From This Day
From This Day formed in Buffalo, New York, in 2004. Since then they have brought their brand of metal across the United States. Lucky for us, we got an interview with the band on the first leg of their China tour at Hong Kong's Love Life No Regrets festival.
Could you guys introduce yourselves, and what you play?
My name is Jay, I play guitar; I'm Jaffer I play bass guitar; I'm Fred, I sing; I'm Allen, I make an attempt at playing drums; I'm Andy and I play the guitar.
How did you start off?
Fred: Al and I were in a previous band together, and we decided to start a new band together. So we were jamming around and eventually we got Jay and Andy to play, and now Jaffer.
Did you guys all go to school together?
Allen: I actually went to school with Jaffer, and then I kind of knew Fred through a family friend over the years. And Jay and Andy, we kind of just met through mutual friends, and it worked out pretty good.
Andy: Usually it was more or less we saw them at shows and kind of had a friendship that way then a friend of a friend got me into this – the same thing with Jay, and this is pretty much how it is now.
Jay: Buffalo has kind of a tight knit hardcore and metal scene, so people just sort of knew each other and met easily.
How would you describe your sound?
Fred: Kind of like death metal or grind but without a lot of guitar solos and breakdowns.
Jaffer: Fetuses screaming as they're being ripped from bodies.
Allen: Puppies and kittens playing.
Andy: Take an elephant and have it slammed against the wall by its ankles.
Jay: And dolphins swimming in the ocean.
Who has influenced you?
Andy: The common denominator would probably be Cannibal Corpse. And we all have such eclectic tastes in music…
Jay: Yeah, I'm more into grind.
Jaffer: I'm into blues and jazz and country.
Fred: I like a lot of punk rock and a lot of metal.
Andy: I grew up with old thrash metal, like Slayer and Testament, Old Metallica— which is the ONLY good Metallica, anything before The Black Album is good. Stuff like Led Zepplin— which is my all time favorite band.
What is the meaning behind the name "From This Day"
Fred: We were actually just trying to think of a name- it took us a good month and a half. We had the worst ideas for names, like The Last Day of Summer- that just makes you want to cry. Just when we gave up on ideas Al came up with "From this Day", and it was something we all thought was a really good idea.
Allen: Yeah, we had sheets of like, 250 different names, and they were all absolutely horrible. And it [From This Day] was kind of fitting because we were restarting as a band, and it had a decent ring to it.
What is music to you?
Jay: It's everything, it's life- that's it, it's everything.
From This Day formed in Buffalo, New York, in 2004. Since then they have brought their brand of metal across the United States. Lucky for us, we got an interview with the band on the first leg of their China tour at Hong Kong's Love Life No Regrets festival.
Could you guys introduce yourselves, and what you play?
My name is Jay, I play guitar; I'm Jaffer I play bass guitar; I'm Fred, I sing; I'm Allen, I make an attempt at playing drums; I'm Andy and I play the guitar.
How did you start off?
Fred: Al and I were in a previous band together, and we decided to start a new band together. So we were jamming around and eventually we got Jay and Andy to play, and now Jaffer.
Did you guys all go to school together?
Allen: I actually went to school with Jaffer, and then I kind of knew Fred through a family friend over the years. And Jay and Andy, we kind of just met through mutual friends, and it worked out pretty good.
Andy: Usually it was more or less we saw them at shows and kind of had a friendship that way then a friend of a friend got me into this – the same thing with Jay, and this is pretty much how it is now.
Jay: Buffalo has kind of a tight knit hardcore and metal scene, so people just sort of knew each other and met easily.
How would you describe your sound?
Fred: Kind of like death metal or grind but without a lot of guitar solos and breakdowns.
Jaffer: Fetuses screaming as they're being ripped from bodies.
Allen: Puppies and kittens playing.
Andy: Take an elephant and have it slammed against the wall by its ankles.
Jay: And dolphins swimming in the ocean.
Who has influenced you?
Andy: The common denominator would probably be Cannibal Corpse. And we all have such eclectic tastes in music…
Jay: Yeah, I'm more into grind.
Jaffer: I'm into blues and jazz and country.
Fred: I like a lot of punk rock and a lot of metal.
Andy: I grew up with old thrash metal, like Slayer and Testament, Old Metallica— which is the ONLY good Metallica, anything before The Black Album is good. Stuff like Led Zepplin— which is my all time favorite band.
What is the meaning behind the name "From This Day"
Fred: We were actually just trying to think of a name- it took us a good month and a half. We had the worst ideas for names, like The Last Day of Summer- that just makes you want to cry. Just when we gave up on ideas Al came up with "From this Day", and it was something we all thought was a really good idea.
Allen: Yeah, we had sheets of like, 250 different names, and they were all absolutely horrible. And it [From This Day] was kind of fitting because we were restarting as a band, and it had a decent ring to it.
What is music to you?
Jay: It's everything, it's life- that's it, it's everything.
Fred: I don't want to say that music is life, but I'll tell you this—
music took me some where that I never in my life thought I was going to be.
Allen: Thank god I have my hearing!
Jaffer: Music is a foundation for bonding and brotherhood.
Andy: Something that we just can't help but do is play music. If we weren't in a band, all of us would still somehow play music— it's in our blood, it's in our veins, like I'm always thinking about it; its just there.
Jay: Yeah, even like to the point where sometimes for me I'll be like "I don't even feel like going to practice…" , but it's just something I'll fell like I'm going to do regardless of what else happens, how good or bad life gets.
Are you full time musicians, or do you have day jobs?
Fred: You have to take this in steps. You have to build a foundation, and we're taking the steps to do this full time. We do have a lot of bills to pay, so we can't drop everything- so now that we have a label, and now that we have some good connections in the States and overseas, we're taking the steps to make this.
You said you guys aren't doing this full time- so what do you do?
Jaffer: I'm a Wine Sommelier I sell, taste, and teach about liquor and wine.
Fred: I'm a family therapist.
Allen: I work for a moving company, it's pretty glorious.
Andy: I stack shelves at a grocery store.
Jay: Um well… I was unemployed for a little while [band mates laugh], and I'm probably going to start working at a tattoo shop doing the paper work.
If you weren't musicians what would you do?
Fred: I don't know what I'd be doing, but my life would probably suck. Honestly, I can't imagine a life without music.
Andy: I'd pretty much be a working stiff, jamming at a factory or working at a metal shop.
Allen: I would go after the money.
Jaffer: I might be a porn star.
How did the recording process for "Proverbs of Ashes" go?
Fred: Well, we write all the songs before we go into the studio, and we go to Watchmen Studios. Usually Al lays the drums down first…
Allen: Yeah… I lay the drums first… it's pretty glorious.
Jay: I think we need to drop the name Doug White at Watchmen Studios in Lockport, New York. The guy is practically a genius and legendary in the underground recording metal scene. Recording with him, I was falling asleep on his couch in the studio, like I shouldn't be like that if we're recording a grind record.
Fred: He made it so smooth, whenever something didn't sound right there was always an easy quick thing we could fix. He harnessed our music. He didn't change anything; he just harnessed it very well.
Allen: And it only took us four days to record, so it went pretty quick.
Any funny touring stories?
Fred: I have one of the funniest stories of my life. We were playing the New Jersey Death Metal Festival a couple years ago and on the way back— Buffalo is about five hours away from New Jersey- it's snowing out, it's a Sunday night and our van breaks down. I call the tow truck and everyone else goes back into the car. The tow truck driver was gay- and was trying to get with me for five hours, I swear. I kept on saying "No, no, no" …
Allen: And then you finally gave in.
Fred: No, I did not give in. I did not give in.
Allen: You just showed him in.
Fred: No I didn't show him in, I swear. There's nothing wrong with being gay, but seriously that was so uncomfortable. So the guy actually drops me off and friggin charged me like 300 bucks.
Allen: That's probably the worst- that and our first big out- of- town show. We drove 8 hours from our home town, played the show, and on the way home the motor blew in the truck. So we were up for 36 hours straight and it cost us 600 dollars to get our gear home. We had to flatbed our truck cause nobody would rent us a truck and we were up in a parking lot until 8 in the morning.
Fred: We've got a good story from a few months ago, we were playing this show and this guy asked "Can I sing a song with you?", and I was like "yeah", because the less I have to sing means the less work I have to do. So this guy comes up, and we're running around on stage and he trips me and I fall on to Jay's stuff. So we get done playing and Jay is like "Dude, I didn't even know he was on stage."
Jay: It was a cool show.
Fred: Yeah, we had a good time.
We'd like to thank From This Day for allowing us to ask them seemingly useless questions and playing an absolutely awesome show...
www.myspace.com/fromthisday
No comments:
Post a Comment