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ANOTHER BREATH
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This interview was conducted by Domenico on August 7th, 2005 in Italy during ANOTHER BREATH's European Summer Tour 2005 (with VERSE). The original interivew appeared on Domenico's web-zine: www.all-about-chaos.net. Check it out, it's got lots of good interviews, reviews, and a news about the world-wide hardcore scene.
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HOW’S THIS EUROPEAN TOUR WITH VERSE GOING?
We’ve been on the road for 9 days and it first started off like the last tour, you know we were getting a discreet response, we were surprised that more kids didn’t know who Verse but, as we go along, we see more familiar faces, last night at Sucks N Summers there were just tons of kids that we knew and that knew our band and with Verse tonight was incredible, it’s been a really really great time and we’ve been having so much fun
DURING THIS TOUR YOU’VE SHARED THE STAGE WITH INSTED’S REUNION, WHAT’S YOUR OPINION ON ALL OF THESE REUNIONS GOING ON LATELY?
You know, on one hand I’m really excited about it because there’s a lot of kids who were really into those bands in their times and, to miss a band that much and see them come back, it’s a really cool thing, but on the other hand, I don’t know if you have any child memories of things that were very very dear to you and very fun but, if you revisited those things that you had fine memories of, almost always your realize that they’re not as good in real life as you have them in your memories. I think that seeing those bands after so long you realize that they’re not these idols that you look up to and sing-along so much and it almost ruins the fantasy of having those fantastic hardcore band back in the days that you can look back to. I don’t know, I think bands like that when they’re done they’re done but I still had a fine time at the reunion so I can’t say it was a bad thing
WHAT OTHER BANDS DID YOU SHARE THE STAGE WITH?
Last night I got to see Ignite for the first time, this is their 27th European tour, my first time I got to see them myself... we got to share the stage with Ignite, Mental, Justice, like you said Insted, we got to play with Verse every night, Strength Approach, we’re going to be playing with Darkest Hour and I’m not sure who else at Ieper Fest, there’s a lot of great bands over here right now
YEA, I WANTED TO ASK YOU WHAT’S YOUR OPINION ABOUT THAT FESTIVAL...
Oh, I don’t know, I’ve heard a little bit about it saying it’s going to be a good time, it’s going to be our last show of tour and it’s supposed to be pretty big, I think I’ll save my judgment until we play there
LAST YEAR YOU RELEASED YOUR DEBUT EP “NOT NOW, NOT EVER”, DID IT SATISFY YOUR EXPECTATIONS ABOUT IT?
We worked very very hard on that CD, when we decided to take this band seriously, we basically locked ourselves in a basement for an entire summer, we wouldn’t let ourselves play shows and we almost broke up because of that. When we came out and we went to the studios with these songs, it surpassed our expectations, our hard work showed and that’s all we wanted, we loved it. Right now we’ve had it out for 2 years, we listen to it now and say “Oh, that can be better and that can be better”, we’re in a stage now we’re going to lock ourselves in a basement again and hopefully do it all over again for a full-length
WHAT DO YOU THINK WHILE LISTENING TO THE RECORD NOW?
I think I’m really proud to have something like that on a CD, I worked very hard on the lyrics too so to have those lyrics in there means a lot to me too... again I think that things could be better and I’m really looking for to just do some new stuff
HOW DID YOU GET IN TOUCH WITH RIVALRY RECORDS?
I don’t know! We recorded the CD with our own money, we worked full-time job while practicing and came up with about 4.000/5.000$, which is roughly 3.500€, we did it all ourselves and we were like “Even if a label doesn’t pick it up, we still have this thing we worked very hard on, even if it’s just for us”. It got into Rival’s hands, they gave us a call and they offered us a two records deal and it was perfect fit. We signed up with them, they’re a great label
HOW ARE THINGS GOING WITH THEM?
Fantastic. Our number one priority with the label was that we wanted to be friendly with them, there’s so many bands that are on labels and for them it’s just a business that helps them sell and promote their CDs. I talk to Kyle from Rival, at least once a week. I can call him up at any time in the middle of the night and say “Let’s talk about whatever” or “Hey I need this” or “Hey can I do anything for you”, we’ve always had a great relationship. He’s got me out of some troubles too, you know I run my mouth a little bit and he’s helped me out with stuff like that. It’s great that we have friends that are helping us out rather than a business that is helping us out
YOU’RE FROM NEW YORK BUT WE DON’T FIND INFLUENCES OF THE TYPICAL NYHC SOUND IN YOUR MUSIC SO I WANTED TO KNOW WHAT ARE YOUR MAIN MUSICAL INFLUENCES...
I think, that for all of us, we listened to a lot of Fat Wreck Records’ bands when we were a lot younger, we actually got into hardcore into pop-punk bands like Rancid, NOFX... I think that’s a lot different from a lot of other hardcore bands that started off listening to Minor Threat, Gorilla Biscuits, Insted, Youth of Today... I didn’t get into any of those bands until after I got into hardcore so, we got into bands like NOFX, Good Riddance, Strike Anywhere, eventually started listening to metalcore, also bands like Champion and Comeback Kid, so we draw a lot of influences from punk rock and things like that...
WHAT ARE THE BANDS THAT YOU WOULD COMPARE ANOTHER BREATH TO?
I try not to... just because we try so hard to have our own sound. We often get compared to American Nightmare a lot, I listened to their records when I was learning how to scream. We also look-up a lot to bands like Comeback Kid and Champion a lot and also The Sucide File and The Hope Conspiracy so I’d say those bands had major influences on us
WHAT’S THE MESSAGE THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEND THROUGH YOUR LYRICS?
It changes from day to day. I think, before, as I was getting into hardcore I was very insecure about a lot of things and I was just learning a lot about it, what I wanted to do was just kind of sending a message to other young kinds saying “Hey, this is for all of us and there’s a lot of bullshit that goes on but there’s a lot of positivity that can come out of that”. I guess my message originally was if you stay away from the bullshit then this can be a really positive thing. Now, as I write more, it just helps me to deal with things in the hardcore scene and everyday life. I think that writing keeps me from going crazy so I write lyrics about that now hoping that people can relate to and that people can understand that they’re not alone
A LOT OF PEOPLE SAY YOU SPREAD A POSITIVE MESSAGE, DO YOU AGREE WITH THAT?
Yea, I think that I try to look at thing that seem very negative and I try to say that even though this bad thing goes on there’s always positivity in everything, that’s the message that we try to pull across
WHAT DO YOU THINK THAT HARDCORE IS ABOUT AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?
I think, especially today, there’s certain expectations put on all of us: you’re supposed to go to school, you’re supposed to get a job, you’re supposed to get married and you’re supposed to do the same things as everybody else. But doesn’t fullfill a lot of needs we have, a lot of us are upset about a lot of things don’t fit at school, at work, with girls. I think hardcore is about getting a bunch of people together that are frustrated about a whole host of different things just screaming in each other’s faces until we feel better afterwards
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE WORLDWIDE HARDCORE SCENE IN 2005?
I think it’s incredible, I think it’s amazing that you can go from a scene that took place on the east coast versus the west coast, and then america versus europe, and then these places versus japan and australia, and suddenly there’s so many bands that are travelling the world. For me especially it’s incredible because I can get on a plane with my four best friends in the world, fly over to Europe, play shows with people who’ve heard of my band and just have a great time together, and meanwhile we can see the world. I think it’s fantastic that we’re all coming together instead of doing all this rivalry, that’s all bullshit
WOULD YOU AGREE IF I SAY THAT HARDCORE IS MUCH MORE THAN MUSIC?
Of course... if you break hardcore down to just the music there’s a lot of people that would tell you it’s garbage you know, you’re just playing guitar real fast and you’re screaming in your microphone, honestly I look at it and there’s not much to it, but what’s behind it it’s the emotion, what’s behind it is the fact that we can all scream together, everybody can scream, everybody needs to scream sometime, so yea, it’s much more than music
VEG(ETERI)ANISM HAVE ALWAYS BEEN LINKED TO HARDCORE, IS THERE ANYBODY IN THE BAND WHO’S SUPPORTING CRUELTY-FREE LIFESTYLE?
Completely cruelty-free no, we have one carnivore, we have four vegeterians. We talk about veganism, we talk about trying to lead through exemple rather than try to preach people about this, so we try to lead a vegeterian lifestyle because it’s a step that everyone can take and if you see someone else doing it you say “Hey, I can do that too”. Cruelty-free is a very hard thing to do, especially in the society we’re living in. But we’re striving for it, we’re making some little steps for it
WHAT ARE THE PLANS FOR ANOTHER BREATH’S FUTURE AFTER THIS TOUR?
After this tour, you won’t hear anything from us for a very long time, we’re a band that if we’re playing shows we can’t do any writing and if we’re writing then playing shows is going to distract us from that, so we decided we’re going all out on this tour, have the best time of our lives and then we’re going to go home and just write a record. We’re going to record probably winter next year, like January 2006 and next summer we’ll be touring again with the full-length
THANKS TED, HAVE YOU GOT ANY FINAL WORDS?
Final words.. I guess the only thing that comes to my mind is thank you, grazie, danke or whatever language that I can come up with and that I’m trying to keep up on. This is experience of being back here for the second time with these bands is unreal and I just appreciate it so much to everyone who’s done this for us, and thank you for the interview, thank you for coming to the show and for checking out the band
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