After falling in love with their latest record "Mill City", I thought I should email them and find out some more about them and their history. I got responses from Jon & Ted as they talk about their recording process with Kurt Ballou, their shows out here in California, how it is being with Rivalry Records, and the future plans of Another Breath...
Click here to listen to "Jailbreak" while reading. Q: Introduce yourself and what your role is in Another Breath.
Jon: My name is Jon, I play guitar, sing second hand, and drive. Ted will also be
part of this; he sings, writes the lyrics and doesn't carry anything...ever. Ted: That is a bold faced lie. My name is Ted and I carry just enough to not have to have this kind of abuse directed at me.
Q: Can you give us a little background on the band and its members & beginnings.
Jon: We all grew up together in Fulton, NY. Scott and I have played music since
we were sophomores in High School. Ted was the singer of another band in town
and after we all graduated the bands we were all in dissolved. After a little while of each of trying to get an idea of college life and striking out in new bands, so we all got together and created This Neverender. After a few years of that we changed what we wanted to do with the band, take it a little more seriously, so we changed the name to Another Breath.
Q: Mill city is awesome. I haven’t really heard much of your last album, but people have told me mill city blows that away. How do you feel about this and what do you think helped you to grow as a band?
Jon: Well, thanks for the compliments. It's been kind of a mixed response as far as which recording people like better. I think on the first one we took advantage of the fact that it was an EP. We could pack a constant punch in a short amount of time and get away with it. With the full-length we doubled the amount of songs and the time of the recording and found ourselves trying to play with flow of the entire piece. We made a conscious effort to pick it up, drop it down, and still put in a taste of what NNNE had. As you play music with the same people for a long time you start working off each others ideas and getting a good idea of each member's capabilities... in the end what everyone could bring to the table is what Mill City consisted of. We are always growing musically and I think that the next release will see it even more so.
 Q: Recording mill city must've been a pretty awesome experience with Kurt Ballou. Talk about that and his influence on how the album came out. Did he help to modify or throw in his two cents on the structure of any of the songs, or was he just strictly there for the recording and production?
Jon: We recorded NNNE with Kurt and looking back, we really lucked out that he
was willing to work with us. We were kids who had never seen anything like that before. He has a great ear, knows exactly how you WANT to sound, and has a knack at pulling it off. The second time around with Mill City was much easier. We had the music done in a week and had a week and a half to sit around and wait for Ted's voice to come back. Kurt is a great guy. He knows when to break the tension in the studio and knows when you can do a better take. We really didn't utilize him much as far as structure or composition, we have a very solid idea of what the song is before we get to the studio, however Kurt did clean up a few rough spots. I know there are bands that go in there with a couple riffs and come out with a whole CD, but that's just not how we write. Q: For other unsigned bands reading this, how has your time with Rivalry Records been, and what have they been able to do for you guys? And also, how did you go about getting signed to Rivalry. Did they come after you, or did you guys send out a promo package to them? Jon: Rivalry has been awesome from the start. Kyle is the greatest, hardest working dude in hardcore, hands down. He's been there every step of the way and we are more than happy to do everything we can to help his label grow. We met up with Rivalry on an odd set of circumstances. We did a last minute house show for Our Turn (awesome SF band, CHECK THEM OUT even though they broke up). Their drummer Isaac is also the drummer of Killing the Dream. SOOOO, Isaac gets Kyle NNNE (we recorded it and mastered it completely before we even had a label) and Kyle got a hold of us super excited. Rivalry is the best decision we could have made as far as labels are concerned. Q: Ted, your lyrics are deep and personal. Talk about how this compares to your last album, and which is your favorite song to play live, cuz I think most of your songs are equally emotional and strong lyrics wise.
Ted: I can’t help but write personal songs. I was trying to write social songs on the last record and it came out really personal. So on Mill City I just tried to embrace my personal issues since I knew the songs were going to come out that way anyway. It just so happened that I was dealing with a pretty big transition in my life that was bringing a lot of baggage with it and I’m pretty proud of the way those issues expressed themselves on the page. Writing that record was how I dealt with those things. The day I finished writing catharsis was the day that I felt resolved. So in that way Mill City is probably one of the most important things I’ve ever done. It is literally a chronological documentation of how I came to terms with my home, my job, and the way I’ve been choosing to live my life. I’m not sure what my favorite song to play live is. It changes. I know in practice I really like to play Orange because it’s so intense and it gets inside of me but it kills me to see kids singing along to it. I’m the same way with Diesel & Gunpowder. I try to keep those two off the set list but at least one always finds its way on there. I think my favorite is Walls Without Windows. It has a spot where the song breaks loose and the lyrics are a quote about being young and not giving a damn about anything but being young. It gets inside of all of us and you can tell when we play it.
Q: I missed you guys when you came out to California a few months ago. How did that go? How was your reception here?
Jon: We spent what seemed like an eternity in CA. Last time we did a US tour we
were only in CA for 5 days and I think we spent 9 days this past summer. Not that its a bad thing, but we were ready to go when we left. The reception was hit or miss. We had a great time in Redding and Sink with Cali, but it was a tough time to tour. At the end of the summer everyone is pretty burned out on shows, the bands and the kids. We were hitting places where our show was the 10th in the last 12 days. We met tons of great people nonetheless and made some friends that we will probably have for the rest of our lives. In the end that's really what makes it worthwhile. Ted: I broke my elbow in California hanging out with some of the rowdiest kids I’ve ever met. I don’t remember half of the shows because I was pumped full of painkillers but I remember the kids from Redding and the Seattle kids who had moved to LA being insane. Q: NY is popular for its hardcore bands and the scene. How is it out there right now, and how does it compare to other places like Florida or California. Jon: Upstate NY is booming right now as far as bands go. In Rochester there are great bands like Achilles, How We Are, and Polar Bear Club. Buffalo's got Dead Hearts, Get Back Up, No Goal, and tons more. Here in Syracuse we've got Black SS, Engineer, Ed Gein, Earthquake, Attitude and a slew of other bands making their way up. We haven't been to FLA in awhile, but that scene is a really tight knit group of kids. California I think is a lot more inundated with bands and has a lot more history. You can see a lot of different kinds of shows and bands; it seems like, no matter where in CA you go. I don't know if any two places are really comparable and I can only speak for where I live. Q: Is Another Breath going to be doing any upcoming tours or dates in California?
Jon: We're doing an east coast tour down to This is For You Fest, then flying out for Rivalry Showcase, doing a Canadian tour in March, then heading to Europe for 3 weeks in May. There's talk of another US tour after that in early summer, but that's looking way too far ahead for us. Ted: Short answer – We’ll be at the Rivalry Showcase in February at 924 Gilman. Get there. It will be rowdy.
 Q: What’s the future look like for you guys as far as writing and recording goes? Are you guys just going to keep rolling with mill city for now, or do you anything in store for us coming up?
Jon: Well, at least through next summer we're going to be riding out Mill City.
Scott and I are anxious to move on and there are a couple songs written for the next one. We're aiming for next fall, but we weren't aiming for a 2 year waiting period in between NNNE and Mill City, so we'll see how things turn out.
Ted: I’ve got a new record lyrically mapped out. It’s going to be similar to Mill City in that it will follow a loose theme but in terms of personal content it’s going to be a lot more personal and intense. We need to give Mill City a chance to develop though. I don’t think this record deserves to be swept under the rug when a new record comes out because we put all of ourselves into it. So even though we’re chomping at the bit to write another record, we’re going to sit on this one a little while longer.
Q: What hardcore bands do you think influence you guys, and what current hardcore bands do you currently look up to?
Jon: This is a question I have been waiting for, for a long time. We are constantly being compared to MLIW, Suicide File, and especially American Nightmare. I would say that these bands have done things before us that have similar feel, but I know that when we write we are not drawing directly from these bands, at least not consciously. Scott and I wrote every song on Mill City and I can listen to it and pick out spots "ripped off" from Tragedy, From Ashes Rise, Breather Resist, Rise Against, Hot Water Music, Engineer, Marathon, Coliseum, Fucked Up, Backstabbers Inc., Strike Anywhere and countless punk bands we listened to growing up (NoFX, Rancid, Green Day...). There has only been one review that caught even one of those influences. We've been locked into a genre that maybe we ended up writing ourselves into, but I would argue; don't necessarily feel we are part of. When we were on tour with Verse we'd joke every time we read a review because every band was compared to 6 bands: Suicide File, Bane, Comeback Kid, MLIW, Hope Conspiracy and ALWAYS American Nightmare. You can't write a modern hardcore record without finding yourself under one of their umbrellas.... Q: What are your current favorite bands to listen to or see live? Jon: I've had a few bands on repeat lately. Lucero, Knut, the new Propagandhi, the new Good Riddance, I was listening to Merle Haggard yesterday, The Draft, How We Are, Have Heart, Verse, Dead Hearts. As far live, I love Tragedy live, raw intensity. Ed Gein is great live. We just played with Ignite twice and they were incredible both times, brought me back and got me excited on them again. Bane is another obvious choice, every single time I see them it's unforgettable. Check out Another Breath at myspace.com/anotherbreath & Rivalry Records. photos by John Campell, permission from Another Breath. |
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