Tim & Tom (far right, centre right & the long suffering Ali, far left)

AA: How was Australia and Soundwave for you guys?

TS: Unbelievably good

THB: One of the best tours we’ve ever done. It was amazing, so many of our friends bands there like Gallows, Youmeatsix, Rolo Tomassi. The shows were insane, the country’s amazing and loads of our mates there, perfect.

AA: And how’s this tour with Your Demise and A Day To Remember been? Was that nice to come back to?

TS: Yeah, ridiculously good as well.

THB: Yeah ridiculously good as well. Two great tours back to back and the shows have been great, this tour’s been amazing with Your Demise being some of our best mates and they kill it and are a ridiculously good live band so yeah, it’s been really good so far.

AA: And are you looking forward to the tour with Underoath in Europe?

THB: To be honest I haven’t really thought about it that much!

TS: I don’t know what to expect from it to be honest. Europe’s a bit more hit and miss for us than UK is. We know when we play a show in the UK that it’s going to be a lot of fun and people know the words or whatever and sing along whereas in Europe some days are really good and some are a bit quiet. But going out with Underoath’s cool.

AA: Have you got any stories about Ali (Dean, bass) being assaulted by over excited fans on these recent tours? It usually seem like something happens to him.

TS: He just gets people breaking barriers with him a little bit

THB: Yeah just people breaking down the average fan to person in band boundary a little bit

TS: They have the idea that because we treat him like a bit of a pet, they treat him like a pet and he’s like “what the FUCK are you doing?”

THB: I think it annoys him a little bit sometimes when kids see us treating him a certain way and go “ah yeah I can do that too!”

TS: What was it a kid came up to him the other day and did something and the kid just went [wanking gesture] and Ali was just like “WHAT are you doing”

THB: Just something silly like that. He’s been great on this tour though, he’s been fantastic.

AA: He’s on top form?

TS: Yeah he has been on top form, sometimes he’s a bit of a moody and he’s not very much fun. Sometimes he has an alcohol problem as well and that’s a bit of a downer.

THB: He can go either way. When he was going through his alcohol problem phase he was either amazingly playful and fun, like a hyperactive kitten, or he’s just ridiculously miserable.

TS: On our last tour in America we were in Philadelphia and he got stupidly drunk, he was walking around with a bottle of vodka and he got really drunk. He was at the merch and someone had been pulled out of the crowd or whatever and they’d got hurt and they were on the floor and being attended to by paramedics or whatever and Ali went over to them with a Bring Me The Horizon sticker and slapped it on their face and walked off. He denied it, 20 minutes later he’s like “no, that didn’t happen…”

THB: Three people witnessed him going like *SLAP*

TS: He was out, I mean he was OUT before the show was finished, in the back of the van. He did that for about 3 weeks every day.

THB: Yeah, it got to be quite worrying and all, but when he was passed out in the van Dan (Searle, drummer) was pouring vodka into his mouth while he was asleep. That was pretty great. Nothing stands out too much on this tour.

TS: He’s been quite well behaved

THB: He’s been a ball of fun

AA: Aaaw, good! I’ve been reading that you guys have been recording some demos, are you going to be recording later this year?

TS: Yeah we’re going to go in May and play with Steve Evetts if that all works out, fingers crossed, I think it will, should do. We’ve just got maybe one or two more to do, and then we’re done, we’re finished, wrapped up.

THB: Exciting stuff

TS: Ready to go

AA: Good! Okay, so after uni I’m going to get a Large Passenger Carrying Vehicles and HGV Licence. Do you have any interesting qualifications or talents?

[Laughter ensues]

THB: Uh……. no.

AA: Aaaaw really?

THB: Well if the band broke up tomorrow then I probably would go to uni, you know, something to do every day and  you get some kind of qualification at the end of it.

AA: Go to the Uni of Brighton and do Event Management, you do nothing for 3 years.

THB: Yeah

TS: Ali Dino’s going to become a vet.

THB: He’s got a real affinity to animals

TS: He loves dogs

THB: He’s the new Dr Dolittle

TS: He sees dogs and his face lights up

THB: If he sees lots of dogs around he’ll be like “oooh, it’s been a good dog day today”

[Laughter]

TS: When was the tour we did , “Dog Tour”, Ali said it was great.

THB: I remember doing the “Dog Problems” tour

AA: What, was he healing dogs?

TS: He was quite, he was consistently getting good dog sightings

THB: I don’t know which tour it was. I know he said it today when he saw a woman walking three dogs at the same time, he pointed out each one and went “oh it’s a good dog day today!”. So he’ll be a vet, and I’ll be unemployed

AA: And overall what do you hope to achieve as a band?

TS: Um….

THB: Keep doing what we’re doing right now, but upwards

TS: This is quite good!

THB: Keep the momentum going

TS: Keep building things, keep getting better and playing better shows, the band growing, that’s all. There’s no real aspirations to play stadiums or anything like that because that’s just ridiculous.

AA: Are you looking forward to KOKO in October?

TS: Yeah, very much

THB: London shows are always mental, so doing a headline tour and at that venue is great

TS: We have to kind of remind ourselves that it’s pretty crazy that we’re doing something like that, because it is really weird.

THB: Sometimes I’ll sort of sit down and be like “these are some of our songs” and I can’t believe that we’re playing music this heavy in places and we’ve actually got to where we are. It’s a bit of a reality check really, being booked into play somewhere like KOKO and think “wow, we’re actually doing this”.

TS: I used to go and see bands play at the Mean Fiddler and think they were absolutely huge bands, and now that we’re at that sort of level I don’t think it’s huge anymore because I’m at that level, but when I think about how I used to perceive that sort of stuff, it’s pretty cool. So I don’t really have any aspirations because we’re already past them. Just keep going and going and having fun with it.

THB: We’ve never been sort of a goal orientated band, we kind of take it as it comes and if it’s good and we keep getting more popular and keep putting out records that we think are good then that’s cool as opposed to thinking “right we’ve got to this level, let’s play a stadium, let’s do whatever” it’s just like “okay, let’s keep doing this as long as it keeps going well”

AA: So now we’ll do my research questions. How would you describe a pit at a hardcore show?

THB: Silly

TS: Embarrassing

THB: All that ninja jumping around

TS: It’s cool when people do it when we’re playing but I would never even consider doing it.

AA: No?

TS: No

THB: Cause it’s like when we play and people just stand there and watch I get annoyed because they’re not into it, but I can go and see my favourite band and be loving it but I’ll just be stood there. So theres two sides to the coin. When we’re playing and I see people jumping around going mental I’ll be like “Yeah, that’s sweet!” but if someone like, knocks my pint when I’m watching another band I’ll be like “stop it”.

TS: It’s cool when people do it but it’s a shame when people are disrespectful or sometimes you see big guys hitting little people, that sucks.

AA: Would you say this behaviour is distinctive of the scene?

TS: Yes

THB: Yeah I’d say it’s pretty specific to those kind of bands

TS: It’s a bit of a niche

THB: Yeah a niche pit

TS: Niche dance moves

THB: There definitely are niche dance moves. I mean if someone didn’t know anything about hardcore or whatever and went and saw people moving around the way they do they’d probably be like “these people are ridiculous”

TS: I suppose, there’s a little bit more grace and finesse to it than say, your average Korn fan moshing though, which seems to be the full body kind of… I don’t know what it is…

THB: It’s like each limb has been independently inhabited

TS: Yeah, I don’t know what that is, so I guess I give them that

AA: Would you say the quality of the show is proportionate to the size or intensity of the pit?

TS: No not necessarily. I prefer it when people sing along to be honest. I think we’re more of a singy along band than a mosh band these days.

THB: I mean when bands are like “yeah, bring the violence” and encourage people to fight I think that sucks, I hate it. That’s why I like playing “Follow the Water” because at the beginning everyone jumps up and down and no one gets hurt but everyone’s into it and at the end everyone sings along and that’s way more gratifying to I think people in the crowd  and people in the band, as opposed to people going mental and punching each other.

AA: At what point does a pit or audience become “out of control”?

THB: When someone gets hurt or people being disrespectful

TS: Sometimes these things happen accidentally

THB: Yeah, I mean when someone’s swinging their arms around intentionally trying to hit someone

TS: In America it’s like every show there’s a fight, over here it’s nowhere near as bad, over there there’s lots of “pit beef”

THB: Yeah, load of the “crews” moshing against each other

TS: So that’s kind of embarrassing and stupid

THB: I don’t think the size or intensity of the pit is proportionate to how good the show is, it’s the vibe of the show. Like when you walk in and everyone’s enjoying it, there can not be moshing and it can still be a good time.

AA: Would you say there are younger (21 and under) or older people in your audience?

TS: Younger

THB: Definitely. The majority of our fans are 15 to 20 something, 15 to mid 20s

TS: I like to think that our music could appeal to people older as well but I don’t care either way so long as someone likes it

AA: Are your audience more male or female ?

TS: You know, it’s getting more female

THB: It’s always been a majority of boys

TS: But Ali Dino’s getting better looking

AA: Oh yeah? That must be it

THB: Our Pete Wentz

TS: It used to be almost exclusively male and now I’d put it at maybe a 60/40 split in favour of the males

THB: Yeah, definitely over half

TS: But that’s cool, like I said I don’t care who likes it as long as someone does!

THB: It’s cool that there’s a mix though

AA: If there are more females in a pit, would you say that affects the behaviour?

THB: I’d like to it would but there are those guys that don’t really care when there’s a girl around. Like sometimes a girl will get hurt by accident. I’d like to think that people would be more considerate if they saw there were girls around, especially younger people but a lot of the time the people who are there to really mosh don’t seem to care about anyone around them.

AA: What would you say the unspoken rules of being in a pit are?

TS: Difficult to say when you’re never in them

AA: Okay, or in an audience instead?

TS: You’re supposed to pick someone up when they fall down

AA: There you go, that’s the one I wanted to hear!

TS: Yeah, that sort of stuff

THB: I’ll tell you what really annoys me when you’re in the crowd, when someone in front of you has got really long hair and they’re headbanging and their hair thrashes against your face and you’re just there like “you know you’ve got long hair”

AA: Yeah, or the girl with the high pony tail that’s right in your face

Both: Yeah

AA: Do you have any examples or experiences of a pit that you would like to share?

TS: Sure

THB: People on shoulders recently

TS: One of the most bizarre things I’ve seen at a show wasn’t when we were playing but in Melbourne, we played with Parkway Drive there, a fellow in a wheelchair got lifted, well crowdsurfed I guessed onto the stage and then sang along.

THB: That’s a one off occurrence.

TS: Yeah, I don’t think I’ll see that happen again, it was pretty nuts.

I was fortunate enough to get the chance to interview Sam Carter of Architects before the opening date of their headline slot on the Imperial Never Say Die tour. This is the first in a series of interviews I will be doing mixing regular interview questions with my own dissertation topic of ritualistic aggression at hardcore shows. It’s a little bit standard and it’s a little bit of something unusual, so enjoy!

AA: How was America this time around with Every Time I Die and Bring me the Horizon?

SC: America was a lot more fun this time around obviously because BMTH are like our best friends. With ETID, I have so much respect for that band. I’ve liked them since I was 14 so being on tour with them, seeing them every night, making friends with them and being with BMTH dudes as well, it was so much better. It went down really well, we sold a ton of merch and had a really good time.

AA: Do you reckon you’ll bring that tour over here? I really wish you would.

SC: A lot of people have said that, but I don’t think it’s possible. I would love to bring Every Time I Die on tour.

AA: Are you bringing out old songs cause you’re back home now?

SC: We’re bringing out a couple of ones we haven’t played in a while. But mainly, we’ll probably play a couple of songs we haven’t played off Hollow Crown yet, just to see how they go down. We’re going to bust out the obvious fan favs, but keep it interesting for us.

AA: After the Imperial Never Say Die tour what are your plans? More Europe dates?

SC: After this tour we have some time off, which is fucking great!

AA: I think you need it.

SC: Yeah, we’ve been touring so hard and we’re starting to write our new album. We’ve got to crack down with that and practise every day.

AA: So that’s a bit of time off, a bit of writing time and then a new album in 2010?

SC: Yep, that’s the plan.

AA: Would you guys want to do Warped tour in the future?

SC: I would cause a lot of our friends’ bands have done it and they say it’s extremely difficult and hard to do. In the US because we’re unknown we don’t do bus tours, we do it in vans, and apparently out there in America on Warped Tour you don’t know your stage time till you get to the venue so you have to be there at 6am every day, drive every night. I don’t know, if it came around we’d probably do it, but it’d be fucking hard work.

AA: It seems like one of those tours that when you’re doing it, it’s like “oh god this sucks” but afterwards they say “oh, it’s amazing”.

SC: Yeah, it’s a lot of hard work.

AA: Are you going to start blending any other kinds of music you like into the next album. I was listening to Your Demise and they’ve got their dubstep tracks…

SC: I don’t think we’d do anything like that. I mean we’re definitely going to put more electronic stuff in the songs on the new record and we’ll elaborate on that. Obviously we’ll change the sound a bit on the next record and add stuff in. We all listen to such good music it’d be a shame not to bring other stuff in. We’ll see what happens. The new stuff’s pretty different so we’ll see how it goes.

AA: Are you guys on a bus now or is that a coach?

SC: We’re on a bus now, with beds and everything. It’s very tiring trying to find hotels and stuff every night.

AA: Okay so now we’re going to go onto my dissertation stuff, and now’s your chance to say “I want to be anonymous!”

SC: It’s all good!

AA: How would you describe a pit at one of your shows?

SC: Uuuuh, pretty violent I guess. I don’t think we have those pits that really mosh too hard, you know, it’s kind of youngerish crowds. I guess they can get pretty messy, I mean kids running around punching each other. That’s what all of us did when we were thirteen years old. I wouldn’t get in there.

AA: Would you say that that’s a definitive thing of the hardcore scene?

SC: Yeah, I mean when you’re on stage and that it means the kids are really pumped on the songs.

AA: Would you say the quality of the show is proportionate to the size and intensity of the pit?

SC: Yeah, I mean I wouldn’t necessary say for us that a big pit means it’s better. We’re a band that prefers singalongs to pits, if you have say 800 people there just standing, singing along, jumping up and down, we prefer that compared to 800 kids just moshing and not singing along. We’re all like, well I was definitely brought up from a hardcore background, you know I just went to shows and jumped on people, didn’t really mosh, just stage dived, that’s what’s fun to me.

AA: At what point would you say a pit becomes out of control?

SC: When it gets to violent. When kids are bleeding and stuff. A couple of years ago in my old band I was playing and venues were getting ripped apart and shit like that. It sucks when stuff gets really violent, like destroying venues, that’s when it gets too far.

AA: Would you say your band is more younger or older people?

SC: I don’t know. I would say we appeal to younger and older kids. People have followed us from the start, obviously we’re pretty young, I mean I’m 21 and they followed us from when we were younger to now. I think every day we’re getting more fans building on that. I would say youngish.

AA: Would you say it’s more males or females?

SC: I would honestly say I think it’s more male based. I don’t ever see, I mean I’ve definitely never seen a row of girls at the front, like taking photos and fucking screaming. I don’t see a band like us appealing like that. We’re just a hardcore band and we just fucking play stuff and see dudes coming. I mean I rarely see girls there. In some way’s it’s good. It’s good to see girls at shows, but when they’re really into the music, not just stand there taking photos. I wouldn’t want to play to 4000 and 2000 of them were girls with camera phones.

AA: What would you say are the unspoken rules of being in a pit?

SC: Everyone’s just got to look after each other. When I was younger it was the rule that if someone falls over, pick them up. If you see someone get fucking knocked out, get them out of there. It’s just like, pits can be violent, but they can be a good release for kids, you know? Being young and feeling like, all this pent up aggression and letting it out with a bunch of your friends, just running around like when I was younger.

AA: Yeah it’s better they do that…

SC: Yeah, let it all out there than out on the street and get into a fight. That’s always true for me, I used to let out a shit load of aggression in a pit. But still at the same time, all look out for each other.

AA: Have you got any epic show stories?

SC: What like pit wise?

AA: Yeah, like I saw Gallows and they had an 8 person high pyramid in the pit.

SC: I think the craziest thing is we did a show in Halifax (Canada) the other day and it was crazy, kids just jumping on each other. Other than that, walls of death at Download, we did a fucking huge one, it was amazing. We do, y’know, do that. When you see a sea of people just split in two, we do that quite a lot, it’s just pretty cool to be able to see the whole way through a venue.

AA: Cool. Okay, finally, I’ve remembered now. Have you set any other rules for Ali this tour other than don’t bring crazy fuckers on the bus?

SC: He’s sleeping next to me on the bus so I get to see him every day, and other than that I guess it’s just to be my drinking partner.

AA: I read this interview with you guys, and it was saying that the way you rinse him, it’s almost disturbing to watch!

SC: Yeah, Tom and Dan definitely go on at him quite a bit and I just kind of join in now and then. Sometimes I feel sorry for him but…

AA: I bet he loves it.

SC: He does love it really. I think he likes it when we do it, but when fans come up and try to touch his face and stuff and call him like, Dino Doggie and stuff like that, I mean it’s a bit too…

AA: Yeah, a bit too…

SC: I mean it’s funny as fuck to me, everyone else finds it great, but he doesn’t enjoy it. He doesn’t enjoy the familiarity or whatever. We have like two t-shirts about him, so the kids love him and they can go buy Ali t-shirts.

AA: You’re definitely making him like the Pete Wentz.

SC: Oh definitely! We want to make him as well known as possible.

AA: Have you got any weird presents yet? You put something on twitter right? Have you got anything yet?

SC: In Canada I got like, a fresh pair of Vans like every day. I’m just going to do that now, see how many Vans I can get.

AA: Well, my mate in Cologne is getting you loads of German stuff that says “Ja” on it.

SC: Oh sick!

AA: She’s well worried she’s not going to get in the venue, but I’m sure she’ll make it.

SC: That’d be sick!

AA: Cool well that’s about it.

SC: Thanks very much

Architects release their third music video in Europe/US today. The track ‘Follow the Water’ is off their latest album, Hollow Crown. The UK premiere is on Monday, October 19th, and you’ll be able to find it on kerrang.com

Sorry for all of you who don’t want to travel to another site to watch this! But you have to. They’ve disabled the embed code, and it’s been killed off youtube, so no luck (N).

The movie itself is okay, the entire thing is just them playing in a packed venue, with a videographer who is able to get up and close, it doesn’t really do the song justice, as it is, in my opinion, the best song they have ever written. The lyrics still confuse me, the whole ‘Drain the lake and bring it back to me’ thing, I just don’t understand why you want a lake delivered to you! Anyways, check it out, you’ll be glad you did.

]]> http://www.damagedpress.com/news/2009/10/video-architects-follow-the-water/feed/ 3 http://www.damagedpress.com/reviews/bandreviews/2009/10/epitaphzune-tour-every-time-i-die-bring-me-the-horizon-architects-kingdoms/ http://www.damagedpress.com/reviews/bandreviews/2009/10/epitaphzune-tour-every-time-i-die-bring-me-the-horizon-architects-kingdoms/#comments Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:58:20 +0000 Dylan Houle http://www.damagedpress.com/?p=409 Friday night Josh and I attended the Epitaph Tour featuring Kingdoms, Architects, Bring Me The Horizon, and Every Time I Die. Originally, Oh Sleeper was scheduled to preform but due to unknown circumstances, they dropped last minute and Kingdoms saved the day by joining the show last minute. A night of high energy music, heavy breakdowns and… Screaming girls? It seems BMTH’s(Bring Me The Horizon) fan base has expanded to a new army of teenage girls, which is surprising to me considering how heavy there music is.

Local band Kingdoms (Underground Operations) opened the show with tight, heavy, melodic music, showing it up for Canada, being the only Canadian band on the show. Even though most people in the building weren’t even aware Kingdoms were playing the show, I can guarantee they were not disappointed in the performance and passion displayed by this up and coming band.

Up next was Architects, a band that I personally was very interested in seeing because I’ve heard lots of good thing about them, but never have had the opportunity to check them out live.  I was very impressed by the performance this British progressive metal band. In my opinion, the recordings they have do not do them justice. If you really want to experience Architects, you have to see them live. They will be playing on October 12th again in Toronto, with August Burns Red and The Acacia Strain.

Now for the band most of the crowd came out to see, Bring Me The Horizon. As I said earlier, for some reason BMTH have cast a spell upon teenage girls. When Vocalist Oliver Sykes first stepped on the stage, an almost “Jonas Brothers” reaction was given from the crowd. As for the music, BMTH played an okay set. I must say, there current CD “Suicide Season” is not as appealing to me as there 20o6 debut, “Count Your Blessings”, which made it disappointing when only one song off Count Your Blessings was played. One Flaw I really found in Bring Me The Horizons live music was that it was very sloppy. At Times it would be very hard to tell one song from another, or hear which guitar riffs were played. While I wasn’t very impressed by them, there very loyal fans backed them 100% and made it very obvious they enjoyed the performance.

The next and final band that played can be defined in two simple but very very important words, stage precense. On top of playing their songs bang on, Buffalo Southern Hardcore band Every Time I Die had some of the best stage presence I have ever seen. With Bassist Josh Newton wearing a full one piece skeleton suit, and guitarist Andy Williams having very interesting handle bars, you know this band knows how to put on a show. The most impressive thing I saw this show was ETID guitarist Jordan Buckley, front flip from on the stage into the crowd with out ever stopping playing his guitar. All in all the show was ended on a very positive note with a very talented band.

To see photos from this show go to: http://www.damagedpress.com/featured/2009/10/photos-every-time-i-die-bring-me-the-horizon-architects-kingdoms/

]]> http://www.damagedpress.com/reviews/bandreviews/2009/10/epitaphzune-tour-every-time-i-die-bring-me-the-horizon-architects-kingdoms/feed/ 1 http://www.damagedpress.com/musicvideos/2009/10/video-bmth-the-sadness-will-never-end/ http://www.damagedpress.com/musicvideos/2009/10/video-bmth-the-sadness-will-never-end/#comments Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:44:23 +0000 Josh Mahoney http://www.damagedpress.com/?p=394

On a personal note, my favourite part is 3:23, where you can see the band going full out, and the chemistry between Oli and Sam really stands out.

As much as I was sad that Oh Sleeper was apparently not playing this show anymore, it’s always good to see Kingdoms. Totally loved this show, high energy for all the bands!

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