Interview with William Livesay from Blistered

Blistered is a 90's-inspired metallic hardcore band from South Florida that has been making waves the last couple years. While their debut 7" "Reject Their Shame" showed a good deal of promise, it was their follow-up e.p."Soul Erosion" that really seemed to put them on the map.

They just released a new LP called "The Poison of Self-Confinement" on 6131 Records which features a huge step up in the production department as well as a lot more metal influence with some serious nods to European metal-core greats such as Arkangel. In the past year or so the band has done a good bit of touring including appearances at Rain Fest and This is Hardcore, and are currently gearing up for an opening slot on this winter's Terror tour.

I've been keeping tabs on these guys for a while now, so it seemed like a good time to catch up with vocalist William Livesay. Read on.

So last summer Axis played here and I was talking to them about Florida hardcore and you guys came up. They mentioned that you've been doing bands forever and that your dad is actually a musician so you've always been able to tinker with recording gear and all that. So I'm curious what it was like as a kid coming up in that environment where it sounds like there was a lot of creativity going on and I imagine enthusiasm around your interest in music.

It was definitely the best possible environment to grow up in to foster any sort of interest in playing music. I started playing piano when I was 6, guitar a few years later, and then drums a few years after that. I've always had an insane amount of encouragement and support from my parents as far as playing music and touring which I know is really rare and I am so beyond lucky to have had that. I got my first recording equipment when I was 15 and so it's always been a situation where most of my friends who were bored on a Saturday afternoon would be playing video games or watching movies and I would be in my garage recording a demo of some song that I came up with for fun. It's definitely made me feel a lot more confident in my ability to play my instruments and write songs.

What planted the seeds for you to gravitate towards more aggressive music, and were your folks ever at all taken aback when your interests started moving more in that direction?

I was really into bands like Silverstein, As I Lay Dying, Atreyu, Every Time I Die, Hawthorne Heights, etc. I would buy CDs from those bands and some of them would come with Victory Records samplers where I heard a Comeback Kid song. Obviously I didn't know it was hardcore at the time or what hardcore was but I definitely thought it was really cool. From there I had a friend show me Bane, and then there was the proverbial falling down the rabbit hole where I just discovered more and more bands. My parents were never ever weird about or adverse to me getting into metal or hardcore, which was definitely very cool and different from a lot of my friends.

Alright so I know aside from Blistered you've done Losin' It, and I understand like a million other projects. What were some of your earliest bands, which ones are you still proud of, which ones do you wish could be erased from history?

My first hardcore band was Losin' It. Other than that I was in a pop-punk band that I started in middle school and was in throughout high school, and then a really shitty short-lived Lifetime rip-off band after that. Both of those bands were pretty bad but I don't wish I could go back and not do them because I learned a lot about being in a band from those bands....how to book shows, deal with band dynamics, all kinds of important stuff that I'd still be figuring out if it wasn't for those bands. I certainly wouldn't say I'm proud of those bands though!

Just from seeing things online it seems like Florida hardcore has gone completely bonkers the last few years. Every show seems to have like 8-10 bands playing, hundreds of kids showing up....what the hell are you guys doing down there, what's the secret?

Well, first of all, Florida is a humongous place. I live in South Florida, which is 4 hours from Tampa, 5 hours from Jacksonville, 8 hours from Tallahassee, and 10 hours from Pensacola, so while all those places have great bands and great hardcore scenes too, I can't really speak for anyplace besides South Florida. I think the reason things have been so great down here lately is because they sucked for so long. For a while FL was the butt of every joke when it comes to hardcore, and bands from here didn't get any respect, so kids said "fuck this" and got hungry to build something out of nothing.

Hardcore in South Florida from 2008-2011 was pretty shot, there were very few bands, and although we had people like my friend John who does Breakeven Booking busting his ass to book shows and keep things moving, it was definitely a rough patch. But as a result of that, I think kids down here realized that nothing is going to be handed to us and we're not going to have some historic reputation to coast on, and that we needed to build our hardcore scene off of just working hard to promote shows, start new bands, and keep getting new kids involved. Everyone down here has a great attitude about hardcore for the most part, and we have young kids starting bands/making zines/making flyers/coming out to shows and going off for bands. It's a really great time right now.

So how did Blistered come together? What were your initial goals, influences, etc.?

The story of Blistered coming together is pretty boring and run of the mill. We were friends, got together, wanted to do a style of hardcore that nobody was doing at the time in our area, and started doing it.

It seems like the band has really been picking up steam in the last year or so. What would you say have been the best experiences thus far, be it particular shows, writing/recording, or just being out on the road?

The whole experience of being in the band has been awesome. We never expected any of this to happen so we don't take it for granted. It's hard to pick a specific highlight but I would say Rainfest, UB, and This Is Hardcore were all really surreal moments for me personally.

I wanted to ask about the recording process for the new LP, because it certainly sounds monstrous. While some engineers seem to have carved out a particular niche, Kevin at Developing Nations really seems to work across quite a wide spectrum....he's done youth crew records, screamy stuff, crustier, dark hardcore bands, etc. How did you guys wind up deciding to go with Kevin, and how did this experience compare to the first record, or your previous studio sessions?

The recording process for the LP was super cool. Kevin is the man and he was really good at letting us know which of our crazy ideas were good and which ones were stupid. As far as the tones of everything, we showed him a record or two for reference of what we wanted and he got us those sounds super easily. I absolutely would love to do another record with him eventually.

The lyrics on "Soul Erosion", particularly "Life Does Not Satisfy" and "Coldest Blood" seem to revolve around suicide and some pretty horrific family history. As a lyricist, do you tend to approach things more from the angle of the need to get certain things off your chest or perhaps the hope that people going through similar experiences might be able to connect and take inspiration from what you're writing?

It's definitely a matter of getting things off my chest. If people can relate to it and if it can help them through something that's obviously great but at the end of the day, as far as the lyrical aspect of the band, it's 100% an act of catharsis for me first and foremost.

You guys are doing a solo run up to the Midwest and back, and then are doing a leg of that big Terror tour. While both will certainly be awesome, I'm curious what your personal preference is.....big room, big stage, hundreds of kids, or small room, small stage/possibly floor, more intimate vibes?

Obviously there are pros and cons to playing a big packed room and a small intimate space on a floor. I can't really say I like one better than the other, as both are really cool in their own way. I guess it just depends on the particular situation and what the vibe of that show is. I will say I am very, very excited to be on tour with Terror, Code Orange, Malfunction and Take Offense!

Aside from lots of touring, any plans for splits, comps, etc. or will the next thing likely be another larger release?

We had a split 7" with one of our favorite bands lined up but it fell through which is a huge bummer. Honesty I'm slightly relieved because their side would've made ours look like dog shit by comparison. Anyways, since that fell through and our LP just dropped it probably will be a bit before the next release, but it'll more than likely be a 7" as opposed to another LP.

Best thing about the core in 2015?

The best thing about the core in 2015 is the overwhelming amount of sick bands of all styles coming out lately.

Worst thing about the core in 2015?

Worst thing about the core in 2015 is how negative everyone can be a lot of the time. Obviously there are problems that need to be addressed and fixed but if you don't feel like the good things outweigh or at least measure up to the bad then why not go somewhere else?
 

Three bands that should be getting more love from people:

1. Day By Day - bleak, heavy, downtrodden hardcore not unlike Brethren or Cold As Life. Very sick band that just dropped a 12" EP on Eighty-Sixed records which is my favorite record of 2015.

2. Jukai - a very sick metallic HC band from New York that has been flying under the radar for a few years while other bands who try to do the same thing and fall heinously short of the mark that Jukai has set get lots of attention. They have a 7" coming out on Mass Movement soon so hopefully kids will take notice.

3. Truths Last Horizon - vegan straight edge riff masters from Birmingham, AL. They dropped a badass demo and have new material coming out that sounds like early Caliban with insane tortured vocals.

With so many good bands out it was hard to pick just 3, and if you'd have said top 5 I would've included SPM and Bind.

Blistered at Rain Fest: http://hate5six.com/player.php?album=3437659
The Poison of Self Confinement: http://decibelmagazine.com/blog/2015/8/6/blistered-swallow-and-spread-the-poison-of-self-confinement

 

Interview with Patrick Murphy from Mountain Man (ex-Last Lights, I Rise, etc.)

In simple terms, Mountain Man is a hardcore band from Massachusetts that has been doing their thing for the last 5 or 6 years. However, their new record "Rumination" which just dropped this past week is far from simple, nor is it confined to the sonic palette of most hardcore bands. While their earlier material often raged at a frenetic pace with songs rarely clocking in over a minute, they've become steadily more expansive over time. The new effort, a mere five songs, clocks in at nearly 30 minutes, and over the course of its running time incorporates acoustic guitar, violin, and glockenspiel (I think that's what I'm hearing!). In doing so it calls to mind the more epic sides of Defeater or Modern Life is War, as well as the more desperate and meandering sounds of later There Were Wires or Curl Up and Die.

Comparisons aside, I've been following Patrick Murphy's bands for quite a while now (he's also played with the incredible Last Lights and I Rise, among many others), so I figured it was time to reach out to him and learn a little bit more.

"Rumination" is definitely one of the top 5 records of the year for me; check out the links at the end to pre-order and stream the entire thing.

I know you've been doing bands for quite a long time....discuss your background a little bit and how you got into underground music. When did you start playing drums? Did you come from a particularly musical family where your parents encouraged it or did you start playing after getting involved in punk and hardcore?

I started playing drums when I was 9 years old or so. My brother is a few years older than me and he also played too. Our school had an amazing music program, so getting involved was super easy. My parents were awesome about it, but I didn't get a drum set until I was about 12, which was around the time I was getting into punk and stuff.

I was always obsessed with music at a young age. I remember Nirvana, Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails and Green Day specifically being appealing to me and made me want to join a band when I was older. I'm the youngest of 4 so a lot of what my siblings were listening to resonated with me. My oldest sister was always listening to stuff like Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, Poe, you know? Stuff like that.

Around 2000 or so is when I discovered punk and hardcore. My brother was into bands like Crass, Conflict, Doom, Code 13 and Dead Kennedy's. His friends were all involved with the Straight Edge scene, which is what I gravitated towards. Earth Crisis, Sick of it All, Converge and Strife were the first hardcore bands I became obsessed with. Around that time I started my first band and started booking shows. Everything changed when I heard Bane and Ten Yard Fight, then bands like American Nightmare and Panic came out and they were sort of the gateway to everything at that point.

I'm lucky enough that I lived pretty close to where all this stuff was happening, and even at a young age I got to see these bands come out and blow the doors open.

 

Yeah I got to see Panic once, AN a few times and obviously Bane a bunch, but I can't imagine how incredible it must have been to have all that going on right in your backyard. Talk a little bit more about that era....do you think people realized how special all that was at the time or was it just sort of routine for kids from there?

It was definitely evident how special it was, to me at least it seemed like everyone understood. Every show I went to there was always a million kids who were actually excited to be there. Every show, every kid was just going completely bananas. There were definitely bands I saw every week that I didn't appreciate until later on though. For a time it felt like The Hope Conspiracy were on every show, and I definitely didn't get into them until "Death Knows Your Name" came out, and at that point they weren't playing much.

There is one show in Worcester that stands out to me, that really had me like "Holy shit, this is such a great time to be going to shows."  It was Horror Show's first show with American Nightmare, Panic and Count Me Out (there might have been 1 more.) Every band's set was just insane, there wasn't a single person not totally captivated by every band. I'm really grateful I got to be a part of that.

Alright so at what point did you go from attending and booking shows to doing bands? What were some of your early bands prior to I Rise and Last Lights?

They all sort of happened simultaneously honestly. A friend and I started a band, so then we started booking our own shows and attending shows at the same time. That band was called Raise Your Fist and I think that started around 2001. After that band stopped I started a band called Morris!, then I was in The Agony, Eva Braun/Apparitions, God & Country and Ligeia. I think that's it, I've played in a million different bands, I don't really remember the time lines.

 

Alright so I Rise. I absolutely love the stuff you guys did, particularly the SC split and "Down". It seemed like things were moving very quickly, then all the sudden you did "For Redemption" and the band pretty quickly fell off the map. What happened with that band?

So, I actually joined I Rise after Last Lights, so I wasn't even on any recordings. The dudes from I Rise were some of the first kids I met playing shows, so we had been friends for a really long time. Right when Last Lights was starting to pick up, they sort of became one of the bands we were constantly with.

I honestly don't really remember how me or Jesse (who was also in Last Lights and is in MM) joined I Rise, it just sort of happened.

Obviously things ended tragically for Last Lights with the passing of vocalist Dominic Mallory, and Mountain Man was born from the ashes of LL. Talk a little bit about how MM came together....the bulk of your material has seemed to center around coping with death; I have to imagine those early practices and writing sessions were truly as much about collective therapy as they were about becoming a band.

Mountain Man really wasn't ever supposed to be anything other than a recording. Josh Smith (our vocalist) had these 4 songs written for a few months and had actually been talking to Jesse, Dom and I about recording them. After Dom passed away it was a few months before Josh approached us about doing it again. Josh, Jesse and I all got together and recorded our demo. The lyrics at that time were more about work and the bleakness of life etc., etc.

As we started to become more serious, everything started to take a different turn. You're right about the material dealing with coping with death, and not just lyrically. Musically it definitely started taking more of a "desperate" sound I guess you could say.

Dom is constantly an influence to us, and I personally feel like writing music is the best way to pay tribute to him. He was honestly an insanely talented musician, a phenomenal writer and incredibly smart. Above all that, he was one of my best friends and I'm truly fortunate to have been able to play in 3 bands with him and collaborate on his solo stuff too.

Yeah I've definitely noticed that in your sound over the years, but it's especially prominent on "Rumination". I've always thought you guys were a solid band, but I feel like the new record hits in a way that the earlier material hasn't....it’s more dynamic, it just resonates in a different way somehow. Talk a little bit about the collective headspace you were in while writing/recording the new record....what were you trying to accomplish this time around sonically, lyrically, emotionally, etc.?

Writing these songs was drastically different. In 2011, Josh moved to California, and the writing process used to be Jesse, Josh and myself. Typically, Josh would come in with some riff ideas then Jesse and I would help form it into something a bit more cohesive. With these songs, it was just Jesse and I, and the two of us spent so much time getting them to feel exactly how we wanted. We really wanted to achieve something dynamic, experimental and sparse at the same time. The past few years have been tough for all of us outside of the band, so I definitely think that translates to the material.

As far as the lyrical content goes, that's really for Josh to answer. He never practiced these songs with us and recorded them out in California, so when he sent us the files back that's the first time we heard anything. We didn't even really see the lyrics until afterwards either. Jesse contributes a lot of vocals too, so splitting them up was also a little different.

I noticed just scrolling through photos that you added a second drummer a few years ago. What does that look like in terms of the writing process as well as playing live? I hear a couple parts on the new record with multiple/layered percussion; in a live setting are you playing different parts or the same parts for added power/emphasis? (I ask this question as a shitty drummer myself who can barely keep time with guitar and bass, let alone adding a second drummer into the mix, haha).

As I said before, the writing process was just Jesse and I. With the 2 drummers thing, he and I just kind of worked on what we wanted the parts to be (on the record at least.) There is only one song on the new record with 2 drum sets playing at the same time, the other stuff is different snare and tom parts played by myself, Jesse or Kevin (who plays live with us.)

In a live setting it's a bit different. A lot of it is Kevin and I doing close to the same thing throughout the old material and just playing back and forth off each other. I think the misconception is we have a lot of gear and 2 drummers solely to be super loud. I see it as a way to be more dynamic and open more sonic possibilities. In classical music, they have multiple people playing the same part on the same instruments, and it's not to be loud and abrasive. It's so they can really achieve the dynamics that the piece calls for.

 

Label-wise you guys have hopped around a bunch from Think Fast to Mightier Than Sword, to No Sleep and now to End Result Productions so you've obviously gained a lot of experience dealing with labels. What would you say you look for in a label and how can they be most beneficial for smaller hardcore punk bands?

We got pretty lucky with our friends helping us put out our records for us at first, and I truly feel like End Result was the perfect label to release this record. All we really look for in a label is someone who is cool with our insane ideas, gets behind the music as much as we do and will work to get more people to hear us. How can they benefit a younger band? It depends on who you're working with. I'll keep some of our experiences to myself, but if you can get someone to pay to put out a record when you can't, it's very helpful.

 

Touring-wise you guys seem to do somewhat frequent runs up and down the East Coast and I noticed you just joined forces with Tone Deaf Touring. Any chance kids east of PA might be seeing you at any point?

Our lives outside of the band kind of keep us from touring as much as we used to/wish we could. Teaming up with Tone Deaf is great because they'll be able to alleviate the stress of booking larger scale tours or weekends. We want to do more with this record, maybe go out west or to Europe, but as it stands now we won't be doing a full US anytime in the foreseeable future.

You've obviously been at this thing for well over a decade now, and have played in tons of bands. What would you say it is about music generally, and hardcore punk specifically that keeps you inspired to write and play?

I just love playing drums and creating music. I think what attracted me to being in punk bands was the idea that anyone could do it and anyone could play shows. I feel pretty out of touch with the scene now and can't really relate to it like I did before, but music as a whole means more to me now than it ever has. I can't really explain what brings me back to it, but I am constantly inspired to create. All the members of the band could talk for hours about things they hear, read, or see that make us want to play music. The only time I actually feel like myself is when I'm creating music.

 

Stream “Rumination”: http://absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=3732815

Pre-Order: http://www.cvltnationbizarre.com/collections/end-result-productions/products/mountain-man-rumination-lp

Promo photo by Ryan Martin. Some of the live photos by Reid Haithcock (http://www.reidhaithcock.com/). The rest pulled from the Mountain Man Facebook.

Interview with Kelly from Shook Ones

If you’ve been kicking around punk and hardcore for any length of time, you probably know, or have at least heard of Bellingham, Washington’s Shook Ones. Starting up about ten years ago, the band picked up the mantle of catchy-as-fuck, scratchy voiced hardcore punk ala Lifetime and Kid Dynamite and have been running with it ever since.

They’ve released three LP’S and a slew of splits and ep’s over the years, and while life has kind of gotten in the way in terms of touring and such, they’re still plugging away. As a fellow older dude, it’s always really cool to see people sticking with music, even though they may have to take the foot off the accelerator a little bit.  

Anyway, I randomly sent them an email about doing an interview like a year and a half ago, got a prompt reply but then things fizzled. So it was like a kid on Christmas morning a couple weeks ago when Kelly responded and said “Hey sorry, but let’s do this!

Read on.

Talk a little bit about the origin of Shook Ones. It seems like that NW, Seattle/Vancouver scene all is pretty incestuous. How did you guys come together, what bands (if any) had you done before, etc.?

Shook Ones started in the basement of 1801 D Street in Bellingham, which is where many of the dudes lived at the time. Those same dudes were also playing in Go It Alone, Blue Monday, Ordeal, and a variety of other NW bands of varying degrees of competence. I've been out of the game for a while, but back in those days everything was sort of "incestuous" with bands. I think the first Shooks tour was Shook Ones, Go It Alone, Ordeal, and maybe one other band - and all those bands consisted of some combination of the same 7 or 8 dudes.

In the interest of not embarrassing any of us specifically, I'll refrain from mentioning any of the other bands we played in previously. I know I personally played in an old-school screamo band, a nu-metal band, and a sad-core indie band with a cello, none of which I will name. I will, however, tell you that Shook Ones was always intended as a Lifetime rip-off and was actually even named "Lifespan" for a brief period.

It seems like 06-09 was the most active period for the band, and things have chilled out since then in terms of touring, writing, recording which of course probably has to do with adult responsibilities and such. What's the hardest thing about balancing "real life" with your art, and what's been most important for you guys as a band in getting that balance right?

There was a confluence of factors around then. We had all just graduated college, we had just signed to a "big" label with Revelation Records, we were very tight with Sinking Ships who were in a similar situation, and we didn't have as many real-life responsibilities (bills, relationships, etc.) quite yet. I was also talking to Scott the other day about how that particular age (most of us were around 25-27 years old at the time) really seems to be a prime moment for personal creativity. And having a good metabolism.

That balance you mentioned has always been an especially big challenge for us because we each have varying degrees of ambition when it comes to the band and those other "real life" things. I went through grad school twice, Funds became a lawyer, Scott started his own clothing brand and opened a store, AO played on the new Macklemore single. We're all very different types of people and while we love each other very much, trying to get everyone on the same page for anything when you have so many different levels of interest and ambition and priorities makes it difficult. There was a time when we were all pretty into the idea of going on tour and playing shows and having shitty jobs, but like most people we sort of grew out of that just by getting older and living in the world. We never stopped caring about our band; we just started caring more about things outside of it.

That said, you guys have had a pattern of doing an LP followed by some smaller releases. Since "Unquotable" we've seen an EP and the DING split, does that mean we can expect a new LP any time soon or am I just engaging in wishful thinking?

I don't want to say something that then becomes untrue as we've definitely had a pretty crappy record of flaking out on things over the years, but there have absolutely been many conversations about doing another LP and I'd say we've got at least 5 or 6 songs already pretty fleshed out. We have every intention of doing a new LP, but you know how that real life shit can get in the way - especially when you reach your 30's and have mortgages or children or other crazy responsibilities that make band practice feel kind of trivial. The TLDR version of that: yes, probably, but no guarantees.

There's been a good bit of bouncing around label-wise over the years.....is that a function of things not working out at times, you guys wanting to explore different options, or a little of both? Will whatever comes out next likely surface on RFC or will there be further movement?

I think it mostly has to do with the personal relationships we've developed with the people at those various labels over the years - not necessarily in a bad way or a good way, just meeting new people and having new opportunities. The people who run those labels have that same real life shit so sometimes everyone just kind of naturally moved on; sometimes a close friend of ours left a label or started another one, sometimes we said yes to things without really thinking them through. I've been talking to Jeff at RFC a lot since we kind of "reactivated" and while we haven't discussed future plans specifically, working with him has been awesome and I know we would all love to continue to do so. That dude has come a long way from the 19 year old who put out that first Sinking Ships 7". There are few other legitimate independent labels as on top of their game as RFC, for sure.

You started over a decade ago right when the bottom was sort of falling out on a lot of labels with the digital revolution and everything....how would you say that has effected things for a band like yourselves and what other changes would you say have been most significant in the wider scene over the course of your run as a band?

As far as us as a band, I can't possibly over-emphasize how beneficial it was. Beyond silly things like having cell phones to call home when on tour and GPS to get from show to show, there's just simply no way as many people would know about our band without the whole "digital revolution." I always tell people that 2 of the best weeks of my life were when we got to tour Japan and I don't think that ever could/would have happened without Myspace (RIP). I know it's been pretty hard on labels, but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. A lot of labels essentially function as banks/lenders - they front you money to record and press an album, then they mail it out to people, but that was kind of it. And I say that as someone who had a label. The digital revolution seems to have thinned the herd from those kind of labels that were basically just banking off of bands and not doing any work. If you think about all the labels that were around 10 years ago when we started and which ones are still running strong, it becomes really obvious what an actual good label looks like and why they're important. I'd say the digital revolution didn't kill record labels; it just killed the shitty ones.

The only other wider trend that I've really noticed since those days is the whole reunion thing. And again, I think that's a direct benefit of that digital revolution. The kind of interest that inspires bands to get back together and make more music (or make more money) definitely has a lot to do with the internet and its permanence. That's not always a good thing - cash grabs and rock star attitudes are no fun for anyone - but sometimes it's pretty rad. Not only did I get to see Lifetime play a show, but I got to hear a new record, and we got to tour with them and befriend them. That's such an amazing thing that I never would have imagined happening. I still remember how star-struck I was the first time I shook Dan Yemin's hand, and in a weird but very real way that probably would never have happened without Myspace.

Sorry if that was a little long winded. I saw the Get Up Kids anniversary tour last week (which was tight as hell!) and have been doing a lot of reflecting/reminiscing since then, so a lot of your questions are things that were already on my mind. Getting old is fucking weird.

It seems like almost every band I talk to who has toured overseas says the experience is quite different from doing the States. That said, how was that Japanese run you mentioned in comparison to doing the US (and anywhere else outside the US you guys have been for that matter)

Like I mentioned, personally our Japan tour was 2 of the best weeks of my life. We got to play with Easel, which at one point featured the original Shooks bass player - and he was even able to come with us! We also had the good fortune of having Daiki from Alliance Trax drive/translate/put out a record for us. That dude is rad as shit and made everything about a million times cooler than it would have been without him. And just generally, Japan is amazing. Every night, the people that came out to the shows were super fucking nice and friendly. A ton of the shows basically turned in to dinner parties after - once the show was done, they'd clear the venue space out and bring out tables and we'd all eat together. 

Even outside the shows, I felt like Japan had somehow magically created a jerk-free society. And we got to see a bunch of places that we had never seen before and had no concept of. Europe is rad, too - it's always amazing to go to new places and meet people from a totally different perspective/worldview - but Japan just had this magical friendliness that I've never experienced anywhere else in the world. It was like everyone we met was someone we were already friends with. If I have any regrets with this band, it'd be that we haven't been able to get our shit together enough to go back there again.

Keeping on the international theme, a couple of your splits have been with non-US bands (Easel from Japan and Death is Not Glamorous from Norway). How have those collaborations come together, and what US bands (aside from any Yemin-related projects of course) would you want to work with if you had the chance?

The Easel split came about from that original Shooks bass player, Jimmy. He left Shooks to go be an international investment banker (wise choice) and moved to Japan. He started playing with those dudes so we were familiar with them from the very beginning and totally stoked on their songs. They ended being up amazing human beings, too, but it all started with Jimmy starting a new band in Japan and us being stoked on that. He eventually left Japan for Hong Kong because he's an international playboy, but that connection remained. I'm not sure whose idea it was at first - I feel like it might have just been a scheme on our part to try and make a Japan tour happen. In which case, we are geniuses.

And speaking of international playboys, Christian from DING has been a buddy from the start. I used to do Shooks mail-order out of my apartment and Christian ordered some merch way back when. He also sent us the demo for his band, and it all just kind of went from there. The first time we went to Europe with Sinking Ships was the first chance I got to meet him in person, and he ended up travelling with us for a chunk of it, and we've been buddies ever since. We played shows together over the years whenever we could and he even came to visit me a couple times when he was passing through the states. We had always talked about doing a split together; Eventually we also befriended Steven and Nick from Scotland, who were also buddies with Christian. Between them and the RFC connect between our bands, things just finally fell in to place and it happened.

I can speak only for myself and not Shooks as a whole, but I like doing splits a) with bands that we don't necessarily sound directly like and more importantly, b) bands we're buddies with and respect. That's how that End of a Year split happened. A lot of the bands we became friends with over the years have stopped playing, but there's still tons of bands out there with lovely people who'd be cool to put something out with. Our drummer, AO, also plays in a million other bands (Devotion, Super Crush, just to name a few) and it'd be cool to do something with them. And his sister used to sing in Punch and has some other projects (peep Know Secrets if you haven't already), so that'd be fun to. Anything where there's some kind of cool personal connection. All that said, I doubt there will be any splits any time soon. Were entirely focused on getting our next LP written and recorded, so that's gotta happen first, and it'll probably gonna take a while.

In the ten plus years you've been together your basic song-writing template hasn't changed much, but to my ears anyway, it seems like things have become only more energetic and infectious over time. You were reflecting on aging a moment ago, and it seems that when most bands age they slow down and chill out, use some more delay pedals or whatever, haha but you guys sound as fresh and enthusiastic as ever. How would you say your creative process has changed over the years, and what keeps the octane running on high for you guys?

I think our creative process has actually largely stayed the same; we've just become better at it - both as individuals and as a band. It's basically always the same - someone brings in the outline of a song (minus lyrics, that's solely Scotty) and we flesh it out. Sometimes that just means pulling it together, sometimes that means totally fucking with it and rebuilding it, and sometimes that means throwing it out. I think we've become better songwriters as individuals just by virtue of experience, but we've also become better at getting the best out of each other when it comes to working those songs out together.

We are also very fortunate to have a good friend who has an extremely talented engineer who happens to know our band very well. Everything we've done since the Easel split has been with our buddy Jackson Long and he's made a huge difference in getting recordings that actually sound like we always imagined our band sounded. Not that the other stuff we recorded is bad in any way, just that what Jackson hears and how he records us lines up perfectly with what we hear and how we want to sound. A huge amount of any praise for our "progress" in recordings definitely goes to him.

I think what keeps us going is how much we genuinely enjoy these songs and how much appreciation we have for each other as songwriters. It's always rad to hear the shit that other people have cooked up and watch it come together with us a whole band. Even with songs that don't always click at first ("Order Form" was cut from FFF, and I personally hated "Tip the Weatherman" for the longest time), we're smart enough to know that everybody knows what they're doing and to put a certain amount of trust in each other's songwriting. We're also fortunate to have a band full of pretty competent musicians, so having five people who can pick up a guitar and write something quality definitely helps.

Turn it Up: http://shookones.bandcamp.com/
Stay Informed: https://bellinghamladsclub.wordpress.com/

First couple photos by Taylor Jones, the other pulled off the Shooks FB: http://www.taylorjonesphoto.com/

Interview with Mercy Ties

Andrew Gomez runs a bad-ass label called Glory Kid. He releases a lot of heavy bands that are sort of too smart and arty for most hardcore kids, but still too firmly planted in hardcore and DIY to get noticed by a lot of the somewhat bigger outlets that cover the peripheries of hardcore and punk. Shit rules.

Anyway, he's been working with this band from Seattle called Mercy Ties for a while now. They released their debut LP "A Dim Lit Place" a year or two ago, and are currently set to unleash the follow-up "Proper Corruption" in a couple months here. If the first couple tracks are any indication, it's going to be a monstrous offering, harkening back to the twisting, mangled sounds of bands like Breather Resist, Achilles, and others of that ilk.

I wanted to learn more, so Andrew put me in contact with their bass player Jon, who put me in touch with their guitar player Trevor, who handled most of this and then put me in touch with their singer Andre who put the finishing touches on things. Got all that? Good.

Talk a little bit about your background as it relates to music and falling into punk/hardcore/DIY. Seattle has such a storied history as far as music so on the one hand for me as a kid from the Midwest it sort of seems like you almost couldn't avoid getting exposed to some awesome shit, but at the same time the underground is still the underground so there was probably some level of serendipity/seeking it out that had to occur.

Mike and I are the only ones who grew up in Seattle, I think. I'll do my best to speak for them correctly. But yeah anyway, the first show I ever went to was Sick of it All, DBS, and Himsa when I was 12 or 13 or something. I was really into the BMX scene and had a lot of older friends who got me into HC. My favorite Seattle bands right off the bat as a little kid were Botch, The Blood Brothers, Akimbo and other bands of similar nature. There were a couple bands called March 15th and Drowning in Lethe that I loved too; those guys all ended up being terrible influences on me and later became amazing friends of mine. I would go see The Blood Bros at teen centers and a bunch of kids would get super rowdy every weekend. A lot more kids came out to shows back then too. Cell phones ruined it all.

I started really getting into playing guitar around that time so all of those bands were huge influences on me musically. That's probably why I am a terrible guitar player, but have a distorted perception of what "simple" music is. Mike was a little bit older than me and I think he was able to become a Van Halen fan in time to embed some decent guitar skills. This is why I write riffs and he plays them better than me. Early 2000's HC in Seattle was a huge part of his life too. He actually knows every Botch song on guitar by heart, but then again he knows every Van Halen song too.

Seattle has a lot of history. It's pretty awesome, but sometimes it's hard to get people excited. Everyone at every show has been in bands for 20 years. We have a lot of amazing friends that are still going after years and years of playing to kids in basements and warehouses. Andre, Jon and Chris all got into hardcore at a young age too. When Andre lived in Portland he threw shows for every band ever, Chris was in DC getting wild watchin’ Pg.99 on the weekends, and Jon was in way too many terrible screamo bands so he's seen some shit too.

That's actually pretty awesome to have so many older folks around in your scene. We have some older heads here in Detroit but lots of young kids too which can be both really good and really bad. That said, is it at all nerve-wracking playing in front of people who have been around forever? Like you said, older peeps can be hard to get excited, and sometimes tend to look at bands/music in general with a lot more scrutiny.

I wouldn't ever say it's stressful playing around a bunch of old jaded people, we are like that too. We are the ones that actually don't like any music, honestly. Well, some of us. But yeah a lot of the old folks even like us. Maybe we relate to people that have been around a while more or something. There's an amazing band called Great Falls who has members from Playing Enemy, Undertow, and Jesu and I think they really dig us. They have grown to become homies and I really think they are the best heavy band in Seattle so at least we have each other. We are supposed to do a split with them soon. Hopefully we record for that this winter.

You guys boast a pretty impressive collective resume (Abominable Iron Sloth, Beau Navire, etc.).....how did you come together to form Mercy Ties?

So yeah on our "collective resume" most people forget the best band ever, Tigon. Chris played drums in that band and they were so good. That's why they were never popular, they were too good. Pretty much we are all losers from every walk of hardcore and no one else will have us so we have each other haha. Ok so Mike and I started Mercy Ties with our buddy Jeff King in 2010. Jeff initially wrote most of the music and Mike wrote most of the vocals. We didn't have a drummer, so Jeff would try to play drums. We met the Tigon boys and they put Chris in contact with us when he moved up here from San Francisco. He couldn't find a better band so he joined ours. 

Couple years after that, Jeff didn't want to play with the mercy guys anymore so I started asking around. I knew Andre because I was a Nihilist/ Blowupnihilist fan as a kid and we became friends from mutual friends. He was way into playing bass for us so we went for it. I always had it in my head that he should be our front man. We usually split vocals between Mike and I, but I was tired of doing vocals and I knew Andre was a great vocalist, like a lot better at vocals than bass. He was a drummer so his timing is amazing and his voice is great so that just works. We met Jon through mutual friends and when he wanted to join I was super pumped because then the band would finally be complete. Took 5 years to build a band, by accident.

I noticed a new member has been welcomed to the fold since "A Dim Lit Place". How does a 5th member change both the sound and the dynamics within the band?

As we were adding a 5th member (Jon), I was in the middle of writing “Proper Corruption”. My plan was so write the best record I could, and record and release it as a 5 piece in 2015. Andre played a couple of the songs on bass but throughout the writing process we all knew he would be the vocalist going into the studio. This was the first material written since Jeff wasn't in the band. I wrote some stuff on “Dim Lit…”, but he was still the primary writer. So that dynamic was waaaay different writing this record. I wrote hundreds of riffs, brought them to Chris, he would say yay or nay, then Mike would play them better than me and write split parts. We got that process dialed in good. A lot of the weird transitions and ideas are written collectively by jamming and voting on the spot.  

In my opinion it is a very drum and vocal oriented band now. I try to bring riffs that allow Chris to flip and do his thing with. Mike brings split parts to throw on top, and Andre just listens and writes. I really tried to make the songs simpler. We are trying to write songs now, not just stack parts on parts. Jon joined our band as we were gearing up to go into the studio, so he was just trying to learn material in time to track.

The dynamic of the band has changed a lot over the years too. At this point we just wanna go out and have fun. We all think we are funny and witty. We're just trying to have a good time. We're all good dudes who are all very different. We all are too old to take things too seriously. When Jon joined the band there was a little hazing here and there, but he knows we love him. These guys make fun of me every time I see them, but that would be weird if they didn't. A lot of younger super hungry hardcore bands take shit too seriously, I've been there too. But god damn just take it easy on each other. It's not that serious. Paying rent in Seattle is serious, going on tour is fun.

I was super pumped when I read you recorded the new record with the Scott (?) from Kowloon Walled City. I'm not a real big tone guy per se, but even my ears can recognize the fact that he's been capturing some really amazing sounds and textures the last couple records. How was the experience there and what did he bring to the table both as an engineer and fellow musician?

Recording with Scott was an amazing time. We made a trip down there in February to record at Sharkbite in Oakland. It was fun to take a vacation/tour away from home and just focus on recording. He was very encouraging while tracking. I thought we were super unprepared and didn't have it together, but he thought we were easy to record and were real solid. That felt good hearing that, I still don't know if he was just being cool or what. He understood what we were going for right away, I remember it immediately sounding good on playback. He did a good job capturing how we should sound without much editing. 

I spent the whole time co-producing and going over things in the box with him. It was fun. He was pretty hands on actually when it came to bass ideas and little stereo ideas and stuff. Like our 6th member! I like that he didn't over edit anything and left a lot of "realness" on the record. Sounds like a band. “A Dim Lit Place” was also like that, but that was a different engineer, different line up, different writing style, and different dynamic in the band. There was an extreme difference within the band between “A Dim Lit Place” and “Proper Corruption”. Mostly on our end, but Scott did make it fun too.

Last year I know you guys did some touring with Divider, who are one of my faves. How was that run and how many times did Fusco cause the power to blow (last time I saw them it was twice during one set, at which point, they just stopped playing, haha)?

Yea we did two tours with Divider. We flew out there and did the northeast with them and they flew out here and we did the west coast. It was super fun. That was the only time we have toured with another band. Tour is usually for us, and we like going alone, but we all had a great time with Divider. Anthony is definitely very jealous of my taco bell eating abilities and my Peavey tone. Other than that, those are solid bros. We hope to do another run with them sometime.

Alright, talk to me about your waxlord Andrew Gomez. Aside from his bad-ass label, stunning curly locks and beautiful acrylic drum kit, what else can you tell the people about this fine lad that will make the masses give him all their money so he can continue to do his thing?

I have a special place in my heart for Andrew because he liked our band before anyone else did. He approached us at this show years ago with the saddest landscape and calculator and wanted us to join the label. We played bad and Chris had the flu so I didn't know why he would want to put out a record for us. It took us like a year to commit to doing a record with him. Our band has changed line ups and styles with every recording. We sound different every year. I'm glad he liked us back when we sucked and I'm glad he still likes us with the change in sound. Solid dude. He's kinda quiet though and that's scary sometimes.

So I know you mentioned earlier the main focus of the band is to have fun. At the same time, I know you guys don't hesitate to delve into social and political issues in your lyrics. Are the lyrics Andre's department or does everybody collaborate here and there?

Andre here, I write a lot in general. Aside from any Jungian unconscious bits, what I say on the album are things I've personally written down in notebooks. The words to the opening track on our album, Proper Corruption,"You Have The Right To Remain Violent" were borne the very night that verdict came out on the Eric Garner killing. I'm of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent, my father's from Brooklyn and I've experienced my share of racism as a child and a teenager. Before 18, I'd been a victim of police brutality myself, and give credence to my white passing privilege to my survival, rather than becoming another statistic. 

Some people write about ex-girlfriends, and I understand people have their hearts broken, we all have. But it's a waste of my time to write about things of that nature when there is so much more than deserves our attention. Of the ten songs on the album, I wrote 9 and Mike wrote one. He sings on it as well, which ties in with our last EP in which he'd been the main singer. It's a great way to transition, or pass the torch if you will, to me.

I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about what you're suggesting with the title "Proper Corruption". It's a really cool, vague title, so maybe you want to keep an aura of mystery around it, but at least give us some general ideas.

The album's title comes from a sentence I've always liked from “The Ontology of the Photographic Image” by film theorist and critic, André Bazin."...photography does not create eternity, as art does, it embalms time, rescuing it simply from its proper corruption."

It's a play on words, sort of a double entendre. Not content to be cased in amber for an eternity, our intent was to craft a relevant, timeless album. One that may live on long past we exist as a band.

However, when one reads into the lyrics and thematic elements criticized; the structured impregnable proper corruption of organized religion, of a fractured justice system, our ethically corrupt imperialist Americanism, you soon begin to recognize and loathe the proper corruption in and around your everyday existence. And if you don't, you're sleepwalking and need our album to help wake you up to reality. Even if it is, perhaps, only ours.

What sort of things do you guys have cued up for "Proper Corruption" once it drops?

“Proper Corruption” will be out in November. We won't be able to tour in the winter, but we plan to do a fair amount of touring in 2016 to support the record. Hopefully we do a European tour and a couple regional US tours. Nothing in concrete yet, but we have some things in the works, and we plan on playing a lot.

Jam a New Jam: newnoisemagazine.com/exclusive-stream-mercy-ties-now-is-the-time-to-make-new-enemies/

Watch a New Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0fGoeYQlqI&app=desktop

Jam Some Old Jams: http://mercyties.bandcamp.com/album/a-dim-lit-place-ep