HXR20YR RETROSPECTIVE: HXR036- BLEAK, "No Light, No Tunnel"

Bleak were churning a path of destruction across the country, constantly on tour, taking shows wherever and whenever they could.  And through it all they were continuously writing and coming up with more apocalyptic sounds to destroy the world with.

At a point between the “We Deserve Our Failures” LP and what would become their next full-length, “No Light, No Tunnel” vocalist Scott Thayer left the band to move to Egypt.  The band was without a vocalist for a short period of time (a time which included playing a few shows with fill-in vocalists- myself included- as well as recording the Dialysis/Bleak split 7”, which also relied on contributing vocalists to fill the space), but soon found themselves pairing up with original vocalist Mike Watson once more and getting back on the road.

At this point original drummer Nick Shelton officially exited the group, as he could not commit to long stretches on the road.  The band had already worked with a few other drummers to tour with as needed, including former The Chariot and Architect drummer Mark McGee, as well as former Tombs drummer Andrew Hernandez.  Both would continue to play with Bleak throughout this time before eventually finding a permanent member in Ithaca resident Cam Meyers, who stayed with the band until their dissolution.

With Watson re-entering the fold on vocal duties he brought a different vocal style than Thayer in terms of larynx-shredding torturous screams versus Scott’s sturdy and gruff bellow.  It was a chaotic and genuinely painful bloodletting on the vocal front and it completely fit the idea behind ‘Bleak’ in a different way than what was presented on “We Deserve Our Failures”.

And things went pretty smoothly for the band for awhile as they got on the road and wrote the record.  The writing for this album was quite a bit different as the music became more chaotic, crazy time signatures swirled around, and a bit of the mosh-y tendencies of earlier material were replaced with truly violent sounding music.  Jeremy Lorenzson, a friend from the Philly area, started coming out to play second guitar with the band to fill out some of the sound and ideas that guitarist and primary songwriter TJ Calandra was putting together.

And then, after the record came out and the band went on tour in support of it a major blow came to the group when TJ was injured at a show, which sidelined him for basically the remainder of the band’s existence.  TJ had always had a number of health issues that had affected him since he was a kid.  Not to get too into detail (I’ll leave that for TJ), he eventually required needing a full heart transplant.  It’s nuts. 

So with the main musical drive of the band exceptionally restricted in terms of being able to play out Bleak slowly burnt out, playing only occasionally for the next several months before finally packing it in.  Honestly, it’s a pretty crazy ride and I caught up with TJ Calandra- who’s doing surprisingly well these days- to recount some of that wildness that was the later-era of Bleak and the record they made “No Light, No Tunnel.”

Chair-mosh

OK, let’s get it out of the way first- describe the injury you sustained on tour that kind of led to Bleak slowing down a bunch because you physically were unable to play out.

Well, It is sort of two fold: Somewhere on tour I developed an Inguinal hernia. This, of course, was due to lifting heavy things, most likely our gear in a horrible fashion. I think somewhere at the beginning of a spring tour, however it wasn’t, at the time, that bad. I have had one before that was repaired surgically back in 2006. So after that tour was over, it got worse and worse. I went to a general surgeon to see if could get it repaired, and they said that before he could operate I would need a Cardiac clearance from my heart doctor.

I was born with a congenial cardiac defect called L Transposition of the Great Arteries and had numerous surgeries throughout my life, including one when I was a week old, and an open heart surgery when I was seven, which resulted in me getting a permanent pacemaker placed inside me. So before I could this hernia surgery, they need a clean bill of health slip from my Cardiac doctor. Seemed easy; other than my hernia I felt like I was in excellent health. The doctors hooked me up to this machine that allows them, through a magnetic device, to get information from the pacemaker, run diagnostic tests, and make changes or adjustments to it. However, they saw something very wrong: I was in Atrial Fibrillation (A Fib) and had been in it for 88 days straight.

I have been in A Fib before many times, however I was able to feel it, and notice it due to my heart beating tremendously fast and losing breath very easily. So I was shocked. Being in A Fib is dangerous because unless you are on blood thinners, a blood clot could form in the heart that could eventually break off and go into your lungs or brain, to where you’ll have a stroke if you’re lucky, and if you are not lucky you’ll die.

When the doctor said I had been in A Fib for 88 days, I went back to see what I did 88 days prior, and it turned out it was on a previous Bleak tour at a house show in Tallahassee, Florida. We had unloaded the van and I was setting up the merch table. After I finished, I started doing inventory of some of our shirts. There were these two guys nearby that were friends but they were high or drunk or both. They started play-fighting, then wrestling, then actual fighting and threw themselves right into our merch table. I was pissed; I don’t let the other Bleak guys put their drinks or anything on it. And worst is that these two guys were still fucking around with each other as if they didn’t notice or care that they just messed up all of our stuff. I then grabbed both of them and literally picked them up and threw them off of the table and on to the floor, trying to separate them. Matt Jaime (Bleak bassist) came over then to stop the ordeal, but that is exactly the incident that could and did raise my heart rate to a level which would bring on sudden A Fib.

The only weird thing was that I didn’t feel it happening. I got my hernia fixed with surgery, however the doctors could not get me out of A Fib. Normally, they do what is called a Cartioversion, which is a controlled defibrillation under anesthesia; in the past I had this done numerous times and it successfully worked. Yet, the doctors did this on 3 different occasions with no luck. They tried bringing me out of it with medication, but again no luck. My heart slowly deteriorated due to the A Fib for so long, and I needed a heart transplant. There is no doctor in Syracuse, NY, nor any transplant center, so I went to New York City to New York Presbyterian Columbia on October 17th of 2016 (my mother’s birthday) and stayed there until I got a transplant on December 3^rd, 2016 (the 49th anniversary of the first Heart Transplant).

So, “No Light…” is quite a bit different than “We Deserve…” in terms of it being a more musically complex record, definitely more chaotic, and I recall you describing the writing behind it to me as being more as a response to Mike’s vocal style.  Also, it seems like that record came together pretty fast after Mike rejoined.  Had you already been working on new music for it before he rejoined the band, or was it just a spurt of creativity?

Yes, it is different and it definitely is more frantic and trashy, while the songs off “We Deserve Our Failures” (WDOF) are mid-tempo groove, maybe one could call an Arrhythmic sludge. Funny enough, almost all of the songs on NLNT are older than those from WDOF; some were pre-Bleak even. And that is the reason why the record seemed to come together so fast after Mike rejoined the band. The first track off of NLNT, “Teeth” and later on “Crowley,” “Roses” and “No Time” were all songs we did as Bleak with original Bleak lineup of Nick, Matt, Mike and myself.  However, when Skot joined we stopped playing them. Side note: when a band I am doing has some significant member change such as a singer, I try to make the music fit their voice/singing style, as well as give them a fresh start so they feel as though they are creating something and not just learning 5 or 6 songs of someone else’s creation.

So we dropped those songs and worked on ones that were new at the time and Skot was writing lyrics for. But, when Mike rejoined the band, we decided to do those songs again. However, we added a thrash element to “Teeth” to make it coincide with the fast thrashy feel of the rest of the material on NLNT. The rest of the tracks pretty much were material I had for awhile that I didn’t think fit well with Bleak at the time of the band’s inception. Some of those riffs and structures I had for years.

For example, the riffs for the songs “I Can Not Die” and “Fuck Your God,” I was messing around with while my other band Architect was recording their second record in 2008. It wasn’t until Bleak at the time of “No Light No Tunnel”, where I felt the material could be Bleak songs done right by the band at the time, if that makes sense. Mike has a percussive element to his singing, that adds accents to what you are hearing: it is like an extra punch in a fistfight. Skot’s singing adds a counter melody to the music; it is like an extra set of hands strangling you.

When Mike got back on board, the I was able to use those older songs with the faster, chaotic, more complex rhythms, tempos and arrangements, because Mike’s voice, I thought fit perfectly with them.

"Give it up for Mr. Michael Watson, and his band Sexual Chocolate!"

What led to the decision to bring in Jeremy on second guitar, or how did you get to know him?

We met Jeremy on the first weekend we did with Scott singing for us. It was a show in Philly and Jeremy was in a band called Sovereign. For Bleak and Sovereign, it was love at first sight. We played so many shows together and even did a split 7 inch. So when my health problems arose, and I said I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of touring or playing out, Jeremy was who We went after to fill for me. However, there were two local shows that I was semi healthy enough to play, so we had both of us on guitar. There was a time when I started having lots of health problems and Jeremy was on board filling for me, that Bleak figured that when I got better, we would then do the band with two guitars. Especially after the show we played as a 5 piece with Pig Destroyer in Ithaca, and another show with Crowbar in Syracuse. I played the Crowbar show almost dying, and went into the hospital a few days later. My health diminished tremendously and I needed the heart transplant. Once I got it, and health got better Bleak dis play a benefit show for a friend and we played it as a five piece with Jeremy. It was a lot of fun. Looking back, I wish we brought him on sooner.

Mike is a pretty musical guy as well.  I know you have pretty much written most of Bleak’s material, but did he contribute at all to the music?  Conversely, did you contribute at all to any of the lyrics?

Mike is a very musical guy. Extremely, in fact. However, he didn’t really contribute to the music aspect of the band, and I didn’t contribute to the lyrics. When it comes to the songs on NLNT, a good chunk of the stuff was already written for awhile. I made some demos and sent them to Mike. Seriously within a day Mike would send me back a demo with a vocal arrangement on top of what I just sent him. With Bleak, if I did anything it would be a “don’t sing here, sing here” type of thing, but I don’t even know I did that for NLNT. I think perhaps maybe more so with our EP “Songs for Cowards.” Mike has a good sense of what is going with a song in general and what I am doing structure wise for a song. When I write, I definitely have vocals in mind when arranging, in terms of how many times some part is played, and sometimes how vocals will feel as it carries over some complex structure. For example, on NLNT, in the end of the song “Crawl” it is a very jagged, almost stochastic sounding rhythm over a simple 4/4 guitar, all of which is intended to crescendo in a beat with the whole band in unison. All I needed to tell Mike was to start singing a straight vocal pattern over top of it, and he got it. It was better than I could imagine. I didn’t even need to tell him to switch to a different time signature once the stochastic section was over. So he can know what I have in mind going for in vocal structure, without me telling him. And this even applies to music with enormous complexity.

Matt (Jaime, bassist) had mentioned previously that when it came time to record you recorded all the guitars and bass for the record and Mark McGee played drums.  Since Mark lives in Canada did it make rehearsing with him to get him ready for the recording tough?

It wasn’t difficult at all working with Mark long distance. He has been the drummer of Architect for a decade and we have been working on stuff over long distances for a long time. When it comes to working on NLNT, I made a demo of each song and sent it to Mark. He would then learn what I had programmed, add his own flare, and then record a video of himself playing the songs, so I can see and hear what he is doing. I loved it. He actually prefers this means of writing. Mark thinks that it is just not using the band’s time optimally learning a song part by part, instrument by instrument while all the other band members are standing there waiting. This makes sense because, at the time of recording NLNT, Mark was living in Iqaluit, Canada (to give you some reference to how far north this is, it is a city father north to New York City than Cuba is South). So flights out of there were scarce, and therefore time in Syracuse was both valuable and pressing. So we prepared months in advanced, and Mark knew the songs front to back like he had been playing them for months, because he had in fact been playing them for months. I think when he got down here we rehearsed for two days. One of them with Mike running through the songs with us, then we went to record. Mark got all of his tracks done in 8 hours.

A busted ticker cannot stop one from playing with their favorite band

OK, so I get the title and it definitely sounds like one Mike would come up with.  But I have to wonder- you almost died on more than one occasion.  Did you have any input into that title?

I have died on more than one occasion, in more than one country; and I can assure anyone who thinks knowledge is attained via subjective experience that when your are on the brink of shuffling off this mortal coil, that you see no light, walk through no tunnel, nor will you find yourself in some celestial appellate court combing through your transgressions like it’s your Facebook memories, but instead that death is more like the loss of definition; absorbed into what paradoxically, yet comfortingly can be called the substance of nothingness, as if you were a dewdrop placed in black lava. However, the title of the record was ultimately made up by Mike.  However he originally had “No lights, No tunnels,” but I suggested it be singular. At first Mike had a single word title, but I had a two-fold problem with it: first, it wasn’t strong enough (I can’t recall what it was now). The first record, “We Deserve Our Failures,” was such a strong, pessimistic title, the second record needed one of the same caliber. Second, I have an issue with single word titles when the band's name is one word. I know this is just an eccentricity of mine, but I don’t think it is aesthetically pleasing to have see just two separate words on an album cover, floating around as if it were the end result of someone playing around with their alphabet soup, nor do I think single word titles give one any sense of content or imagery. A band’s album title should on its own invoke an extremely vivid picture of what you the listener are about to be in for, and leaves no room, no gaps for the vagaries and the junk context the human automatically mind fills in on it own. A band’s album title should be more like a treatise on getting punched in the face, and less like a Rorschach test. But that is my thing. It has nothing to do with Bleak or any particular word Mike or Scott made up. I just have an aversion to single word album titles.

A drum cam on Cam, drums

So what did eventually lead to Bleak splitting up as a band? 

I probably could say with confidence that I think when it comes down to it, the reason why Bleak is not together anymore is because of me and my post heart transplant situation, and that would be a good portion of the truth, but not all of the truth. After any organ transplantation, the receiver has to take a number of immune suppressants because your immune system thinks the new organ is a disease, a tumor, or a parasite. Your body does get used to the organ which makes it so you can gradually decrease this medication, but never be off of it. This means I can get sick very easily, and when a heart transplant patient gets sick, no doctor wants to touch the patient, because there are so many factors that have to be taken into consideration anatomically and pharmacologically. This makes my condition not suited for touring or punk rock in general. Not just because of dingy venues or crusty punk houses, but also the need to be in relative proximity of a hospital with a transplant center. There is a cliché belief of someone who just had a heart transplant getting out bed, running marathons, playing basketball and coaching soccer, but this is a delusion. In reality, you are more like Howard Hughes isolated in a room, wearing gloves, and angrily asking people if they thoroughly washed the vegetables. Don’t get me wrong, I have played shows since my transplant with my other band Architect, my new project with Mike and Cam called Serial Sleepers, and as I said earlier one time with Bleak. However, the occasional show is not really Bleak's style; we are very much all or nothing. When I first came around after my operation, and came to terms with all the new lifestyle changes now forced upon me, I said to the other Bleak guys that the band can continue, but it would have to be without me on the road, much like how the band was operating at that time with Jeremy playing guitar. But they said that it wasn’t the same, without me and that I was an important character to the band as a live entity. So that is another aspect of Bleak's all or nothing philosophy. It’s either an orgy or abstinence.

Possibly one of the best flyers for a show ever

What was the best thing about Bleak and what was the worst?

The best and worst thing about Bleak were the same thing: playing out live. I write a lot of diverse types of music, and have been in bands that are all different genres. However, I really only like playing out live the heavy angry kind such as Bleak or Architect. I don’t know why exactly this is the case. It isn’t that the heavier stuff is my favorite songs I have written; those vary greatly. I can’t say that heavy music is more visceral, but I can say it is more fun. All music is hypnotism to the listener. You as the songwriter or band have cognitive and emotional control over those listening. So with Bleak, performing live, playing the songs, and crushing it was like bringing the audience to the brink of violence, and you could feel it. It is like controlling an army. And on tour, right in the middle of the tour, where the sweet spot is; where you are a killing machine, and every band member is carved out of wood, that is when it is the best. You could see it in the faces of people. They make that face where you see them grit their teeth, flare their nostrils in scorn, and lower their brow in anger; their shoulders clench forward and their necks bend downward as if they are pulling a plow. That is a person who is about to fight something, and that is what we did to people. At least that is what I thought we did, and what I enjoyed the most.

The worst part is, of course, playing out too: it is so exhausting, it is so hard to organize, it is so costly in money, it is so consuming in time, and it is so detrimental to anything else in your life that you value. Driving to a show in a snowstorm that any moment you could crash and die, you constantly ask yourself “why am I doing this?” This of course, I guess, isn’t specific to Bleak, but applies I think to any full time band. However, maybe it is just me. I have a love-hate relationship with playing live and Bleak of course did a lot of playing out.

And if you act now (or for the next week for that matter), if you go to the Hex site you can score one of the above records for just $5.  You can also get the CD for $4.  You can also get the digital for $4 as well.  Take your pick, but I think it best to just throw money at me and see what you get.