York City with English folk troubadour Frank Turner, from posh hotel balconies to seedy Brooklyn bars, to get the scoop on the struggle and heartbreak that went into making his new album.

FRANK TURNER COVER & CONTENT PHOTOS: MITCHELL WOJCIK

Depression isn’t just a convenient songwriting topic for this emo quartet—it’s an unfortunate, persistent part of life.

Defeater is more than just a hardcore band, and they’d like to keep it that way.

Cursive’s Tim Kasher revives his folksy side project— only it’s not so folksy anymore.

Is the world ready for a clean(er) and sober(ish) FIDLAR? We find out.

Get the inside story on how one of punk rock’s most important labels came to be, well, so damn important.

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SEPTEMBER 15

Dan Andriano of Alkaline Trio

& 8 SUBSTREAM APPROVED 20THEN NOW INSIDE 22 THE ARTIST FRONT ROW 12 CENTER CHECKING IDOBI 26 IN 14 REVIEWS RADIOU 61 16 Miss May I

Annabel, Brigades, Foreign Tongues and Radkey

Dan Andriano of Alkaline Trio and John Nolan of Taking Back Sunday

The Gaslight Anthem

Failure

DJ Sara Scoggins

NYVES

18 DIGITAL TOUR BUS

How do you balance school and shows?

Neck Deep, Terror, Never Shout Never and more

64PARTING SHOT

Kevin Devine

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photo by Ryan Daly

PRESIDENT/CEO

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Jason McMahon

Dan Bogosian, Emily Bowman, Geoff Burns, Cameron Carr, Alice Carson, Sam Cohen, Landon Defever, Shaye DiPasquale, Tim Dodderidge, Adam Easterling, Maria Gironas, Anthony Glaser, Heather Glock, Robert Ham, Jessica Klinner, Daniella Kohan, Matthew Leimkuehler, Bridjet Mendyuk, Brittany Moseley, Mischa Pearlman, Greg Pratt, Bradley Rouse, Knial Saunders, Jason Schreurs, Karila Shannis, Christine Shuster, Brian Shultz, Eric Spitz, Nicole Tiernan, Stephanie Vaughan

jason@substreammagazine.com EDITOR IN CHIEF

Scott Heisel scott@substreammagazine.com

CONTRIBUTING DESIGNERS Max Stern & Stacy Harrison

ADVERTISING

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CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Andrew Bryant, Wyatt Clough, Stephen Denton, Heather Glock, Kelly Hamilton, Kaitlin Herman, Anam Merchant, Ashley Osborn, Erlinda Sanchez, Andrew Wells, Mitchell Wojcik

SUBSTREAM MAGAZINE

PO Box 1059 Delaware, OH 43015

K.Trout@Clubhousecreative.com

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EDITOR’S LETTER

Greetings, Substreamers!

Well, Warped Tour has come to an end. Thanks to all of you who visited our tent throughout the past two months—and for those of you who subscribed to our magazine and are receiving this issue as your introduction, welcome! I’m thrilled to have you with us, and I think this issue is a perfect example of what we’re all about. No one is limited to liking just one genre of music. There’s no reason why you can’t make a playlist with one of Frank Turner’s anthemic folkpop songs followed by a devastatingly honest emo jam from Sorority Noise, a psych-rock explosion from the Good Life and a prog-metal head-spinner from Between The Buried And Me. That’s how I approach every issue of Substream, too: I don’t care what genre of music a band is labeled, as long as it’s good. Let’s all focus less on fitting bands into boxes and more on loving the music they make. And I’ll be honest: I love the hell out of Frank Turner, and I think you will too.

Rejoice, rebuild, the storm has passed, @scottheisel

ANNABEL The men of Annabel are sitting around a table at Loop, a coffee shop/record store in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood discussing a certain music genre that keeps popping up next to the band’s name: emo.

The four members—vocalist/guitarist Ben Hendricks, guitarist Corey Willis, bassist Scott Moses and Ben’s brother, drummer Andy Hendricks (who is taking part in the discussion via speakerphone)—all have something to say about the term. They’re mainly just surprised that of all their albums, their latest, Having It All, is the one getting the emo tag.

“I specifically think we are such big indie rockers now,” jokes Moses. “It’s just like, ‘Get it right!’” Ben offers a more diplomatic take. “If people are writing about it positively, that’s totally fine. For a while people were completely dismissive if [music] had this term.

But this scene of bands has brought a positive connotation to it. This kind of music can be really awesome.”

The fact that Annabel are at a place in their career where people are arguing over what to call them may be the surest sign that they’re coming into their own. Having It All, the band’s third full-length, is easily their strongest effort yet. The album was produced by Into It. Over It.’s Evan Weiss and is their first full-length for Tiny Engines. Ben describes it as “a record about balance,” a theme that’s evident as soon as one sees the album’s tongue-incheek title. Having It All is the perfect soundtrack for navigating your mid-20s: that murky period where you want to be seen as an adult but still feel like a hapless teenager.

This kind of music can be really awesome.

—Ben Hendricks

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Doing their best to take emo off the four-letter word list.

STORY: Brittany Moseley PHOTO: Andrew Wells

“After a tour in Europe, I went to a museum in Norway. I saw this art piece that was a stack of newspapers and an image of the artist dressed as a bride. The headline was, ‘Having it all,’” Ben recalls. “A wedding day is the most important day in a [person’s] life, but it was represented by a stack of newspapers that was meant to be thrown away. That title really stuck with me, and I started to notice it in a lot of different areas: So many song lyrics—I became aware of a million different self-help books called Having It All… It made sense to me on a lot of levels.”

Andy agrees, adding, “To me, it feels like getting older. You gotta balance everything; that’s what life throws at you. After Ben proposed that title, I would see that everywhere. It’s such a common theme in my life and all my friends’ lives.”

“In considering it as a theme, it definitely resonates with me,” Willis says. “It makes complete sense for where we were as a band at the time and where we’re currently at and trying to balance out everything in our lives and to ‘have it all.’”

Annabel might not have figured out the key to having it all, but with a summer tour supporting the Appleseed Cast and positive reviews from a variety of mainstream media outlets, they’re clearly hitting their stride. They even got a nod of approval from self-proclaimed emo revival experts, Pitchfork.

“We did it!” Willis says. Without missing a beat, Moses adds, “My mom still doesn’t know what that website is.” S

FOREIGN TO N G U E S This New England based alt-rock group have stayed largely under the radar—until now.

STORY: Cameron Carr PHOTO: Nick DiNatale

“I feel like you can’t really judge a band until they release an actual full-length,” admits Cameron Moretti. At the time of our conversation, Moretti and his Foreign Tongues bandmates await the release of their debut album, Fragile, As Said Before, on No Sleep Records. The LP presents the group with an opportunity to define themselves to a much larger audience.

Likewise, the making of the album allowed the group to expand upon their own definition of the band.

Foreign Tongues’ beginnings came from a collection of songs written by Moretti and guitarist James Scuderi. The two joined with friends Andrew Tamulonis on bass and Joseph Barthelette on drums and started making music (later adding Alex Drivas as an additional guitarist). The group worked quickly and had completed an EP in just a couple months. Soon the

band were firing out small releases that showcased a blend of ’90s worship and modern emo/punk. For their first fulllength, Foreign Tongues spent more time crafting the songs and found themselves with room to express their more varied influences. “We definitely planned on trying to create a sound throughout the whole record that was a little different [than our past releases], but I don’t think we had to force it,” says Moretti. “I think it came naturally, but we knew that we did want to do something a little bit different.”

Fragile clearly sounds like the same band, maintaining the alt-rock leanings and Moretti’s solemn baritone vocals, but these core elements have become a flexible starting point to expand upon. The opening track, “Fools Of Love,” utilizes subtle synth to a post-punky effect, while “Our Fragile Pain” features bright acoustic

guitar and twangy riffs throughout. Songs like “Leap Year” and “Hurt You” show the band’s ability to create emotional swells, the former using piano and trumpets to achieve the effect while the latter taking a straightforward rock approach.

The extended writing period also came about due to the themes of the album. For Moretti, these songs hold much more personal significance and, as a result, he felt it necessary to spend the extra time ensuring each song properly expressed its meaning.

“They are the most honest songs we’ve ever written,” says the frontman. “It took us over a year to write and finalize all of them, but there are just a lot of honest topics and themes throughout the whole record.” He cites “Assembly”—a story about the funeral of a friend’s father who had taken his own life—as the most personal song for him, explaining that it took the longest to write as he struggled to find the appropriate words.

With Fragile now completed and ready for the world, Foreign Tongues can start to look toward the future and the album’s reception. Moretti speaks fondly of their album and hopes others feel the same. Still, he keeps his expectations modest: “I just want people to genuinely give the whole record a listen,” he says. “I hope people want to listen to it.” S

These are the most honest songs we’ve ever written.

It took us over a year to write and finalize all of them.

—Cameron Moretti

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BRIGADES How to overcome exhaustion and deliver a knockout debut.

STORY: Jason Schreurs PHOTO: Jeremy Abrams

It may not sound like the best scenario to record an album, but now that he’s heard the results of the band’s debut fulllength, Brigades guitarist/vocalist Charlie Jackson wouldn’t change the way it all went down.

“We had a really long tour and then went straight into the studio,” explains Jackson. “We were exhausted and not in the best moods; we were ready to go home, and we didn’t really get a break.

But it worked wonders for the record, because you can tell we were in there and we were angry, and it’s all on the record.”

The South Carolina pop-punk band have embraced their melodic hardcore leanings on the Pure Noise Records-issued Indefinite, a 12-song bloodletting of the personal demons that Jackson and vocalist Darren Young have battled since the release of their first EP, Crocodile Tears.

With Jackson and Young sharing lyricwriting duties, the songs on Indefinite reflect the combined journeys of two young men who have struggled with

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family and relationship issues, as well as the internal issues that most bands face when they go on long tours and begin to pick at each other. “We were having some internal band issues coming off that long tour, and when you’re out for so long every little thing can bother you—even if someone does something small, it can snowball into a big issue, even over stupid, little things,” explains Jackson.

The result is an album that’s brimming with frustration and even anger, but sees the band coming out the other end with a feeling of family and togetherness. “Being in a band is like having a bunch of brothers,” says Jackson.

“It’s definitely like a family. You go through things together, and you deal with things together, and you need each other a lot.”

Coming off the road and going straight into the studio ended up giving Indefinite the impassioned edge that Brigades were looking for, whether they were aware of it at the time or not. “It puts an element of passion that wasn’t there on Crocodile

Tears. On that one, everything was completely prepared and we were unsigned and went and knocked it out in six days. But on this one, we weren’t prepared. We were under pressure, so we were just doing the best we could, but still being upset and angry and lonely and missing home, and you can hear it all on the album. I can hear it, anyway,” he admits, laughing.

In the end, Jackson and the band were very pleased with the final result, and aren’t afraid to give their honest opinion about their debut album.

“I love it! I love our record,” he says. “I don’t know how other bands feel when they do records, like some of them don’t like them or something, but I feel like you should like your own band.

So I love it. I love the way it came out; everything sounds really, really cool, and the way we wanted it to.” S

We were upset and angry and lonely and missing home, and you can hear it all on the album.

—Charlie Jackson

RADKEY Missouri garage rockers make new talking points with debut full-length.

STORY: Greg Pratt PHOTO: TK

Over the course of a handful of EPs and singles, Missouri punk band Radkey have been making more than a few necks crane. But it’s been for all the wrong reasons: The trio of brothers started playing at a young age (they’re now 18, 20 and 22, but the band formed back in 2010), and, well, it’s a trio of brothers. Novel, sure; novelty band, no. Their debut full-length, Dark Black Makeup, lays down fast garage punk and, notably, mature classic rock sounds; “Hunger Pain” is pure Thin Lizzy-esque rock, and also points to how well the album flows.

“That was a really important part to us, a really good flow to the album,” says bassist Isaiah Radke. “Because you know how sometimes you listen to a record and you’ll question some decisions that were made as far as the track listing goes? We definitely spent a lot of time just trying to nail how the flow was. And I think we got it. I’m pretty stoked on it.”

Radke says that the band spent a lot of time writing the material that shapes up the album. Fans will notice a re-recording of blazing EP cut “Romance Dawn” (“We definitely needed to really go for it this time and make the song everything it needed to be,” says Radke), but apart from that it’s all new songs, and all meticulously crafted ones at that.

“It took forever to write,” admits Radke. “We just wanted to make sure that we got everything perfect, and we really didn’t want to rip anyone off with this. We wanted it to be mostly new songs and we wanted it to be really fresh. We’re really happy with it.”

Despite their young ages, the trio display a ton of maturity on the album, which does make sense in a way: they may be young, but they’ve already been doing this for a long time.

“Yeah, I mean, you start to look back and it’s like, damn, this is what I’ve been doing

We just wanted to make sure that we got everything perfect, and we really didn’t want to rip anyone off.

—Cameron Moretti most of my life now,” says the bassist with a chuckle. “As far as doing anything, this has been the longest activity. It feels good. It feels really amazing to live in this kind of thing. It’s really fucking fun to write songs and tour and I feel really lucky that we fucking get the chance to do so.”

Even though the band play a sound that isn’t particularly popular these days (indeed, listening to the record practically takes the listener on a time warp to the ’70s), Radke still feels the band fit in the music scene today, because rock and roll is a pretty universal concept, he says. “I think rock music is a thing that most people love, and once they see it and hear it, something clicks that’s just there inside of them already,” he says. “So it’s pretty cool to play with different types of acts. I think we fit in just because we’re straightforward, catchy rock music.” S

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FRONTROWCENTER

THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM

by Heather Glock facebook.com/glockpress

hang (WITH) the dj STORY: Joseph A. Britton

Sara Scoggins is the host of Let’s Talk Music on idobi Radio, Tuesdays 9 p.m. ET, but that doesn’t stop her from being a super-fan of the bands she interviews. Talented and determined, Sara crossed the country to pursue her dream of being part of the music scene she loves and found herself the centerpiece of her own radio show.

Brought up on a peculiar hybrid of rock ’n’ roll from her father and musical theatre from her mother, Sara Scoggins grew up in Rhode Island with an obsession for all the different worlds of music. As Scoggins started to branch out and follow in the footsteps of her older brothers, however, she found a love for ’90s alternative. Bands like Less Than Jake, Nirvana and Catch 22 drew her toward a new world of music that she obsessed about. As exciting as this was, her obsession would take an entirely different shape when one of her brothers left to experience one of the institutions of the alternative music scene: Warped Tour.

Although she was too young to be allowed to go, her brother returned that night drenched in mud. Much to the disapproval of their mother, the teenage rebellion of Sara’s brother gave her the motivation to get more involved in the underground goldmine she had found.

Fast forward to the high school years, in the early 2000s, when bands like Fall Out Boy and Taking Back Sunday made music from the scene the “it” topic in all social circles. Scoggins, now a concert regular, would take road trips to various venues using road maps in a pre-iPhone GPS world to see her idols. It was past the point of just a hobby and grew into a very big part of her life; naturally, the next step was to join the music industry. Through her college years she interned at a radio station, but knew that if she really wanted to accomplish her goals she would need a platform larger than Rhode Island.

She ended up in Los Angeles, where her dreams of pursuing a life in music would become a reality. When she started at idobi she was the only

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female show host on the station—a fact downplayed by the ever-humble Scoggins, but a fact to be admired when you take into consideration a large number of Warped Tour attendees and idobi listeners are female. It sets a great example that there’s a future for these fans to become a part of something they adore.

While not as interview-heavy as other shows on idobi Radio, Let’s Talk Music focuses on listeners connecting with Scoggins through their mutual love of bands and interacting with her live, via social media. “They’re all my co-hosts!”

Scoggins exclaims. It’s an intimate relationship that makes her listeners a part of the show, and also benefits Scoggins because it gives her an outlet to turn fans onto new artists in the process. On a personal scale, she has begun influencing the next generation of alternative music fans by giving her niece music suggestions and making her fall in love with bands the same way Scoggins did as a teen.

Often, once someone cracks into the profession they dreamed about—especially something involving the entertainment industry—the “magic” wears off and it becomes work. Not to be deterred by that mindset, Scoggins always had and still has a very vibrant outlook. To this day, meeting idols like Aaron Marsh of Copeland excites her—to the point she was in actual tears watching them play! It’s something special; that ability to remain so passionate has made her show a magnet for fans who relate.

The bright-eyed fan from Rhode Island sure has come a long way from the days of jamming Meat Loaf in the backseat of her parents’ car, but it’s just the beginning. July 8 marked the one-year anniversary of Let’s Talk Music on idobi; Scoggins jokes about how wild it is that “recording myself for hours talking about music in my room” can lead to interviewing not only her listeners’ idols, but hers as well. Expect many more shows, interviews, and hilarity to come in the future while Let’s Talk Music continues to grow. S

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SHARPENS UP OUR

What happens when you take the vocals of Demon Hunter’s Ryan Clark and the music of Randy Torres, formerly from Project 86, and put them in a Kickstarterfunded electronica blender? You get a brand new supergroup: NYVES. Their debut album Anxiety is in stores now via Spartan Records, and we got a chance to catch up with them to discuss their latest project.

Was NYVES always going to be electronic, or did you have some other sounds in mind?

TORRES: It was always going to be an electronic project. When Ryan and I first started discussing a specific direction, he sent me a playlist of favorite artists and tracks. On the playlist was Hurts, Blaqk Audio, Nine Inch Nails, HIM, Dave Gahan, IAMX, the Presets, Cold Cave, Austra, Peter Gabriel and more.

CLARK: The nice thing is that I don’t think Randy or I feel like we’re confined to anything at this point. We love doing primarily electronic stuff, but if we feel compelled to add more traditional instrumentation or strip something back to a natural sounding piano only, we’re comfortable doing so.

RADIOU: How did the two of you come together for this project?

RANDY TORRES: Ryan had been playing around with the idea of doing an electronic solo side project, possibly with a bunch of different producers/songwriters. Unrelated, I had done a couple remixes for a different band, one of which did not get used. I sent that track to Ryan, he wrote the lyrics and melodies to what is now “Fall Behind,” and we recorded it.

The process was very natural and we were on the exact same wavelength as far as vibe and influence. We decided shortly after to do an entire record together.

RYAN CLARK: Electronic music is something that I’ve been drawn to since I was really young.

One of the first records, if not the first record to really blow my mind was Depeche Mode’s Violator when it came out in 1990. Later I found hardcore, punk and metal, and in my teens I’d fully immersed myself in those worlds, but if you listen back to the records I’ve been involved in, there have always been subtle electronic elements. This project just features those elements prominently.

You’ve played two live shows and have more coming in the fall.

What’s the difference between performing as NYVES versus playing with Demon Hunter or Project 86?

CLARK: The vibe is completely different. When you play metal, there’s an urge to be many things onstage—intimidating, bombastic, energetic—but those things don’t always apply to the vibe of NYVES. I think there’s more of a balance—moving between somber and energetic, depending on the song. Singing for Demon Hunter can be exhausting. Not only am I moving between singing and screaming, but there are a lot of lyrics in DH songs. Playing live with NYVES gives me a chance to really focus on the performance of the vocal, and the subtleties of it, which is nice.

In an electronic project, how do you collaborate on the music? Did it happen over a distance or were you able to be in the same room?

TORRES: The great thing about this project is while I am coming up with ideas, the songs are essentially being written, tracked, engineered and mixed at the same time. Once the songs are really close, I’ll send them to Ryan. He’ll write the lyrics and melodies and we’ll get together and record them. My recording rig is mobile, so we’ve recorded in Seattle, LA, in the middle of the California desert... Once the vocals are finished, the song is essentially done and close to being final. No need to demo, no need to book studio time. The whole process is not as involved as it would be making a traditional rock record.

What are you hoping that NYVES fans get from your music?

TORRES: Personally for me, I love being inspired by music.

It gets me excited to create and I hope NYVES can do the same for other people.

CLARK: With everything I do musically, it’s always a huge bonus if you find that people really relate to what you’re saying. Finding commonality in music is what really makes it come to life to the listener.

I hope people find the songs inspirational, comforting, relatable and eye-opening. S

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DIGITAL TOUR BUS

HOW DO YOU BALANCE SCHOOL AND SHOWS?

By Joshua Weidling

B

alancing everything your life can be tough at times. Especially when you combine school, a job, family and friends with going to concerts, 24 hours just doesn’t seem like enough hours in the day.

That’s why we asked some musicians how they were able to balance all of these things to get you prepared to go back to school!

LOUIE MALPELI of THIS IS ALL NOW Like many fans of live music, the schedule can at times get hectic. For us, we had to balance traveling every weekend and making sure we were back in class on Monday, we always had to be in constant contact with our teachers and for us that was most important. Making sure your time is well budgeted is crucial. Getting your work done first is best, so when you’re at the show, you can have a clear mind and not think about that paper due tomorrow!

JOE RAGOSTA of PATENT PENDING My best advice for people going to shows on school nights is to learn how to survive on very little sleep! Punk rock has no curfew and your passion for great bands can have you driving halfway across the state to get back and forth to the shows.

Be ready to battle through calculus with less than three hours in the sleep bank. It also doesn’t hurt to be on your teacher’s good side and get good grades. This way if you fall asleep mid-class, your teacher might just let you slide.

FIL THORPE-EVANS of NECK DEEP

Balancing schoolwork and going to concerts shouldn’t be too hard. I was very lucky growing up as my mum was always really cool with me going to concerts and would happily drive me and support my chosen path of music and this scene. If your parents aren’t as cool about it, maybe offer them incentives, like if you do well in a certain test you get to go to a show. Schoolwork is really important and getting to go to concerts should be a reward, so just work hard and show your parents you deserve to get to go and enjoy yourself.

GEORGE SHEPPARD of SHEPPARD Education is extremely important, as is being able to enjoy culture and have a good time. School happens during the day, concerts usually happen at night, so as long as your homework is done, go and enjoy yourself!

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MIKEY CARVAJAL of ISLANDER The only reason I feel comfortable speaking on this topic is because I should have focused more on school growing up. It’s easy to come home and just listen to punk music, but if live music is a true concern, then getting your schoolwork done should be at the forefront of that same passion. It’s not punk to not know history. It’s not attractive to not be able to carry on a conversation. To be honest, showing your parents that responsibility and respect without them having to ask a billion times for homework to be done will probably improve your chances of being able to go to more live shows.

Chris Bauer

ALEX “WOODY” WOODROW of OUR LAST NIGHT

It is possible to be successful in every area of your life, you just have to be clear about what you want. That means if you love music, going to shows and supporting bands, you have to let your teachers know. They don’t want to fail you, they want to see you succeed. Tell them what you are passionate about and make sure they know you will do whatever it takes to be successful. Once you become clear with what you want (that means doing what you love and wanting to do well in school), then you will find teachers are willing to work with you. You might have to work a bit extra, but work makes us badass human beings! I did it, both in high school and college and if I did it, then you can too. So get clear with your teachers, get clear with yourself and don’t be afraid to rock out in every area of your life.

ISAAC ETTER of TEAR OUT THE HEART My best advice is to study up if you have a show you want to go to. Sounds lame, I know, but trust me on this one. When I was a sophomore in high school, I got to see one of my favorite bands for the first time ever, but it was on a weekday and I had a test the next day.

Long story short, I didn’t study for the test, I was out until three in the morning, I bombed the test and I got a C on my report card because of it. If your favorite bands are playing, don’t miss them by any means, but you can be a metalhead and model student at the same time!

CHRIS BURTON of CHALLENGER I feel incredibly lucky that I was able to go to so many concerts during the school year as I did growing up. I think something that made it so easy was being on top of my school work so that I could actually go.

In my opinion, the best tours happen in the fall, which is also an incredibly fast-paced time of the year. Mark your calendar when a concert is announced that you want to go to. A part of you dies when you hear the next day how awesome the Killers concert was, trust me.

Adam Leonard

MIKEY CARVAJAL of ISLANDER The only reason I feel comfortable speaking on this topic is because I should have focused more on school growing up. It’s easy to come home and just listen to punk music, but if live music is a true concern, then getting your schoolwork done should be at the forefront of that same passion. It’s not punk to not know history. It’s not attractive to not be able to carry on a conversation. To be honest, showing your parents that responsibility and respect without them having to ask a billion times for homework to be done will probably improve your chances of being able to go to more live shows.

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&

THEN

By Levi Benton

2006

ORIGINAL LINEUP Levi Benton (vocals) Justin Aufdemkampe (guitar) Kevin Danielson (guitar) Joe Wainscott (bass) Jerod Boyd (drums)

Tarina Doolittle

WHY WE STARTED We started mainly because it was fun and it gave us something to do. We didn’t start the band to play shows or make money; we just wanted to be the heaviest band in our area and to hang out with each other.

than our van, if that helps you picture how small it was. After our first two tours on the way home from California, the oil line busted and it sprayed all over us inside the van. We ended up leaving it in Tennessee.

OUR FIRST BIG SHOW OUR FIRST PRACTICE SPACE Our first practice space was in our friend and original guitarist Kevin’s basement. Then when he left the band, we moved to Jerod’s living room—and then it all happened.

OUR FIRST TOUR VAN Our first van was owned by Jerod. He sold his car for it and ended up buying an eightpassenger soccer mom van. We fit seven people in it all sitting up, and if you wanted to sleep, you had to sleep on the floor in between chairs. Our trailer was bigger

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The first big show we played was in high school right after our record deal. We got the chance to play a sold-out show with the Devil Wears Prada and A Day To Remember in New York City on the Sweet Brag Tour. Most of us had never even been to New York before, so the entire day was overwhelming. We opened the show and the crowd seemed to enjoy it.

THE FIRST SONG WE WROTE Our first song we ever wrote was called “Bon Voyage Shipwrecks.” We recorded it with Joey Sturgis before he was famous

in a garage in Indiana. I think it was about a girl or something; I couldn’t tell you now. It is still floating around the world somewhere, I am sure. When we were working with Joey, that was the first time we ever recorded anything and we did not know how it worked. The only person who did great was Jerod; everyone else was so nervous and took forever. In my mind, I wanted to do low screams but we didn’t even have a PA in our practice space so I didn’t know what my screams even sounded like. I tried to do a low scream and Joey laughed and said, “Nope!” so I just did what I could at the time. It was a great experience and the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

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NOW MISS WITH

2015

CURRENT LINEUP Levi Benton (vocals) Justin Aufdemkampe (guitar) B.J. Stead (guitar) Ryan Neff (bass) Jerod Boyd (drums)

MAY I

Brendan Donahue

WHY WE CONTINUE

OUR CURRENT TOUR VAN

We get to do the same thing we have done as kids and just jam with our best friends—the only difference now is that more people are watching. We are thankful to get the opportunity to call this our job, and I think that’s why we keep doing it is because it’s so fun no matter how big the crowd. Another reason is now with our fanbase so large, we have so many people depending on us that it’s bigger than just the five of us. If the record is good or bad, we have to fight through it and be here for our fans.

Our current tour vehicle is a Prevost bus for Warped Tour. It’s green and yellow, but buses typically change every tour. It’s like renting an apartment with your friends for a month then on to whatever is available for the time. We have a 15-passenger van that we use for one-off shows and for transportation to airports for international tours. It’s white, plain and boring.

OUR CURRENT PRACTICE SPACE

THE BIGGEST CHANGE BETWEEN THEN AND NOW

Our current practice space is a beautiful recording studio in Dayton, Ohio, called Refraze. We rent it out for however long we need before tour and make sure our set and gear are all tight and ready for the road.

I think the biggest thing that changed is we are more like brothers now than ever.

We live together nine months out of the year and we are the only people to turn to when things go wrong on the road. All we have is each other, and I think that really shined through the struggle of the last few years than ever before. S

THE NEWEST SONG WE’VE WRITTEN The most recent thing I have written was our record Deathless. The most meaningful song I would have to say to me is the title track. The record is about the last two years of my life and how I broke my shell of trusting everyone and got betrayed left and right, but we still made it through. This specific song is about how I lost my home while I was on tour in a financial mess that our old business manager created, crippling my family to this day.

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INTERVIEW: Scott Heisel

Dan Andriano is nearly 25 years deep into his music career—and he’s probably the most surprised by that. He is best known as the bassist/vocalist for Alkaline Trio, the gothtinged punk threesome that has transcended genres and won over tens of thousands of fans in the process. But Andriano is not solely defined by his work in the Trio, even though many of his songs are among the finest in the band’s catalog. This need to make music strictly for himself with no outside expectations led him to create Dan Andriano In The Emergency Room, an outlet for the singer/songwriter to explore whatever struck his fancy. Which leads us to his sophomore album under the Emergency Room, the Jeff Rosenstock-produced Party Adjacent. It’s a record that channels everything from Elvis Costello to Thin Lizzy, but still retains the lyrical charm and honesty Andriano has become known for throughout his career. We caught up with him before one of Alkaline Trio’s recent “Past Live” dates in Cleveland, where he gave us more insight into Party Adjacent in between sipping an iced coffee and talking at length about basketball.

(Unsurprisingly, he roots for the Bulls.)

The album title Party Adjacent is kind of a funny phrase. What’s the meaning behind it?

I guess it sort of specifies where I feel like I’m at in life—slightly, slightly grown up. I still like to have fun, but I’m not just doing this for the party. This is what I’ve chosen to do in my life. For so long, it came easy [that] for a while, I lost touch with why I got into it.

At what point did you realize then that you were no longer a “band dude” and wanted to be a career musician?

Probably a few years ago, when I started to get panicky about stuff. I got really anxious and weird about doing this forever, but that’s when I realized I have this opportunity so I need to do more to take advantage of it—there’s more that I want to do. That’s when I started doing [my first solo album], Hurricane Season. It drove me crazy. I did everything myself: the artwork, the recording, almost all the playing. In the middle of making Hurricane Season, Alkaline Trio made Damnesia, and I was in the engineer’s ear the whole time asking about recording techniques, so I came home and pretty much started over. My wife was not stoked. [Laughs.]

You have some amazing players on Party Adjacent—not only Jeff Rosenstock but Mike Huguenor of Hard Girls and Kevin Higuchi of the Bruce Lee Band. How did you meet them?

Last summer, I had written and demoed the record, and I had found myself in the same space—I didn’t know what to do.

I talked to [Asian Man Records owner] Mike Park and was freaking out, and he was the one who told me to chill, and that he’d set me up with a band. He put me in touch with Jeff Rosenstock, too. It was an awesome experience. The very first song, “Pretty Teeth,” I had written it as a folky song. I loved the lyrics and the sentiment, but we needed to change the groove, so Jeff sent me back this version with synth and told me he wanted vibraphone on it.

“Lost” initially sounded like the Smoking Popes—we were in the studio at the time, so I told the guys, “I’m gonna go outside, so you murder this groove, bury it, I never want to hear it again. Come up with something cool.” And it was really, really cool.

How was the recording process different than that of Alkaline Trio?

We record for weeks and weeks, and some days, because you know you’ve got four weeks left, you’ll just be like, “Eh, I’m tired; let’s call it. Let’s get some food.” And it’s like, “No! Let’s work! Let’s write songs! We’re a band!” So it superfun to get a little reset in that regard.

INSID ETH E A RTI ST

DAN ANDRIANO

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Your bandmate Matt Skiba just released his second solo album, Kuts. It’s interesting to me that no matter what he does, it pretty much will always sound like “Matt from Alkaline Trio,” but for you, the line connecting your solo work to your main band is a lot more faint.

I’m not that prolific. So if I have a song that remotely sounds like Alkaline Trio, I’m gonna give it to Alkaline Trio. It’s pretty apparent to me if something sounds different. “Haunt Your House” is the most Trio-sounding song on [Party Adjacent]; that song was actually demoed for My Shame Is True, but [producer] Bill Stevenson didn’t like it, so we didn’t record it.

The lyrics on Party Adjacent are a lot more straightforward—direct references to cocaine, for example.

How do you tackle unconventional songwriting topics like that?

At this point it’s just about trying to be honest and still be poetic. If it’s working with the melody and it’s working with the intent of the song, then I’m gonna keep it.

But it takes me a long time to write lyrics.

I usually start writing songs around two lines and will finish the music quickly, but I’ll struggle for two months to write the lyrics. I get sidetracked rather easily. I used to take time for granted—I’d smoke too much grass and forget what I was doing. I gave that up, and it’s easier for me to work. Believe it or not, if you quit that stuff, it’s easier to get work done! It only took me 20 years to realize it. S

I used to take time for granted—I’d smoke too much grass and forget what I was doing. I gave that up, and it’s easier for me to work. Believe it or not, if you quit that stuff, it’s easier to get work done!

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INSIDE TH E A RTI ST

JOHN NOLAN

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TA K I N G B A C K S U N DAY INTERVIEW: Jessica Klinner

John Nolan calls just hours before his band, Taking Back Sunday, is slated to play a show in the tropical paradise of Hawaii. TBS is winding up the touring cycle for their latest full-length, Happiness Is, and it couldn’t come at a better time for Nolan. For years, the vocalist/ guitarist/pianist has been working on and off on a new solo album to follow up 2009’s Height. With a little time off from his duties in Taking Back Sunday, Nolan is utilizing his time by releasing a second solo album, Sad Strange Beautiful Dream, and taking it on the road.

What drew you to step away from Taking Back Sunday and create original content? Did you feel like there were more stories you needed to tell through music that didn’t fit with the TBS vibe?

One of the things about Taking Back Sunday is I’m involved as a songwriter with pretty much every song that the band will write.

It’s very much a collective [effort]. Our writing process is very democratic, and everybody contributes something and has a say in it. I think that’s a part of what makes Taking Back Sunday sound the way it does.

There’s something nice, to me, about having a chance to do something where it’s just completely my call on everything—for better or worse. It’s a nice change of pace to go in a different direction and do it the way that I want to.

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Many musicians are stepping away from their successful bands to release solo albums— Nate Ruess of fun. and Brandon Flowers of the Killers come to mind. Why do you think there’s a draw for that right now?

I’m not necessarily sure. I think it’s something that makes sense to me why any musician in a band would want to do that. I think for probably a lot of the reasons that I was just talking about— the chance to do something separate without a whole group involved in the writing process. I guess that people are just interested to check out something new from somebody and see what they’ll do in a different setting and going in a different direction.

How long has this album been in the works?

Probably three or four years, but that’s not to say that I’ve been actually actively working on it for four years. It’s just ideas here and there, some songs here and there over those years. I kind of had a big burst of songs hitting right toward the time I was about to record and made the decision to make the record. I think I had this point where I had four or five songs that just came together really quickly for me. It wasn’t until that point that I was actively thinking of it as a record.

I used to write and record song ideas late at night. My wife would go to bed, and I’d work on music until four in the morning. You can’t really do that with a toddler.

Lyrically, it seems that this album is based around real-life events and authentic emotion about the current state of the country. It’s as if you tore pages straight from your journal and put them to music. Was there an overall concept you were aiming for?

It kind of just came together the way it did. I didn’t really make any kind of a plan, and it wasn’t really until the album was done that I noticed how many of the songs were pretty directly and literally based on my real-life experiences. That never really happened before, but it just kind of happened with this record for some reason.

What song on the record was the most difficult for you to finish?

There’s one song on the record called “I’ll Be Home Soon.” It’s just some piano, violin and vocals. I had the music laid out for a while, and when I went into the studio, I actually still didn’t have lyrics or melodies for it. I ended up finishing the lyrics and melodies pretty close to when I needed to record the song and get it done. It ended up being about being away from my wife and son, traveling and touring and all that. I was actually away in New York recording the album, and my family is in Charlotte, North Carolina. So it ended up being surprisingly about what was actually happening at that moment, in a certain way, and also the fact that it was being recorded almost immediately after it was done being written. [It was] very fresh, and I guess pretty emotional too.

This isn’t your first time teaming with producer Mike Sapone—he’s engineered or produced a number of Taking Back Sunday and Straylight Run releases as well as worked with you on your first solo album, Height.

Was it the familiarity with his production method that made you want to record Sad Strange Beautiful DReam with him?

I just really love working with him. He’s got a very unique approach to producing. He somehow manages to be really laid back and kind of free and let me do what I want.

At the same time, he’s able to really mold and shape the project. It’s really interesting.

For me, his ideas are always in sync with where I’m at. It always feels really natural and enjoyable working with him.

You mentioned your wife and son. Has being a part of their lives changed the way you’ve approached music at all?

For the first solo record, I was married. We didn’t have a son yet. After having my son, the time you have to work on music definitely changes, or it did for me. I used to write and record song ideas late at night. My wife would go to bed, and I’d work on music until four in the morning. You can’t really do that with a toddler. I definitely have to find new times and places to work on music. S

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C H EC K ING I N

FA I LU R E

We knew we had a built-in audience that were emotionally connected to what we had done before, and they were going to be ready to receive this. —GREG EDWARDS

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INTERVIEW: Robert Ham PHOTOS: Ryan Daly

Even with countless bands from the’90s re-forming to cash in on the nostalgia economy, the occasional reunion announcement will come along and take people completely by surprise—such as when Failure announced in late 2013 that they would be reconvening and touring America.

The Los Angeles-based post shoegaze act had a fine run in the ’90s, releasing three critically acclaimed albums—including the unheralded masterpiece Fantastic Planet—before flaming out due to infighting and drug problems. Fast forward some 15 years later, guitarist/vocalist Ken Andrews, bassist Greg Edwards and drummer Kellii Scott have washed away the bad blood and discussed playing together again.

The wounds have apparently completely healed as Failure was inspired enough to record a brand new album. Entitled The Heart Is A Monster, the LP picks right up where they left off with plenty of grinding rhythms, dense arrangements, and melodies that become part of your DNA after one listen. Substream caught up with Edwards, who was taking a break during the band’s rehearsals for their upcoming tour to talk about the delicate balance of reuniting and Failure moving forward as a unit.

Having been back together for a little bit, what do you think has made things within the group better than how things were?

were nobodies. We didn’t have a sense that we had a following. Then after the band broke up, people were constantly coming up to all of us and expressing their love for Fantastic Planet. That gives you a sense that there’s some sort of legacy that you’ve created. And if people are responding to that thing you did, that gave us a different purpose going into making this record.

We knew we had a built-in audience that were emotionally connected to what we had done before, and they were going to be ready to receive this.

GREG EDWARDS: If I think back to how I was then, I have no problem saying that I’m more mature now. But that doesn’t mean much relative to what I was. Musically, we’re more mature and more confident and less precious about everything. I think we’re able to look and see the bigger picture and the greater goal within the details and not get bogged down in vitriolic poison and fights. Not that that happened a lot, but even if it happened a little bit in a recording session, it has a long aftereffect.

It affects the trust between the people you’re working with. That’s awful for any artistic process. Maybe we’re just older and lazier and we just don’t want to deal with the emotional aftermath of those sorts of outburst, but for whatever reason we don’t do that anymore. We tend to be more focused and productive.

Although you have a label releasing this, everything else was funded

by PledgeMusic. How was the crowdfunding process for the band?

It’s wonderful that it’s there because we wouldn’t have been able to function the way that we did. We don’t have a record company that’s giving us money to do these things. Basically it enabled us to operate like we had a nice record deal with a budget and we could make the record the way we wanted to make it.

Is it also easier without the added weight of having to bow to the whims of a major label?

Now that you have this record out in the world, do you have expectations for the future of Failure?

I don’t know what kind of pressure that added to it or not. Having it all be all DIY, and all under our own steam, I think it’s only positive. I don’t look back and see anything positive about the big record company except the instant gratification.

You get a big advance so you didn’t have to worry about money for a year. That’s also money that you had to pay back and that most bands that were signed back then never did actually pay that back. Even if you had to raise everything ourselves or spend money out of pocket, it felt better that we were in complete control. Also when we were making the records back then, we

I think we’re just taking things as they come.

We just decided to do something and we put our heads down and did it. I don’t think we’re having huge ambitions about it. I associate that with when we were together in the ’90s, that ambition of youth, which is just fantasy— and a lot of it. I don’t miss that. With the way that my career has gone, I’m completely happy and satisfied. And I’m completely happy and satisfied with the story of Failure even given the way it self-destructed. I like that story and I like this record being the followup to Fantastic Planet. S

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When it comes to proving their worth, BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME lets their highly technical style of metal speak for itself. With the quintet’s newest work, a concept album about a man’s experiences in a coma, frontman Tommy Rogers indicates that it’s the thrill of a new listen and the exploration of new territory that’s truly awakening.

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Whether it’s from a musical or thematic perspective, adventure always manages to find Between The Buried And Me. Throughout their entire career, they’ve possessed the innate ability to churn out elaborately constructed albums with expansive themes, all rooted in the dense artistic flair they’ve developed in 15 years as a band.

Following up their previous effort in The Parallax, a tightly zwoven progressive metal composition clocking in at over 100 minutes between an EP and full-length, the metal players have become addicted to the flavor of new direction. In Coma Ecliptic, they shifted their sound a bit, taking a more piano-intensive, melody-focused route.

“I think with this record from day one, it was a little different for us,” begins vocalist/keyboardist Tommy Rogers. “It was a lot more melody-based. We really started kind of approaching songs a little differently than we normally do, and it instantly was exciting for us. It felt really good, and it felt really natural for us.”

The band is known to spend a lot of time on their records, but this one managed to be even more work than The Parallax series. Some of it may have been the stylistic shift, but Rogers always finds the most intensive part to be the tweaking and changing of all the different elements, and this record was no exception.

“We spend a lot of time getting everything exactly how we want,” he says, explaining that writing is his favorite part of being in a band. He finds that on this record especially, “We really came into our own and created something cool. It’s a huge process, but it’s something that— after all these years—we really have down, and we work really, really well together as a team. Our writing experience is great.”

This time around, the frontman feels the band wrote in a “different vein, in what’s not always comfortable.”

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Bassist Dan Briggs wrote a lot of the piano material on the record, even writing some parts with piano in mind first. The approach led the final product to sound and feel different—a push into more unique territory where thick guitars and screams are still aplenty, but with the band trying new things in many spots.

“When you’re so used to writing a guitar riff and you scratch that and say, ‘I’m going to start something on piano this time,’ and build off piano and write a huge piece around piano, it becomes something a little different,” he says.

Another forward step for the quintet was creating the lyrical concept behind the album. Coma Ecliptic is the story of a man who lives in a future where the medical ability to live in past lives is possible. However, despite his wide array of experiences, often disorienting ones, he realizes by the end of the record that he was just in a coma the entire time.

“Concept albums are tricky,” the frontman admits. “I was hesitant. I think it can get cheesy at times. And the way I approach it, I try to write stories that are tasteful, but a little bit off-the-wall.”

After writing several storylines, Rogers ran with the one about the man in the coma because of the way it fit snugly with the music. It opened up a lot of freedom for the songwriter when it came to the diversity of the record instrumentally and the ability to write stories within a story.

“[In] each past life, I could make it get really wild and weird or make it get really dark and mellow—all of these different lives I could create with the mood and the music,” he explains. “That really helped me stay really creative, and it was fun to get to create all these different worlds he experienced.”

The sci-fi approach lyrically, held intact by a swarming sense of strangeness, was inspired in part by The Twilight Zone TV series and the work of director David Lynch. Songs like “Dim Ignition” are built solely on eerie keyboard sounds and winding vocals, while in others, like the smashing, yet complex “King Redeem/ Queen Serene,” the mystery of the narrator’s experiences is incorporated by percussion and piano parts.

“As far as imagery and the mood [Lynch] creates, that was something I thought the story needed,” admits Rogers.

“It needed that confusing, kind of uneasy

feeling, like, ‘What the hell is going on?’”

Along with the musical makeup of the record, Rogers felt the art and packaging was the perfect companion.

For the art, the band went with a photography route this time, and they hoped to tell the album’s story through a sequence of scenes they envisioned.

“It came out so cool,” he says. “I think it fits the lyrics and the music so well. I think just everything’s so cohesive and works well together. I couldn’t be happier.”

Many things about Coma Ecliptic show the typical side of Between The Buried And Me, with powerful riffs and vocals intricately woven around them.

But as the band has found the ability to progress a style of music often described by the term “progressive,” they’ve shown on this record the beauty of change in the way it’s allowed them to grow.

“I think as musicians, when you’re in a band for as long as we’ve been, you learn so much from every record you do and every project you do,” he explains. “Each time you write with someone, you’re learning, and you’re learning something about yourself.”

With critically acclaimed albums like Alaska and Colors in their catalog, the quintet has gained much support in the public eye. While their newest work has maintained passionate support as always, it’s also brought some dissent. Rogers understands the difficulty in accepting change, but feels it’s brought positive results throughout the band’s career.

“I think we’re very lucky we have fans that stand by us trying new things,” he says. “We’ve always, even from day one, tried to push the envelope a little bit.

By growing that and showing our fans that we’re going to do that, it’s prepared everyone to see what’s going to happen.”

Rogers and the rest of the band always take the future day-by-day, so part of the excitement of their career is the way that the future is unpredictable and open to explore. Paralleling their recent musical endeavor, the frontman hopes the way the group pushed themselves can breathe new life into the listening experience, through all of its musical and conceptual twists and turns.

“I think it’s boring when you get a record from a band and are like, ‘Oh, yeah, I knew that’s what it was going to sound like,’” Rogers says. “When I get a record, I personally enjoy putting it on and not knowing what’s going to happen.” S

As far as imagery and the mood David Lynch creates, that was something I thought Coma Ecliptic needed.

It needed that confusing, kind of uneasy feeling, like, ‘What the hell is going on?’” —TOMMY ROGERS [

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Adam Ackerman of Sorority Noise

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DEPRESSION,

PERSEVERANCE

Many of SORORITY NOISE’s fans have connected with the rising emo band thanks to frontman Cameron Boucher’s intensely personal, wide-open lyrics. And in case you were wondering, he’s not faking it.

STORY: Dan Bogosian // PHOTO: Dieter Unrath

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Cameron Boucher was in seventh grade the first time he thought about killing himself.

The guitarist, vocalist and principal songwriter of Sorority Noise was a regular kid in New Hampshire who started going to a new school when he began to feel an inescapable dread.

“I had a fear of failure that I couldn’t describe,” Boucher says. “I just felt stuck. I started inhibiting these feelings of emotional distress and loss, and that’s when I first realized I felt something inexplicable.” At such a young age, he didn’t know that he was suffering from depression;

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all he knew was the uphill battle he faced. As it worsened with the harsh realities of teenage life, Boucher only realized the full depth of the issue after someone dear to him died.

“When I was in eighth grade, one of my best friends passed away,” Boucher says. “My inability to deal and cope with that loss was what really brought a lot of the things I was feeling to light for the first time. But I didn’t go see a therapist; I just tried to deal with them on my own.”

His first visit with a therapist came his freshman year at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music. Within a few sessions, it was clear: The jazz-saxophonist-in-training was prone to manic depression. Knowing he had to deal with the tendencies, the diagnosis first brought on a summer of introspective bed laying before an exploration in drugs.

“I never got to an extreme point where they were ruining my life, but drugs were a coping mechanism that was very negative,” Boucher says. “A lot of my friends at the time were deep into drugs and in a dark place. I wasn’t doing anything immediately life threatening, but I was

using anti-depressants as a way of numbing myself, of not having to deal with shit.”

Those turbulent adventures are referenced throughout Sorority Noise’s new album, Joy, Departed, out on Topshelf Records. He consistently sings about those struggles; on “When I See You (Timberwolf),” layered guitars echo behind a message that’s equally warm and cold, half sweet and half bitter: “If hell is real, I hope you’re enjoying your stay.” “Using,” a Weezer-esque sing-along, opens with a list of painful memories and a refrain of “I started using again” before moving on to a chorus of “I stopped wishing I was dead.” It was only when Boucher gained regular access to drugs that he similarly moved on and cut himself off.

“I was offered a prescription to Xanax,” he mutters, “and I knew at that point it was a terrible idea. I have an addictive personality; I didn’t want to become dependent on drugs and end up with a chemical dependency. I knew if I took the prescription, I would always live my life under that lens, and I didn’t want to get to that point. I was always afraid of drugs,

The generation above mine stays hush-hush about depression, and even when it comes up, most people have this approach of ‘get over it.’ Those are possibly the worst three words you can say to someone.

Everyone can feel depressed sometimes, but we—as people, as society, as individuals— have to be more open and accepting of it.”

—CAMERON BOUCHER

but that really gave me a moment of clarity.

“’Using’ is about more than just those coping years,” he continues. “It harkens back to the different stages over a six-year period of my life, trying to find a solution and the full realization and understanding of what was going on.”

With those years behind him, the musician is able to explore realms beyond the “emo” tag’s normal scope; even on an album titled Joy, Departed, his music goes further than twinkled strings and lyrics about depression itself. The final chorus of “Using” explodes after an a capella burst, changing keys one final time a la the Offspring’s “Americana” or the Who’s “My Generation. “Art School Wannabe” fits like a warm glove as it injects jazz guitars and quiet drum rolls, and Boucher’s strained voice takes aim at certain people who try to simplify and (more woefully) idolize depression. “That song’s about a bunch of kids I knew that went into a façade,” he says. “They put depression on a pedestal, in a way.”

“There were a lot of people I knew who seemed like they wanted to be in art school, but just weren’t or aren’t. They’d [say], ‘Oh, I’m in the wrong generation’ or ‘Oh, my life is just too

hard’ or something like that. And that just seems like a wannabe to me; they didn’t have the balls to go pursue their dreams, so now they’re playing it safe and making a fetish of their sadness.

“That’s not to discount real depression,” he catches himself. “It’s just not a choice you get to make like that, and it’s not something to revel in.”

It may seem like things are easier now for Boucher as the frontman of two successful emo acts—he also plays in Old Gray—but it’s not as simple as living a good life. “Back then, I was high school president and head of the cheering section. I played sports; people never took me as depressed. Just because someone has reasons to be happy doesn’t mean they couldn’t be depressed, and it doesn’t invalidate any feelings.”

He thinks the key is to enable a positive attitude and acknowledge that the struggle is real. “A big key for me is working on it and realizing I have to keep working on it. I have to come to terms with my reality and try to make the best of what I have.”

Nine years after those first suicidal thoughts, Boucher has grown in many ways but remains largely the same person. (“The main difference

[

between then and now is in seventh grade, I had no idea what was going on.”) With a Bachelor’s degree in hand, he’s moved to Philadelphia, engineered an EP for former Sorority Noise bassist Kevin O’Donnell and drummer Jason Rule’s new band Queen Moo, is in a happy (and healthy) relationship and knows what he wants to do with his life. “I want to use big words because my interviews never use big words,” he says with a jovial laugh. “More than that, I want to fight the shame and stigmatization of depression.”

“The generation above mine stays hush-hush about it, and even when it comes up, most people have this approach of ‘get over it.’ Those are possibly the worst three words you can say to someone. Everyone can feel depressed sometimes, but we—as people, as society, as individuals— have to be more open and accepting of it.”

He may sing that he’s “not as dark as [he] thinks” on “Art School Wannabe,” but in real life, he knows who he is. It may not have come easy, but Boucher believes from here out, it’ll come honestly.

“I’ll always have depressive tendencies, but I don’t have to be ashamed of who I am. No one does.” S

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ABANDONMENT

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ISSUES When a band has a razor-focused musical and lyrical vision like DEFEATER does, everything else can fall into place perfectly. In the case of Abandoned, it’s the band’s most powerful album yet.

INTERVIEW: Jason Schreurs PHOTOS: Andrew Wells

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hose who know Defeater already know what kind of a band they are: original, honest, musically and lyrically challenging, and spilling over with integrity. Abandoned, the Massachusetts hardcore quintet’s fourth album (and first on new label Epitaph Records) and a continuation of the band’s ongoing narrative about a troubled family—this time with a twist that many fans of the group’s chilling narratives didn’t expect—is a wholehearted continuation of the band’s impassioned brand of melodic hardcore. Substream recently caught up with vocalist Derek Archambault and guitarists Jay Maas and Jake Woodruff while the band toured Russia to discuss the latest chapter in the band’s ongoing story.

Is it safe to say that Abandoned is a musical continuation of Letters Home?

JAY MAAS: Yeah, totally. We can’t help but sound like Defeater, because it’s us and it’s what we know how to do.

We have a general aesthetic and vision in mind, based around the character that we’ve chosen to write about at any given point, so while we’ll tailor the songs and the sound to the vibe of that character, ultimately it’s us and it’s going to sound like us.

A lot people were expecting the new album to be about the mother of the fictional family that you write about, but you threw us a curve ball with the preacher character. Was that something you decided to do early on?

DEREK ARCHAMBAULT: We started talking about doing a record about this character probably in 2009. It started as just an idea for an EP, born out of a late-night conversation while on tour, but it eventually developed into an LP, and the twists and turns that I put in the story are things I’ve been sitting on since we started talking about doing the record in the first place.

In some ways Defeater is too hardcore for the emo kids, and not hardcore enough for the tough-guy hardcore scene.

You’ve always balanced your sound.

MAAS: I would totally agree. Jake and I share a lot of musical tastes; we like a lot of the same types of hardcore bands, but we also like a ton of indie rock and more melodic stuff, so that definitely shines through, particularly on the new record where we took it further into dark, eerie, post-rockdom sometimes. The rest of the guys probably like hardcore more than Jake and I do, but when we started the band we set out that we didn’t want to be a “hardcore” band. We have an acoustic song right in the middle of the first record we ever did. It’s nice because we can just write whatever we want, and I find that to be really exciting because I don’t have to ever say, “Now it should go into a two-step.” We don’t have to do that.

JAKE WOODRUFF: The dark subject matter of this record gave us more of a chance than the last records to explore this noisier, eerier side of Defeater, and we all had a lot of fun doing that.

I get the sense that you guys are perfectionists when you are recording.

MAAS: Perfection is a subjective term when it comes to recording or anything else. There’s mechanical perfection, which is perfectly on time, but that doesn’t really make a perfect artistic product. I

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know I have a vision in mind for what I want the record to sound like, and these guys would probably confirm that I torture myself trying to get it there. But sometimes that means that guitars can sound loose; they should sound exciting.

There are couple of songs on Abandoned where I just picked up the guitar and played the songs from beginning to end, and that’s just the guitar track. And with Joey [Longobardi], a lot of the drums went in one or two takes. At this point in the band, we are pretty aware of what we want the final product to feel and be like, so it’s easier to steer your ship there if you already know where you’re going.

What are some of the artists that you were inspired by over the years, and especially when you went in to record this album?

ARCHAMBAULT: We all pull from such different things that there can’t just be a list of bands. And it’s not just music that influences these records; there’s literature, films… there’s bits of my actual family history here. As for bands that we all find common ground with, it’s a pretty long list and definitely not anything that we ever sit down and say, “Oh, we want to sound like this band.” The things that happen most naturally are the things that end up on the records. And the musical influence that’s gotten us into bands in the first place is still on these records.

Growing up in the mid-to-late ’90s in the New England punk scene, there were a million bands that brought us here. And I don’t think we’re the first band to toe that line, like you said, too hardcore for the emo kids, and vice versa. Especially in New England when we were growing up and going to hardcore shows, we had bands like Converge and Bane and so many bands that were doing what we do now, and they set a template for us.

How do you feel that you’ve progressed on this new album?

WOODRUFF: With every record, each person gets better at knowing their role in the band and knowing the strengths of the other people. So we just get to go further in the direction of whatever our particular job is in the band, while also being able to suggest things for the other dudes to do, and that comes across as a more cohesive, and in this case, a noisier, angrier record.

ARCHAMBAULT: With this one, especially with all of us being involved from the start, the last two records just feel more like a band. And because we don’t get together and practice all of the time, we hardly get to see each other outside of touring because we all live all

When we started the band we set out that we didn’t want to be a ‘hardcore’ band.

It’s nice because we can just write whatever we want, and I find that to be really exciting because I don’t have to ever say, ‘Now it should go into a two-step.’”

—JAY MAAS

over the place now, but these last two records we’ve taken the opportunity to bounce ideas and suggestions off each other. And we let our strengths—and weaknesses—take over and shine.

WOODRUFF: There were more than a few times recording Abandoned that either me or Jay wouldn’t know what to do for the next part, but we’d have an idea for what the other person could play. There was one part where Jay said, “Just go in there with a reverb pedal and start messing around,” and I totally didn’t hear it at all until I started playing along to the song.

What does it mean to be in this band, and how does it affect your lives?

ARCHAMBAULT: Not to sound ridiculous, but this band is our life at this point.

When we are playing live, or when we are writing or recording, we’re just five friends having a lot of fun doing it, but at the same time it’s incredibly cathartic and we get to be in places like Moscow, Russia, where we are right now, and living out our childhood dreams. This band is exactly what I think all of us wanted to do, right when we were picking up instruments for the first time, and we’re

able to create the music that we actually really want to create, and we’re able to tour the world with our friends. We’ve met so many amazing people and we get to play our hearts out every night and connect with the same kinds of kids that we were at their age. This is our life.

How did writing Abandoned change you?

ARCHAMBAULT: I don’t think it’s really changed anything for me.

WOODRUFF: This was just a chance to top what we did last time for Letters Home.

MAAS: Yeah, I think everyone in the band would probably agree that we always try to outdo ourselves, in one way or another. Like, not saying that we’re fucking cool guys or anything, but, yeah, make it different, make it that much more… Defeater.

ARCHAMBAULT: Don’t print that. [Laughs.] S

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Since the Good Life formed in Omaha, Nebraska, in 2000, the fourpiece has largely been seen as a side project for Cursive’s Tim Kasher, as opposed to a band in their own right. It’s not without reason: The band initially began life as a solo outlet for Kasher after the release of Cursive’s third album, Domestica, that same year. Just five months after Domestica—a not-quite-concept record about a failing marriage—was released, the Good Life’s debut, Novena On A Nocturn came out. A more mellow, emotionally introspective and directly personal reaction to the same events, it set up the idea that the Good Life was an aside, a more hushed and confessional vision of Kasher’s life, compared to the usually louder, rawer and more conceptual songs of Cursive. But that was 15 years ago. Things have changed.

“This is the first album that I think all of us see as actually being the Good Life proper,” explains Kasher over the phone from his home in Chicago. “I think—no, I don’t think, I know—that this is the first time the band really is a band. It’s representative of who all the members are. In the past, with previous albums, I had these ideas for how an album should sound, and it was more them meeting me in the middle.”

That much is apparent. Everybody’s Coming Down is the band’s first album in eight years and marks a noticeable sonic shift for the four-piece, completed by Stefanie Drootin-Senseney (bass/vocals/keyboards), Ryan Fox (guitar/keyboards/vocals/ electronic percussion) and Roger L. Lewis (drums/percussion).

While they all first worked together on 2004’s Album Of The Year, that record, the Good Life’s third, was very much Kasher—so much so, in fact, that it was even released in a limited-edition capacity with a second disc of solo acoustic demos. Since 2007, however, when the band put out their last record, Help Wanted Nights, there have been two Cursive records and two solo Tim Kasher albums. It meant the Good Life’s original intention was gone. They had to change things up. They had to find themselves.

RAMSHACKLE INDIEROCK UNIT THE GOOD LIFE TURNS 15 THIS YEAR—BUT IN MANY WAYS, THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING OF THEIR TRUE EXISTENCE. STORY: Mischa Pearlman // PHOTOS: Tony Bonacci

“For Album Of The Year,” says Kasher, “I needed to do something that was in contrast to [Cursive’s seminal 2003 album] The Ugly Organ. I really needed to go in a different direction with my other band at that time, and so it sounds like the band were accompanying my acoustic-driven songs. And because Help Wanted Nights was meant to be a soundtrack to a script that I was working on, that also, as a result, ended up being fairly confining. I’m really proud of that record, and I see it as a development of us as a band, but for this record, we came together for no other reason than to get together and do a record.”

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While Kasher admits that getting the band back together resulted in “a little bit of timidity,” at the same time it allowed for a fresh start. Musically, the album is incredibly expansive and experimental, and also propelled by a confidence which, until this point in time, has also seemed lacking in their songs—not because of the band’s capabilities, but because the music very explicitly complemented and replicated the fragile and sorrowful state of Kasher’s heart and mind. Now, though, there’s a much more spritely, musically ambitious and experimental step to what they do. It truly sounds like the band members are—gasp!— having fun.

“Everybody came together with such confidence,” Kasher explains. “After all the time we spent away from each other musically, to be able to come back and do it because we are specifically this band made such a difference.”

Yet that difference is also present in the attitude of these songs as well as their musical presentation. While Kasher has, across all his various projects but especially with the Good Life, made a career from wearing his oft-broken, bleeding and blackened heart on his sleeve and unleashing his cathartic, no-holds-barred songs on the world, this Good Life album, though far from happy, seems slightly more positive in its outlook. Kasher, who turned 40 last August, is not looking back on the past with quite such sadly bloodshot and hungover eyes. That’s not to say the extremely personal outpouring that’s defined Kasher’s songwriting has disappeared, but it’s certainly taken something of a back seat.

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FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE, I’M A KIND OF GO-TO FOR POURING A SCOTCH ON THE ROCKS AND FEELING GLUM AND SORRY FOR YOURSELF FOR THE EVENING, AND THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT TO DO WHEN THEY PUT ON A RECORD THAT I WRITE. AND THIS MIGHT NOT BE THAT RECORD.” —TIM KASHER

“That’s something I’ve been sitting with for a bit before the writing for this record started,” he says. “I’m certainly older now than I was when I wrote those other Good Life albums, and I think that age has a lot to do with it. There’s a lot of mortality to the lyrical contents and that kind of drives me now. It’s something I’ve felt like I can’t quite tear away from with the last few albums I’ve done. But I certainly don’t want to dismiss that kind of confessional writing. I think that kind of writing is really important, just for humanity. But I’ve also done a lot of it, and I think I just want to keep trying to stay fresh.”

At the same time, while Everybody’s Coming Down does mark a definite rebirth for the Good Life, Kasher can’t entirely shake the downhearted darkness that has been the driving force behind his songs for so long. His outlook may be slightly more upbeat nowadays, but as the morning-after-thenight-before title of the record suggests, it’s almost as if he’s anticipating the next crash.

“It is a typically downer title for us,” he half-chuckles. “But initially it started with

what became a short obsession that I had with anticipating things so much and never feeling like you can quite experience them in the moment. We’re always just living just after that moment, it seems like. It’s kind of crass, but I think the orgasm is one of the best analogies for that. You seek the orgasm so much, and then you achieve it and you’re just so deflated.”

He pauses for a second, perhaps lost in this overtly sexual analogy, before, bringing it back to the new record. For Kasher, the perpetual goal seems to be trying to move forward while staying true to his both his heart and his muse. “I certainly recognize that for a lot of people,” he says, “I’m a kind of go-to for pouring a Scotch on the rocks and feeling glum and sorry for yourself for the evening, and that’s what they want to do when they put on a record that I write. And this might not be that record. I don’t want to be that, and I try not to be that by doing different records. But I also recognize that I tend to come back to those types of stories.”

The more things change, it seems, the more they stay the same. S

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LOS ANGELES PUNKS FIDLAR ARE YOUNG, LOUD AND SNOTTY— BUT THEY’RE LEARNING TO REIN IT IN FOR THEIR OWN SAFETY. STORY: Matthew Leimkuehler PHOTOS: Alice Baxley

FIDLAR’s brash, abrasive and boastful version of punk rock finds full form with the band’s sophomore LP, Too. While not as loud as their self-titled 2013 debut, yet undeniably progressive from every musical angle, the record shows a band flourishing in all the ways a fan would want a band to flourish with a sophomore effort. The snotty songs are snottier, the sassy songs are sassier and the bombastic tracks are louder than ever before. “We could’ve made the first record again,” says FIDLAR frontman Zac Carper, “but that just seems so boring to me. We wanted to challenge ourselves.”

For those who haven’t heard FIDLAR, it’s kind of like the Beach Boys meets the Blood Brothers meets Dookie-era Green Day. It’s loud, melodic, fun punk music, plain and simple. While the first LP focuses on a central theme of drugs, partying, alcohol and surfing—the chorus of the record’s opening number, “Cheap Beer,” is “I drink cheap beer. So what? Fuck you!”—Carper says he looked for the band to push past that mold on Too, while also pushing the band’s sound to be better. “[When] people talk about the first record [they say], ‘You guys sing about a lot of drugs and alcohol,’” Carper says, “and that’s probably because we were doing a lot of drugs and alcohol. [With] this new record, I wanted to challenge ourselves with trying something else. If you party too much, it gets really boring. That’s kind of where our heads were at, ya know?

“When I was writing the material, I was trying to deal with my problems without the help of things that God has left us with, like drugs and alcohol,” he continues. “It was a definite change of trying to figure shit out.”

The sound of FIDLAR doesn’t just fall into one music scene— it’s nearly impossible to pigeonhole. Some tracks off Too, like “Sober,” fit perfectly with a surf-rock crowd; others, like “Punks,” ooze the essence of raw rock ’n’ roll; “Why Generation” and “Stupid Decision” wouldn’t be out of place blaring through the PA to a crowd at Warped Tour. It’s like there’s a little something for every fan of guitar-driven music to embrace about FIDLAR, and that’s never been more evident in the band’s career than on their new record.

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“Somebody said to me one time, when they listened to the songs I was recording in my room, that it’s ‘kind of like a mix tape,’ and that’s just because we all listen to different stuff,” Carper says. “When we started, we were too punk for the indie crowd and too indie for the punk crowd. We weren’t a part of any scene because we just fit in this weird area.

“When that happened, early on, we couldn’t get any venue shows,” he continues.

“That’s why we played all these house parties. Because nobody knew where to fit us, ya know? For me, personally, I found a comfort in that.”

Carper says he sees the cross-genre punk-backbone stylings work at shows.

“I think the one thing, too, about FIDLAR, is we have a pop sensibility with our melodies. That’s one thing I learned early on when we were writing songs. I grew up in bumfuck Hawaii—the only thing we had was the radio. And we only had one station and it was the pop station. So all I listened to growing up was pop music.”

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The band took a nearly a full year off from touring before diving back into the studio for Too. Carper says the new songs were initially written on an acoustic guitar before being taken to the rest of the band and producer Jay Joyce, who spent a whirlwind two weeks in Nashville recording Too. Carper says Joyce—who has worked with everyone from Eric Church to Cage The Elephant—is the most eccentric producer he’s ever worked with. “[In every] true sense of what a producer is, he lives it and breathes it,” Carper explains. “He is the real fucking deal. And I picked that up when we met him. The guy is in his own world, and I love that about him. It was tough doing it in 14 days, but we somehow made it work. It’s pretty fucking incredible, man.”

The announcement for Too came via a clever music video parodying fan favorites from decades past. Spanning mostly ’80s and ’90s pop music, Carper dons multiple personas—from Missy Elliott to Britney Spears to Eminem and beyond— throughout the clip. He says the influence

came from wanting to replicate videos he grew up watching, like Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun,” Sugar Ray’s “Fly” and Oasis’ “Wonderwall.” The most impressive part? The video was shot in one day.

“My brother-in-law, who shoots our videos, and I were like, ‘Let’s just see how many music videos we can make on our budget,’” Carper recalls. “And we came up with 15 music videos that we just replicated in our own style. We filmed it one day. It was kind of a long day.”

Although dressing up as a convincing parody of Britney Spears a la “...Baby One More Time” puts off the aura that FIDLAR is all fun, Too shows a more serious side.

“Overdose”—which Carper confirms was born out of a period in his life when he overdosed three times in one month—is gripping, dark and provocative. “I’m literally whispering the whole song—which is weird for FIDLAR, because we usually yell the whole time,” he says. “That’s a pretty heavy song for me.

It was one of the hardest songs to record because it took me in this weird headspace.”

WHEN PEOPLE TALK ABOUT OUR FIRST RECORD, THEY SAY, ‘YOU GUYS SING ABOUT A LOT OF DRUGS AND ALCOHOL’—AND THAT’S PROBABLY BECAUSE WE WERE DOING A LOT OF DRUGS AND ALCOHOL.” —ZAC CARPER

Juxtaposed to “Overdose” is the lighthearted and poppy “Sober.” Its infectious chorus, which climaxes with the line, “Life just sucks when you get sober,” shows the peak of how musically and emotionally fun FIDLAR can be.

“Sober,” in all of its whimsical glory, is a song destined to translate well into the energetic show the band brings.

“I was listening to a lot of Eminem [when] recording that song,” the singer admits. “It’s pretty much just me having a temper-tantrum. I’m excited for people to hear that.”

So what’s in store for the band after Too is released and beyond? “Just a lot of touring,” Carper concludes. “We’re trying to step up the production [of our shows] and maybe we’ll get a tour bus one day; you never know.” He pauses to laugh. “Shootin’ for the stars here.” S

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STILL FAT AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

FAT WRECK CHORDS has never scored a gold record, rarely landed a music video on MTV and completely refused to ride any sort of musical trends—and that’s why it’s still in business after 25 years.

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HE ID SA

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E D BY W E I V R E T N I , FAT M I K E GNER E S R O G N A I R ’B NIGHT BIRDS

PHOTOS: Al

ass an Snodgr

You created Fat Wreck Chords with your onetime girlfriend, then wife, now ex-wife Erin.

Which one of you came up with the idea to start the label?

Your favorite musicians pick their favorite Fat Wreck Chords releases.

BILLY HAMILTON, SILVERSTEIN

LESS TALK, MORE ROCK by PROPAGANDHI is an essential punk record. It delivers fast, pissed, snarky and smart hooks with its tongue firmly placed in cheek. Many of my political and ethical world views were shaped by the finger pointing sing-alongs along the lines of “Meat is still murder, dairy’s still rape and I am still as stupid as anyone but I know my mistakes/I have recognized one form of oppression now I’ll recognize the rest/Life’s too short to make others shorter!”

MIGUEL CHEN, TEENAGE BOTTLEROCKET

I know it might sound cliche, but I gotta say THE DECLINE by NOFX. When that record came out, I had no idea it was just one long song, I just saw it in stores, thought, “Rad, a new NOFX CD,” and picked it up. I was blown away by what I thought was the third song, so I kept trying to skip back to it—and that’s when I realized the whole thing was one track. That blew my fucking mind. My favorite band had done something no other punk band had done, and it was amazing!

BILLY HAMILTON: DAVID PYKE MIGUEL CHEN: DAWN WILSON JEREMY BOLM: JUNE ZANDONA

It was my idea, and I always signed all the bands. Before we had an office, Erin would fill retail orders and mailorder when I was on tour. Then in about ’93 when we got an office, we ran it together.

She did all the accounting and I signed the bands. These days, I hardly go in anymore. I sign bands and go to the weekly meeting, but she runs the place.

What was the last day job you held before being full-time NOFX and full-time Fat Wreck Chords?

I worked in the back of a couple of women’s shoe stores because that was my dad’s business, and for a pharmacy delivering drugs. Before that, it was McDonald’s. Shit, it all makes sense now: I’m a drug-using fat guy that loves to wear high heels! Nurture wins over nature!

Best Fat album to make sweet love to?

If you can make it through The Decline, your lady is stoked!

How the hell did Fat weather the virtual crash of the music industry? I mean, you’re still a viable operation where majors are shedding people left and right and trying to reinvent themselves.

We had to shed staff too. We had four offices around the world and 18 employees in the ’90s because we were selling between a million and two million records a year. It was insane!

Tilt sold 60,000 records! The reinventing thing never happened. I wouldn’t do that to our fans. I started Fat Wreck Chords to be a label that represented me. I only signed bands that I liked and that had similar beliefs as me. I wanted punk bands that were drunks and drug users that cared about playing music and having a good time more than they cared about becoming a success. There was no way I was gonna put out music just because it was popular at the time. I want Fat to be pure. I want people who got Fat tattoos in the ’90s to still be proud of that tattoo in 2020.

JEREMY BOLM, TOUCHÉ AMORÉ

Fat Wreck Chords has a strong catalog. It’s very hard to choose just one record as a favorite. It was a toss up between Smoke Or Fire’s Above The City or THE LAWRENCE ARMS’ THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD, but I’m going Larry Arms. The Greatest Story Ever Told is as clever as it is catchy. I feel strongly that Chris McCaughan and Brendan Kelly mastered their vocal juxtaposition on this album. Dueling in and out between snarky, fast punk with pop-culture references to melodic, heartfelt, borderline (dare I say?) emo. This record offers so much that as perfect upon every revisit.

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E H S D I A S

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E D BY W E I V R E T N I , T T LL ERIN BURKE A H N O S A J ’S N I CT I O W E ST E R N A D D

Photog ten Wright PHOTO: Kris

raphs

BUDDY NIELSEN, What does it take nowadays for a band to get your attention?

This is an interesting question, because there are times when I still think I might have to go get a real job. The first few years, I kept my day job at a public relations firm because I thought there was no way we would be able to pay our rent and expenses on label income. When I finally quit, I figured it would be a few years, and I’d have to go “back to work.” I still can’t believe it’s been 25 years and we are still going strong. I feel like this last year has been one of our best ever.

I don’t think much has changed in the last 25 years in terms of what bands we sign at Fat. We sign bands with music we want to listen to played by people that we want to hang out with. Of course, in addition to that, we need the band to be hard working and willing to tour. The last band that made me stop in my tracks is Pears. They are the first band that I can remember signing without having met, which breaks all of our rules.

However, I heard the record, and I just felt this surge of adrenaline rush through me.

It made me feel 15 years old and angry again, and I loved it. Then I saw them live, and I can’t remember the last time I was so impressed with a new band. They are insane.

Who would be your dream artist to sign?

In your words, what is Fat known for?

I’m not sure I have a dream artist. I like to work with people who I mesh with personally and musically. I have always regretted not signing Matt Skiba And The Sekrets when we had the opportunity. I would love to do something with Skiba in the future.

I hope we are best known for treating our bands like family. For the most part, we sign our bands to one record deals, treat them fairly and honestly, and keep our promises.

For my part, I have tried to cultivate a feeling of mutual respect between the bands and the label. I’ve said it before, but these bands are truly family to me. I try to have an emotional investment with everyone on our label. Oh, yeah, and music. We’re known for putting out consistently good punk tunes.

At what point did you realize you were doing something special and it could turn into a life versus a hobby?

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SENSES FAIL

LESS TALK, MORE ROCK by PROPAGANDHI is my favorite Fat release of all time.

They were the first group of humans beings that I heard talking about things like Gaza, animal rights, racism and feminism. It helped shape the way in which I took in ideas through music and carved a path for me to become interested in more political music. Backing up all the of the sociopolitical lyrics is awesome, well-written fun music to have gotten stoned to when I was 16.

RYAN SEAMAN,

FALLING IN REVERSE

NO USE FOR A NAME’s HARD ROCK BOTTOM came out right after I graduated high school, and I got to open for them on a tour while playing drums for the Eyeliners. It reminds me of a period when bands were actually good. The whole album front to back kicks your teeth in with its live feel, exciting energy on recording and Tony Sly’s incredible lyrics and choice of vocal harmony arrangements. When you heard their record, you’d get the same thing live. Miss you, Tony. RIP.

BUDDY NIELSEN: THE ‘80s

WHY FAT WRECK CHORDS STILL MATTERS

by Greg Pratt

Legendary punk record label Fat Wreck Chords (started and still co-owned by NOFX bassist/vocalist Fat Mike and his now-ex-wife Erin Burkett) is spending 2015 celebrating its 25th year of putting out punk rock. Sure, it’d be the punk rock thing to do to give ’em the middle finger and say, “Who gives a fuck?” But here’s why we should be giving a fuck.

Fat Wreck Chords has never strayed from their original goal of putting out good punk rock. Show me one Fat album that was put out to make money or because the band was “buzzing.” It’s never happened. Just put out music you like: it’s why everyone starts a record label, but when times are tough we see other record labels chase the dollar sign, something Fat never did.

Fat Wreck Chords matters because the music industry is a horrible place full of dishonesty and ulterior motives. How many bands have you heard complain about their contracts with other labels over the years?

I know I’ve heard countless gripes through

GARRET RAPP,

THE COLOR MORALE

PROPAGANDHI’s first album HOW TO CLEAN EVERYTHING is still to this day my favorite Fat release. I think it’s ironic that the first lyrics we hear on this album are “Dance and laugh and play/Ignore the message we convey/It seems we’re only here to entertain/A rebellion cut to fit/Well, I refuse to be the soundtrack to it.” Twenty-two years later, I identify to those lyrics still, but from a different side of the headphones. This album reminds me that 22 years from now, I could read somewhere that something I wrote made the kind of impact on someone that didn’t just “entertain”—that’s beautiful to me.

JAY MAAS: ANDREW WELLS JONATHAN DIENER: ASHLEY HAMILTON

my years of interviewing bands. With labels that we all thought were great, to boot. Fat got around this by, famously, offering onealbum record deals based on nothing more than a handshake—and not using that to rip bands off. Just the opposite, exactly.

It’s difficult to find bands to say anything bad about Fat, as far as their business practices go (believe me, we tried for our movie to provide some balance, but no luck). They pay on time, and they pay fairly, and that’s never wavered. Quick, find me five other underground labels that operate at the level that Fat does that all of the above applies to. It’s hard. That’s why Fat matters.

They don’t brag about this stuff, either.

Heck, they might not even want me going on about it. They don’t hold their ethics high and loud and proud. They just live it.

Let’s not forget the actual music.

Fat Wreck Chords put out the first four Propagandhi albums. Think about that. That’s one of the most important, inspiring and downright ass-kicking collection of music

JAY MAAS,

in punk rock history. They are the only label that Lagwagon and Strung Out have ever put out full-lengths on. Two more words: Good Riddance. There are lots of other words like that that prove why Fat matters, historically: No Use For A Name. Tilt. NOFX.

But then there’s the later-era stuff. Once you stopped going on about “snowboarding videos” and stopped paying attention to first-era Fat bands (just kidding, I know that wasn’t you, but you probably had a bud who did), Fat’s sound changed dynamics a bit. It was still melodic punk, but it got a bit more rough around the edges. Avail. Dillinger Four. Rise Against.

Anti-Flag. Against Me!. Smoke Or Fire. The Lawrence Arms. Banner Pilot. These are great bands, and here’s the real beauty of Fat: They grew up as we, the listeners, grew up. What Lagwagon’s Duh meant to me when it first came out Banner Pilot’s Souvenir meant to me when it came out all those years later. And that’s why Fat Wreck Chords matters.

JONATHAN DIENER THE SWELLERS/ BRAIDEDVEINS

DEFEATER

I think CAVALCADE by THE FLATLINERS is damn near perfect. It effortlessly weaves elements of pop-punk into ska, and then next thing you know the tempo is rising and they just start shredding.

A lot of bands try to make smart records that take a lot of chances, but they can often come across disjointed and jarring. The Flatliners completely smoothed out every last rough edge without watering down the final product.

As a songwriter and producer I know how hard that is to do correctly, I have nothing but respect for them.

Greg Pratt has spent the past few years making the documentary A Fat Wreck about the history and influence of Fat Wreck Chords. You can learn more at AFATWRECK.COM.

I loved the melodic punk stylings of NO USE FOR A NAME for years, but I felt like MORE BETTERNESS! was the pinnacle of their signature sound. It wasn’t full of metal riffs and gruff vocals—just amazing storytelling and melodies. Every guitar lead was memorable and everything was upbeat. Although written by older dudes, it was the perfect album for my awkward adolescence and helped me grow up realizing that I wasn’t the only one who was weird.

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it n e e s t s ju t o n s a h RNER U T K N A R F r u o d a b u show it. to — English folk tro s o o tt ta d n a rs— a c s e th h it w , ll a it his d d n a r e e r a c all, he’s live ic s u m is f both h o s n w o d d n a s p u e n. io s s a p is h But through th t: n ta s n o c ained m e r s a h g in th e n o , hell Wojcik personal life PHOTOS: Mitc a STORY: Misch

Pearlman

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Frank Turner is sitting at the studio control room desk of the Gibson Showroom in Manhattan, a tiny crowd of music industry types behind him and a few beer bottles beside him. The Englishman’s head is bowed but his arms are aloft, air-drumming to the songs from his sixth full-length, Positive Songs For Negative People, that emanate from the speakers. His back remains to the crowd for the entire duration of its 12 tracks, the 33-year-old not wanting to see their faces as the songs are unveiled for the first time. He’ll face them—and maybe 100 more people—later that night, though, during a very intimate secret show at the Grand Victory, a bar/venue in Williamsburg. But for now he’s being coy.

“The reason I turned my back to the audience,” he explains in the taxi from the studio to the venue, “is that if I hadn’t done that, I’d have been eyeballing everybody. It’s a weird feeling, because part of you just wants to confront them and ask, ‘Are you enjoying it? What do you think?’ Because it’s my baby and I’ve spent a lot of my life working on it and it’s the first time anyone outside the inner circle has heard it. But I didn’t want to be that guy asking everyone, ‘Do you like it? Do you like it?’ so I thought it was better if I turned my back. But I fucking love it. That was me trying to hold it together and not fucking just air-drum to the entire record. It’s the first time I’ve heard it that loud in a little while, and I think it sounds good loud.”

It certainly does. He plays a number of songs from the album later that night— show No. 1,677, according to the tally he keeps on his website, since his first gig as a solo artist on September 18, 2004— and they’re full of the vital energy and desperate poetry that’s defined his music since that first gig and before, when he fronted the now-defunct hardcore outfit Million Dead. More than anything, though, there’s a real joy to Turner’s delivery of the new material. There are numerous reasons for that, but the most immediate one is this: The record is now in the public domain. People have heard it. Yet even before the playback, there’s a palpable sense of relief and happiness to Turner’s demeanor. Earlier in the day, sitting in the mid-afternoon, early-summer sun on a large private balcony of a Times Square hotel, he is unable to contain his sheer delight that the album is finished.

When he talks, it’s both at length and very openly, and for over an hour, the

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conversation offers an unfiltered glimpse into his heart, his mind, his music.

“The main thing at the moment is that the record’s done,” beams Turner, his weathered T-shirt doing little to cover his tattoo-laden arms. “And I won. It’s exactly what I wanted it to be and it’s exactly how I wanted it to sound. And I won all the arguments that I had. I don’t quite want to call them fights, because I’m not interested in slagging off the label or anything, but communicating what I thought the record should be took some time. I had battles to win and I won them.”

Back home in England, Turner is signed, as he was in his days fronting post-hardcore act Million Dead, to independent label Xtra Mile, which is owned and run by his manager.

However, since 2013’s fifth full-length, Tape Deck Heart, his albums here in America have been released by Polydor/ Interscope—which, he freely admits, is where and why those battles arose.

“The first record you release when you’re licensed to a major is gravy,” he says, “because you just signed with them and they have to do what you want.

Obviously, I’m a grown-up and I knew when

I started working with a major label that this kind of thing was a potential issue. I have final say on everything creatively, but if you piss off everyone you planning on working on your record with…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, instead trailing off and starting again, an indication of the more considered, business-wise side of his character.

“The producer we were lined up with,” he continues, with a wry smile on his face, “who I’m not going to name because I don’t wish to do him down, we fell out about our methodology during the tour. Two to three months [of studio time] were booked, and I pulled the plug.

The label was not stoked. Everyone was just, ‘Really?!? That’s…fine. Whatever you want to do—you motherfucker…’”

That Turner was and still is so headstrong is no surprise—he has a reputation for straight talk, emotionally, politically and everything in between.

He wears his heart on his sleeve and isn’t afraid to fight for what he believes in. But he wasn’t just being difficult for the sake of being difficult. He did it because in order to make this the album he believed it had to be.

“There’s a false notion that gets pitched by people who work at major labels,” he says matter-of-factly, “which is if you don’t agree with them you’re a difficult artist who doesn’t want to sell records. And it’s like, ‘No—I want to sell lots of records and I want to be successful at what I do, but I think I know in this instance what a better decision would be.’

Album six is not an interesting number intrinsically, and most bands, by the time they’ve got to their sixth album, have started repeating themselves. Or they take radical stylistic turns that sometimes work and sometimes don’t. So I felt like there was a real onus on me to justify releasing another record. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the likes of Neil Young and David Bowie and people like that—reinvention is the essence of longevity, but it’s a dangerous card to play because you try to tread that line between not repeating yourself and not abandoning what it was that made you interesting.”

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In the end, it was Butch Walker who helped Turner and his band, the Sleeping Souls, reconcile those two things and the line between them. Known for his work—both as a producer and co-writer—with a diverse range of artists, from Fall Out Boy to Avril Lavigne, Taylor Swift to Weezer, Walker’s role on Positive Songs For Negative People wasn’t quite as involved as it has been with other artists.

“I was having real difficulty finding somebody who I felt was on the same page as me about the record,” remembers Turner. “We demoed this album extensively and rehearsed and rehearsed. A lot of production sometimes involves deconstructing songs and putting them back together. Me and the Sleeping Souls know how to do that anyway, and we’ve done it a million times. Sometimes it’s difficult to explain what a producer does. Sometimes it means they help you with arrangements, and sometimes it means they move microphones around, but sometimes it just means they bring a kind of élan to the project that is required. What I needed was a producer who trusted me and the band, and who didn’t need to make his own mark on the record. The key to unlocking this record was when I found out that Butch Walker was a producer. I knew he was a musician—I’ve got his records, I think they’re great—and [friend and photographer] Ben Morse went, ‘Why don’t you talk to Butch Walker about production?’ and I said, ‘Does he produce?’ and Ben said, ‘Yeah, he’s one of the biggest producers in the fucking world!’”

Of course, someone of Walker’s high profile doesn’t come cheap.

“I mentioned him to the label, the label said, ‘Brilliant idea—way too expensive,’ and I went ‘Oh, fuck off.’ I went on my Facebook and said, ‘Do I know anybody who knows Butch Walker?’ It turns out I know loads of people who know Butch. I got put in touch with him and he said, ‘Love your stuff, totally into it.’ So I booked a flight to Chicago in October and flew out, we spent two days hanging out and within 10 minutes of the first conversation

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“We played in Alabama on Sunday.

It’s Tuesday today. I’m still covered in glitter and I’m still not entirely sure why.” we had, he said this exact sentence: ‘Everything I think about production and songwriting is based on the first two Weezer records.’ And I went: ‘Cool—we don’t really have anything else to talk about now!’ From that point, we went to Nashville in December—Butch has a studio there—and we cut the record live in nine days. Butch made some changes here and there and tightened some things up and simplified some things. We worked about four hours a day and did a song a day. And with the exception of one song, every single vocal take on the record is one take, no edits—and I’m fucking proud of that, because I’ve never considered myself to be a particularly technically adept singer.”

While Walker’s involvement in the record might seem like a deliberate move to conquer the American market, Turner insists that’s not the case. After all, Turner is a man whose career, from day one, has been a slow and steady climb, an accumulation of more than 10 years of perspiration, perseverance and tireless touring. That dedication to the cause has seen him, in Britain, graduate from bars and clubs of a similar size to the Grand Victory to headlining a sold-out show at Wembley Arena to 12,000 people in 2012, as well as supporting Green Day at Wembley Stadium in front of 90,000 people two years earlier. (Both of those occasions have been commemorated permanently on his left arm, the place and dates inked in freehand, the former at the show itself, between the main set and the encore.) Unsurprisingly, then, Turner’s approach to America is exactly the same.

“There’s this obsession in England about

breaking America,” he says, “as if your only possible options for touring over here are stadiums or don’t bother going. And it’s like, ‘I do all right as it is!’ It’s a particularly English form of music snobbery, that. But obviously, I am ambitious and I hope we do well in America because it’s a large country and I like American people and I love American culture, but those considerations are such a smaller order of magnitude than how I want to record to be, so they wouldn’t influence my choice of producer or studio.”

Rather, the intention for Turner and the Sleeping Souls was to capture the essence of their live shows on record, which is exactly what they managed. Positive Songs For Positive People is surely the most cohesive and consistent Frank Turner album to date. Not only does it mark the completion of his transition from folk-punk solo artist into a full-blown rock band—while all the songs were written by and credited to Turner, this record’s arrangements are collective—but, as its title suggests, it also marks a more positive attitude for the Hampshire-born musician. Born on December 28, 1981, Turner is no stranger to heavy nights out, something chronicled in the vast majority of his songs, as well as his tour memoirs, The Road Beneath My Feet, published earlier this year. But after a decade of partying, excessive drinking and the occasional dalliance with illicit substances, not to mention an insane touring schedule (“2013 very nearly killed all of us because the schedule was so fucking hard,” he says), Turner’s lifestyle was beginning to take its toll. Indeed, Tape Deck Heart was a record obsessed with mortality and the fragility of not just the human condition, but the body as well.

“Tape Deck Heart feels like an odd record to me now,” says Turner. “It feels like it was something that I had to get out of my system. It’s a record that’s about a break-up, about failure, about screwing something up that matters—and not when you’re young, but when you’re in your 30s. It’s not a particularly sunny record. The theme

“Who wants to deliver a body to your grave that has no nicks and scratches?

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There’s a false notion that gets pitched by people who work at major labels, which is if you don’t agree with them you’re a difficult artist who doesn’t want to sell records.

of Tape Deck Heart was just the idea that when you’re 17, you could still be an astronaut. When you’re 33, you’re probably not going to be one, unless you’re already in the training program. And of course that’s still true, but I think there’s a more positive spin on [this record]—like, fuck it, man, you can still achieve things with your life. It’s not songs that say, ‘Don’t worry, be happy’; it’s songs that say, ‘Do worry, because the world is awful, but then go, ’Fuck it!’

“I remember when I wrote ‘The Ballad Of Me And My Friends,’” Turner continues, “I was 23 and I had this idea of the doomed nature of what we’re doing, like we’re all hanging around in bars and playing, but probably we’ll all have office jobs and this will be a fond memory in a few years’ time. And Jay [McAllister, Turner’s longtime friend who plays politically charged folk under the moniker Beans On Toast] called me up and went, ‘Fuck you, man! This is what I do. I’m not going to jack this in and get an office job; I’m going to run bars and play shows for the rest of my fucking life.’ And I went, ‘Ah, yeah—me too.’”

So he did. A decade later and six albums in, Turner—who declares himself happily single at the moment—continues to chronicle his life, his passions, his philosophies, his sadnesses through his songs. This time, though, in keeping with the album’s title and overriding theme, these were less a form of

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catharsis than a self-prophesying arm around the shoulder.

“There’s an in-built time delay to the record-making process,” he says. “Most of these songs were finished in the first half of last year. The second half of last year was quite a downbeat time for me. I’m not in any way asking for sympathy, but my love life is a source of entertainment to my friends at this point because it’s just a mess. And in a weird way, by the time we go around to making the record and mixing it earlier this year, it was almost like a record that I needed to hear myself to pull me out of a not particularly great patch of my own life. It was almost as if I’d written it in advance to help myself out a little bit later. But right now, sitting on this wonderful balcony, my main feeling in life is ‘Fucking finally!’ We’re getting there.”

While Turner’s priorities, and his attitude to what he does, have shifted over the years—he doesn’t get drunk before gigs anymore, and he took a whole month off alcohol when making Positive Songs—he still likes to indulge. It’s just that these days, he’s more aware of, and more susceptible to, the consequences.

“Being constantly hungover and then drunk is not a particularly adult way to exist,” he admits. “But I can’t lie to you.

We played Hangout Festival [in Alabama] on Sunday. It’s Tuesday today. I’m still covered in glitter and I’m still not entirely sure why. I

And it’s like, ‘No—I want to sell lots of records and I want to be successful at what I do, but I think I know in this instance what a better decision would be.’”

just kind of woke up on Monday and everyone else was like, ‘Dude, you are covered in glitter,’ and it was like, ‘Oh. Yeah. Whoop! Let’s hear it for hot tubs!’ Anyway… I don’t want to kill myself, but I’m living my life. I like the fact that Dennis Hopper got kicked out of a bar for doing lines off the bar when he was in his 60s. It’s not because I want to glorify alcoholism or drug abuse, though. And of course you have your mornings when you wake up and you go, ‘I’m 33. I don’t want to be this person anymore.’ I think there is a happy medium out there somewhere, but I’m not the best person at moderation in this world. It’s not one of my skills and it never has been.

“I’m not interested in wanton self-destruction,” Turner continues, perhaps rationalizing his actions. “I’m not a problem drinker. I don’t end up fucking up my life because of drinking. I enjoy it. It’s fun. I can’t drink alcohol before I’ve had dinner. I don’t day drink ever, because it just ruins my days. Once I start drinking, I’ve got about four or five hours in me before it’s bedtime. If I have a beer with lunch, I’m fucked.”

Still, the reckless punk rock kid with a penchant for self-destructive debauchery still very much exists.

By the end of the evening—after the interview, after the photo shoot, after the gig—Turner, much like everyone else still at the Grand Victory, is stinking drunk. And not just mildly. Excessively so. Because why not?

“Who wants to deliver a body to your grave that has no nicks and scratches?” he asks rhetorically on that balcony, before the carnage that later ensues.

“When you’re done with this vessel, it should like it was used. You should have gray hairs and cirrhosis of the liver and tattoos and scars. All those fitness and diet fanatics, I want to grab them and go, ‘You are going to die as well! You do know this?!’ There’s no getting away from it, and I’d rather inhabit a more adventurous life for a shorter period of time. I want the tread to be run down on the tires when it gets handed back to the shop.”

True to his words, and with his work for the evening done, Turner eventually clambers into a taxi in the early hours of the Williamsburg morning and heads back to his Manhattan hotel with friends—and a girl—in tow. The next afternoon, he sends Substream a short, simple and to-the-point text message: “Life is pain,” it reads. “I’m about to get in the shower crying.” S

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LEAD REVIEW

6

10

Life’s Not Out To Get You HOPELESS (hopelessrecords.com)

TOP TRACK: “Can’t Kick Up The Roots”

6

BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE 10

Tom Barnes

It’s undeniable: Wrexham, United Kingdom, pop-punk quintet Neck Deep has undergone one of the most remarkable bouts of success the Warped Tour realm has seen in quite sometime.

Forming only three years ago, the band has found themselves on a nonstop rise to mainstream recognition, going from playing basements in their homeland to signing with heavyweight indie label Hopeless Records, touring internationally and sharing bills with the likes of genre giants Blink-182 and All Time Low. With such a surge of attention given to the band after their enjoyable debut LP Wishful Thinking, it’s understandable why Neck Deep would want to rush back into the studio to produce a follow-up just 16 months later. However, the band’s urgency to create new material ultimately works against them, as their sophomore album Life’s Not Out To Get You feels shortsighted as the band’s next step in fully realizing the evolution of their sound—though some fun is still to be had.

It feels strange to write that last sentence, too, because for all intents and purposes, Neck Deep doesn’t do anything wrong, per se, on

Venom RCA TOP TRACK: “No Way Out”

Following the departure of previous bassist Jason James, Jamie Mathias has taken the helm on bass full-time to assist metal quartet Bullet For My Valentine in their fifth studio effort Venom. The group possesses their highest energy within “No Way Out,” producing a sound that packs a powerful punch, with vocalist Matt Tuck showing off his chops with an infectious chorus. Long time fans of Bullet will be satisfied with the typical jaw-dropping guitar solos in tracks such as “Army Of Noise.” The quartet channels an Underoath-esque style a cappella intro in “You Want a Battle? (Here’s A War),” producing a melodic style that adds an eerie feel to the track. All in all, there are a few tracks on the album that stand out as heavy hitters, but the overall direction of the group seems to take on a more stagnant feel from not straying too far from the path they’ve set before them in previous releases. —Eric Spitz

REVIEWS

NECK DEEP

8

LNOTGY. If anything’s to be criticized on their new material, however, it’s that the songs either don’t match the initial excitement of the band’s previous releases, or that they feel too derivative to fully appreciate. While some tracks do an excellent job of pushing the band in the direction they need to be (the bouncy, ear-grabbing “Can’t Kick Up The Roots,” the goofy, hard-hitting “Citizens Of Earth”), others come and go with little effect on the listener. Some of the tracks show signs of breaking new ground (the beautiful beginning of “I Hope This Comes Back To Haunt You”; Jeremy McKinnon’s blink-and-you-missed-it cameo on “Kali Ma”) but sadly those aren’t enough to label LNOTGY as any sort of instant classic on their own.

That said, there is still a bit to enjoy on LNOTGY. The production is crisp, thanks to scene veteran Andrew Wade, as well as A Day To Remember’s Jeremy McKinnon and Tom Denney, whose influence on the band is much appreciated.

While not a masterpiece, LNOTGY still has enough surprises, genuine charm and a strong enough vision to both keep fans happy and the band afloat, despite its flaws. —Landon Defever

MAC DEMARCO 10

Another One CAPTURED TRACKS (capturedtracks.com) TOP TRACK: “No Other Heart”

Mac DeMarco—father of jizz-jazz, king of slacker rock—promptly delivers an equally impressive follow up to last year’s critical success Salad Days with this eight-song mini-album. Another One doesn’t stray far from his established groovy, yet warped take on guitar rock, but makes itself unique within his discography.

DeMarco’s signature quirked-out guitar sound kicks off opener “The Way You’d Love Her,” while the title track trades in guitars for keyboards, which make an increased appearance on the album to provide chunky chords and hazy backgrounds. DeMarco also takes on a slight ’70s-rock influence, particularly on the Grateful Dead-reminiscent “I’ve Been Waiting For Her.” The lyrical content focuses on longing and lost love, but DeMarco’s charm keeps the songs from becoming dreary or off-putting. While Another One ends with a literal invitation to DeMarco’s home, the mellow vibe throughout does plenty to invite listeners in. —Cameron Carr

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HIGHLIGHT REVIEW 8

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NEVER SHOUT NEVER

Black Cat WARNER BROS. TOP TRACK: “Red Balloon” One of the best things about Never Shout Never is you never know quite what to expect from each new evolution of the band. Their latest album, Black Cat, is a slightly more polished pop product, as opposed to the more raw, folk sound of Never Shout Never’s past efforts. “All Is Love” reminds listeners that an open heart and a positive mindset can make all the difference in the world. “Peace Song” features frontman Christofer Drew on ukulele, reminiscent of his earliest songs that made fans fall in love with him to begin with. “Red Balloon” explores themes of self-realization and awakening through the perspective of a runaway balloon, while the title track has an articulate, almost Weezer vibe to it. Black Cat will be a folk-pop album that fans both new and old will no doubt be jamming to all summer long. —Stephanie Vaughan Frank Maddocks

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EXTINCTION A.D. 10

Faithkiller GOOD FIGHT (goodfightmusic.com) TOP TRACK: “Prisoners”

This Is Hell is a pretty great hardcore band, so it’s exciting when word drops that four-fifths of that group are now playing old-school thrash in Extinction A.D. And old-school thrash it is: This goes beyond Municipal Wasteworshiping thrash revival; this is pure Testament-loving OG thrash, played by young pups. There’s only a hair of hardcore influence (which original thrash had anyway), and tracks like the killer “Prisoners” have a ton of awesome groove. Dish it out with a production that is just this side of too clean and punchy and it’s a winning combo—one that, sure, may be forgotten due to its relentless similarity of many other thrash albums, but one that is worth owning and filing between Exodus and Forbidden in the collection regardless. Need further proof? Crank up the Slayer homage of “Rot In Pain.” All doubts shall be destroyed. —Greg Pratt

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THE FRATELLIS 10

Eyes Wide, Tongue Tied COOKING VINYL (cookingvinyl.com) TOP TRACK: “Imposters (Little By Little)”

Following up on 2013’s high-energy release We Need Medicine, pop-rock trio the Fratellis creates a sound that spans the decades within their fourth studio effort Eyes Wide, Tongue Tied. Whether the trio is going full-fledged country twang with Johnny Cash influences (“Imposters (Little By Little)”) or possessing an early-’70s Stevie Wonder groove (“Dogtown”), there’s something unique within each track that makes the genre hard to categorize for the album as a whole. Though classic influences are apparent, the modern age has caught up to the Fratellis with the intro of “Rosanna” resembling the 1975’s smash hit “Chocolate.” “Slow” and “Moonshine” provide the listener with a feeling of serenity and reflection in the tail end of the album’s 11-track duration. Though the album lacks the infectious grooves from We Need Medicine, there’s still something special that can be seen within Eyes Wide, Tongue Tied. —Eric Spitz

INFINITY GIRL 10

Harm TOPSHELF (topshelfrecords.com) TOP TRACK: “Hold”

On Infinity Girl’s Topshelf Records debut, they successfully emulate their predecessors but fail to distinguish themselves from a growing legion of ’90s wannabes, much less the originals. Harm is not without potential, but fails to capitalize on what makes the band unique. The album seems to be caked in My Bloody Valentine aspirations to the point that any moment branching away from the layered vocals and sludge of fuzz immediately earns a listener’s attention. Much of this relief comes in the form of abrupt dynamic changes (“Hesse,” “Locklaun”) that are exciting but still don’t avoid easy comparisons to Pixies and Nirvana. The moments without fuzz (the almost muttered vocals on “Hold”; the jubilant bounce of “Heavy”; the spacious sections on “Young”) are a welcome break and often the most original sections, but aren’t enough to carry the album. Harm documents a band with promise that hasn’t yet escaped its influences. —Cameron Carr

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GHOST 10

Meliora LOMA VISTA (lomavistarecordings.com) TOP TRACK: “Mummy Dust”

Ghost is a hard band to take seriously.

With frontman Papa Emeritus III’s corpse paint and pontifical robes, and the band’s interest in the occult, the aesthetic of this Swedish group would suggest the darkest and most evil metal act on the planet. Instead, as heard with increasing clarity on Meliora, their sound glistens and gleams to absurdly theatrical extremes, as if Andrew Lloyd Webber staged a musical version of Until The Light Takes Us–or worse, art school theorists who decided to make the most over-the-top version of a metal band as possible and are now stuck playing the parts ad infinitum. All is not lost on the band’s third album, however. “Mummy Dust” and “Majesty” find a heated middle ground that fuses together the Nameless Ghouls’ grinding, grooving sound with the Broadway bound prog-pop spangles that hang on every jagged edge. —Robert Ham

LOOMING 10

Nailbiter NO SLEEP (nosleeprecords.com) TOP TRACK: “Onward”

Looming provides an effervescent take on emo and indie/alternative rock’s crossroads, with vocalist/bassist Jessica Knight’s uniquely warbling voice, just the right amount of fragile tension and often very compelling atmospheres. One could draw parallels to the quirky heartbreak Lemuria’s made their name on, but Looming sounds fuller—with a greater arsenal of effects pedals—and more often just on the verge of total emotional collapse.

They indicate it on wonderfully anxious standout “Onward,” the mid-period Against Me! chorus shuffle of “Cotton Tongue” and the juddering stop-starts and near-snarl of “Output,” among others. While Looming is most affecting these times, Nailbiter‘s easier-going moments (“Eat”) are hardly awful. And sure, when one of Knight’s male bandmates vocally chimes in, the mood turns from poignant to petulant (“Impermanence” is the exception), but it’s few and far between. Nailbiter spends its tidy half-hour with wrought imagery showing how well Looming can sound longing. —Brian Shultz

HIGHLIGHT REVIEW 8

TERROR 10

The 25th Hour VICTORY (victoryrecords.com) TOP TRACK: “Why?”

Since signing to Victory Records, Terror has continuously aimed to bring fans the real rawness of hardcore, and it’s safe to say The 25th Hour is the epitome of that. From the fast-tongued “Feed The Rats” to the angsty “Why?” Terror really paints the picture of their feelings to the current state of the hardcore scene. This 14-track LP sees the band melt faces with “Bad Signs” and “Snap” while still delivering Scott Vogel’s throat-shredding vocals. Still carrying on the lyrical quality heard on 2013’s Live By The Code, Vogel delivers some brutally honest lyrics which offers fans a new side to not only the band, but Vogel himself—something especially notable on “Both Of You” (“I was just a boy, how could you leave me behind?”). Clearly not for the faint of heart, The 25th Hour is all you wanted from Terror but also what you need from hardcore right now. —Nicole Tiernan

Alexander Malecki

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NEW POLITICS 10

Vikings DCD2/WARNER BROS. TOP TRACK: “West End Kids”

Danish trio New Politics have made the alt-pop dance album of the summer. Throwing in major sugary pop highlights throughout the record, the band’s junior release is an ode to young love. “West End Kids,” “50 Feet Tall” and “Strings Attached” are full of punky, upbeat vibes, not straying far from the group’s previous album, A Bad Girl In Harlem. While the album as a whole leans more toward a boy-band record for adults, “15 Dreams,” “Pretend We’re In A Movie” and “Girl Crush” are pop songs with a punch.

“Loyalties Among Thieves” rounds the record out with heavy drums accompanied by thick vocals. “Stardust,” a Queen-esque number about heartbreak, stands out as Vikings’ most diverse song with a piano intro and balladic vocals. For those searching for a dance record to the tune of strong guitars and bubblegum vocals, look no further. —Bridjet Mendyuk

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PUBLICIST UK 10

Don’t let the metal connections here (on a very extreme label, drummer Dave Witte is a grindcore king) fool you: Publicist UK, who have the most confusing and puzzling band name ever, are not a metal band. Instead, think glum post-punk from decades past that will appeal more to fans of Joy Division than, say, Jungle Rot. The good news is this band sounds a lot more confident and solid than they did on their 2014 EP, which was tentative and generally no fun to listen to. To be sure, the vibe on Forgive Yourself is brutal, and not always in a good way: cuts like “I Wish You’d Never Gone To School” are draining (and, true to post-punk history, the vocals are positively exhausting). But when the band energizes, as on the great “Levitate The Pentagon” or intense “Away,” they harness the best of a cool genre. —Greg Pratt

THE SWORD 10

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Forgive Yourself RELAPSE (relapse.com) TOP TRACK: “Levitate The Pentagon”

High Country RAZOR & TIE (razorandtie.com) TOP TRACK: “High Country”

After the sprawling triumph that was the Sword’s previous album Apocryphon, the Austin, Texas-based rockers hedge their bets a bit on their latest full-length. The quartet is still slaying dragons with their throwback ’70s sci-fi boogie sound—as heard most effectively on the black light poster imagery and tangled up guitar lines of “Buzzards” and “Mist & Shadow”— that should charm the leather pants off of any hardcore Uriah Heep or UFO fans. What they don’t do is push these songs is activate the warp drive and sending them into apeshit shredding and prog keyboard blazing outer space as they are more than capable of doing. Instead, they kill the momentum of the album with short guitar instrumentals, glassy ballads and a closing song that hides the red meat amid pillowy quietude and the folksy tone of John Cronise’s vocals. —Robert Ham

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SLOW AND STEADY 10

In Time We Belong BROKEN CIRCLES (brokencircles.com) TOP TRACK: “35mm”

Slow And Steady’s bummed-out style distinctly resembles modern emo-inflected indie rockers like All Get Out and Mansions (and to a lesser extent, Pedro The Lion). Hell, singer/songwriter Jacob Lawter might even wink to this, quoting a friend on “Horizon”: “‘Nothing is new under this sun.’” But it’s hard to deny how touching his first album is, offering melancholic, full-band fare with clashing major and minor keys, and lots of self-effacing, self-deprecating charm as he picks at unhealed wounds from broken relationships. Granted, the album overstays its welcome a shade, and Lawter’s sorrow can border on schmaltz (string-accompanied “The Kind Of Warmth That Freezes You To Death,” which could otherwise slip in unnoticed at the end of AGO’s The Season). Most times he’s on point, though, with a warm, deliberate cadence to his vocal delivery and subtle, engrossing melodies (“35mm,” “Out Of Touch,” “I‘ve Never Left You”), even getting a detour like the digitized gloominess of “Disinterested” to land. —Brian Shultz

THE WINTER PASSING 10

A Different Space Of Mind 6131 (6131records.com) TOP TRACK: “Penny Chains”

This is the debut from Ireland’s the Winter Passing, and that’s hard to believe at times, given how strong the rock is here. Equally adept at mid-tempo emo twang and more upbeat peppy rockers, the band is at their most powerful when they slow things down: a song like the great “Fruits Of Gloom” brings to mind Midwest emo greats, channeling both sides of the Boys Life/Christie Front Drive split 10-inch in a great way. Album highlight “Penny Chains” rocks like underrated emo rockers the Forecast, using some Midwest emo twang along with powerful female vocals from Kate Flynn (her brother Rob is also in the band). By the time awesome late-album melodic-punk rager “Bottle Green” kicks in, you’d be forgiven for thinking this is a different band: They handle diversity well, but the songs struggle to be remembered, something they’ll only get better at conquering next time. —Greg Pratt

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