HXR20YR RETROSPECTIVE: HXR012- ED GEIN, "Judas Goats and Dieseleaters" 12"

Here’s a story of the record that took forever to come out.  This was supposed to be the 12^th release overall for Hex Records.  I believe it finally came out after our 14^th or 15^th release. It was held up for a ridiculously long time.  But we’ll get into that more in a little bit.

First off, let’s set the tone for what was going on with Ed Gein during this time period- basically they were never home.  They were doing one tour after another, constantly on the road, and scraping by.  The “It’s a Shame…” EP had been doing ridiculously well and I definitely could not keep up with how active the band was.  I knew they were destined for bigger things and when they began to get some offers I was fully ready for the guys to move ahead, as they clearly had outgrown this little cottage label I was running.

The band had made some friends with the fellas in The Red Chord and had played a bunch of shows together.  The Red Chord had recently inked a deal with Metal Blade Records and were making some big moves of their own.  Part of that deal with Metal Blade included vocalist Guy Kozowyk’s label Black Market Activities getting exclusive distribution through them, which is a pretty nice thing to have.  So when Black Market offered a deal to Ed Gein it seemed like the right move to do.  I was happy for them.

They had already made the decision to record with Chris Owens at Headbangingkillyourmama Music in Louisville, since that Syracuse-Rochester-Louisville connection had been forged from bands like Ed Gein, Achilles, and Engineer touring together frequently with Louisville groups like Lords, Breather Resist, and Coliseum.  The result is a filthy sounding, crazy heavy and fast record that pushed Ed Gein way out of the sound they were typically known for, but (in my humble opinion) exactly where it suited them best.  It’s easily my favorite sounding record of theirs, but I think the band doesn’t totally agree.  I just think it sounds so raw and nasty while still keeping that technical, blasting craziness to it.  But I digress.  Let’s get back to the story of how this came together.

I wanted to still be involved with the band in some way and I asked if I could release the vinyl version of the new record.  At the time vinyl was not a hot commodity so Black Market was completely agreeable to it since they would just be making buttloads of CDs.  This would also be the first actual LP that Hex Records released.  Pirates Press had recently been coming up as a manufacturer that was doing some interesting stuff with vinyl colors and patterns and I wanted to go all out with a cool-looking record because I knew spending a bit more on the packaging of this record would be worth it since I would be able to easily get rid of them all.  So I got in touch with them about pressing the record and set to work with getting all the other details into place.

Through Black Market the band arranged to have Paul Romano do the artwork.  This was a pretty big deal since that guy had quite a big rep at the time for doing all of Mastodon’s artwork, as well as a ton of different metal bands.  The Ed Gein guys had some interactions with him about how they wanted things to look and even met him in person down in Philly, where they discussed, among other things, ensuring that he would do the artwork for the CD as well as convert that art for the vinyl version.  He agreed to it.  So I was patient.  I knew this guy put a lot of time and effort into his art so I waited.  And waited. And then waited some more.  And finally months went by, all the while Ed Gein is out on the road, promoting this new CD that just came out and I’m still waiting on pressing the vinyl version because I don’t have any art.  I tried contacting Romano directly to see what was up, the Ed Gein guys tried getting in touch, just total radio silence.  Finally, I reached out to Guy from Black Market to see if he would try to get in touch with him because he had a better relationship with Paul than any of us did.  And you know what I finally heard back?  Romano had informed Guy that he didn’t like one of the interactions with either myself or the Ed Gein guys and just decided not to do the vinyl artwork.  It basically just involved moving art from one template to another and adjusting as necessary. None of us were ever pushy with him, or mean.  We just asked when it would be ready.  And instead of just being a grown-up and saying, “I don’t want to do this” the guy just left the project in a lurch for months before telling someone else he didn’t feel like it.  It was extremely unprofessional if you ask me.

So me and the Ed Gein guys had a discussion- what would we do next?  We decided to see about getting a different artist to interpret the art from “Judas Goats and Dieseleaters”.  From doing the label and my zine I was often getting submissions from different artists about doing stuff for me, as I really valued the artwork that went into my releases and zines.  I got some names together of people I thought would be good and the Gein guys came with a few names of their own.  Together, we had seen art from a guy named Jeremy Forson a few times on other records and designs and thought ‘this would be a cool guy to ask.’  Jeremy was easy to get in touch with, very enthusiastic about the project, and super easy to work with.  It was a breath of fresh air compared to the stonewalling we got from Paul Romano.  Aaron from Ed Gein gave him a few pointers and ideas about what themes to keep from the original art and Jeremy set out to work.  Within a few weeks he was all done and it looked awesome.

Then I had to wait on Pirates Press.  They pressed everything overseas, so it took awhile to get done and through customs and a lot of money, and more waiting.  By the time the vinyl version of “Judas Goats and Dieseleaters” was out Ed Gein was wrapping up the touring cycle for the record.  They had done an endless amount of touring with every crappy metalcore, deathcore, and whatever flavor-of-the-week-core band out there and did a run with Gaza and Genghis Tron to wrap things up, a tour which they were clearly much happier to do as it fit their aesthetic much more.

But it wasn’t just that they were done touring on that record.  They were kind of done with touring, like for a long time.  Burn out had set in and the guys just wanted to be off the road for awhile.  And here I was with 1000 LPs that I really wanted to get rid of.  The touring break for the band ended up being longer than ‘awhile’ and turned into ‘forever’ as they set to their other projects and put Ed Gein on the back-burner.  Long story short, I eventually got rid of all those records, it just took a lot longer than I had expected.

But that period of the band, while all this was happening, was probably the busiest they had ever been.  Since that time Aaron got even more into screenprinting, first managing a shop, and eventually opening his own screenprinting business (the Black Arts Studio).  Jesse and Graham moved into the house I was living in and stayed there for a couple years.  It was great living with those guys.  Right about that time Jesse and our old friend Adam partnered up to buy a small coffeehouse business and Recess was born.  Graham eventually went to work for them as well and now it’s this huge, thriving business that makes other coffee joints look like buns.  So the guys have kept busy and I found some time to speak with drummer Jesse Daino about that era of Ed Gein.  No coffee was involved while this happened.

What’s your story about what was happening with Ed Gein during the time before and immediately following the release of “Judas Goats…”?

So when we were writing it we were still practicing maybe five-to-seven days a week, we were still practicing a lot.  I know we wanted move away a little from the more technical music.  We wanted to go more intense, a little heavier.  For me, personally, I was going through a thing with drumming where I was more into thrash.  I was getting really into thrash, and not as much technical music.  So I was in that in-between spot.  And you can really see that on the Ed Gein record we did after that (“Bad Luck”), which was much more thrashy.

I didn’t enjoy counting stuff as much when we were writing that record.  When we were writing “It’s a Shame..” I would write a drum part that I physically couldn’t play yet.  But within a few weeks I’d be able to play it.  And that made me a better drummer.  But when we wrote “Judas Goats..” I kind of got over that and got more into just having fun when I was playing drums.  So that’s where I was at personally.  I don’t know about Graham or Aaron and where they were at.

I was in the mindset of wanting to still play really intense, but I was over counting weird parts and stuff like that.

                        A common occurrence on an Ed Gein tour

This was occurring around the same time all your gear got stolen as well, right?  Talk a bit about that.

Yeah.  That’s a weird time line thing that I can’t nail down.  We wrote that record (“Judas Goats…”) over a really long period of time.  It took us a long time to write it.  So I imagine we had a few songs written while we were on that tour where our gear got stolen, and the rest of it we wrote after.

So I remember when that happened.  I think it was about a week before a tour ended, right?  In Ohio?

Yeah.  It happened in Columbus, Ohio in a Wal-Mart parking lot.  We were just buying some bottled water.

Oh, so you were all gone for literally a few minutes and that’s when it happened?  You came back and everything was gone?

Yeah, it was pretty terrible.  We didn’t want to admit that it was stolen until we saw a puddle of radiator fluid in the spot that the van was parked and that was when we knew for sure.

So how did you end up finishing everything with all your gear gone?

We ended up riding with Breather Resist and Lords, who we were on tour with, and using their gear for the last few days.

When you began writing for “Judas Goats…” then did you have to borrow gear, or did everything get returned by the time you got started with writing and recording for that record?

Man, that’s a really good question because I really can’t remember.  We did end up getting all our gear back.  It was a few weeks and we probably didn’t practice while our stuff was gone.  Or we must have borrowed some stuff to practice.

It’s surprising that you got almost everything back.  That rarely happens to bands who get their stuff stolen.

For such an unfortunate event we were really fortunate for that.  We lost all our merch and our merch money, which was our fault for keeping it in the van.  That was very foolish.  But I got all my gear back.  I think Graham and Aaron got all theirs back, they might have lost a guitar.  But they got pretty everything back.  But I don’t remember how long it was all gone for.  It was awhile.  I remember buying some new equipment to supplement, but I couldn’t afford to buy a new drum set.  So it was gone long enough to get a few things, but not long enough to go all out with getting a completely new set and replace everything.

     Ed Gein vs. Engineer house show.  Loudest damn house show ever.

How did you decide to record with Chris Owens and what’s your impression in hindsight of how that record sounds to you because it sounds vastly different than anything else you did.

Yeah, it does.  It may have been Aaron’s idea to record with Chris.  I think he brought it up because we always wanted to capture a live sound more on our recordings.  And since we were always playing live we thought it would be a good representation of us.  And we never wanted to be mic’ed when we played.

We had recorded with Jocko (Jason Randall, owner of Moresound Studios in Syracuse) and he’s a fantastic engineer.  He’s unreal.  He’s really good at capturing a more professional sound.  But some reason, at that time in our musical career, we wanted not so much of a professionally recorded sound, and more of a live sound and we felt like Chris would be able to capture that. And it would be something different.  We would get to go to a different studio in a different state for a few weeks and record somewhere else.

It seems like when I would talk to you guys afterwards you weren’t super excited about how that record came out.  Personally, for me, that’s my favorite one because of how dirty and gnarly it sounds.  I think it sounds awesome and chaotic.

I definitely agree.  I do this weird thing where we practice these songs so much, and take a long time to record them, that I usually don’t listen to them after they come out, or not often, or at all.  I probably listened to that record, after it came out, maybe twice.  I was just out playing those songs constantly, so I didn’t really need to listen to the recorded versions I guess.  And I like to look forward.  Once we have something done and recorded I just like to move on to the next thing.

You were on the road constantly during this time.  Did you feel like you were playing to ‘your audience’ or were you getting paired up with bands you didn’t feel a kinship with?

That was the time when things were changing after that record.  We were definitely getting paired up with bands that weren’t super compatible with musically, but for me it was still a blast.  We toured with this band called Liegia a lot and those guys were kind of like tough New England hardcore.  So musically it was whatever.  But they were a blast to hang out with on tour every single time we went out with them. 

I know in Aaron’s interview he mentioned that tour we did when we went around the country twice with Breather Resist and All Else Failed.  I believe he quoted the city that we met up with All Else Failed as being wrong, because it was outside of Cleveland, Ohio.  But that was the tour for me.  That was the best.  Those bands were phenomenal.  All Else Failed has been one of my favorite bands ever since I got into heavy music.

So doing tours like that were fairly rare.  I know we did a lot of tours where we might make a little more money, and at least get to eat dinner.  But it was still kind of awkward.

 Best press photo ever.

I feel like Ed Gein was often mixed in with a lot of metalcore and deathcore type stuff, but you all didn’t identify with that scene.  There was always more humor and, for lack of a better word, ‘punk’ to your style, even down to the funny press photos.

Definitely.  A lot of those tours we did though were still a lot of fun.  We did a really big tour with The Number 12 Looks Like You and Through the Eyes Of the Dead and those shows were massive, and we could still relate to a lot of the crowd.  But there were also a lot of tours we did where we could not relate to the audience and I don’t think they could relate to us.  Some times I’d get back from these tours and think, ‘man, what am I doing? Why are we doing this?’  It was kind of bizarre.

This is also where you stopped doing vocals and drumming?  Or were you still doing vocals at this time?

I still did them for that record, and I still did them for the tours for that record.  When we wrote the record that came out after that I just decided to stop.  I don’t remember why really, I just thought it would be more fun to just play drums and not try to sing at the same time.  It was like one day it just popped in my head and I decided to stop.

 the revised artwork and layout courtesy of Jeremy Forson

How did you arrange for Paul Romano to do the artwork?  Jeremy Forson eventually did it but I can’t recall exactly how he came into the picture.

That’s an Aaron Jenkins question!  I did not arrange that stuff.  I remember though we played a show in Philadelphia, which is where he (Paul Romano) is from and he met us.  And it seemed like a normal meeting, at least to us it did, and later on we found out that he felt like we snubbed him.  It was something like that.  So when we found out about that it seemed really weird.  You know us.  We’re kind people, I guess.  So we weren’t purposefully snubbing anybody.  But I think something weird like that happened.

Why did the band stop touring after this record came out?

For me personally, I had started a business.  My friend Adam and I had taken over a coffee business called Recess.  They had been around for about seven months or so when the original owner decided to sell it and we bought it.  When I first took it over it was more of a hobby because I was really planning on being a professional drummer.  That was my life goal.  So when we first took over the business I thought it would be a great thing to do between tours and make a little money, because we still weren’t really making money with the band.  And I was still concentrating on being a drummer.  I was practicing for a couple hours a day.  That was my main focus.

And then we did a tour in Europe while I was growing the business.  It was terrible.  All I could think about was the business.  And we didn’t have any employees so Adam was working alone and he had one helper who would come in some times to help while I was away in Europe for a few weeks.  It was really rough.

And then I got back, focused on the business some more, and then we did another tour with Genghis Tron and Gaza.  And that was the last tour we ever did.  Our van broke down on like the first day or something, so we had to ride with other bands.  It was a good tour, but again, for me, all I could think about was the business.  It was really taxing. It was tough to leave Adam, my business partner, home running the whole thing on his own.

So after that tour I thought that I enjoyed running the business more than I enjoyed being a musician right now in my life, so I should focus on that.  That was the big thing for me on why I wanted to stop touring.

At the end of our touring career we were also doing some weird tours and I couldn’t understand why we were doing them.  We had done it so much.  We had played giant shows, we played small shows, we played in basements, we played in huge venues.  It lost something, I guess.

Out of all the time you spent doing the band what was your favorite part about it and what was your least favorite part?

That’s a great question.  My favorite part, and not just particular to that record, was being close with Graham and Aaron.  That was awesome.  Seeing the country, and getting to see Europe, was awesome.  We did, I think, ten full U.S. tours, which is unbelievable for us.  We got to see Mexico.  Touring with All Else Failed was a dream.  Those guys were a little older than us, at the time they were in their late 20’s I think.  And they didn’t tour often so they wanted to do fun stuff on tour, like go to the Grand Canyon.  And we never really got to do stuff like that usually, so we had a lot of fun with them. 

Honestly, recording “Judas Goats…” was a blast.  We got to stay in Louisville and hang out with Chris Owens.  We would go to this bar every night called Cahoots and eat fish sandwiches.  That was wicked fun actually.  That was definitely the best part for me.

The worst part was getting burned out in general, even on music.  That’s something that I’ve loved my whole life, and spent so much time trying to get good at, and I really cared about it.  I thought it was something that I might so the rest of my life.  But I hit at wall with it.  I was not physically getting better at it, and was not as inspired to keep playing.  That wasn’t terrible, but it was the downside of it.
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 OK y'all, we have a very special thing going on for this release.  So since "Judas Goats..." was officially released by Black Market Activities (Hex Records only did the vinyl version), and there's no bandcamp for the entire release we worked out something between the band, and Guy from Black Market- the whole "Judas Goats..." record will be available for download for one week only as a benefit for the Syracuse Rescue Mission, specifically their homeless shelter services.  So get it now: LISTEN AND DONATE!

HXR20YR RETROSPECTIVE: HXR011- ACHILLES, "The Dark Horse"

So right after the Achilles/Engineer split the boys from Rochester got right to work and became the first in a trio of Hex-related bands to head down to Louisville and record with Chris Owens of Lords at Headbanginkillyourmama Studios.  Starting with The National Acrobat an alliance and companionship between the tight-knit Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo scenes and a bunch of bands from Louisville began to form.  They all toured together, traded shows, and recorded records together.  Breather Resist, Black Cross, Coliseum, and Lords were bands that all shared members and a similar ethos of really loud and gnarly weird punk/hardcore blasting eardrums with stacks upon stacks of guitar cabs and amps.  And the bands they formed kinships with here in the Central and Western NY areas were of a similar mind.  Maybe Achilles were a bit more technical and thought out, and deliberately controlled their chaos a bit more, but the seed was planted.  “The Dark Horse” was their first full length and it lead to a great deal of activity for the band going forward.

For me, personally, I was excited to once again formerly work with my friend Rob Antonucci, who had played guitar in Building On Fire.  I had always admired his guitar playing, and thought he was a top-notch graphic designer who came up with great ideas.  Additionally, it was finally an opportunity to release a record with another dear friend, Rory Van Grol, a person who already had a history of playing and touring in Rochester hardcore bands, most notably Standfast.  Rory was, by far, one of the most energetic and well-spoken frontmen in the region.  He had incredible stage presence, thoughtful lyrics, and always wore his heart on his sleeve when he would discuss song topics between songs.  However, there were a couple younger guys that I was quite unfamiliar with who held down the rhythm section.  Bassist Josh Dillon emerged out of nowhere (OK, emerged out of high school) and joined in at about 16 years of age when the band got going.  However, our man on the bass proved to be an essential component to the band and his light-hearted attitude and solid playing made him the perfect fit for this group.  Finally, Chris Browne came into the fold to play drums.  He had been playing guitar in a local group called the Breaking Project, which was incredibly technical, math-y emo type rock/hardcore.  He was an extremely talented player who applied that skill to coming up with very unique and grooving drum parts for Achilles.  It was a surprise to see someone so young have so much raw talent on a variety of instruments, which helped him with lending a big hand to the writing of a lot of the music for the band.

“The Dark Horse” was a pretty big undertaking for the band, who traveled all the way out to Louisville to record it and they came up with a great collection of songs.  I specifically recall that part of the agreement of me releasing this and covering the cost of recording was that they had to re-record “In Lights” from their demo because I thought it was an incredibly ripping song that deserved to be heard through a wider audience.  They came back with not only that re-recording, but some tracks that would go on to be some of their most well-received stuff that they still play when they make a rare appearance like “Wake Me When It Thunders” and “Every Hour Wounds, the Last One Kills”.

It was a very productive time for the band as they hit the road frequently, I saw them a million times, and before any of them had families to attend to, businesses to run, and all lived in the same area.  To reflect upon this particular release I caught up with drummer Chris Browne, who now resides in the Los Angeles area to jog his memory about “The Dark Horse”.

How did Achilles come together?  It seems like Rob and Rory were pretty much on the same page, but you and Josh (Dillon, bass), were of a younger generation of Rochester kids.

It’s interesting because I have to rewind really far for myself in regards to how this all happened.  I had been doing a band called The Breaking Project and that band had ended when Matt Chalinor moved back to Australia, which caused the end of both The Breaking Project as well as another band The Avram.  Building On Fire (Achilles guitarist Rob Antonucci’s previous band, and Hex Records alumnus) had kind of ended at the same time.  So Achilles started with Rob and I kind of wanting to do something together.  We had a couple different incarnations of it.  Originally, it was going to be both me and Rob on guitar, Tyler Farren (Building On Fire drummer) and a couple others and it was going to be called All Doctors-

- Oh I have those practice demos.

So yeah, a couple people have that stuff and that was the prototype of what became Achilles.  We jammed with a few other people and I think when Rory (Van Grol, vocals) got involved it was around the time that I said ‘screw it, I want to try playing drums’.  We couldn’t quite find a drumming situation that fit what Rob and I were trying to do.  I was definitely less-seasoned in terms of playing drums, but at least I knew what the vision was.  So that’s how it kind of came together.  I can’t really remember how we tapped Josh.  I just remember he was a younger guy in Fairport (Rochester suburb).  He was sort of the kid who would go to shows, and he was in younger bands, but he stuck out like a sore thumb because he was such a good bass player.  I’d watch him and think, ‘that’s the guy we gotta get into our crew.’  So from there it kind of came together organically.  Luckily, it’s been all four of us, the same people, since then.  I couldn’t picture it ever being any other way.

I find it strange too that you didn’t all know each other previous to the band starting.  A lot of bands that stick it out with the same lineup for ages tend to be people who have all already known each other for longer than the band has existed.  In your case, you all sort of assembled.

We knew each other from the scene, and from shows, but we all came from different little sectors of the scene.  Plus, both Josh and I were huge fans of Rory and what he did with his old band Standfast.  Growing up everything I did I wanted it to be Standfast.  So we wanted it to be good, and we wanted it to be special because we were fans of that, as well as Building On Fire.  So we got to join the older guys.  There was a coming together of different age ranges of the scene.  Sometimes that can make the chemistry weird, but in our case it made everyone more excited to do it, which was great.

Was there an intention from the get-go for Achilles to get on the road and tour quite a bit?

I think so, in hindsight.  The idea of doing bands like full-full time at that point was something I hadn’t even thought about.  Plus, I think it was a little bit more of apparent possibility to Rob because he had been through touring with bands like Union and Dead To the World.  At the time he was the guy that knew how to get stuff done.  And so teaming up with him we set out to do a band that was more serious and my definition of that was just doing as many weekends as we could, and recording consistently, and making an imprint.  There was no explicit ‘we want to do this with our lives’ kind of thing, but it was definitely the most serious I had been about a band to that point.  That also influenced the personnel choices- we picked people that we were stoked on what they were doing.

                             The man on the 4-strings Josh D.

Was it tough to play out of town with Josh since he was so young when you started?  Did you have to get parental permission to take him on the road and tour.

No too much.  I don’t want to make his parents seem absent, or overly permissive, but it was never an issue with them.  I think because Josh was always super mature.  I think he was probably more mature at his age than I was at that point..  he probably still is.  So that was never a problem.  He always took care of himself, he was very independent.  I think we may have asked him gently at the beginning, like, ‘hey, is this going to be an issue?’  And he was like, ‘nope, I got it under control’.  He had a great relationship with his family, and I love his family too, they’re great.  So definitely after the first couple of years it wasn’t even a debate anymore.  Once we really got the first tour under our belts and his family saw that this was a cool thing it wasn’t a problem.  I think his family also saw that he was with an older group of people and that we were safe about stuff and knew what to do.  We were a pretty well-behaved band, we were just goofy.  We were never really a party band.  We would fart a lot in the van, but that’s about it.

Talk a bit about the kinship you all had with the Louisville crew and what was your decision for recording down there instead of staying in NY?

When I was thinking about the conversation we were going to have I was wondering if this was going to come up because part of the formation of this band had a bit to do with us all also being big fans of what was coming out of Louisville at the time.  I loved Breather Resist.  We all loved Breather Resist and Coliseum, and Lords.  We were all big fans of pretty much everything coming out of that city at the time.  That was very influential to us.  And the fact that we got to occasionally play shows with them was great, as they were all touring a bit more consistently at that time.  We jumped on some things and felt some level of acceptance from them.  All those guys were always so gracious and wanted to collaborate with playing shows together.  So we were excited to latch on to that scene a little and record down there.  It was inspirational in the same way we started the band, in that we were fans of that and wanted to make music with these guys.  We wanted to tap into, especially for me as a drummer, to get that Louisville drum sound- that dirty, room-y, loud, bashing drums.  There was a very distinct sound at that time that I don’t think Rochester bands had previously tapped into.  So we were just excited to have our songwriting, which was innate to us, put through that  ‘factory’, if you will.

The illustrious Headbangingkillyourmama Studios, original location

Chris Owens certainly had a particular way of recording.  Were there any interesting experiences about recording with him that stand out?

Yeah!  I tend to be very on-task and neurotic about recording, so I generally don’t think of ‘amazing’ experiences, or whatever.  But I remember we stayed with the Patterson brothers (Ryan and Evan, of Coliseum and Breather Resist respectively) and the hospitality of that situation was amazing.  It made us just want to be even more a part of what they had going on down there.  They didn’t know us super well, but the way they opened their house to us for a good week or so was really awesome.  As far as the recording part, when I close my eyes and think about it, it almost looks the way the record sounds.  It’s kind of dirty and cold, but organic.

And I got Rory’s permission to tell this story- there was no easily accessible bathroom in the place and there were sheets of plastic insulation up where walls should have been and this was December.  And I know Louisville is a little bit warmer than upstate NY, but it was fucking cold!  So Rory didn’t feel like going to the bathroom the whole time so he would store unused water jugs, like two gallon one, and he would piss in them and store them in the corner the whole time.  That, in itself, isn’t much of the story.  But Chris Owens would tell him, ‘hey man, I don’t care that you do that, you just have to make sure to clean that up.’  And when we were finished I guess Rory forgot one of them.  And that ultimately got Chris Owens kicked out of the space he was recording in! (laughs)

Oh no!

But that allowed him a window into a much better room in Louisville.  He got a much better space after that.  So I guess he had a long-standing dispute with his landlord at the time and that incident was sort of the last straw that broke the camel’s back.  We were sort of responsible for that, so years later, we can laugh about it.  So there was sort of silver lining to it.

Achilles was keeping really active at this point and you all were still living locally and it was pretty much the only active band any of you had going correct?

Well, Polar Bear Club started for me around 2005.  So I guess that’s the year “The Dark Horse” came out.  So I had no idea that that band would get a lot bigger.  It was super-part time at first.  Josh was involved with Polar Bear Club at first as well, but as a high school kid with only so much time, he chose to do Achilles over Polar Bear Club!  He called me one day and said ‘I’m out.  I can only do one band and I want to just do Achilles.’  Later on he said he regretted it, and then went back on that later on, but such is life.  But I think for the most part that was our primary thing for that stretch of time.  For me that all lead into the next couple of years getting ready to do “Hospice”, which I will admit is my favorite thing of everything we have done, but it all started with “The Dark Horse” when we all upped the ante for sure.

How was the writing for “The Dark Horse” handled?  It was a short amount of time between the split with Engineer and the recording of this album.

You probably remember that better than me.  At the time we had a steady practice space in Rochester.  We all lived in the same place.  Looking back on it now it was just so much easier to get together and play music consistently as a function of life.  Rob was teaching at Geneseo High School, while I was going to collage at SUNY Geneseo.  So we would carpool up to Rochester and I would crash on his couch and ride back down with him in the morning the whole time we were writing.  And then Josh and Rory would just drive out to the space and we could all be there for every practice, and we would practice twice a week, every week.  That doesn’t sound like a ton.  I mean, I remember hearing about bands like Engineer practicing six days a week.  We were a little envious of that.  We could have been a better band if we worked as hard as they did.  But even the two days, totally unfettered, and completely focused on that, in a week was enough to do it.  We wrote that record in a room together in Rochester.  And at that stage we were a band that welcomed having riffs from multiple people, which was usually Rob and I, but some times Josh as well.  It was just very collaborative.  I think even internally, within every song, we tried to include everyone’s voice.  I look back on it and maybe now I think maybe some things sound disjointed, or I would write a part different now, yadda, yadda.  But it is sort of beautiful how it incorporates everyones’ voice into each song. 

                               Silk screened posters for "The Dark Horse"

So the imagery of the record bears a striking familiarity to Deftones “White Pony”.  Did that cause some confusion or discussion?  I mean one’s a horse, one’s a pony, one’s black, one’s white. 

Honestly, as obvious as it kind of is, and as right as you are, I think you’re the only person who has ever pointed that out to us. (laughs)  It didn’t seem to bother other people all that much, and as much as we all love the Deftones it definitely doesn’t sound like them.  So we get a pass for that because we weren’t ripping them off musically.

Nothing against Rob’s art because I’m always a big fan of his art and design work, and overall, I think that record looks really cool.  But I think he didn’t like hearing that when I first mentioned it!

I can imagine that.  He is the art czar for the band.  My role, with visuals, was to look at what Rob would come up with- and he was incredibly prolific at the time- and along with everyone else, would select what logos and motifs we wanted to lean into.  That sort of persists to this day.  I love the artwork and I didn’t pick up on that correlation until you had pointed it out to me.  It’s one of those things that you can’t un-see.  But there’s a lot of things about that record that are very sentimental to me.  And at this point it’s been, holy crap, like 15 years, and it sounds like something that’s from a different time in my life now.  But the further away you get from it the more you appreciate it for what it is, and that goes for the art too.

Releasing “The Dark Horse” yielded you all going to Europe to tour for the first time, and only time, as a band.  How did that go?

 It was incredible.  Every stereotype about going to Europe for the first time with your band was totally true.  It was huge for all of us.  I was in collage at the time and I saved up all year doing work study, and all this stuff.  And we weren’t making money on the tour, that’s for sure.  But we did a great job of thinking of it as a vacation with each other where we played shows.  We had some good shows, and we had some bad ones too.  That will always happen.  But it’s one of my favorite tours I’ve ever done, to this day.  You can never re-create the magic of when you first do that.  When you experience something like that for the first time with people like Achilles, whom you’re really close with, and stay life-long friends with, you keep repeating those stories forever.  It’s still meaningful to me today.

The vinyl version of "Dark Horse" that was a split with 7 Bowls Of Wrath

There was a really weird version of “The Dark Horse” that was released on vinyl in Europe to coincide with the tour correct?

It ended up being a split with a band called Seven Bowls Of Wrath.  Their singer, Chris Mautes, released it and he was also our driver, and the tour manager, and sort of our all-purpose gut for that tour.  He did a great job of facilitating it and bringing it all together.  None of us had ever heard of his band, but he reached out to us in those early days of MySpace.  He got the vinyl going, and a tour for it and he did a great job.  He was based out of Germany, so stuff out that was great.  We did a few shows in the UK that were sort of rough, but I wish I kept in better touch with him because I don’t know what he’s doing now.  But it was a lot to bring together.  The other band on the split is cool.  I think it’s weird that it exists that was on vinyl, it’s a weird quirk.

Yeah, I thought it was odd that they were able to fit your whole full length on one side of an LP and then I realized it was missing a couple tracks from the CD version.

(laughs) Yeah, that is odd!  I know we had to come to that decision, but if you pressed me over what we had to leave off I couldn’t tell you (it’s “Reprise” and “Wake Me When It Thunders”- ed.)

Is there anything you would change about “The Dark Horse”, or are you pretty happy with how it all came together?

I am very particular in the studio.  I kind of alluded to this before, but yes, if I were making that record now I would change literally everything about it!  It would just be a different record.  It’s interesting because I can listen to stuff like that and imagine what I would do different.  But I still like it stylistically, and I do definitely enjoy that record.  But I’m also a person that has a hard time listening to his own stuff because I’m too critical of it all.  However, the further away you get the more it re-endears itself to you, and I’ve definitely hit that place with “Dark Horse”.  I listened to it this week before we spoke.  And we’re going to do a show this November in Rochester and we’re going to dust off some songs for it.  That will be a cool opportunity to deliver those songs the way we want to now.

So that all being said, I would change a lot about that record, but I like the way it exists as is because it’s a documentation of that step in the process.  I know we’re all always learning and getting better, but for me, as a drummer, that was a snapshot of the learning process.  It exists, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but I would do things different if I made it now.

In the studio with Steve from Breather Resist (on left), who did some back-up vocals

What has been your favorite part of being in Achilles, and what is your least favorite?

My favorite is the family dynamic that we have.  We talk to each other like family and somewhere along the way that happened.  I don’t know at what point, but at some time it went from just being band mates and our friendships became more like family.  We address each other like that.  We are that open with each other, both for negative and for positive.  In our case it’s usually for positive because we like each other so much and also because we all have so much other stuff going on that we want Achilles to occupy a cathartic place in our lives.  It’s all positive relationships for all of us and it has a very healthy role in our larger lives.  So that’s my favorite part.

My least favorite part is that we always have to go so long between doing anything that most of the time nothing happens and it’s incredibly difficult to make something happen!  We played some shows in 2016 and we had to plan that stuff out like 9 months ahead.  Every time we go to play something I don’t have access to a drum kit, or space to play, so I have to line that up and basically re-learn to play drums from scratch every time we go to do shows.  It’s fine.  It’s like riding a bike.  It’s just a ton of effort to do it.  And for this year we’re going to play a show and maybe write a bit, and we have already been talking about that.  It’s just going to be a long process.  I’m going to be in Rochester twice before that all happens, and Josh once, so how can we get together, what’s the gear situation, are we going to write stuff, we have two hours- go.  And if we didn’t love each other so much it probably wouldn’t be possible, but we all just want it to happen.

So there you have it!  Not only can we expect a hometown show for the band later this year, but to tide you over (for the next week at least) you can grab a copy of "The Dark Horse" on CD for just $4 through the webstore.  And you can also get the digital download for just $3 through bandcamp.  Nice!

HXR20YR RETROSPECTIVE: HXR010- ACHILLES/ ENGINEER , split 2xCD

This is kind of where the second wave of Hex bands became established.  Ed Gein and Minor Times sort of started it off.  But here were these new kids coming around the bend, looking to do some stuff of their own.  Building On Fire had broken up and Rob got some new stuff started with one of my favorite people around, and a hell of a frontman, Rory Van Grol.  Right off the bat they hit me up to do a record for them but I was feeling a little hesitant since Building On Fire sort of split with all these unfinished ideas and a loose plan for a second full length.  I wanted to see if this new project- Achilles- would be able to keep it together.  They self-released a demo and began touring around with little hesitation.  They had a lineup that worked and got along really well, and had ideas that they would see through.  So, not much later I was agreeable to doing whatever it is they wanted to do.

 Engineer house show

At the same time I had been noticing things brewing just north of Syracuse, in that strange, rural North Country area.  A cast of characters up that way had their own scene going on- a totally vibrant, young, and completely independent scene full of weirdos who played huge shows in little, middle-of-nowhere towns like Fulton, and further north in Oswego.  They were all bound by their rural restraints, and inability to get down to the big city of Syracuse (it’s not big), so they just went and made their own noise.  And it wasn’t like crappy little punk bands.  All these bands had their own sound, their own thing, happening that only emerges when you have a lot of time and your own brain to come up with whatever your imagination sets forth.  One such band that really caught my attention was Forever Yours, primarily consisting of brothers who wrote chunky and metallic post-hardcore.  I really started liking what they were doing, but unfortunately, I caught them as they were thinking of calling it a day and moving on to other things.  Well, that other thing quickly emerged as Engineer, and it was sonically more devastating than whatever they all had going previously.  Once again, they moved quick.  They wrote and recorded a bunch of stuff fast and released it on some label from who knows where, and that was the “Suffocation Of the Artisan” EP.  I immediately roped them into doing something for Hex, even before the EP came out, and they seemed agreeable (honestly, I’ve known the Gorham brothers for over 15 years now and they continue to have the most poker-faced affect of nearly anyone I know.  I can almost never tell if they’re excited, pissed off, happy, or just so laser-focused on whatever it is they’re doing that anything else becomes background noise).

 Both bands together showing some bias towards a certain band they all liked.

Both bands had some material ready to go, but what to do with it?  I wanted to give both bands an introduction before setting forth with a full length, so the idea was hatched to do a split.  Both bands got along immediately, having played some shows together.  They would go on to tour together and play together frequently in one of the better bonding experiences of bands I had the good fortune of releasing material for.  Additionally, both bands were artistically-minded and they came up with a design scheme for the package that I added my two cents to- recently, Breather Resist and Suicide Note (bands that both Engineer and Achilles looked up to) released a split that was a CD for each band in one package and I thought that was such a cool idea because it gave each band their own side, so to speak.  I thought of doing a similar concept for this split, but with a different kind of package.  Bob from Engineer came up with this design idea, based off of a stencil of people in suits with different colored beams of light coming up from their necks instead of heads and Rob from Achilles created it.  Rob also created these stencils of band members faces and used them for the CD faces.  He did this one of Rory that he ended up making a few actual canvasses for.  I ended up buying one from him and I think it’s the first time I actually ever bought art to hang on my wall.  I still have the piece and it has remained on a wall in whatever living space I have occupied since.  We used these dual pocket CD wallets and everything was printed and reproduced at different places.  Once it was all printed up everything had to be put together, all 2000 copies.  So, once that was ready I got a few friends together and had a little work party at my apartment to put together both CDs in the separate pockets of the wallet, along with a small insert for each band.  We did this all assembly line style.  The final piece was getting them shrinkwrapped.

                           The infamous Rory painting/stencil

At the time I was employed at a sheltered workshop as a vocational counselor.  What does that all mean? So, for years, I have worked in one capacity or another in helping people with disabilities.  One common route for many people living with disabilities is to have supports with helping them find and maintain employment once they become adults.  Some people are just ready to go out there and get a job, whatever.  Others need to form some skills in an environment where they are with other people in the same situation before they are ready to go out and look for community-based employment.  So these places where people with disabilities work together have been called sheltered workshops (they’re starting to become less common these days).  They generally work on simple contract jobs on tasks a lot of places just don’t feel like doing themselves- washing parts, putting together small packages, small assembly line work.  And I was a counselor there overseeing people’s work and helping them learn skills so that eventually they could leave and find something in the community that paid better.  In this workshop we had a shrinkwrapping machine.  So I subcontracted my workshop for a job to shrinkwrap all these CDs once they were all put together so I could ship them out.  So this release was partially packaged by a bunch of people with disabilities in a sheltered workshop, which is sort of unique I suppose.

This is also around when my relationship with Lumberjack Distribution officially began.  They had been buying hundreds of copies of the Ed Gein stuff and Minor Times EPs from me and they had decided to take me on full time, which was a really interesting spot to be.  I had deadlines of production, shipping, making one sheets, and all that stuff that I wasn’t used to.  Honestly, it kept me a little more disciplined and taught me quite a bit about how the distribution business works.  They were also, at the time, kind of the high water mark for independent punk distributors and exclusively carried most all of the record labels I really liked.  I signed a contract and I was pretty excited to be a part of it.

         Achilles at Westcott Community Center

Some notes regarding the recording of this double EP- Achilles were, to my knowledge, the last band to record at the short-lived Hopewell Studios in Canandaigua (just outside of Rochester) where a bevy of groups were quick to record since their prices were cheap and the owners were punk dudes who also played in bands from the area.  My band at the time, The Funeral, also recorded our last album here several months prior to Achilles.  On Engineer’s side, they were one of the first bands to record at a brand new space that Syracuse recording guru Jason “Jocko” Randall had just gotten the lease to.  This is where Moresound Studio would end up being and where it remains today- an old two story brick building right next to the Highway 690 overpass.  I don’t think Jocko had even moved all his stuff in at this point, and he was going to gut most of the insides and remodel it to his studio specifications.  For their track “Decades”, as well as the intro and outro of their side off this split, they went up to the roof of the building, which was right next to the highway and recorded the sounds of cars passing by for background sounds in the song. 



This split also has my, by a longshot, favorite Engineer song “The Great Mistake”- one of the heaviest and meanest sounding songs to ever occupy space on a plastic disc.  

I think this is one of the more creative and interesting endeavors to come out on the label, as I am always down for an interesting art/packaging concept for a record.  It was a very collaborative effort between two incredible bands, a few friends, buddies who did recording, and one sheltered workshop.  And I think it laid the groundwork for two bands that would help define the direction of Hex Records and represent that sort of second wave of bands on the label.

And now, you can get that wonderful split and it's really cool package for only $4 through the webstore HERE for the whole week.  Or, you can get the digital tracks via the bandcamp page for a scant $3. This deal is good for the entire next week, so get to it!

REVIEWS FOR SMARCH

Generally speaking, March is one of the ugliest months for me.  By this point I'm so sick of Winter and hoping for some shred of sunlight, or mild warmth, to come forth.  but it's a cruel month that makes you wait at least another 31 days until you hope again (and then it's April Fools Day and it snows again).  But I remember that now I live in a place where when March happens it's pretty much assured you can start expecting warmer temperatures and the rain begins to stave off for the most part.  That's right.  I'm going outside again suckers.  And I *might* wear a light jacket.  Oh, and it's a time when it seems like bands come out of the woodwork and begin releasing some really cool stuff.
So betwixt all my endless packing of records (P.S- in case you didn't know, I just released the Great Sabatini/Great Falls split and The Funeral discography, with the new USA Nails LP quickly on the way...  you really ought to get them all if you haven't yet) I actually came across a bunch of new music (and one book) and I'm going to share it all with you.  So read on and check out some new shit, in addition to, of course, all the stuff I just put out.

ALL YOU KNOW IS HELL, “Gape”

I believe this might be a one-person project, but it sounds as if there’s a dozen people all tuning super low and hitting the same note over  and over.  All You Know Is Hell brings a very Godflesh-inspired brand of sludgy industrial-type heaviness.  Right off the bat it lets you know exactly what’s to come.  However, the songs tend to err a little on the lengthy side and the pace remains consistent through the entirety of the album, which is pretty slow and primitive.  A little more variety in the tempo might keep things a bit more interesting, but if the objective is to crush you slowly and repeatedly then I guess mission accomplished. (All You Know Is Hell)

ANEURYSM, “Awareness”

Great, off-the-rails punk hardcore rock.  Some times this band tears ass like Turbonegro or Burning Love, peeling out and leaving tire treads all over your face with endless riffs and solos, and other times they’re a messy accident on the highway, just bashing away until blood and flaming auto parts mix incoherently like the most unhinged side of Nirvana.  I prefer the Nirvana bit a little more, but I’m perfectly happy with both sides of this band co-existing happily.  “St. E's” is lyrically the soundtrack to my experience with dealing with Northwesterners who make a habit of going slow all the time and are never in a hurry for anything, ever.  I feel you.  “Handbook For the Recently Deceased” is not only a great Beetlejuice reference (and long-lost Spark Lights the Friction track), but it’s probably the fastest and rowdiest song on the record and I love it.  It’s their “Tourettes”, if you will.  So yeah, great wild tunes and super weird and cool artwork make for an overall killer experience.  (Tor Johnson)

DESPERATE LIVING, “New Concrete” EP

Philly characters that go way back do some musical chairs and come up with another iteration of the crazy-heavy, noise-rocking, riff-shitting, ear-blasting rock that they crafted back in Inkling, then to the Minor Times, into Ladder Devils, and now as Desperate Living.  This time, Brian Medlin, accustomed to usually playing drums in most of the bands he has done takes the guitar and mic, and our man Tim Leo…. well, he still plays the guitar too.  Vocally, it’s a bit more strained and howling, and definitely less on the screaming, but the music falls in line with where Ladder Devils left off.  The band keep things a little more primitive for the most part by just plowing through fast and ripping songs (“Ape” being the quickest and dirtiest of the bunch), with the exception of one slow song, aptly titled “Slow One”.  Yet it’s singular, smashing riff might make it my favorite track on this 6-song EP.  So far I believe this is only available digitally, but it’s worth the price of your time to listen to it repeatedly until your neck snaps off.  (Brutal Panda)

EGG CREAM #1, by Liz Suburbia

Egg Cream is the new book from punk comics creator Liz Suburbia and continues the tale started in the gigantic “Sacred Heart” released a couple years back via Fantagraphics.  This smaller book picks up on the Czap and Silver Sprocket imprints and gives some background (mixed with a little ‘where are they now?’) to that story’s yarn about a town full of teens and how they get by minus the whole town’s parental units gone missing.  Egg Cream gets into why all the parents went missing in the first place, why there is no alternate supervision of the town’s youth, and several years after the events that closed out “Sacred Heart” took place what those now grown-up teens are up to…  a little bit anyway.  In addition to the bulk of the book being about that story, you get a fun mix of Suburbia’s more funny pages style of things that she excelled at while doing her Cynanide Milkshake zine several years ago.  So there’s a fun section about various dreams she had, and a few pages of various illustrations.  So it’s a good mix of all things fans have come to know about Liz Suburbia’s work and I, for one, am pleased with it.  And, of course, her fun and cartoon-y style of drawing is wonderfully on display as always.  I’m glad to see another project from her and I always look forward to what’s next.  (Czap/ Silver Sprocket)

LASSITERS, s/t EP

This English band starts out strong, coming at you with a sort of Scratch Acid appeal.  But by the end of this EP they’re getting loose and messy as if they took a cue from Drunks With Guns and just abandoned all sense of taste.  For real though, it kind of sounds like this band went into the studio with a six-pack each and went to town and a couple songs in they’re three sheets to the wind with the record button still on and de-constructed the remaining songs into messy free-for-alls.  I appreciate the de-evolution happening across these four tracks though.  It just gets uglier as it goes on.  Overall, Lassiters have a heavy, dirty punk/noise rock thing happening that is rowdy and ugly and there’s nothing wrong with that. (Lassiters)

MUTANT SCUM, s/t LP

Mutant Scum are quite an anomaly that I’m appreciating for definitely not taking the expected path that a band with a name like Mutant Scum, and who have total thrash-style artwork, an obsession with slime and sewers, and other thrash-revival tropes would take.  Sure, there’s some thrashy punk up in their musical mix.  But there’s a low end that sounds so similar to the very distinct KARP and Big Business heaviness that it really throws the entire record off-kilter from what you think is supposed to be happening.  Plus, a bunch of this record lurches a little slower and even throws in some occasional psychedelic weirdness to the stew.  I mean, in all honesty, if you’re going to focus on themes of slime and sewers and mutation having a slimy, oozing musical soundtrack would certainly be apropos.  It’s just that that Troma films- thrash metal connection has created an expectation I guess and Mutant Scum are taking that in their own unique direction.  So hat’s off to them.  In addition, this comes in a cool gatefold package and on bright green slimy vinyl to boot.  My understanding is that they also play live wearing wild mutant costumes, so there’s a bonus right there in case you hate recorded music.  (Handstand Records)

OUT OF BODY, “Son Sun” EP

This Austin, TX-based band perfectly nailed everything great about 90’s post-hardcore and brought it up for the here and now with their debut LP, “Voiceless”. It was that perfect mixture of Handsome, Shift, Quicksand, and Stillsuit that I love so dearly.  And then they sort of stopped for awhile.  A couple member switcheroos later and they are back with a quick EP just to let everyone know they’re still in the game.  The lead-off track, “Leaping Faith” brings and energetic and melodic feel and lifts a part directly from “My Mind’s Eye” by Handsome for the chorus.  It’s not like those guys were using that part, so someone else ought to use it.  It’s a really good part.  The next song, the title track, goes for a little more stop-start aggressiveness that could have emerged from a Helmet song, but adds those melodic vocals and positive vibes for a quick burst made for jumping/head bobbing.  They close things out with “Interstate 108”, which not only clocks in at (wait for it) 1:08, but I’m guessing is a little nod of gratitude to one of the best hardcore bands to ever exist even though the track itself is a experimental little almost acoustic outro.  It’s good to know Out Of Body is still doing their thing and looking towards the future by referencing some great stuff from the past.  (Out Of Body)

SILVER CHAINS, “All Hail!” demo

From the rotating cast of Western Canadians who brought you (still bring you?) Taxa, Damages, Mouse Ear, and Black Pills is yet another project of players doing some unhinged, relatively scary/crazy Birthday Party worship.  Silver Chains has a murderous streak in them that sounds cold and calculated, but at the same time random and violent.  They go from upbeat, somewhat early Jesus Lizard-inspired chaos to lurching and grating heaviness (like on closer “Participate”).  Out of all the bands these people do together the vocals here are the most vicious, like Nick Cave on a drunken bender and having snorted a canister of Dust Off, and it’s an exhilarating display that I fully back.  I’m guessing they won’t get out and about all that much, but it definitely is worth your time to listen to and get freaked to.  (Silver Chains)