How would you describe the bands musical development over the years?
Since 2004 it’s been a very long haul. Basically in 2004 I was pretty young and just wanted to be in a band, have fun and just play hardcore and I guess it was just kind of a joke to me at the time. I just wanted to mess around with friends, but now as I’m an adult now, I wanna play music I like and I take influence from lots of different kinds of music. Growing with your music is a pretty big part of it so I mean yeah, I used to play mosh breakdowns non stop and not take this band seriously but now I just grew up and I take myself more seriously and it’s really helped develop who I really am as a person.
Was it challenging for you guys to pump out new songs and write such personal lyrics this time around?
Yeah, well my lyrics have always been more or less personal but when I was younger I was just pissed off at a lot of stupid shit as apposed to now when I guess I’m angry at shit that really matters in this world and I care about actual things and this time around I really just wanted to write honest music. I want to write songs that everyone can actually relate to as apposed to being a baby about shitty girlfriends or shitty people, I want to write songs that mean more to not just me but to everybody and really just stick to honest music.
What’s your favourite song off the EP and why?
That’s tough, I obviously really like 1990 because it was a song that I really wrote for a lot of my friends and to find closure and get over some of our friends deaths. It’s probably the most personal song I’ve ever written and ever will write. I really love that song for that. My favourite song off the EP would have to be S.O.S.E. though, It was the first track to be written together as a new band and it was a track that pretty much helped me come to terms with a lot of things in my life. I also find that a lot of bands aren’t writing about straight edge anymore or really care about straight edge anymore and I really just wanted to show that I actually give a shit about it.
I know the song Megadeath has a very interesting story behind it, care to fill us in?
Haha, the story behind Megadeath is very funny. I actually had pneumonia when we were recording Taking Back The Nightlife but I couldn’t go to the hospital because they quoted me at something like $150 just to look at me so I had just got some non prescription flu pills from some backass corner store in North Carolina. They were some no name brand and I took one pill and it made me really drowsy. I wrote all the lyrics to that song basically half asleep. I guess the song sounds like an anti religion song but I really just do not agree with organized religion but honestly religion is just like everything… once it’s put in the wrong hands people are going to fuck it up and make it look shitty just like straight edge and basically everything. The song is really just about individualism. My entire life I was a Christian kid and one day I guess I just decided to take my own path, I began to see that the most free my mind, my body and my heart has ever been is the day that I realized I’m going to die alone. Some people will take that as a scary thing but I really took it as an epiphany and I guess it’s just helped me to this day.
With the new EP do you feel you’ve made more kids interested in your band and generally becoming more active in the hardcore/straight edge scene?
Yeah, it’s really cool actually! The hardcore scene now is really cool now because I find that a lot more kids are listening more kinds of music then ever. So you have bands like Harms Way who a few years ago would be considered a mosh metal band and hardcore kids wouldn’t care for it but now kids who are into straight up hardcore like Have Heart, Minor Threat, shit like that are still into stuff like Harms Way. It’s really cool for us because we really progressed to more of a sound that isn’t like straight up hardcore but we sit on this cool line where we’re sorta mixing genres but a lot more hardcore kids are just getting into us which is really good to see. It’s always rad to have a different Varity of people at your shows!
At a young age what initially provoked you to get involved in the straight edge scene?
It’s actually kind of a sad story to be honest. Basically my dad had to go away to jail because he was heavy into drugs and alcohol so the police basically forced my dad to go to NA (narcotics anonymous) and while in NA my dad sponsored this guy named Blake Hipson, he was straight edge. At the time I was like 13 years old and pissed off at my dad for being (in my eyes) just a piece of shit who didn’t care about his family and only cared about himself. Blake took me to my first show ever, it was the first time I really encountered pot and Blake told me he was straight edge, told me all about what it is and gave me Earth Crisis’s first demo, Minor Threat, Ten Yard Fight and just all these bands who stood for straight edge and he explained to me that it’s okay and I don’t have to be like my dad. He made me understand that there’s other people who feel the same as I do. I claimed edge when I was 14 which some people would say is bullshit because you can’t drink at 14 which I think is a crock of shit because you can drink at any age. I see 14-15 year olds getting shit faced at our shows, really age isn’t going to stop you.
Do you still feel as strongly about it? Do you think the hardcore scene has gone through a lot of changes since that time?
Since I first claimed edge, straight edge has defiantly changed. Straight edge now is not like it was when I first claimed. For like the first 5 years being in this band straight edge was very violent and very preachy. If kids didn’t like straight edge over those past 5 years I guess it would be totally understandable because shitty bands are taking the thrown and saying shit like “I kill for straight edge” and just “fuck you if you’re not straight edge” and these people wrote a lot of stupid songs and I guess it made a lot of sense if kids felt segregated. But straight edge now I actually find to be very positive, Everybody’s outlook on things are a lot cooler.
I still care about straight edge the same as when I claimed it, and I think straight edge is going through a really cool time right now. It’s very positive and just really cool to be apart of.
Straight edge and hardcore will always be a very special place for me, It’s given me a lot, it still allows me to tour. Hardcore is like anything in life… whatever you give it, it gives back to you and I find that to be a really cool thing. It’s very cliche to say straight edge and hardcore are my life but honestly touring in a hardcore band, playing hardcore shows and being apart of this scene will always be a really meaningful apart of my life no matter how old I am.
