Interview with Patrick Chumley from Axis

I first discovered Axis via the general gold mine known as Stuck in the Past, and have been following them like a hawk ever since. Combining the best elements of 90’s legends such as Harvest, Buried Alive, and Turmoil, Axis utilizes a damn-near perfect combination of heaviness and intelligence within their song-writing. In fact, I would go so far as to say they are my favorite current hardcore band.  

This past January I had the privilege of booking them and aside from being super nice guys, their live performance left my jaw (and the jaws of most people around me) on the floor. Their drummer in particular was an absolute monster. Watching him demolish his kit pretty much made me never want to pick up a drum stick again, haha.

Anyway, I’ve been chatting with their guitar player Patrick Chumley on and off ever since and decided it was time to pick his brain. Read this shit, and then proceed to get your hands on all their material. If you’re anything like me, they will re-define what the car-mosh on the drive in to work looks like.  

So I know most of you guys have been in a lot of different bands that have played a lot of different styles in the past...how did you come together as the juggernaut (yes you should be thinking Crown of Thornz here) known as Axis?

I will attempt to give you a very brief history. Jesse and I were playing in Meantime when we had the idea to start Axis. Meantime was sort of losing steam and fizzling out and we wanted to do a faster "Turmoil style" band to stay busy. We wrote a demo with me playing guitar, Jesse on drums, Jesse's brother Shane on bass and our friend Josh (Bodies in the Gears of the Apparatus) from Tampa did vocals. We played for a few months around Florida with this line up. Shane quit to be a dad, Jesse moved to bass for a bit then quit too for school, then our good friend Mikey (Meantime/Years from Now) filled the spot.

Our current drummer, Tommy (who we knew from No Harm Done) was playing in Boxing Day at the time. We asked him if he wanted to be in a heavy band, so he joined and this was the "Rites of Passage" line up. We played too many Florida shows, did a few tours, recorded the Weight of the World split then Josh left the band shortly after.

When we got tired of being a four piece, our friend Dylan (Harbinger/Shovelhead) moved up from South Florida and he joined to play second guitar. Mike (Same Mistake/Years from Now) joined to do vocals; we played fewer Florida shows, and toured some more. He quit for personal reasons, and Mikey quit to focus on his job about the same time.

Jesse came back to play bass this time, our friend Rafael (Shovelhead/Prayer Chain) joined to do vocals, we recorded the SDF split, did a month long tour this past summer and we’re now solidified with our current line-up.

In the couple years you have been a band you've gone through I believe three vocalists now. What's been happening with the front man slot and how did you guys wind up with your current throat shredder?

Our first vocalist, Josh was with us for a while. We had a good run. Eventually he and the rest of us had different ideas of what we wanted to be as a band and were going in different directions. We parted ways and moved on.

Mike joined and he was a good fit for us. He was with us for about a year, did a couple tours. He was going through some personal stuff and left the band to handle those things. He is still a close friend to us and plays guitar in a faster Kid Dynamite style band with Tommy called "We're Not Dead".

Rafael joined after Mike left. He has an absolutely ridiculous voice and is an awesome dude. He came in, recorded with us and basically went beyond whatever expectations we could have had.

It's hard to replace a frontman especially when you've gained a little steam. People associate them as the face of your band; it's difficult to establish an identity when you've got turnover in that department. I feel like I'm in Shai Hulud sometimes. I really feel like this is our most solid line-up yet.

This year you've spent more than your fair share of time on the road with an East Coast/Midwest run in January and a bunch of dates out West and back this summer. What were some of the highlights; best places to play, favorite local/regional bands you hooked up with along the way?

This past winter was fun; it was our last tour with Mike. We hit a couple of Midwestern spots we hadn't played before. I am pretty positive everyone but Dylan got really sick and stayed sick. We played a house show on top of a frozen mountain in Roanoke with Losin' It and the brakes in the van went out (that was fun). Royal Oak and Long Island were probably the best shows. Jukai is sweet.

This past summer was awesome. It was the longest tour we have done as a band so far. We didn't get to go as far west as we originally had planned but we were still out for a month. The first half was with Will to Die from Tennessee, definitely check them out (you are moshing). Sammy is a terrific dancer. Our van broke down the first day and we had to ride 9 deep in an SUV from Tallahassee to Pensacola. We got shot at in Wilmington, did a shitload of cliff diving, got a lot of free food, got yelled at by a street performer with a colostomy bag, got the van saran wrapped and pretty much had a rave in Indianapolis. We played a barn with Antpile and that was awesome. Foreign Tongues and Raindance in Nashville was awesome. Discourse was cool. Kansas City, Fort Worth and Savannah were all awesome shows.

You guys just released a split 7" entitled "Least Violent Time in World History" with Self Defense Family. While SDF is known for being eclectic/generally not giving a shit about what anyone thinks, I was particularly surprised (and stoked) to hear you guys would be sharing the wax with them. How did your partnership with SDF/Harm Reduction come about?

A couple of us are really into them and we thought it would be cool to do something different with this release. Our drummer, Tommy reached out to Patrick on sort of a whim and they were down. Patrick and Jami (Code Orange Kids) were starting Harm Reduction and they thought this would be a good fit for it. It'll help to get our music in front of people that are unfamiliar or normally wouldn't have listened to it. That in itself is awesome, SDF is awesome and the art is crazy. I'm very happy with how everything turned out.

So you guys have a demo, a 7", two split 7"'s and a song on the AHC comp. Am I safe to assume the next release will be an LP or are you guys sticking to releasing new material in smaller chunks?

We aren't doing another small release for a while, that's kind of how things just ended up happening the past couple of years and we are looking to change that.

We've taken the past couple of months off to write songs for a LP, I'd say we are about halfway done and we are all very excited about it. The songs are coming out awesome and I feel like they're the best stuff we have written as a band yet.

Super excited to hear you guys are working on an LP. Now that you're halfway in, would you say that there are any new influences that are creeping their way into the material, either musically or lyrically? Is there anything different that you want to accomplish with this release that perhaps you haven't with your output thus far?

As for lyrically, I cannot speak for Rafael. I've seen the stuff he's been working on and I've total faith in his ability to write songs that are accessible and honest.

Musically, we've gotten comfortable writing with two guitar players now, being more eclectic, trying different ideas and I feel like we are better at songwriting in general. It's almost like we are becoming a way better version of ourselves.

Our older material was sort of our best attempts at emulating 90s hardcore; we have progressed away from doing just that. While our main influences remain the same (Turmoil, Drowingman, Kiss it Goodbye) and I'd say we definitely still sound "90s", our newer material has a wider range of influences than before. We are taking nods from heavy experimental stuff like Knut, Breach and some Hydra Head bands. And slightly more unconventional influences for a metal core band nowadays; noise rock bands like The Jesus Lizard and Shellac. Swarm of the Lotus is a huge influence peeking its head out in the new stuff. Dylan and I are kind of obsessed with them. I remember seeing that band play in Orlando like 8 years ago and thinking to myself if I ever had a band half as heavy as this I'd be in heaven.

With the new record, I want it to be (even if this sounds a bit quixotic) as complete and perfect (to us) as it can be. If we can come as close to that, I'll be a happy camper. We are trying to be a more serious band than we were in the past (be more productive, more critical, tour extensively) and hopefully this record will be a good catalyst for us to get to that point.

Your first label experience was a little sour working with Nothing in Mail (LOL), then On Point did the next two releases, you hooked up with Triple B on the comp and then Harm Reduction just released the new split. Is HR likely to be "home" now for the foreseeable future or do you anticipate hopping around a bit more?

They've shown interest in working with us on whatever we decide to do next. I think we are going to explore our options with the upcoming LP and see what kind of response we get but it is great to have them behind us with whatever we decide to do. It's been awesome working with HR and I could totally see working with them again.

It seems like probably more than any other region, the South has seen a resurgence of 90's influenced bands over the last few years. I'm thinking of you guys of course but also Aversion with you down in Florida, Discourse up in South Carolina, Deathbed and Foundation in Atlanta, etc. I'm kinda hoping you guys become the new "wave" so to speak, haha. To what extent do you feel a certain affinity with those bands, or is it just sort of random that you guys have all been popping up around the same time?

I'd say it's a little of both. Some bands have just been pleasant surprises and others we have kind of developed alongside as a band. Foundation is definitely the oldest of those bands you mentioned, they played a lot of shows with Meantime and I'm sure they had something to do with us deciding to do a band like Axis when we did. They've always, consistently killed it and drawn from awesome influences.

Deathbed is another great southern band in that vein. It feels like they just popped into my radar one day a few years ago, then our encounters were a bit prolific. Really great dudes, I am glad they are doing stuff again. I think we are doing some shows with them in February. Look out for that.

As for other ones from the south doing similar stuff, there is Aversion as you mentioned. That band is a great band, as is their other band Homestretch. Some of our absolute favorites to play with, Peter Allen is a Heat fan though.

Blistered from Tampa is another band doing the 90's thing. Pretty heavy stuff. Check them out, they're gonna blow up. We are doing a week or so with them and Weight of the World at the end of the year.

And I feel like Antpile from Georgia deserves mention also. While not exactly metal core, they are definitely 90's influenced. Check them out if you are into screamo stuff like Joshua fit for Battle and Neil Perry. Ben/Connie is an enigma.

What would you say are the best and worst thing about hardcore right now?

The internet.

On one side, you've got an entire wealth of information concerning the history of hardcore at your fingertips. And it seems like almost every current band has a presence online for you to check out. It is an invaluable tool especially if you are new to hardcore.

When I was first getting into hardcore, I remember scouring HxCmp3 for new bands and watching videos on MIS-one. I went on the Daytona and CFLhardcore message boards for shows and met many friends through them. I had a shitty live journal where I'd chronicle the shows I attended. It was awesome. I've got fond memories of my interactions with the internet and hardcore back then, I'd equate the feeling to seeing your first titty in a scrambled porno on channel 99. It was a really important part of getting me into hardcore and it exposed me to a lot of aspects that would otherwise been less accessible at the time. I mean friends only a couple of years my elder had to utilize liner notes and mail order distros to discover bands, I had it easy. I am certain without it Axis wouldn't be where we are today, however humble of a place it may be.

There's also a dark side, it can be a never ending barrage of internet tough guys, drama, apathy, copycat bands and "hivemind" mentalities. There’s just a lot of bullshit. But I will make one point. A thing that bothers me is, I feel like the internet can sometimes discourage people from being pro-active in their local scenes. What you see online doesn't necessarily reflect how you should act or be a standard you should hold your scene to. Is your scene in "Small town, Florida" going to hold a candle to Boston's? Probably not. That doesn't necessarily mean it sucks ass and you shouldn't make the effort to contribute to it. Start bands, write zines or blogs, go to and book shows, be productive. Be the change you want to see, it can be really special. I'm not even trying to sound cheesy. If people hadn't have done these things in Daytona when I was growing up, I wouldn't be doing this interview. Use the internet as a tool to accomplish those things, not a deterrent or a platform to complain about what you've got when you see videos of some hype band playing Sound and Fury.

For you both as an individual and as a musician, what's been the most satisfying thing about doing Axis so far?

I'd say challenging myself to write a "better" and more creative song each time we write one. A few years ago, I really had no idea I'd end up being this excited to make music. It's a huge bonus that I get to do it with my best friends and travel the country playing it.

Bedroom Mosh, Car Mosh, Real Mosh When They Come to Your Town: http://axisfl.bandcamp.com/
Video Evidence Suggesting Your Band Should Break Up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoXDcL_P_a8&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DeoXDcL_P_a8&app=desktop

Justin Sitner from Unrestrained/Stuck in the Past

Justin Sitner is a guy I came into contact with a couple of years back when the Great Reversals 10” came out. I was trying to find as many avenues as possible to promote the record and I figured the blog he co-runs (Stuck in the Past) might be willing to check it out and maybe give us a mention. Thankfully, not only did they give us a few mentions, Justin wound up offering to trade me some stuff from his band Unrestrained and we’ve kept in touch ever since.

It’s funny how sometimes you find people whose experience parallels yours so closely….hearing Justin talk about how he started discovering hardcore, what bands first blew him away, what tours came through his town, a lot of it was EXACTLY like my experience, even though he lives on the other side of the country. Even now, Unrestrained and Stuck in the Past both celebrate the sound and spirit of the 90’s scene, which is still my favorite era or flavor of hardcore so to speak.

What I came to appreciate about Justin even more through the process of doing this interview was how thoughtful and honest he is. As you’re about to see, his last several years have not been easy to say the least. The willingness to open yourself up is one of the things that I’ve always felt separates hardcore from a lot of other music, and Justin definitely does so here.

Without further ado……  

I'm always curious to hear about people's backgrounds, so talk a little bit about your childhood, your family, and the path that eventually led you to the core.

My parents were both fairly young when I was born, and I grew up in outer SE Portland, which at the time, could only be described as a lower-middle/working class area. It was never a spectacular area while I was growing up, but it has become much worse over the years with crime of various sorts. The household I grew up in was always loving and encouraging. Music played a large part as well, as my Dad was (and still is) a nut for his vinyl, and he has rather eclectic taste, so I got to hear a very wide range of sounds.

Hard rock is what first struck me, and that put me deep into bands like AC/DC (the first concert I ever went to was AC/DC with my parents), Angel City, Thin Lizzy, etc. But, when I was 12, I discovered my dad's Sex Pistols album. The heinous colors on the cover first drew me in, but the sheer ugliness of what I heard when I put it on the turntable is what hooked me. I had never heard anything quite like it.

I have an Uncle that's only 11 years older than I am, and he had me listening to lots of metal at a very young age with our cousin that played in some local bands. The memories are still pretty vivid of hearing “Ride the Lightning” with them shortly after it was released. The idea of "crossover" was completely alien to me at the time, though, so I just thought I was an odd kid treading the line between metal and punk as I dove head first into the world of punk rock after finding that Sex Pistols album.

It was easy to find the Ramones and The Clash, but it was an issue of Guitar World that first told me about hardcore. This particular issue listed the top 25 albums from a wide array of genres, but on one page behind the top 25 punk albums, they listed the top 10 hardcore albums. They lead the list off by describing hardcore as "the ugly bastard son of punk” or something to that effect. That same week, I picked up Minor Threat and Black Flag. I also quickly discovered Maximum Rock 'n' Roll and Punk Planet at the Tower Records I used to make my mom take me to all the time.

This was still just a little while before I discovered the incredibly great independent record stores of Portland, so I was getting all of my information from these widely distributed zines, and mail-ordering records/CDs from bands I had never heard of just as long as they had a decent review. It wasn't long before I was ordering Gorilla Biscuits and Youth of Today from the Revelation Records ad in MRR, and those records were the first time I started utilizing thank you lists to discover new bands.

Soon after that I made the next generational jump, and started getting releases from Victory Records, but this was a bit different, because I finally felt like I was dealing with people my own age. At this point, I was just devouring everything I could get my hands on. The metal heads at my school didn't listen to much of anything deeper than Pantera, and the few punk friends I had didn't seem to have any interest in hardcore, so it wasn't until I started going to shows around 1994 that I really started to feel at home.

It's cool to hear talk about how scouring thank you lists and thumbing through mainstream magazines were among your bridges to the underground because that's definitely the exact same way it happened for me. Obviously for young kids coming up now the web has changed everything with so many new bands being at people's fingertips. What would you say has been gained and lost as the subculture has primarily shifted from physical to digital mediums?

There are so many negative and positive aspects to the digital age of hardcore, and I'm not sure if it all balances out or not. On one hand, I want to like that it's easier for kids to discover hardcore, but on the other hand, I think that having such free and easy access to hardcore also has created a crop of kids who can drop out of hardcore just as easily as they got into it. The amount of cool kids in hardcore has grown, because you no longer have to hang out on the fringes and be a weirdo outcast to obtain a portion of this subculture. No longer needing a tangible, physical copy of a band's output could have something to do with it too. Mp3s are unmemorable, and easily discarded with the click of a mouse. Physical artwork, lyric sheets and thank you lists give you a far more intimate understanding of a band, and where they're coming from with the music contained on the album. The newer generations have spawned some great kids and great bands, but I don’t think they will have nearly as many lifers as previous generations of hardcore.

You took us up to 94' in your personal history....once you were fully engrossed in the scene what bands became most important for you not just musically, but also in terms of ethics, politics, etc.?

I was going to lots of punk and Fat Wreck/Epitaph shows at first, but the first real hardcore band that really struck a nerve with me live was Sick of It All. They were completely unrelenting, and delivered something that seemed far more intense than most of the shows I was going to prior to seeing them. I was always bummed out to find out that I had missed the Born Against/Rorschach/Downcast show in Portland by a little over a year, but in general, Portland got skipped over a lot in the 90s by touring hardcore bands. Granted, there wasn't a thriving scene for what some would call "new school" hardcore bands here, so a lot of bands toured as if Oregon didn't even exist. The likes of Unbroken, Undertow, Chokehold, Mouthpiece, etc. would all go directly from Seattle down to California, or vice versa. This was also happening before I was old enough to drive, so I didn't have the means of getting to these shows, let alone finding out about half of them.

Along with Sick of It All, Earth Crisis started coming around in the mid 90s a lot. I saw them for the first time in '96 with Damnation AD, and both of those bands blew me away. Having been into punk and thrash metal, the political aspect of 90s hardcore greatly appealed to me, and Trial really struck a chord with me. They had started to play Portland a lot by '97, and they were exposing me to lots of political ideas that I hadn't considered before. I loved bands like Aus Rotten, but somehow, Trial made it all feel more real to me. Being able to see them play on a monthly basis surely helped that as well, as did becoming friends with the guys in the band, but the thoughts embedded in their music lit a fire in my teenage self.

I've asked this question to a couple of other people as well, but on the whole, hardcore and punk are definitely way less politicized and socially aware now (at least in the U.S.) than they were 15-20 years ago. I'm curious to get your thoughts on why you think things have evolved in that direction and if you see any way of putting that more activist-oriented approach back at the forefront of today's scene.

That's a tough one, but I think it might have a lot to do with the question you asked earlier about the internet's role in hardcore. The kids who aren't weirdoes and outcasts probably just aren't going to give much of a shit about the political rants of someone on stage. There's a much bigger sense of "less talk, more rock" these days, and those kids that didn't want to hear about social or political issues in the first place have now started bands of their own, so the cycle continues forward. I just get really bored with incredibly generic lyrics. Bands sound angry today, but when I read the lyrics, I have no clue what the hell they're so angry about. Maybe the teenage worker at Subway didn't put enough cheese on their sandwich.

However, I do not think that all bands need to have a socio-political message. I am just as happy seeing someone exorcise their personal demons through music. Seeing someone that's just as odd or messed up as I am work through things in their life that they probably never thought they would expose is liberating from both sides of the mic. I just want authenticity, and I become especially demanding of  it when it comes to hardcore.

Let's delve into Stuck in the Past a little bit. For starters, how did you and Chip get to know each other, and who had the idea to start the webzine?

I'm pretty sure that Chip and I actually first came into contact with one another via Soulseek many years ago. We live on opposite sides of the country, so we never got in touch in some other form during the 90s heyday, but in the early 2000s, we became acquainted through our love of 90s hardcore, and have become great friends since then. Around 2006, my wife was working nights, and I was bored out of my skull, so I started a blog called x43x where I would rip out of print records/tapes, and upload them. Although it was heavily 90s hardcore oriented, I was also dipping into black metal and punk. Chip had initially started Stuck In The Past as a blog for him to post about his insane shirt collection, and then he asked if I would like to join forces with him. It seemed like a good idea to me, and things just really took off from there rather quickly. We've gained and lost a few other contributors over the years, but I think we have a pretty good team right now.

In terms of your approach, would you say the goal is more to dig up long-lost treasures for old guys like us, or to hopefully turn some younger kids on to bands that laid the foundation for things today?

While I would say that it's a pretty even mixture of both, those two end results both come about from the notion that we want this music to be preserved for the digital age. Primarily, I'm an analog enthusiast, but the convenience of mp3s has become a part of my life as well, and I tend to listen to them through my phone while at work. Combine that with the fact that a lot of these releases were pressed in limited quantities 15 or 20 years ago, and I think it becomes necessary for them to be digitized, so that they can continue to have a presence for years to come. My formative teenage years happened in the 90s, and the hardcore scene of that time had a profound influence on me, so there's also a desire to want to make sure that a newer generation at least has the opportunity to hear even some of the most obscure bands from that era that were still filled interesting thoughts and passion.

For you personally, what would you say is your favorite link, story, or feature that you guys have been able to do?

There have been lots of great features over the years, but some of my favorites have been the Brotherhood soundboard/rehearsal recordings, the Dave Walker interview, the recently unearthed unreleased track from Bloodlet and of course, Sergeant D's 'Five Things I Miss About 90s Hardcore' guest post. The real beauty of the blog is how incredibly forthcoming members of the old bands have been. We often get contacted by them, and get rare stuff offered to us, which is phenomenal. I've even had multiple readers send me their old boxes of tapes that they don't listen to anymore, so I can convert them, and get them online. I have a nice backlog going right now, but I will get to them all, and always welcome more.

Talk a little bit about the formation of Unrestrained....how long had you known the other dudes, and what were you guys hoping to do that was perhaps different from your past musical endeavors?

When we first started Unrestrained at the tail end of 2006, we all had other bands that had recently broken up, and having known each other for quite a few years, there was just a heavy desire to start a new band involving all of us. Given how long the core of us had known each other, we set out to create a band that was reminiscent of the scene that was around when we all first started going to shows, which was the mid 90s. We never have tried to emulate any particular bands, but I think we just carry that vibe of the 90s rather heavily. We've had some lineup changes over the years, but the current lineup has been in place since late 2010, and I'm incredibly pleased with it. Things just seem to naturally work themselves out for us, and we don't find ourselves having to force any songs to come together.

You've released a number of 7 inches, splits, comp tracks, etc. over the years and are about to release your first full-length "Forward Onto Death" in a couple months here. My band is somewhat similar in that we've only written and released songs in small chunks; the idea of writing an LP has always seemed really daunting and intimidating. How did you guys approach it, and what was the process like as compared to doing just a few songs at a time?

We're a band made up of mostly 30 - 40 years olds (except Ryan, who keeps us young), so the writing process always moves a bit slowly for us. With wives/kids/careers/school, we normally get to practice once a week, at best, while everyone is actually in town at the same time. That being said, this full length actually came together in chunks, much like how our writing has gone in the past for the 7"s and compilations. I think we've just been pretty good at carrying a certain atmosphere with us throughout our duration, so even though the songs weren't all written in extremely close proximity to one another time wise, the songs on the LP still flow nicely with one another in the sequencing. We have talked about writing a fully conceptualized full length, though, and perhaps that will come sometime in the near future, but we're leaving ourselves pretty wide open for any other ventures like splits to come our way as well.

So lyrically the subject matter on the new record is fairly downcast across the board. In "Ophelia" you paint a picture of a world where humanity has pushed us to the verge.....of collapse, of calamity.....I haven't read Derek Jensen but I saw him speak once and the lyrics had a little bit of that feel. What do you foresee and what informed your thoughts as you were writing that song?

For as long as I can remember, I have never been the 'half glass full' type of person. I've always been a pessimist, and I think that greatly feeds into my outlook on the future of humanity. It's impossible to go more than a day or two without seeing a news story about some form of tragedy that is the direct result of someone's selfishness, and I think that's what fed the direction of “Ophelia” lyrically. Human selfishness is going to bring about the end of humanity, and potentially this entire planet long before any natural disaster can beat us to it. Megalomaniacs that receive power through birthright, and overzealous religious groups are undoubtedly going to be the ones that start the next nuclear war, and I just hope I'm long gone by the time that happens.

Similarly, "Disdain" comments on our crippled national politics. Lyrically it strikes me as really timely considering that in the past week we've seen a woman crash the White House gates with her baby in tow and a man set himself on fire in the capitol, both of which occurred in the context of a government shutdown. It's interesting because in some ways it seems like there are moments of political progress like LGBT rights inching forward ever-so slowly, while at the same time we've got absolute gridlock and a faction of batshit crazy Tea Party types who want to take us back a hundred years both socially and economically. Do you see any hope around the corner for us politically as a nation, and are things any better at the state and local levels in Oregon?

I don't think it's any small secret that the American government is completely bought and sold by large corporations and interest groups. The Koch brothers, and others like them, wield far more power in this country than any select people should ever be able to. We have this two party system that really isn't getting us anywhere anymore, because they both cater to such fringe voices within our nation. I think most people are pretty moderate, but the lunatics to the far right and far left are the ones that are constantly yelling and screaming. Unfortunately, those are the voices being heard, and the divide within the US House and Senate just keeps getting wider and wider.

Oregon is odd when it comes to politics, and that has a lot to do with the population distribution. Thanks to that shit-show Portlandia, lots of people have a very hip view of Portland, and subsequently, they think Oregon follows suit. The valley that stretches from Portland down to Eugene typically is pretty liberal and progressive, but Oregon is a large state, and there is a vast amount of land occupied by conservatives in the rural areas of this state. Local initiatives in the Portland area almost always lean to the left, but statewide initiatives are really a complete tossup. There have been multiple years where anti-gay bills have been struck down, yet gay marriage was also struck down. I never feel very confident about voting for president and national level representatives, but voting on local initiatives has a direct effect. And call me a Pinko all you want, but I think socialized democracy is the way to go.

One of the first times we talked you opened up about you and your wife Carly's struggle to have a child which saw you through multiple miscarriages and has recently culminated in the adoption of your daughter Miles. Much of the new record focuses on that process, none more clearly than "Empty". Not having gone through that particular experience but having had quite a struggle with my first-born, I know first-hand the toll it can take personally as well as on your relationship. So first things first, what was the process for you like personally? Secondly, how were you and Carly able to whether that storm so to speak? Did you find yourselves relying primarily on each other or was there an extended circle of friends and family that served as a support through the process?

“Empty” is a song that was written directly after a miscarriage. It wasn't the first, but it also wasn't the last, and I had just reached a point in the process where I felt completely empty and void, but a large part of me didn't want to feel anymore. I've always been an introvert, and that has manifested itself in many ways over the years. There have been times where people apparently think I'm a dick because I don't go out of my way to talk to them, but I don't fancy myself as better than anyone. I'm just socially awkward, and that usually results in a level of anxiety that leaves me sitting by myself unless someone wants to initiate conversation with me. In conjunction with that, I've become comfortable just sitting with my thoughts, but in retrospect, this was not the time where I should have remained introverted with my thoughts. What we were going through was definitely tearing me up inside, and Carly was always far more open with her feelings than I was. I had this antiquated mindset that she was going through so much that I needed to remain strong and stoic in order to help her. However, it would have helped both of us a lot more if I had been more openly vulnerable. Once I knew that, though, I think I slowly made some strides to be a lot more open about my emotions amidst whatever turmoil was hitting us at the time. Even just answering questions like this is pretty huge for me. I know the lyrics on the new record really kind of set me up for these sorts of questions, though, so I guess this is the head first dive.

So I recently listened to an episode of "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross where she interviewed someone who wrote a book about her experience with adoption where she encountered tons of hurdles, was told she was being given a child only to have that decision reversed, etc. How did you guys come to the point where you decided to pursue adoption and was your experience pretty smooth or were there more bumps along the road?

The choice to adopt was really a natural conclusion t0 the string of miscarriages. Although we didn't have any situations as awful as having an adoption decision reversed, it was still a long, arduous process. Lots of adoption agencies function differently, but our process involved receiving a brief description of a birth-mother and her situation, and we had to choose to show her a short book about ourselves or not. From there, we just had to wait for a decision, which is always an agonizing wait. Sometimes, we weren't shocked to find out we weren't chosen, but there were other times that were harder to take. It was easy to develop an attachment to the idea that we were so similar to the birth-mother based solely on little details in a one sheet, so certain situation stung a little more than others.

Actually, I think the hardest times were when we were told that the choice had been narrowed down to three adoptive families, which included us, but we weren't chosen in the end. Somehow, it just felt more personal to have gotten that deep, and then not been chosen. It was easy to perceive it as a personal rejection. But, after a year and a half, we found a great match, and actually had a really smooth process from there on out.

Now that you've come full circle with the adoption process, how is the transition to parenthood going thus far?

It's incredible, and has actually been a pretty smooth transition. It's funny, because there were lots of people (who don't know me too well) that would tell me things like, "your life is really going to change. You won't be able to go out all the time." Joke's on them, because I don't go out much. I'm a hermit that pokes my head out of the cave every so often to play or attend shows and to play softball once a week in the summer. And it just so happens that my wife is a hermit too, so we're a great match. I love my friends, and I love to see them, but most days, I just want to come home to relax and hangout with my wife, baby and dog.

I've never believed in karma, but maybe the universe is throwing us a bone for all of the hell we went through on our road to having a child, because our baby is the greatest (yes, I'm aware that basically every parent says that). She's incredibly mellow, and generally happy. Her only freak-outs come when she's hungry, or has gone too long without a nap. And for most of her six months on this planet, she has slept straight through the night. But most importantly, she makes me smile, and I miss her incredibly when I'm gone. She's already a lot like my wife in that regard.

For all things Unrestrained, you can head here: http://unrestrained.limitedrun.com/
Go get schooled here kids: http://xstuckinthepastx.blogspot.com/

Also, be on the lookout for Unrestrained's new LP "Forward Unto Death" coming early next year on Trip Machine Laboratories. Pre-orders will be up soon at http://www.tripmachinelabs.com/

Interview with Anthony and Chris from Divider

Chris Tzompanakis is a guy I “met” a long time ago, while he was running an awesome little label called One Day Savior Records. Perhaps best known for his time as the vocalist of Skycamefalling, ODS saw him put out beautifully packaged records from bands that covered a wide spectrum of punk, hardcore, indie, and metal. A few years ago I heard he was going to be fronting a band again, and I instantly got pretty stoked, figuring it would rule. Fast forward a year or so from that point and I got to hear some of the recordings, which completely confirmed my high hopes. Shortly thereafter my best buds in Hollow Earth did an East Coast run where they got to share the stage together…rave reviews of their live show were all I heard for weeks after they got home.  

That summer they did a Midwest run and after ten plus years of communicating with Chris via email, I finally got to meet him in person. He was just as nice as I’d assumed he would be, and Divider was even more massive-sounding than I’d ever imagined, blowing the power out twice within a mere four or five songs.

Needless to say, I consider Divider to be one of the most criminally underrated bands currently making music; truly a diamond in the rough. Melodic without being pretty, crushingly heavy without the embarrassing nu-metal tendencies (cough Xibalba cough), slow and brooding without falling into Nuer-Isis territory, a hardcore band that doesn’t rely for a second on breakdowns, they cannot be pigeonholed; other than to say that they are a bad-ass, insanely loud band.

Anyway, all that underrated, diamond in the rough stuff should be coming to an end early next year when the band will release their new LP via Glory Kid Records, which is already my most-anticipated release of 2014.

For this interview I broke it up into two parts, part one with their guitarist Anthony, who I’ve been getting to know over the past couple years as well, and part two with Chris.

So I'm semi-familiar with Chris's background in the scene via Skycamefalling and One Day Savior, but how did you get involved in punk and hardcore?

I would say my dad was indirectly responsible for me getting into alternative music. When I was around 13 years old, I came home with some dumb Marilyn Manson cd or something. My pops wasn’t mad when he saw it, but he sat me down and explained to me how there are people in boardrooms that are trained to separate my money from my wallet with music like that. I was looking for something else that meant a little more after that. For me though, my first love was Sonic Youth.  That was heavy music for me.  I think I snaked my sisters’ copy of “Dirty” and I was hooked.  I would sit in my garage and try to figure out how they were making some of those sounds. Then the search for new bands started, met people, and then I started playing.

Damn, your dad sounds like a total bad ass! What sort of sounds were you exposed to as a kid and how does your fam feel now about the type of stuff you are playing?

I had a pretty lucky childhood when it came to my family and music.  My mom saw The Beatles at Shea Stadium and Hendrix play the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock.  My dad saw Led Zeppelin and met Jim Morrison at a bar in New York.  So there were plenty of stories.  That music at that period of time was sparked by what was going on in the world.  

There was a war going on and you could have been plucked from your home and sent to fight via the draft. When Hendrix played the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock, he imitated sounds of war within the song. My dad showed me "Ohio" by CSNY and explained how college students were shot and killed by the National Guard.  So at a young age, they showed me how there is a lot more to music than some idiot with colored contact lenses jerking off on a guitar. I don't think we will ever see music like that ever again. 

I came from a very supportive family.  Creativity was encouraged.  So I think my mom is pretty proud of the fact that there is something that I still love like when I was 18.  I think my pops would have probably learned how to play guitar so we could have jammed together or something.

Talk a little bit about the history of the band. Your first LP, "At Twilight" is sonically pretty far removed from where the band is now, and was followed by a 4 year silence (at least in terms of released output). I know there was some re-tooling of the line-up during that period...was the sonic shift an intentional move or just sort of the natural result of new people coming into the fold?

We started playing in 2006.  We wrote an EP pretty quickly and got the chance to record it with someone that we all looked up to.  As soon as we had copies in our hands, we went on tour.  The usual band member shifts happened, but we were still able to play a decent amount, and it was awesome. After some pretty awesome shows and wild tours, a series of unfortunate events took place.  More member shifts.  People quit while on tour.  Had to go to court for the dumbest shit.  So all the fun kind of got sucked out of playing.  We all went our separate ways. 

Fast forward 2 years, we started playing again and wrote another EP.  We played a bunch, but then our singer left to play in a rock band.  I’ll never forget our drummer Vic saying “I know this guy that wants to try out” I was totally spent at that point and figured whatever.  I found out later that Vic’s friend was this guy Chris that sang in some band called Skycamefalling. He really needed to try out.

As far as the sound, I think I knew that this band would evolve as long as it was around.  I never liked the idea of writing the same song 12 different ways.  That shit obviously gets boring and reeks of laziness. So we never sat down and consciously decided to change. When I listen to “At Twilight” though, it still sounds like me.  We usually write a song based on ideas that I bring to everyone that are eventually morphed into full songs as a band.  In a way, the songs write themselves.  I feel like your gut instinct is usually right. What comes naturally is what you subconsciously decide is right.  When you start to try and force things to create a certain feel, that feel is fake.  So I just think the songs grew as we grew.  The songs on “At Twilight” represent who we were and how we felt at that point in time.  Fast forward seven years and we are not the same people in the same situations, so I feel that whatever we are creating now is just an indication of who we are now.

So that guy you "all looked up to" for the early e.p. was Kurt Ballou. When my band recorded with Jay Maas a couple years ago he had some hilarious stories about how brutal Kurt can be in the studio both from recording with him and from being someone he trades tips and gear with. How nervous were you as a young band going with a semi-legendary dude (at least in our circles) and how did that experience compare with working at Studio 4 and recording at your home set up?

We had to email Kurt a demo of one of our songs before he would say yes or no.  I remember hearing back from him and getting the go ahead.  That was a pretty special moment for me. We were pretty young, but we had our shit dialed when we got there.  We booked seven days but finished in five. I was nervous as fuck when I met him. It almost didn't happen though. Our van started acting funny about 50 miles away from Salem. It was sputtering like crazy. We had to do 30 mph for that last 50 miles.  

As for his temperament, I wouldn't say that he was brutal, but he was definitely direct. There was a singing part where he said "That sounds like Staind... don't do that." We had a drum fill before the song "At Twilight" and he said "That fill is way too funky for this. We need to address that." My guitar wasn't set up 100% properly, so he grabbed it and went upstairs. All I heard was a saw and a hammer going and he came back down with it and said "That should be better now". It was awesome recording with him though. His studio is beautiful. The quality of his equipment is so amazing, and he knows how to use it.

It was hard to imagine recording with someone else. At least until we met Will and started tracking at Studio 4. The experiences are totally different. I was almost in shock the whole time when we were recording with Kurt. Will is like our buddy that just so happens to be amazing at what he does while having this level of experience and know how that rivals people that have been producing/engineering for three times as long.  

As for my stuff, Kurt originally gave me the advice "It's better to have a couple really awesome pieces of recording gear as opposed to a lot of mediocre pieces".  Will also encouraged me to track the vocals for our record.  So it's hard not to take the advice from two people you really admire.

When you guys played Detroit a couple summers ago you were already well into work on the new LP...at that point I remember you guys telling me there had already been some push and pull about the direction of your new material. Just over a year later the record is done, musically at least. What did the writing process look like, and was there anything you wanted to do differently from the past couple 7 inches and the Colony split?

I was writing these huge, layered songs at that point.  Keep in mind we are one guitar and one bass player. In my head, these songs sounded so good, but for us to pull them off, we would need at least two other guitar players. I would say we have tossed maybe 15 songs during this process. After all that, our drummer Vic and I would go to the studio and just play. Anything that didn’t sound good with just the two of us was tossed.  We would record ourselves playing for 20 minutes and listen to whatever was there. It had to be interesting with one guitar and drums, otherwise it was too much.  So everything was stripped down to its bare bones.  

The process was definitely different for this record compared to anything else we have done in the past. Vic was a big part in writing some of these songs.  It was way more of a collective effort. For me, that was really awesome. It put me in a space that I didn’t feel 100% comfortable in, but I had to trust the other people that I have been playing with for years. I think the end result of us coming together to write a record is better than anything I could have done all on my own.

Your sound is already massive as it is so I almost can't imagine you guys adding another member, but given your instincts to write more textured stuff this last go around as well as how successful you feel the more collaborative approach was, can you see yourselves potentially adding a second guitar player at any point or do you think you'll remain a 4 piece moving forward?

No, I don't think we will ever do that. It's not necessary. I already mimic the two guitar player sound by cutting out amps and doing the quiet/loud thing within our songs, but I also feel that if a song doesn't sound right with just one guitar, then adding another over it won't make it great. I am speaking about our band explicitly. The song writing process with one guitar is so much easier too. If we are working on an idea and it sucks, we know right away. Sometimes it's easy to get lost in a riff with a bunch of fluff over it. With one guitar, if the riff sucks, it is so evident.

Also, I think the collaborative approach worked because of the familiarity between Vic and me. We have been playing together for years now. We know each others’ strengths and limitations. Because of that we worked pretty well together on these songs. I feel like it's easy to fuck up that creative flow by bringing in another element.  Who knows though? We started out as a two guitar player tech band and now I hold out chords in the same amount of time that we used to play seven different riffs. I had this idea a while back of us doing a split with another band that was comprised of all of us but played these spacey kind of songs I had written a few years ago. Maybe there could be two guitar players on that.

I am probably the least knowledgeable person about gear in all of North America, but I've noticed you seem to have quite the thing for the work of the Electric Guitar Company. Why have they become the axe of choice for you and what do they bring to the table that other guitars don't?  

I take a lot of pride in the way my guitar sounds.  Years of trial and error have brought me to a point where I am as close to completely happy as I will ever get, as far as the amps/cabs go at least.  My girlfriend first sparked my interest in aluminum guitars.  She has an old Kramer bass with an aluminum neck.  It is such a sick bass.  So I started looking at some companies that make all aluminum guitars.  I ended up talking to the owner of Electrical Guitar Company for a bit about guitars and their process.  We spoke back and forth for about a month before anything was set in stone.  I gave him the specs on the guitar I wanted, and they started building it.  The necks are solid aluminum, so they are able to make them extremely thin while keeping the structural integrity intact. The body is also made of aluminum, but it is hollow.  There are two pieces that are bolted together to form it.  The neck extends through the body, and they mount the pickups to that section of the neck that is inside the body.  By doing that, the guitar resonates unlike any other guitar I have played.  The feedback is beautiful.  They are hands down the easiest guitars to play. After I received the guitar, I started selling most of my wood guitars to get another one. EGC is going to turn into an enormous company in the next few years, and their guitars definitely represent that.  

You've done the last couple releases, as well as the new LP in Philadelphia at Studio 4 with Will Yip. I keep hearing incredible things about the dude and just read a cool feature on him today that Blow the Scene did; he definitely seems like a great guy to work with. What was the studio experience like with him this time around? Were there any new tricks that either he or you guys had up your sleeves?

So I was introduced to Will from a mutual friend.  He recorded and mixed the songs we did for the Colony split and our White 7 inch.  For this LP, it was our 4th time recording with him.  We were there two other times to record songs that we never used for anything.  Will is the best.  It is so easy to record with him. 

The hardest decision we had to make was what to have for lunch each day.  Maybe it’s because we have a rapport with him now, but we go in and take care of business.  We recorded guitar, bass, and drums in four days.  The only way we were able to do that was because of his efficiency.  We tracked all the music with him, but we are in the process of tracking the vocals on Long Island with my stuff.  Logistically and financially, it makes more sense to do the vocals on our own time. 

For this record, we brought five amps and three cabinets of our own while using a few different amp/cabs that are at Studio 4.  The guitar tracks consist of an Acoustic 450 through an Acoustic 405 cabinet, a 73 Orange OR120 through a HIWATT cabinet, a White Electric Amp through an old Marshall cabinet, the Orange through another Marshall cabinet, and an old Vox 2x12.  For the bass we used an Ampeg fliptop with an 18 inch speaker and a VHT guitar amp to make it sound disgusting.  We used their drums which is a setup of old Ludwig’s and some other stuff.  The tonal possibilities are almost endless when playing these setups in their live room.  That is one of the keys to that huge sound.  Their live room is perfect.  The way it was built and mic’d creates this enormous sound that cannot be recreated digitally.  The other key is the console.  They have a vintage Neve console.  If you have seen the flick that Dave Grohl put together about Sound City, it’s the same console but with more tracks and an expanded EQ I believe.  

For a band like ours to be able to track our stupid songs through a piece of history like that is beyond words.  I am forever grateful to Will for being such a good dude and opening up that studio to bands like ours.  Will is mixing and mastering this record, so to say that I am excited to hear the final product would be a gargantuan understatement.

Alright Chris, so take us down memory lane....how did you fall into punk and hardcore? What were some of your first shows, first bands you fell in love with, first records you got your hands on?

My father's record collection was probably where I first started to discover bands like Black Sabbath, Santana, the Beatles, etc. and I listened to those mostly when I was growing up. When I was about 12 or 13 a group of friends would all hang out after school. Some of us would skate, some would cause trouble but whatever it was that we were doing, we always had a cassette playing on a boom box. It started off being metal and then alternative and then gradually progressed to punk and hardcore. We heard about bands through magazines like Thrasher and skate videos mostly. We would go to local record stores to see if they had any of it. Sometimes we got lucky and we'd find a Minor Threat 12" or Dead Milkmen 12"s, other times we had to go to the city to get what we wanted. Eventually we started hearing about local shows and some of the venues which happened to be a few towns over from us. Most of the bands we were exposed to were local Long Island bands like Mind Over Matter, Neglect, Silent Majority, etc. Through local distro's, zines and friends, I began to find get into bands like Lincoln, Indian Summer, Inkwell, Frail and other bands of that style.

I honestly kind of missed the boat on Skycamefalling....saw you guys in Chicago once, but it was One Day Savior when I really came to admire your early work. You had such a solid run and built up an incredibly diverse roster, both sonically and philosophically. When you think back on ODS, what are you most proud of? Was there anything left on the shelf that you wish you would've released at the end that got passed on due to circumstances? 

First, thank you for the kind words. The label was, for the most part, something I enjoyed doing and I look back on it with incredibly fond memories. My taste has always been diverse and I think that led to some very confused listeners. I looked up to labels like Immigrant Sun, Art Monk Construction and Watermark so I did my best to copy a lot of what they were doing. The music always sounded different, which is what I loved about those labels. I bought their records because it came out on their label and I never really knew what the sound would be when you pressed play.

I remember the first 7" I ever released, the split between Incision and Ignorance Never Settles, and the day those showed up to my door. Assembling them was probably one of the happiest moments I can remember. Just the fact that two bands let me release their music and it would one day end up in the hands of people who discovered new music the very same way that I did. In the end, I saw it winding down, so there were a few vinyl releases that I had to pass on after having agreed to release them which was a bit of a bummer.

Speaking of labels, Divider released a somewhat delay-plagued 3 way split LP with Bone Dance and Plebeian Grandstand which was quickly followed by two d.i.y. releases, a split 7" with Colony and then your own 3-song 7". When we chatted a couple summers ago you expressed being pretty content with going the d.i.y. route...what eventually led to the partnership with Glory Kid for the release of the new LP?

It’s always just been easier for us to control our own records and do things at our own pace. The split LP was agreed on before I was in the band and there were certainly delay's on the band's part with respect to recording. It’s not that we weren't grateful because after all this is someone who was willing to spend their hard earned money to release music for a band. After that one release and the headaches and delays which accompanied it, it made more sense for us to do things on our own. Given the fact of where we are in our lives and with this band, for us to be able to decide what to do and when, seemed the most appropriate. Glory Kid seemed to be on the same page with all of that and he understands our current situation surrounding our personal lives, timelines, etc. He has been more than patient throughout this project and it’s greatly appreciated.

The lyrics to "A-Tune" sort of seem like a critique of media with lines like "the act of us all on our knees, it echoes from our homes, from our children, from our nine to non-stop of tuning in". Just curious if you could flesh this out a little more. It seems to me that while the media currently still serves to pacify to a large extent, the advent of social media also presents unprecedented opportunities for social movements to flourish. Do you see these tendencies, and if so, which do you see as more prevalent?

To be completely honest, I am on the fence with a lot of what is going on when it comes to the media, social networking and data collection. I work in an industry where data collection is looked as less an invasion of privacy and more as a way to tailor the information that is being delivered to you and make it relevant. I am indeed guilt of being one of those individuals that has a hard time turning off from my digital life. Yet through that, I am also cautious around what I post and what side of me is on display. 

The lyrics themselves are about how specific applications that we perceive as private are really just ways for businesses to gain our trust, let our guard down and open ourselves up to a constant stream of advertising which in turn effects what we consider successful or beautiful or even happiness. Someone is always selling us and it’s hard to understand, especially for younger people who have grown up in this environment, what is actually the ideals that we ourselves believe and what are the ones that we have been told to believe. 

It’s frustrating because I often find myself caught between these two worlds, of what I believe I need to be happy and what I actually need. I do believe that the media and the digital era has truly opened up a new world for many us and allowed us to find information and present it in such a way that was not available to us. Connecting people who have similar or even different ideas and allow meaningful dialogue and perhaps promote change. 

On the one hand, I do believe that there are negative aspects which occur with every new means of communication. It’s a cat and mouse game to a degree however for most of us settling somewhere in the middle, I think we are most likely willing to accept the negative portions in exchange for the positive ones. 

The over-arching theme lyrically seems to be a profound sense of hopelessness and desperation. Where does this come from for you? While I think those sorts of emotions certainly fit the mood of Dividers music, you've always struck me as a pretty upbeat guy for the most part. 

I have gone through some shit in the last few years and my outlet has always been writing and music. While I consider myself fairly upbeat in my day to day life, the weight of the issues I have faced in recent years has certainly taken a toll. Fortunately the band and the being able to play shows have given me a place to exercise those demons. There have certainly been those days where I did not think that I or my family could get through some of the challenges and it seems those days where my outlook is at its lowest seem to the ones where I can be the most creative. I do not feel sorry for myself or the things that I have gone through. I look at all of this as a learning experience, a way to better myself and my life. I accept what we have gone through and consider myself very fortunate to be able to put a lot of that behind us and move forward.

The last time we chatted you said we had to talk 90s hardcore, so this is it. What were some of your favorite labels from the mid to late 90s?

The ones I mentioned earlier, Immigrant Sun, Watermark & Art Monk, were favorites of mine in addition to labels like Second Nature, Hydra Head, (early) Doghouse, King of the Monsters and Youth Power. Most of those labels were pretty eclectic in their releases and genres and many of them had pretty incredible packaging as well. I believe you and I chatted about that Jeremin record on KOTM and even some of the early Hydra Head and Immigrant Sun records had amazing packaging. Judging a record by its cover and the effort put into the packaging and artwork was how I discovered many of my favorite bands years ago. 

Imagine you had to curate the equivalent of Burning Fight but instead of getting all the legends that everyone knows like Unbroken, Trial, and 108, it would be smaller bands that have mostly fallen to the dustbin of history. Who plays the fest and why?

I think I might be the only in attendance for this fest. There was a band I loved from Connecticut called In Vain that has virtually gone unnoticed and forgotten about it. I always thought they were way ahead of their time and unfortunately never received the recognition they deserved. Next, Midvale who had a record on Status and another on Ed Walters. The vocalist of that band had such a powerful and emotional voice. I am going to also say New Day Rising, who in my opinion were the pioneers of that sing/scream style and the modern “screamo” sound today. Cable playing only “Variable Speed Drive”, which when I saw them in the late 90s were probably the most intense band I had ever seen. Groundwork, who somehow has fallen through the cracks but yet were largely influential in their day. Acme, which might cost us a lot to fly them over from Europe, but anyone who heard that record won’t argue with my decision on that one. We need a headliner so I am saying Falling Forward, those songs are so raw and they might be the popular band on the list. I can’t deny getting the chills when listening to “Hand Me Down”. I also forgot Creation is Crucifixion, the tech metal band before that tech sound was cool.