Interview: From This Day, Sep 30 2006

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.

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.fromthisdaymusic.com
www.myspace.com/fromthisday

Interview: Die Young (TX), April 22 2006

Die Young (TX)

Texan hardcore band Die Young made the last stop of their East Asian tour in Hong Kong, we were lucky enough to catch them for an interview before they turned HKs underground scene upside down, and melted the walls of the Warehouse.

Could you guys all introduce yourselves and your role in the band?
I'm Chris, I play bass. I'm Jared, I play the drums, I'm James I play guitar. I'm Daniel, I vocalize.

How did you guys start off?
Daniel: We've been a band for like three and a half years and um, James and I used to play, not in the same band, but in hardcore bands in Houston back in the late 90's. I don't know, both of those bands fizzled out so then we decided that we wanted to get together and do something that was kind of old-school just really aggressive and kind of metallic, with the emphasis on the lyrics. We wanted to tour our asses off, and basically not work as much as possible. That was the idea behind Die Young when we started 3 and a half years ago. We've probably been through 80 members at this point, whenever someone said "cant tour", it was sorry dude, you're out. But now we've got a pretty stable line up.

I understand you guys put a pretty heavy emphasis on your lyrics. What influences your lyrics, where do you get your ideas from?
Daniel: Well you know, first and foremost it'd be my reactions to the world around me, and the society I live in. It's weird coming to Asia and seeing how much my lyrics are from a western perspective and maybe if I was born out here, I wouldnt be so angry. Maybe I would be if I stayed out here long enough to see things, I dont know. But you know like, most of it is just my reaction to growing up and realizing what my mentors and society expect of all of us, trying to make sense of that and eventually refuting it and deciding to do my own thing in life. And you know I read a lot, so I might borrow a philosophy or a line from some author here and there. And a lot of influences come from the bands I listened to growing up.

Do you guys have day jobs? Or do you play full time?
Jared: I have a day job, kind of. I work at a bar but like all of us, we just work when we need to save up to go out and tour more. I mean, I think we've all probably quit jobs to do tours and we've all gotten jobs to save up money to go on tour.

Daniel: Our lives definitely don't revolve around working. They revolve around playing hardcore and doing whatever we can to scrape by and keep on playing. So, right now we dont really have jobs, we dont really have steady jobs. We're lucky enough to have a history with jobs we've had for a long time, it's where we can kind of go back when were home for two weeks or whatever but we dont really have steady jobs or anything like that.

So, why are you playing in Asia?
Jared: The U.S. kind of sucks

Band: yeah

Jared: Kids there are so jaded. Like no matter what kind of music it is, everyone is either too cool or something, it's totally refreshing to come out here and like a shit load of kids come out and they all have a good time and it seems like a very positive thing. It's not like in the States: you get a hardcore show and it seems there are just a lot of dudes there who just want to get into the pit and beat the shit out of each other. I mean, I guess violence and moshing have always been a part of hardcore, but that's not what its about. It's not about flexing your nuts, trying to be the tough guy.

James: I think that in the past the violence was more of someone getting out energy, and it just sort of happened, as opposed to now where its premeditated and it's like...

Daniel: I'll also say that we wanted to come to Asia because most of us are middle class dudes; well, James always waves the lower class flag. But we're kids who work or have worked menial jobs and we dont really have another way to come see the world. And music is an awesome thing to bring people together, no matter what part of the world you're from. So we wanted to experience that.

James: I dont understand why someone would not want to see this place.

Jared: Yeah, we're all seeing things that most of our friends in the US will never see, and we're doing things that they will probably never do. And I mean just the experience, I mean the fact that we're all standing in Hong Kong right now being interviewed, about to play a show that's...

James: I think a question you might want to ask is why more bands don't come here, as opposed to why you do.

Its a small crowd around here, like averaging, if youre lucky, 100 people per show.
James: In the States that's a fairly good sized show for a local band.

Daniel: I dont think that the number of people in the crowd always dictates how good a show is going to be.

So What makes a good show?
Chris: As long as we can connect with the audience, then it's a good show, weather its 5 people, or 500 people.

Jared: Even if its 8 people- we played a show in Vermont and there were probably 8 people at our practice space.

James: Thats a generous estimation.

Daniel: The people there were more welcome to what was being said to them and what was being played for them than shows we played where there were...

Chris: 300 kids who just want to hear break downs and ...

Jared: And show everyone their cool new shoes.

Bass: Or their white belts.

Jared: Yeah these *points to shoes* were like 2 dollars dude. I didn't spend 80 bucks on these, I spent two American dollars, and they are as cool as fuck.

What makes every show worth playing?
Daniel: Well, it's not work. This is my obsession, personally. I don't sleep because I'm thinking about the next tour or the place I'm going to get to go that I've never been to before, and you know for us to play our music in front of kids and sharing ideas and hanging out. The whole experience of it, to me, is priceless. It's what I live for, if I wasnt doing this I'd probably be more miserable than I am, somewhere in a miserable ass place in America.

You said something about hardcore shows and moshing, I've heard quite a lot of stories about it like you just said, how everybody just wants to kick each others ass, is that really true?
Jared: Yeah, I mean we played that show in, where was it, Brockton outside of Boston. It was a good show, there were lots of people, but some stuff went down that didn't need to go down. I mean a guy ended up losing his eye.

Daniel: Well that's not true, but he did get hospitalized.

Jared: It gets out of hand and there is no need for that. It ruins the show.

Daniel: There has been a total rise in crew mentality, and really what it is, is hurt mentality. It's a bunch of people that don't want to get together and talk about things.

Jared: They can't think for themselves.

Daniel: They resort to violence and it's the easy way out. I don't know, I like to see kids moshing but I also like for there to be a sense of community. When I came into hardcore in the late 90s in my home town, there were just starting to be local bands and kids would go to shows and they would mosh their asses off. But they would look out for their friends; there were never any fights.The emphasis on the thug image and crew mentality have gotten big in hardcore in the past 5 years. It's really skewed. Just your experience at a typical show.

Jared: I just don't understand why kids at shows are fighting each other when they could be fighting the cops. Or, you know doing something to try and change the society we're in, instead of killing each other and killing the scene and killing the exchange of ideas. It's counter-productive.

Daniel: Yeah, its true. But not every scene...

Jared: There are places where it's definitely not like that.

If you could predict the future, what would happen to hardcore in the next 5 years?
James: That thug image will die and everything sick will go.

Daniel: It's a trend and you know I think that bands with a message might start coming back and I think they already are. We go on tour and I think, it's getting better. And whether it's getting better or not, the people who believe in the value of hardcore and punk just got to keep doing it , so that the cycle does come back around and there is a generation of kids that do value ideas and communication.

Are there any influential figures or bands that you look up to or influence your music?
Daniel: I'd say the top three for me are Catharsis, an anarchist punk band from north Carolina, Black Flag and Bad Religion, cause they brought intellect into punk and hardcore. And Ian McKay, from Minor Threat, of course. Hes still a positive influence in the Indie community.

Are there any characters in history you look up to?
James: My most influencial characters are the people in my family, seeing what happened to them here or there and how I can personally avoid falling into those same traps. You know, I'm not demeaning their struggle; I'm just saying that if I see someone is being victimized, I'm not going to follow in their footsteps.

Jared: I like Weezer.

[Band Chuckles]

Daniel: Oh God. Tommy Lee for him. Les Claypool for Chris.

Daniel: Even for historical figures it's hard for me to totally say. I identify with the ideologies of all these historical figures that I can find inspiration from anyone from Che Guevara, to Jesus, to Buddah, to Gandhi to Martin Luther King, to anyone who stood up in their time and made changes. The masses always tend to fuck things up. Yeah, plenty of historical figures, that doesnt mean that we endorse, but any revolutionary figures I think are always.

James: I think its important - sorry to backtrack- but she asked about predicting the future. I think it's really important particularly in a place like this, because I may be wrong, but from what I understand the scene here is relatively new. I hope that a lot of these people understand that there has always been a band here or there- depending on the era- that achieved major label success. I hope that they understand that throughout the entire time, '76 till now how ever far back you want to go with it- there's always been a segment, there's always been a group that did it -hate to pat ourselves on the back- but did it the way DIY [Do It Yourself] bands did it. I think that gets lost in the frail a lot of times, because people want to pay attention to the bands on MTV. I don't think they understand that within 2 or 3 years, they will be gone.

Daniel: Bands like that don't really build community. That's the grassroots aspect of hardcore, the community, the kids at the show and the scenes.

James: So if you want to predict the future: eventually all the bands that are receiving all the attention on a really grand scale now good for them if that's what they want to achieve, I'm not trying to talk down about them. Eventually their time will pass and what will be left is what's always been the backbone, and that's the bands who do what they have to do.

(c) 2006 Chantal Stanford & Rebecca Martyn All Rights Reserved

Interview: Sheila on 7, March 18 2006

Sheila on 7

Excitement filled the air as I entered North Points Sunbeam Theatre. I could hardly make my way through the frenzy of screaming girls and crowd security. On stage were the Indonesian rock band Sheila on 7, I cursed myself under my breath for sleeping in and missing the mornings Jam session.

Hailing from the artsy Indonesian city of Yogyakarta, Sheila on 7 has become a household name across Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore. With their humble beginnings as a neighborhood band, it is no wonder that front man Akhdiyat Duta Modjo walks with the air of a saint; he knows he is good, and is proud of it. Lead guitarist Eross Candra has an easily approachable child-at-heart personality. Bass player Adam Muhammad Subarkah is extremely down to earth and, the pleasure he takes in his art is easily read from the discreet smile wiped across his face while he is on stage. Guitarist Sakti Ari Seno couldnt be here as he was on haj in Mecca. On the previous day I had picked these guys, along with their Drummer Brian and Keyboardist Ferry up from Chek Lap Kok, and managed to get a few words from them.

What does the name, Sheila on 7, mean?
Adam: ah... Sheila on 7 means Sheila means music and Seven means seven notes.

Duta: Ooh. Lie lie lie!

Adam: Do Re Me Fa So La Ci, Do Re Me Fa So La Ti. Do. Yes Hope you know what I mean.

So how did you guys form, come together as a band?
Duta: We came from the same neighborhood.

Becky: Okay and it was like 1996, if I'm right.

Duta: Yeah

Becky: so were you guys still in school then?

Duta: Yeah, until 1998.

How did your parents and families react to deciding you wanted to make music for a living?
Duta: At first they felt that it wasnt a good choice for us, but uh- we kept on trying to convince them that this is really the right choice for us. And then

Becky: And then...

Duta: Now we're here.

What was the biggest struggle in getting to where you are today, from being a small band? What was the biggest hardship?
Duta: Okay, yeah, it was pretty hard to get a record deal; our band came from a small city in Indonesia, not from Jakarta, but from Yogyakarta. So the chance to make it would surely be much bigger for a band from Jakarta than for a band from Yogyakarta. Then we made a demo tape, and we tried to bring the record to a producer in Jakarta. We got lucky, they accepted us.

They offered us...

Becky: a deal.

Duta: A deal. And it's a pretty good deal!

Do you have any plans to make any new CDs?
Duta: Um yeah hopefully, in the next two months our fifth album will come out.

Becky: So how is it, how does it sound?

Duta: It's lighter than the last album. We think that the contents are pretty good. Maybe because it's lighter than the fourth album- hopefully people can accept it more than the last one.

How was the fourth album taken by the Indonesian population.
Duta: The fourth album, we only sold 400, 000 copies.

Becky: That's quite a lot

Duta: Yeah, that's quite a lot but it has sold the least number from every album we've recorded. Can you imagine the comparison between the second album, which we sold 1.9 million copies of and then the fourth album where we only sold 400, 000 copies. We put as much as we could of our taste of music- into the album. Maybe we didnt pay enough attention to the consumers, the listeners. Maybe thats one of the problems why that album didn't really sell.

What do you guys sing about, or play about?
Duta: Oh you mean the lyrics! Okay mostly about love, usually our songs follow two stories, stories from them, the guys, the boys.

Becky: So we get to hear something about their love lives?

Duta: Yeah!

Adam: Sort of.

Duta: Maybe that's one of the strong points. It makes people feel the same as in the song. So they like the song, and they buy the album.

Do you write your lyrics together?
Adam: For lyrics, they come from one person, and what kind of song we want to make with the lyrics we do together.

Becky: So you'd write the music first or the lyrics first.

Adam: In our experience it is easier to write while we play.

So your first CD went double platinum, how was that?
Duta: Yeah. Whoa, can you imagine on our DEBUT album that we could sell over one million? Thats, thats, that's an indescribable feeling for us. Can you imagine? We're from a small city in Indonesia, from Yogya. We tried with all our guts to get to Jakarta on our demo tape. Then we got lucky and they accepted our demo tape. They released the album, and we sold over one million copies. It's an indescribable feeling.

What influences has the band had?
Duta: Oh, so many bands, so many, so many bands. Because everyone in the band has different influences. I think that is what makes this band have a larger variety of music, a larger variety of songs, and a larger variety of arrangements.

Adam: I decided to play the bass because of the bass player (Billy Sheehan) of Mr. Big.

Has your music really changed from your first demo tape to your latest album?
Duta: I think that that's a natural process. If you ask me what the difference is, I cannot tell you exactly the difference. Hopefully we're getting better.

Do you have any side projects happening, are you guys going to go into the film industry, or do you have any plans?
Duta: Yeah, there are some side projects, but I mean, everyone in the band has a different side project. But the most important thing is the band. So the band is the priority for us, we're not gonna make our side projects our priorities.

If you weren't playing music in the band, what would you guys do?
Duta: I'd be a soccer player.

Adam: Teacher.

Eross: Playboy! I'd be a movie star.

Adam: Good Luck.

Brian: If I wasnt a drummer I'd be a reporter!

(c) 2006 Rebecca Martyn All Rights Reserved