Interview with Daniel from No Omega

No Omega are an awesome band from Sweden whose sound straddles the line between contemporary screamo and more straight-forward hardcore ala Hope Con or MLIW. I heard about them recently due the fact that my friends over at Protagonist Music are helping to release their new one-sided LP “Occupants”. I’m always curious to see what Protagonist has up their sleeve and was blown away when I checked out No Omega, particularly their disturbing and yet incredible video for “Comfort”.

I decided to drop them a line to learn a little bit more and had the following exchange with Daniel. Make absolutely sure you check out “Occupants” when it drops next month.

                                                        

Sweden obviously has a somewhat legendary hardcore and punk scene in certain respects....talk a little bit about your first experiences with the music, including some of the first bands you discovered, shows you went to, etc. What are some lesser known Swedish bands that people should check out that perhaps had a hand in introducing you to things?

I got into hardcore through indie rock more than metal or punk like most do. Hence, I listened mostly to stuff like At the Drive-In, Refused and The Blood Brothers, and went on from there. My first DIY hardcore-esque show was when my old band put up a show with Suis la Lune, a band that always will be very dear to me. Around then there was some great screamo in Sweden, like Amalthea and Anemone. There was also a band that has been a great influence to us artistically called Meleeh! There are SO many good bands coming out of Sweden, punk and non-punk so I could make an endless list but currently some of my favourites are: Sore Eyelids, Via Fondo, This Gift is a Curse, Scraps of Tape and Mattias Alkberg.

Give a little bit of background on how all of you guys came together as musicians. Over the course of a demo, two LP's and now a new e.p., how would you say the band has grown and changed, both sonically as well as lyrically?

Right, so I guess everyone who started the band had been in various bands together before forming No Omega, and after some people leaving the band, especially our old singer Andreas, we were forced to essentially reform the band. Oscar who used to play guitar picked up the microphone, which made a lot of sense since he's written a majority of the lyrics from day one. We brought in our best friend Joakim to play the bass, and we now are faced with a situation where we will be touring with a somewhat rotating lineup this year, with me and Oscar being the only constant members at shows.

From the beginning Oscar and Andreas wrote most of the music and lyrics, with me coming in a bit more after a few releases. On the past record, “Shame”, and on this new one we've had more of a conversation within the band about the themes and direction of what we're doing which is great.

No Omega's always had quite simple song structures, without a bunch of guitar solos or flashy playing, focusing more on mood and an overall texture to the songs I guess... With the new record we pushed it a bit, and I added a lot of more guitar than what we're used to. We always have a core of what is our band with every release, but try to widen the pallet of what we can do, as the band evolves and our influences in life changes.

I usually see the records very loosely as different style, with the first ep being more post-metal, “Metropolis” as the melodic hardcore one, “Shame” the fake-black metal one, and this new one I guess has nu screamo and post-rock as the new thing going.

Lyrically, it's always been within the same general area but about different aspects of it. A world that is wrong can either make you feel angry, sad or just hopeless, and we try to take up the various ways things are wrong and often more in a ”this makes me feel this” kinda way than ”this guy's an asshole”.

You guys have worked with a bunch of different labels; Thirty Days of Night, Get This Right, the last record on Throatruiner and now the new effort being co-released by Dog Knights and Protagonist. How have those working relationships been, and more recently, how did you hook up with Dog Knights and the homies Brendan and Bill from Protagonist?

Our relationship with Mathias and Throatruiner was great, he helped us a lot and was easy to work with, we liked his ethics and he'd released some great bands, so with him it was us contacting him.

Darren had been wanting to do something with us for a while but it didn't really work out, and now when we decided to try him after seeing him doing some great work for our friends in bands like Disembarked and Shirokuma we couldn't be more happy – his part in this record is very important and it's been great.

For Protagonist we'd just seen some good music coming out of them for a while and when we got in touch it turned out they were into our band so!

In terms of the rotating line-up, I imagine that's due to work/school commitments.....what are the logistics like in terms of pulling that off with people playing different instruments and doing different things in the context of your live performance?

Yeah pretty much. We've only taken in good friends of ours to play, and now that everyone live in Stockholm again it's quite easy to just go out and practice with them. Right now we're playing with our real bass player and two extras, which just means I have to play the old songs a lot more than I'd have wanted haha. 

We've been lucky enough to have found friends who are able to play our songs and share similar views and ethics, and don't feel like the picture of the band is being tainted or anything.

You guys have toured quite a bit over the last several years, often with some fairly big bands (Touche Amore, Birds in Row) and sometimes with those who are a little less well-known (This Routine is Hell). How do those tours compare and in general do you prefer the exposure of playing a big room or the intimacy of something a bit smaller?

We've only really done one actual ”big room” tour and that was with Touche. Some shows on that tour were cool but generally the promoters didn't really care about us and a lot of people who'd come out to see us missed our slot with the venue not having our stage time properly announced. But it's whatever. I mainly care about being out with people I like and the people doing shows for us being decent. I don't have a problem with a big stage but usually the 100-200 cap rooms are the best!

There was a reference on your Facebook a while ago about "planning a world tour"....what are the chances that we might see you guys over here in the States at some point?

Might take a little while, but the US is on the list! I didn't really enjoy my last first tour over there, so I hope to get another chance. We'll be doing most of Europe and another part of the world we haven't announced yet this year mainly!

Yeah in the States you always hear American bands that have traveled to Europe talk about how much more awesome bands get treated, the shows are generally better and there is a difference sense of hospitality. As a European who has toured the States, what did you see as the biggest differences and why do you think those differences exist? Is punk and hardcore just a lot more popular there, are there cultural differences that make Europeans appreciate touring artists to a different degree?

It's hard to tell what makes the differences exist, like I don't think Americans are shittier people than Germans... I guess it's just cultural, and the English speaking countries might've had bands going around to play for longer, or I don't know. In England it's not AS bad as in the States when it comes to hospitality at shows, but they're not far from it. My experience in the US was that there barely was a promoter each night; just a room with a small PA and a microphone and then a FB event say what five local bands were opening for us each night. Like... it didn't feel like there was anything demanded of a promoter, which to me is weird. Decent food, a decent place to sleep and a working PA with as many microphones as you actually need are basic parts of a DIY show. If you can't even deliver that you shouldn't have booked the bands from the start.

I am aware we played a lot of odd shows though, and that there is a real DIY scene in the States also, we just didn't see it too much. Loads of the shows, like the 25 minutes we played, were great though! People were really nice and interested in our band, and that was a great thing, way more than we expected!

So the music video for "Comfort" is incredibly powerful, offering a chilling look at humanity. I'm curious if you could first talk a little bit about the visual concepts you had in mind. Also, you offered a little bit of narrative online about your thoughts on how our culture is based on dominance and things of that nature, I was hoping you could expand a little bit more on that.

We were aiming at having two very different videos for the record, and one would be really raw and abrasive and capture something we can't really say without those pictures. Chariot of Black Moth helped us out and the end product was way better than I'd expected of such a concept.

Well. Essentially, what we mean is that it's quite obvious how our species as a whole isn't the missing link or the cause of all problems, making us behave like we do. It's an issue of culture that not that many critics of the human behaviour talk about. They quickly start blaming humanity itself, for things like capitalism, sexism and the destruction of our planet, when we know that people went on fine for a long time not messing with the order of things.

Alright last question. If a person only took away one thing from No Omega, be it from the live experience or from listening to your music and reading your lyrics, what impression would you hope they come away with?

That's a good question. Even though we're a generally dystopic and negative band, I wish they picked up what's said between the lines about issues we want to correct and try to make their lives more cruelty-free and have a better impact on their surroundings. I've had a few people going through rough parts of their lives coming up and talking about how our band has... maybe not helped, but been a support to deal with their issues, and that is sooo humbling. So whether our records and shows make you speak up the next time a friend uses a homophobic slur, or get you one step closer to being vegan, or just help you through a shitty day that's great.

Listen: http://noomega.bandcamp.com/album/occupants

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed9CSy1srjk

Support: http://store.deathwishinc.com/product/PROTAG046v.html

Interview with Casey Nealon (Youth Funeral, Death Injection)

Last August my good friends Capacities played my town, and they shared with me that they’d soon be breaking up/going on indefinite hiatus due to their drummer relocating to California. I was incredibly bummed; first and foremost because that meant I probably would no longer be seeing them once or twice a year when they went on tour, but also because that meant my favorite current screamo band was basically done. Like youth crew, I feel like screamo is a genre that lots of bands do, but only a few do really well; it’s rare that I feel a band really nails that sound.

It was against the backdrop of losing Capacities that I came across Youth Funeral, and man, do they ever nail it. The controlled chaos, the gut-wrenching emotion, it’s all there. The New Hampshire four-piece has been around for a couple years now and has registered an e.p. and a split under their belt, as well as the recent 7” “See You When I See You” which finds the band hitting full stride.

I decided to reach out to guitarist/vocalist Casey Nealon to learn more about the band, and came to find out that in addition to Youth Funeral, Casey also fronts the early-80’s inspired hardcore/punk band Death Injection who just released an LP on Triple B Records.

He’s certainly got a lot going on, so it was great to pick his brain a little bit and get his perspective on things. Read on.

I'm always curious to hear about people's background and history in music, so start off by talking a little bit about how you fell into stuff, early shows you went to, bands that made a particular impression on you.

The first proper concert I went to was AC/DC on their "Stiff Upper Lip" tour. That was well before I even picked up a guitar, I believe. I started playing when I was 10 years old. My grandparents bought me a red Ibanez Gio and a small amplifier. I still have the amplifier and have written most of my music on it. I took lessons for one year in which I learned how to play Green Day songs and power chords, and then I quit guitar for a year. Eventually, I slowly picked it back up on my own and just experimented with the instrument when my parents weren't home. I self-taught myself the instrument for the most part.

In High School, I learned about the "underground" music scene when a kid in my American Government class told me that his band was playing that weekend. For a couple years, I went to see some truly garbage bands play around my small town in New Hampshire. After some time passed, I saw Converge play the University Of New Hampshire and that was when I was first exposed to more kinetic and emotional performance and expression in hardcore/punk/whatever. Those were the highlights of my formative years, for sure.

I guess as a Midwest kid when I think about the East Coast it seems like such a hotbed for amazing hardcore/punk/metal bands and you could just so easily become totally engrossed in the subculture....was that your experience or did you start to get involved in things more gradually?

The town in New Hampshire that I grew up in wasn't nearly as active as Boston or other New England or East Coast areas at the time. So, I wasn't initially engrossed in subculture but I definitely was fascinated by underground music and the more I participated by attending shows or forming bands, the more it took over.

How did Youth Funeral come together....had you known the other guys for a while, played in other bands previously, or was this a new endeavor for everyone to be joining forces?

Youth Funeral started with Raph and I talking about making a chaotic screamo band. He went ahead and started writing with our drummer, Mike, and asked me if I wanted to play with them. I came over to Mike's parents' house one day and we wrote the first songs for “Symptom Of Time”. Travis was at Mike's house and just ended up falling into playing with us. Both Travis and Mike have known each other for years and played in bands together before. Raph and I have been close friends since we were like 5 years old but had never really played music together except for in another band we started right before Youth Funeral called "Ellie." We wrote an EP and played one show, but then Youth Funeral took precedence.

While YF's sound definitely is heavy on the chaos, you guys also seem to give things room to breathe at times (I'm thinking songs like "Weak but Warm" or "A Dream"). How intentional are you in the writing process about mixing things up in terms of tempo and intensity?

I like to write songs that aren't the same as other songs that we've written. I am very conscious of ordering songs on record based on their vibes or tempos or key parts. Youth Funeral, to me, is a project that has the ability to flourish at any speed or intensity, so I want to exercise that ability as much as possible.

I noticed everything you guys have recorded up to this point has been with Will at Dead Air. He's obviously got just a liiiiiiittle bit of a stacked resume, haha. I'm curious if you had worked with him before, and if not, if you were at all nervous going in with him the first time or two.

Will certainly has a reputation as a musician that precedes him and all of us were fans of his music going in. Both Raph and I had recorded with Will before with our other bands, and even those first times, I don't think either of us were necessarily giddy or fan-boying. Will has a comforting aura and the recording experience with him is so smooth and streamlined– I think I'd have to try to be nervous.

The new 7" obviously came out just a few months ago on Twelve Gauge. I've always admired that label because the roster is all over the board sonically and I get the sense that Jihad only puts stuff out that he really likes, regardless of popularity or marketability. That said, how did you guys hook up with him for the new record and how has it been working with him thus far?

The Twelve Gauge roster is interesting, for sure! I believe you hit the nail on the head as far as Jihad only putting out records he likes and it shows in the variety of records he's put out over the years. There's something to be said about that. For our new record, I was told that Jihad was looking for bands to put out, and I thought the Nervous LP and No Sir LP he did recently were cool, so I e-mailed him and the rest was history.

You guys did a little run through the Midwest back in January, talk about tour. A) Touring the Midwest in JANUARY, are you nuts? (-: B) What were the highlights in terms of shows, other bands you got to see, etc.?

Ha! We were definitely nuts to do that. It's actually not the first time I've done a tour like that in the winter. My old band Host toured the same area and Canada in February one time– miserable weather. The Youth Funeral tour was no exception with how cold and unforgiving it was. I believe I was dangerously close to frostbite at times. No fun. Highlights of tour for me were Chicago and Richmond. We got to play with Swan of Tuonela and Caust in Richmond, who both ruled, and I made some cool new friends. Then in Chicago, we played with our pals in Itto and Lord Snow, who are both some of the best bands doing what we're all doing.

In addition to playing in Youth Funeral you also front Death Injection....talk a little bit about the background of that band, how did you come together?

As for Death Injection, Ryan, Bryan, Tyler, and I have been close friends for five or six years now, I believe. We met playing together with our old bands and started hanging out all the time. Now I actually live with Ryan and Tyler, but that’s neither here nor there. Ryan wanted to start a straight edge band that sounded like SSD and Negative Approach and so he just used almost all of the members of his band My Fictions (except Seamus) and myself to start it. Originally, I was supposed to play guitar with Ryan and we were going to find a vocalist. Since we couldn’t think of anyone to do vocals who was straight edge and someone we could get along with in a band, Ryan asked me if I’d like to just do vocals.

How does fronting a band on vocals (DI) differ from doing vocals and guitar (YF), both in terms of performance and with regard to the writing process?

It differs greatly. Obviously, both bands are entirely different beasts musically. In addition, my role/dynamic as a member in either band is different as well. In Death Injection, I only hold a microphone when we play so I have much more freedom to utilize whatever kinetic energy I have and, arguably, I have an obligation to do so.

This is the first and only band I have been just the “vocalist” for. When we started playing shows, I was extremely uncomfortable with performing and I tensed up a lot. My voice was also not very strong or worn-in so—even with our short sets—my voice would blow out every set without fail. Now, I’m much more comfortable with being the “vocalist” of a band. In terms of the writing process, Ryan is the primary songwriter for Death Injection. I do write all of the lyrics, though—that is entirely me.

As seemingly every other band works, he’ll bring in a completed song or ideas for a song, and we will all collaborate and work together on them. As the vocalist, I have had some small inputs and ideas for the music that add some flare to the songs. For instance, I came up with the ending to the song "With Violence" on our LP. Also, some fun trivia, I play the whacky guitar solo at the end of "Broken Chain."

As for Youth Funeral, I write a majority of the music and lyrics for the band with Raph doing the rest. With Youth Funeral, I am channeling a different type of emotion and energy which significantly influences how I perform. The songs tend to be about very personal, often emotional topics. Whereas with Death Injection, while they may still be personal songs, they are mostly confrontational and angry instead of introspective and sad.

I also have been taking more of an outward stance on certain topics with Death Injection than I usually do with music. Most obviously, we are a blatantly straight edge band. In two of our songs ("Be Afraid" and "Worthless") I touch on current issues which, until then, was completely foreign to me with music. In the song "Be Afraid" I wrote words directed at someone who sexually harassed a woman I’m friends with. In the song “Worthless” I wrote words directed at a housemate I had in my college dorm who would joke about rape.

Stylistically the bands are I guess pigeon-holed a little differently for better or for worse; Twelve Gauge seems to fly under the radar a little more whereas Triple B seems to have a little bit more of a hype factor going on; do you find yourself playing to separate crowds with different vibes or is there a decent amount of crossover from one project to another?

Yeah! I think Twelve Gauge doesn’t really have a weight to the name that affects how a band releasing music with them is perceived, so Youth Funeral remained largely unaffected in that manner. For Death Injection, we chose Triple B because they are a label that—as far as hardcore labels go—I don’t think pigeonholes a band too far beyond simply being a “hardcore” band.

For instance, not that this was an option, Deathwish Inc. has a kind of “Deathwish” identity that people automatically assume a band working with them possesses; same thing with Topshelf Records or Run For Cover. With Triple B, we knew that working with Sam would help our music reach other relevant people and that it would provide us with opportunities we couldn’t access on our own at this time all while without causing people to write us off as being a “Triple B” band, since that doesn’t really exist yet.

With all of that being said I will say, I find Death Injection playing to a variety of audiences; I just don’t think it is because of the label(s) we choose to work with. Our music teeters between a punk band and a hardcore band, so we’ll be put on shows where we play to people in varsity jackets or ones to people in spiky jackets. Sometimes we stick out and people don’t react to us, sometimes it's the opposite. Fortunately for us, we receive positive comments from people fairly frequently after we play, even at the shows where everyone stands there looking at us like we’re aliens. We get to play often and people have been responding well to us overall, so I can’t complain.

I haven't read the lyrics to the new Death Injection LP, but just from looking at the name of the record and the song titles there definitely seems to be more than a fair share of vitriol going on. I guess I have one specific question and one broader question on that. For you, what would you say motivates you lyrically?

I’m trying to expand on what motivates me lyrically in general, but for most things in the past, I pull from personal experiences. I know, it’s a broad answer that tells next to nothing, but it’s unfortunately my only answer. I think with the new Youth Funeral 7” and the Death Injection LP, I started to hone in on writing directed at specific people. The Youth Funeral song “I Remember” is about a specific person and a specific day and the Death Injection song “Get Away From Me” is also about a specific person. However, those aren’t the only songs of those types I have written that are released.

More broadly speaking, as someone who has been around a bit, I guess I feel like there has been a shift from when I first got into things from a place where most hardcore and punk bands addressed a lot of social and political topics, and did so with an emphasis on empowerment and change to a place where these days so much seems to focus on being the most depressed, the most angry, the most cvlt or whatever. Not to say that there aren't politically vocal bands today or that there haven't always been bands with a darker tilt lyrically, it just seems like there has been a movement from one direction to the other. I'm curious if you notice this, and if so, what you think is driving it.

I’d say this is an accurate observation and I think this is an important question and dialogue for people to consider. I’ve been confronting it recently myself with my own creative endeavors as to whether or not I am abusing my opportunity to talk about more “important” subjects. Any discussion of art in this manner cannot be finished, of course.

My amateur analysis as to why the movement towards “darker” more “emotional” hardcore and punk bands happened is that somewhere down the line a confessional expression simply became popular. For the sake of conversation let’s say it started with American Nightmare. Obviously, they weren’t the first artists to explore these topics, but they became a very influential group in the hardcore community and I definitely see plenty of bands taking cues from them still today. I think people latched on to bands like American Nightmare because it was different than politically charged bands of before. Therefore, people try to emulate these expressions in ways that are either genuine or a mere attempt to manufacture something that people will like.

Speaking of Deathwish, you work/worked? there. I'm definitely a fan of a lot of what that label puts out, and it seems like they've become sort of the epicenter of a lot of our scene, especially as they're not only putting out their own material but increasingly becoming  the exclusive distributor for a lot of other awesome labels.  I was wondering if you could give us an insider's perspective on the label...I guess I imagine it must be a place that's sort of bubbling with creative energy, but at the same time I wonder if after a while it just feels like any other job; sort of routine and mundane.

I worked for Deathwish Inc. for three years until I decided to leave a couple weeks ago. I started as a mail-order person, then I was the customer service correspondent, and l ended as the first, sole music buyer. It’s funny that you’d mention their expansion into becoming a greater force in terms of distribution since that was a very relevant concern of mine during my last year there.

Basically, my position when I left was the person who purchased almost all of the distributed titles Deathwish Inc. carried (that weren’t exclusive distributors). I watched trends and tried my hardest to make sure we got all of the cool records that people were talking about. For instance, I started bringing in a lot of the Iron Lung Records titles and such. I also simply watched the inventory for things we already had from Matador, Run For Cover, Southern Lord, etc.

Everyone at Deathwish Inc. is involved with underground music outside of working at the record label in some way. People who work there are in bands, photographing bands, booking bands, attending shows, or even releasing records on their own for bands. There is certainly a common thread amongst all of the employees and therefore an element of synergy is present. However, as any job goes, it does eventually become routine and mundane.

Deathwish Inc. is definitely growing constantly and now as an outsider again, I’m interested in seeing where they find themselves in the future.

What's up next for both bands? More touring, more writing, or a little of both?

Death Injection will be touring more in the summer. We’ve talked about flying out to do a west coast tour, so that’s a possibility. We might write another EP for a 7” or something. 

Youth Funeral probably won’t be as active as my other project(s), but we’ll see. I have a lot of new music written, probably enough to squeeze out an LP, but I’m still on the fence about if I like any of it.

Best thing about being an artist operating within hardcore/punk in 2015? Biggest bummer about being an artist operating within hardcore/punk in 2015?

I guess the best thing would be how much support people in the community seem to have for the progression of ideas and also the openness for conversation about those ideas. 

Unfortunately, there are some unproductive methods people employ to express certain views they hold that might do more harm than good. I typically remain neutral in most debates so I’m afraid I don’t have much right to criticize. 

If I were to pick a *personal* favorite thing, it wouldn’t be one that is necessarily a sign of the times: I most enjoy the relationships I have made with some talented and beautiful people thanks to my involvement in this particular music scene. Punk might be dead and I might not really care, but it has been nice to me so I will be nice to it.

Photo credits go to Thom Carney, Sarah Vitale, Angela Owens, and Reid Haithcock. Thank you for documenting our scene.

Youth Funeral: http://youthfuneral.bandcamp.com/

Death Injection: http://bbbrecords.bandcamp.com/album/hate-for-myself-everyone-else