New Jersey Rockers, Gatherers, have spent countless hours on developing a concept and album that served as a dose of their Hardcore roots coming forward with heart. I caught up with the guys to discuss ensuring to keep their friendship at the forefront, comparing success and failure on social media, ‘We Are Alive Beyond Repair’, the importance of eating right and sleeping on the road and more.
Congrats on the success and release of ‘We Are Alive Beyond Repair’. Tell us about the creative and recording process and what you learned about yourself along the way.
Thank you! We started writing initial ideas for the album around winter of 2015 if I recall correctly. At the time Adam was in the process of moving into a new recording studio and I believe we initially started writing what would later become the opening track “Spill”. We were going through several member changes at the time so we had to explore a lot of ideas between bass, drums and vocals. In hindsight, I think it was a very healthy way to go about writing in a more focused direction. Eventually, Anthony and Rob joined on guitars respectively. They both provided a much needed perspective on the songs we’d been sitting on for months. We finally finished things off as a complete band by writing “Ann Liv Young” and “Starve. I think writing and recording this record taught us to be more objective for what best served each song and the album as a whole.
Who did you work with on the album cover/photography for ‘We Are Alive Beyond Repair’ and how did you come up with the visual concept?
The album photography was lent to us by Evelyn Bencicova and is part of a series titled “Asymptote” She’s an award-winning artist based in Berlin and has an extremely original way of building these “worlds” within her photography and filmmaking. We discovered the photo early on in the writing process and felt that it also existed in the same world as the album we wanted to write. We reached out to her with demos and the album title and she was very receptive to the idea.
Showcasing the human in you, what is a challenging thought that you recently had and were able to overcome over time?
To stop comparing our success and failures based on the facade of social media. It is a habit I battle on the daily, but I’m learning that we should only speak when it counts, to only think about our band within the framework of things that excite us, and to not get caught up in the rat race of everyone trying to “make it” overnight. Above all, I’m learning to value my friendship with my bandmates more.
What is your perception on the digital world that we live in and social media culture?
Any “culture” born on social media is very uninspiring to me. I think things now move at such a pace that the baseline for culture has been lowered, which means trends die even quicker with more people attached to them. I would be a hypocrite to not admit how valuable of a tool social media plays in the promotion of our own band, after all it has become this requisite extension of our music and art. However, I have a distaste for the way it herds people into various (very predictable) patterns of behavior. I notice it especially in new bands, touting the same style of content, the same way of speaking and so on. It’s all feels very commodified.
No career path or amount of followers negates the fact that you are a human being that has feelings. Tell us about some parts of you beyond being a musician that you take pride in.
We all simply try our best to respect our friendship to one another and to be the best versions of ourselves every day.
As you are exposed to tons of stimulus, how do you proactively take care of your mental and emotional health when you’re out on the road?
Eat right. Sleep right. Avoid excessive time on the phone. Take in the sights and make the most of each show. Also, it’s critical to make each other laugh as much as possible.
You have toured with a wide variety of musicians over the past years and have played at some major festivals. Tell us some words of wisdom that you collected along the way.
Stay humble. Study other bands. Also, get your shit on and off the stage as quickly as possible!
What do fans of Gatherers have to look forward to in 2019?
We’ll probably end up touring a bit more and then who knows? We’ve been flirting with some loose ideas for our next album, so that might end up occupying our time towards the end of the year.
Last but certainly not least, any closing messages for your fans?!
Thank you for your support. Listen to Great Grief.
North Carolina Rockers, Hopesfall, shocked long-time fans who continue to spark their Hopesfall fix with classic albums such as ‘A Types’, and ‘The Satellite Years’ in 2018 with an unexpected yet well-received comeback with the release of their fifth studio album, ‘Arbiter’. I caught up with Guitarist, Josh Brigham, for an in-depth conversation about ‘Arbiter’ his challenging and impactful journey with chronic pain and choosing to be proactive with Foundation Training, less is more mentality, the world being full of amazing people and more.
Congrats on the recent release and success of ‘Arbiter’. Tell us about the creative and recording process this time around and what you learned along the way.
Honestly the process was the same as our other records. A bunch of us get in a room together and we play each other riffs that we’ve written individually and then we jam on them until the energy feels right. Sometimes we stumble across ideas and write music on the spot which may sound simple but it can be a painstaking process. I’d say for every 20 hours of passing ideas back and forth we’ll come up with about a minute of usable material. It’s all about capturing a vibe and everyone has to agree. Recording is the payoff for all the hard work that the writing process is. Getting to go to an awesome studio to work with talented engineers and a great producer is work, but it’s really fun work. Those guys help you bring to life a sound that’s only been playing in your head. You get to make it real, it’s exciting!
I’ve been listening to you guys faithfully ever since the ‘The Frailty of Words’. I can truly state with ease that I have listened to ‘The Satellite Years’ at least 100x in full. Tell us about your time away in Hopesfall and how it served to enhance your experience in the studio while creating ‘Arbiter’.
We thought Hopesfall was dead and buried. Everyone moved on with their lives. We got jobs, got married, bought houses you know; the grown up stuff that you have to do in your 30’s. I think the time away let us appreciate all the things that were good about Hopesfall. The bonds that you make when you write together and play together. It made us appreciate how special it is to get to create music. It made us more grateful for the opportunities that have recently presented themselves.
Showcasing the human in you, what is a challenging thought that you recently had and were able to overcome over time?
Chronic pain. I know you asked for a thought, so I’ll need to unpack that statement. Dealing with chronic pain is a battle of will as much as it is a physical sensation. I have a wrecked spine. Years of bad posture, living in a van, headbanging, combined poor self care routines left me with a severely ruptured disc between my C6-C7 vertebrae. This disc lodged itself inside the neural canal leading to my right arm. The result was a “dead limb” and an eventual surgery to install an artificial disk. When reviewing my MRI’s after the surgery, the neurologist told me that I had the spinal health equivalent to that of a 75 year old brick mason. My spine was massively degenerated. I would have to stop doing all the physical activities that I was involved in. Long distance running, mountain biking, etc. He told me I would need a fusion surgery in my Lumbar spine in the not too distant future, a surgery that could potentially cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and put me on my back for up to 6 months. Over the next 4 years, as I tried to go about my normal life, I began paying a heavy physical toll. Cortisone injections every 3 months, muscle relaxers, pain killers all with lessening degrees of effectiveness over time. My life became muted, the pain began to take away all the activities that I enjoyed. Chronic pain eventually robs you of your identity. You become a shell of your former self. Pain turns into fear. Fear takes away hope. Essentially I was a person living in a headspace that was completely dominated by avoiding pain. That’s not living.
Eventually I found “Foundation Training” which is a practice, a series of corrective exercises designed by a doctor who avoided surgery and had gotten himself out of chronic pain, that turned my situation around. But finding the will to embrace a new technique, to put the effort into healing your own body when everyone in the established medical field is telling you to take more pills, to have a surgery, that there is no way out; that’s a mountain to climb. Choosing to move threw pain and fear was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
What is your perception on the digital world that we live in and social media culture?
It is what it is. I try not to judge it. The world is changing rapidly around us and I just try to keep adapting to it. Whether I think social media is right or wrong, good or bad, is of no consequence. Social media just IS, and it’s not going away, so how can I use it to help me? That’s the question I’ve been asking myself.
No career path or amount of followers negates the fact that you are a human being that has feelings. Tell us about some parts of you beyond being a musician that you take pride in.
I alluded to this earlier when talking about my degenerated spine and living with chronic pain. Besides meeting my wife, finding Foundation Training, finding a practice that empowered me with the knowledge to fix myself is the most important thing I’ve ever done. I was recently certified in FT and look forward to sharing this work with others who are suffering from chronic pain.
As you are exposed to tons of stimulus, how do you proactively take care of your mental and emotional health when you’re out on the road?
Nowadays, less is more. We don’t play out nearly as much as we used to. On our most recent adventure, which was only 3 shows in 2018, I just tried to stay in the moment and enjoy what was going on around me. Getting to share the music you make with your fans was something I took for granted before. This time, I just focused on the here and now. Back in the day, I would escape into books. I would just read and when it was my turn to drive, I would just listen to my favorite bands. I wouldn’t say I was operating at a high level of emotional stability back then, books and music were my outlet.
You have toured with a wide variety of musicians over the past years and have played at some major festivals. Tell us some words of wisdom that you collected along the way.
The world is filled with amazing people and amazing places. Try to see as much of it as possible!!
Southern Rockers, Dead Friends 46, are a wild riot of Rock ‘N’ Roll thunder creating music that is both amusing and pleasing to consume. Here’s our track-by-track thoughts of their latest full-length album release, ‘Hardcore’.
Kicking off with a bang with the first track, “The Firm”, the guys of Dead Friends 46 rile up some daunting energy as aggressive Punk guitar playing smashes through the intro and swiftly leads into a dive into a ball of fire by the name of Don Mazda whose vocal style mimics the likes of Judas Priest. The second track, “Rise Up”, can get a crowd of maniacs tossing beer across a venue as the guys of Dead Friends 46 showcase their lyrical prowess with a politically potent spill of how corrupt our Government has come to be. “Whistling in the Dark” is the third track that is a seemingly spiritual ode to regret as lyrics bash living under the rules of society and how much it can destroy your one shot as a human being. The fourth track, “Banned from the Pubs”, is exactly as it states; rowdy, incoherent and balls-to-the-wall as the guys lyrically attempt to flee a frantic scene that they created.
“The Letter” is the fifth track that intentionally sticks it to the man as a blast of instrumental synergy shreds through with ease. The sixth track, “Mass Hysteria”, puts the cherry on top of the madness that has already come memories of the lack of trust in those who have f**ked the guys of Dead Friends 46 in the past are coming back out of the closet to lyrically confront with no remorse. “Blood Cot” is the seventh track that lyrically highlights a lack of self-discipline and control which is destroying the lives of an individual who is immersed within their own self-doubt. The eighth track, “Lady Doom”, is a lyrical shot at a lady who tried to run the guys of Dead Friends 46 for what they’re worth yet was found guilty in hindsight. “Devil and Don” is the ninth track that reeks of lyrically knowing that it is time to throw in the towel on relationships that aren’t going anywhere. The tenth track, “Black Eyeliner (April Harvey), starts off with streamlined instrumentals that leads into a dose of lyrical anger as the guys metaphorically travel through a chapter of sleeping with the devil. Closing out with “Dead Friends”, the guys pour one out for the ones that have come and gone in a classic Punk Rock way.
Mastered with precision by a group of guys who live and die by and with music, ‘Hardcore’ by Dead Friends 46 is an album that can kickstart your new year the right way. If you’re a fan of fellow musicians such as Anti-Flag, Bad Religion and Authority Zero, then keep an eye on the ride ahead for Dead Friends 46 on Soundcloud.
