HXR20YR RETROSPECTIVE: HXR014- ENGINEER, "Reproach"

Some people feel like this is the heaviest record ever released on this label.  I think that’s completely subjective.  But there’s no doubt that Engineer came out for their debut full length on a tear and pretty much leveled the central New York scene.  Vibrations were heard from their home up in the North country, all the way down to Syracuse, and beyond.  A lot of bands grow into a sound and develop along the way.  And while that is certainly true for Engineer, as they expanded their sound throughout their time as a band, it felt as if with this debut full length they came out fully formed.  Sure, they had an EP and a split to work off of before this came out.  But things moved fast for this band.  All those releases came very close together and “Reproach” was just this massive record that sounded so huge, so determined, and so intense, and it showed tenfold when they played live.

The idea was for Hex to release an LP right off the bat for them.  But instead things were eased into by doing the split with Achilles first, whom Engineer ended up doing a considerable amount of touring with as well.  And like Achilles and Ed Gein around the same time, Engineer found themselves down at Chris Owens’ studio in Louisville to record this record.  Keeping it strongly connected to others associated with the label Minor Times guitarist and graphic designer Tim Leo did the artwork for this release, based on ideas and direction from the band.

Once finished they did not hesitate to get on road, and brought their sonically devastating sound to anywhere that would have them.  Engineer truly excelled at a do it yourself mentality while around, which only increased as they went on.  Founded by brothers Ryan, Bob, and Brad Gorham, and rounded out by animalistic drummer Mike Auclair they remained very active while “Reproach” was coming out.

They went on to do two more records through Black Market Activities after this and more touring.  During that time vocalist Bob Gorham became much more involved with the artistic aspects of the group and began doing much of the band’s design work.  Bassist Brad Gorham took on a keen interest in recording and began logging studio time to learn the in’s and out’s of audio engineering, eventually landing a position at Syracuse institution Moresound Studio for awhile and doing live sound as well at a couple venues.  Guitarist Ryan Gorham developed skills in fixing guitars, amps, cabinets, as well as learning the process of building them.  Once the band slowed down the three brothers found themselves becoming partners in opening up their store- Gorham Brothers Music- which specializes in selling gear, fixing gear, serving as the occasional venue for shows, and showcasing their in-store brand of guitar cabinets, Old Soul.  The three brothers also play together in Blood Sun Circle (who released their first LP through Hex, and have since released a second record- and hopefully soon, a third- through their own label Drops Of Us), an extension of Engineer in the loud and intense department, but in a different sort of way. They truly embody the spirit of taking their passions and becoming experts in controlling all aspects of them.  “Reproach” was an early example of that latent talent, and even then they sounded like masters of their craft.

I caught up with guitarist Ryan Gorham on a rare day off from the shop recently to discuss the time of Engineer around when “Reproach” was coming together to see what he remembered.

You all came from a very separate, but tight-knit, area north of Syracuse that was its own scene, but you guys were in Parrish, which was even more removed from places like Fulton and Oswego, where shows up there happened.  How did you find other like-minded people to play with, or share similar interests in music?

I think it was just because those outlying areas like Fulton, and even Mexico, New York at that time when I was getting out of high school and going into college, playing in bands with Mike Russell and Ted Niccoli (both later of No Idols), those small towns had little scenes and bands of their own.  I think it just happened to be a more far-reaching network back then that doesn’t really exist today.  Playing in some of those bands, and just getting started, obviously the most shows were in Syracuse, and the outside areas would get excited and make their own bands so we could travel and play Syracuse.  And that’s how we met other people.

Who among the brothers got into punk and hardcore music first and how did it spread to all of you?  It’s rare to have this many family members have a shared interest in the same kind of music and want to play together.

When we were growing up we all started playing guitar, well, me and Bobby playing guitar and Brad playing bass, literally at the same time.  We all got instruments for Christmas one year.  We all skateboarded and played guitar, and that was all there was to do in Parrish.  We just traveled to different towns and met some kids that way, and found out about different kinds of music.  We would travel down to Central Square and skateboard, or go to the Everson (Museum) and skate in Syracuse.  And I think skateboarding and music went together, like for me it was listening to the Deftones.  That was a big influence on me.  We got into other bands like Pennywise, and Brad was into some other kinds of bands, punk bands, and Bobby was too.  And Bobby was the oldest of us and we eventually went to college and would bring back different kinds of music.

But we all sort of got into it at the same time and it was all through skateboarding and playing guitar in general sort of fostered that.

We would also go see random shows in Syracuse and in outlying areas and just learn about bands that way.

I think one of the first shows I went to was at Westcott Community Center and that band Kill the Slavemaster played. (laughs)  I don’t know if you remember that band?  It was them and maybe If Hope Dies, and some other band.  I just remember seeing them and thinking ‘holy fuck, this band is fucking crazy!’

They were pretty much a straight up metal band.

Yeah, it was super dark metal.  The live performance was crazy and I remember the singer doing some wild shit.  He was almost naked by the end of the set.  It was weird, but, ya know, that was it.

But between that scene and meeting other kids that’s how it happened.  I remember auditioning for The Far and Away, which was Mike Russell (drummer of No Idols), Mike Morrisette, and Eric Smith, and practicing in their garage.  That’s how I met all those kids.  I don’t remember how that came about because they all lived in Mexico (NY) or something.  That’s how I got in with them.

But growing up, Bobby, Brad, and I all learned to play music at the same time.  But I never really envisioned playing in a band with them.  We had similar interests, but they were just different enough where we didn’t play the exact same music, and I could never picture being in a band with them.  So we all started separate bands at the time.  I was doing what I was doing, Brad went off to college and I think he had a band out there in Plattsburgh (northern NY).  And it didn’t all come together until Brad and Bobby were playing together with (Mike)Auclair (drummer, Engineer) in that band Forever Yours.

I didn’t realize Mike was in that band!

Yup.  He played drums and that’s how they met him up around the Oswego way.  And then the guitarist left for whatever reason, and they had a couple shows booked they still were committed to play, so they sat me down and showed me the songs, and I finished out the shows for them, and that’s how Engineer started.  We had never all played together until that point.

We just decided after that to start over as a new band and that’s how Engineer formed.

That was going to be my next question!  You all were involved in a few bands around he region that played within the area, but I didn’t realize that most of Engineer was in Forever Yours, and at the end, all of Engineer was Forever Yours.

I think that was the era where I was going to college in Oswego and Brad and Bobby and Auclair all lived in an apartment in Oswego, so I could just go over there and learn the songs.  And once I left college I just moved in there, and we all lived in the same apartment in Oswego.

I see.  And you played in Marrakesh too, right?

Yeah.  It was sort of an overlapping time where I was still in that band doing that.  There were a couple shows where both bands played together and I had to do two sets.  That’s not fun.

I think at that Majority Rule show you booked I played in both bands, and did both sets.

That was a fun show! 

Seeing that show was definitely was one of my favorite shows I ever remember seeing at the Westcott Community Center.

How did Engineer make some of their first connections with other bands outside of town that led to you to tour with them?

I did pretty much all the booking for the band, and the routing for the tours.  And I used this messageboard, I forget the name of it, and it doesn’t exist anymore, but it was a website that was just dedicated to DIY booking.

Was it Book Your Own Fucking Life?

No, that was one of them.  This was a different one.  It was basically just a list of states and cities, and contacts within those cities.  I would just blindly e-mail them.  I would blast out tons of e-mails to see what I could get back and who would book us.  And I would book tours that way.  I think between that and our first tour, which we did with Ed Gein, we just asked hometown friends who had toured before if they knew anybody in X, Y, or Z city and tried getting a hold of them.

There was a handful of bands that we knew that we would try to play with, like The Minor Times, when we would go down to Philly.  Or we would be covered in Rochester with Achilles.  But as far as playing out of state we would just blindly e-mail people and see what we could string together.

What held back bands you did before Engineer from touring and playing out more than you did?  Because once Engineer started you all just really went for it.

I think just between being pretty young and just getting the hang of how you even get booked for a show, or putting that stuff together.  None of us had the money to get a van to go on tour with, much less and responsibility to get one.

The first tour that Engineer did with Ed Gein we just put all our gear in their trailer, because they had one.  And we just drove in Bobby’s Honda Civic.  We slept in the Honda Civic for that whole tour and it wasn’t until after that when we said, ‘alright, we need to get a van and a trailer to put our gear in because we never want to tour in a car ever again.’ (laughs)

But I think we just went for it.  We had enough drive to want to make it happen.  So we just did what we needed to do to make it happen.  But we would just blindly show up to some of those cities and not know the promoter and have no idea of how the show was going to be, and sometimes it was good, but a lot of times it was terrible.  At least we could check it off our list of saying, ‘we’re going to come back here, but not play this place.’

I feel like between the first EP, the split, and then “Reproach” it was a pretty quick process.  What was writing and preparing for those releases like?

Yeah it did.  It was crazy!  It was pretty much non-stop.  All we pretty much did was live that band and practiced as much as we could, and pretty much not do anything else except write music non-stop.  We wrote as much as we could, and played a bunch of shows, and it felt like an era where our work and jobs were secondary, and all we wanted to do was write music and go on tour.  For awhile we were putting out a record every year.  There was the split with Achilles, and then we did a 7” on Mike Hill’s (Tombs) label Black Box with a band from Germany, and then “Reproach” came out right after that.  We just strung it all together and I felt like we were just on a roll of putting out a record every year.

Once “Reproach” came around you decided to record with Chris Owens in Louisville, which Achilles and Ed Gein also recorded at.  Why did you decide to go there and what was that experience like?

It was pretty crazy how quick it happened because I think we were there for only two days.  We slept in the studio because we only had two days to record, so we drove straight there, spent the night there, spent the whole next day recording, slept in the studio and then spent most of the next day probably doing vocals and mixing, and then drove straight back to Syracuse.  We did the whole record in two days.

Oh my god.  Why didn’t you give yourselves more time?

I don’t remember.  But I think that was either all we could afford to do, or maybe it was only time that was available.  It happened super fast.

I hope it didn’t have anything to do with a penny-pinching crappy record label!

(laughs)

Because I remember Chris Owens being pretty cheap back then!

(laughs)  I don’t remember why it had to happen so fast, but it did.  And it made it interesting at the same time.  But, ya know, all we did was practice back then, so going into the studio we were really well rehearsed, and knew everything we were going to do and tracked everything pretty much straight-forward.

I think one of the songs, “Shiner”, was written right before we went into the studio.  We were looking for what might be missing as far as song structure, and feel for the record, and we wrote that maybe a week or two before we went into the studio.  And I think the very last song on the record, at the end of the ninth track where it’s just some instrumental guitar.  Bobby had the idea for that one and I did some second guitar over the top of it the morning of the second day of recording.  We were just sitting on the studio floor just writing with two guitars and decided right there that we needed to record it and pt it on the record.

So taking two days was more just out of efficiency and proficiency.

Yeah, we had our shit down, and Chris knew what he was doing and could dial in everything really quick.  We just went for it.

Given that it was a really quick session do you look back on it with satisfaction, or do you hear things that you would want to change?

No, I think with every record we have done I look at it as it is, and when we record a record I look at it as more of snapshot of the time.  No matter how many days we have to record, or whatever the budget, or how it ends up coming out, to me it’s sort of like taking a picture.  Whatever was happening at that moment.  It is what it is and I try not to look back.  I’m happy with  how it sounds for sure because in that time Owens captured the rawness of the band at that era.  It’s not as clean or polished as some of the other records we did later.  But the band wasn’t like that I general.  In that era it was all raw and intense and I think the recording captures that feel.

When the record came out you guys toured quite a bit.  How far out did you go and who did you find yourself going on the road with? What were some of the highlights of those tours?

That’s an era where so many of those tours blend together.  I believe we went on tour with Achilles twice.  And I believe we went on tour with Tides in that era twice as well.  I think in the year after “Reproach” came out and before “The Dregs” (their second LP) came out we toured four times in that year.  I think one of them was an Achilles tour, then we did a Minor Times tour.  In 2007 we toured with Coliseum and we did 10 days in Canada and then back down into the US.  And I think that was the most successful tour we ever did.  Touring Canada was amazing.  There were some of the biggest crowds, and some of the best promoters.  Everyone was super nice and we actually made some money, for the first time ever, while on that tour.  Touring with Coliseum was obviously awesome, but just playing shows in Canada was great.

Getting that whole situation figured with getting across the border, and fanangling that was fun to do.

How did you fanangle that?  You guys had a lot of equipment so I’m curious.

(laughs)  I think we ended up saying we were all one band.  I don’t remember if we combined our names, or just used one of them, but I think we said we were all one band.  So one guy was the lighting guy, and the other was the sound engineer, or some shit like that.  And we put all our gear in one trailer and we had the roster list of everyone under one band.  The shows were all lined up legit so we had to present all the paperwork and the merch.  So we didn’t hide that we were bands, but we did it in a way where we said we were all one band.  For whatever reason that worked and it got us through.

So all the t-shirts saying ‘Engineer’ you could pass off as band crew shirts of actually being engineers for the band.

I can’t remember if we mailed merch to somewhere ahead of time so we didn’t have to bring it through, or just had it printed up there and pick it up once we were there.  A lot of bands did that around that time.  Afterwards, we would just leave it and have someone mail it back to you later on.

the infamous wall of cabs that went everywhere the band went

OK, so I also heard you all would bring a coffee maker on tour. Why and how did that go for you all? Because I know it's funny.

Yeah, we used to bring one of those cigarette lighter converters on tour so we could plug a coffee maker in. It's not that coffee wasn't available on the road, there just wasn't always good coffee available. So we used to get a pound or two from Recess (Coffee shop in Syracuse, co-owned by Jesse Daino from Ed Gein) before we left.

Wasn't there an issue once where it drained the van battery, or it caught on fire or something?

Yeah, I think we killed the battery using it before. And we used to blow the vans fuse all the time (laughs)

At this point Engineer became a little less associated with the northern region and more of a Syracuse group.  When did you find yourselves moving down here, or did you remain split up between Syracuse and the Oswego area?

I think I left college in 2003 to just do the band full time.  I think that was around when we did that Ed Gein tour.  I just decided to leave college to do the band.  We all had an apartment together in the Oswego area.  I think I lived there for about a year.  The band was getting more active and serious and I wanted everyone to move down to Syracuse and just do the same thing, except closer to the scene in Syracuse.  Not everybody was on board with that and I think I was the only one who actually moved to Syracuse.  Plus, I think at that point, we were practicing behind that post office in North Syracuse.

Oh yeah, great space.

My thought was we could live closer to the practice space because half of us were driving from Oswego and the other half were coming from Syracuse, or other outlying areas at that time.

But we never all moved to Syracuse.  I think Auclair stayed in Oswego the whole time pretty much.

Never left.  He’s a lifer.

(laughs)  We all kind of moved around a little bit to different suburbs, but the main practice space was in North Syracuse so that’s where we all had to meet anyways.

That was a great space.  Everyone practiced in that place- Earth Crisis, Freya, a few of my bands did.

Yeah.  We shared the room with Ed Gein, and some other rotating bands throughout the years, but it was private enough, and no houses around, so we never got bothered.  It was generally clean.

                     A common problem in the practice space

I feel like after this record the band also began taking control of more aspects of the band, such as artwork, and then recording aspects, and nowadays you all record your own music, build some of your gear, do all your own art, and release your own music.  Was the point to always be as DIY as possible?  Do you all prefer to work on your own?

I don’t know if we always had that as a goal in mind.  We just had a strong work ethic and a DIY attitude for most of our stuff.  But when we were just getting started and when you released the split and “Reproach” we didn’t know how to do any of that stuff.  We were just completely honored to have you do it and be a part of that Hex family, and have it all done for us, which was amazing.  But we never set out with the idea that eventually we’re going to do it all ourselves.  I think it just sort of came about that way because we never stopped making music, and wanting to release records.  But eventually when we got older and started doing other bands after Engineer, and when we opened our store, we were like, ‘we’re not going to tour anymore, so how are you going to sell records?’  How is a label going to pay for recording and pressing when the band isn’t going to go on tour to support it?  That doesn’t make any sense for a label, so that’s when I decided to try to do more of it ourselves.  And it wasn’t so much as trying to be in control of more of it ourselves, but it didn’t make much sense for a label to put it out when the band isn’t going to go on tour and support it.

It was fun to work with other people, like when Tim Leo (Minor Times) did the artwork for “Reproach”.  We gave him some direction, but for the most part we just let him do what he wanted because we had liked what he had done in the past.  It came out pretty cool. 

Even though, for the most part, you all still interact every day through Blood Sun Circle and running the store with mostly the same guys, what was your favorite part of doing Engineer?  What was your least favorite part?

My favorite part was just going on tour and recording records.  That was a highlight, being able to go into the studio and record those ideas and songs we had.  That was one of the most fun parts.

Touring was super fun, going out on the road and all.  But it was also some of the worst times.  Some of the shows were awful, or the promoter skipped out on paying the bands, and we would try to scrap together whatever money we didn’t have jus to make it to the next show and hope that one turned out OK.  But I think the worst part, and more towards the end of the band, we would get lumped in with more mosh bands of whatever town we were in, like the promoter would think, ‘OK, who are the heaviest bands in town?’ and it was always some metalcore mosh band where kids wanted to fight each other.  We like heavy music, but we don’t like punching other people in the face while they play music.  We got lumped in with so much of that that it got taxing.  We would be like, ‘why are we playing this show?’  And when it would happen over and over we would think, ‘why are we playing any of these shows?’

But we always picked our own routing and once we went on tour a few times, and established enough contacts, and found out what worked, we sort of stuck to that.  We stayed mostly in the Northeast region, and driving shorter distances, instead of going through the Midwest where it was hard to string enough shows together and spend a ton of money and gas just to get to the West Coast.  We would do shorter, two-week runs, with closer cities, and just did it all ourselves, and it would just go much better that way.

So that CD is long gone, but if you're so inclined, you can get the digital version of this unwieldy assault upon all that is quiet and decent by heading over to the bandcamp page and plopping down 3 clams.  One week only.  No posers.

HXR20YR RETROSPECTIVE: HXR013- THE HELM s/t 7"

In what would become a trend amongst my close friends over a number of years many of them began moving from the Central New York area to Seattle.  And it all started with Bob Swift.  He was the first to make the venture to the Pacific Northwest and it gave me an excuse to go out there and visit him on multiple occasions.  It turns out he made a good decision because not only is it a spectacular section of the country, bountiful with forests, close proximity to the ocean, favorable climate, progressive attitudes (mostly), and also a killer music scene, but it worked out pretty good for ‘ol Bob because once there he made friends with some great people (that in exchange I got to be good friends with as well), found his wife, and also happened to start an awesome crusty hardcore band called The Helm.

The Helm formed when some people from different areas of the Seattle and Tacoma hardcore scenes paired up and began making music that was incredibly loud, dirty as a coal mine at midnight, and very intense.  Bob kept me posted on things as they happened and I was exceptionally surprised that he was able to make this happen considering he had only done a couple localized bands here in Syracuse that did not go on to do too much.  Plus, I had no idea his voice had gotten as vicious as it did.  

It wasn’t all that long after the band started playing out that they recorded a collection of songs and Bob asked if I would be interested in putting it out as a seven inch.  At first I was a bit unsure because I didn’t even quite know what the band sounded like, but we were close and it was yet another excuse to keep up with a good friend who had moved away.  Plus I liked the idea of making some in roads within the Northwest due to my interest in all the stuff that has emerged from that region over the years.  Of particular interest to me as well- and it’s sort of a bonus- the original lineup of The Helm consisted of Bob on vocals, Timm Trust on guitar, Ben Colton (formerly of Champion) on bass, and Ryan Murphy, who played drums in Undertow.  Undertow was the first hardcore band I ever saw.  That may sound strange, considering I grew up in Syracuse, NY and they were from Seattle.  But the first hardcore show I ever attended Undertow was the band that was playing when I came in the door and they made a hell of an impression upon me.  After Undertow broke up they started Nineironspitfire and they played the first show I ever booked back in 1997.  And now, six or seven years later, my paths with people from Undertow cross again in a significant way as one of their members was now playing in a band with one of my tightest friends.  So that was very significant to me.

Just off that 7” The Helm went on to do quite a bit of touring, and not too long afterwards they did their first LP (on Indecision Records) and toured the whole country.  We would continue to work together later on, but this first 7” is where things started off and who better to talk to about it all would be Bob, since we now live about three hours apart instead of three days.  To use a colloquial Northwest reference, we are ‘tight bros from way back when’ (all credit on that to Bob).  Here’s how The Helm got going, those early days of the band, and the process of putting together their first record.

Let’s start off with you leaving Syracuse and moving to Seattle.  What was your reasoning, and how did you navigate your way around figuring things out once you got to the Seattle area?

It was time.  I don’t know, I felt like I needed a change for a lot of reasons.  I’m not always the most concise person, but since you have a recorder on, let’s just say it was time.

So I came out here.  I knew a couple people because the internet is the internet, whatever social media was available at the time I used.  It was 2002.  So not much.  But I still managed to talk to a couple people.  I had a free place to stay in Tacoma, so I stayed there until I met more people.  Then I stayed at another apartment in Tacoma for a little while longer, and then I moved up to Seattle about a year and a half after I got out here.  So I’ve been in Seattle itself since 2003.  And I went to shows and that’s how I met people and found the people that I ended up living in apartments with.  That’s pretty much how I acclimated myself to being around.  One of the first people I ran into was Dave-

-Dave Larson?

Right, Dave Larson (owner of Excursion Records).  He’s the person who invited me to live with him in 2003.  And we lived together for probably about 7 years before I met my wife.

Did you move there intending to start a band, or did the idea for doing that come later on?

I didn’t have any expectations.  I knew I wouldn’t book shows ever again.  In Syracuse I knew who and where to post shows and where I would put them on.  Out here there were so many more variables to deal with.  Plus, there were a lot of shows happening here so I didn’t feel like I needed to book any.  The bands I would book in Syracuse usually were bands that would play here as well so I certainly didn’t need to do anything for them here.  So I was in a band called Set In Motion and another called Gunmen and Flightpaths, and I didn’t think about being in a band here, but I always wanted to.  It wasn’t like, ‘now that I’m out here let’s start a band’.  It was more like, ‘if it happens it happens.’  So I was sort of on the look out for it, and then it just sort of fell together.

Timm (Trust, guitarist) and I had talked about starting a band for awhile.  And Timm had also been talking separately with Ryan Murphy (original Helm drummer) and Ben Colton (original bassist) about starting a band, and then someone figured out we had all been talking to each other separately about being in bands and we could maybe get together, and start a band.

              the various versions of the 7"

How did you come to find the other people who would comprise the original lineup of the band?  It was all of you talking separately and then someone cuing you all in to the fact you had all been talking about doing this?

Yeah.  Well, Ryan had done an interview on Dave (Larson’s) podcast where he mentions that he and Timm had practiced together in that configuration of the band, but it didn’t become the band until all four of us were together and we had practiced a few times.  I think the first song we wrote was “1461” and then we were coming up with names.  I had a name that I thought was the best thing ever, and in retrospect it was pretty terrible.  It was a run-of-the-mill hardcore name for the band, and I’m glad we didn’t go with it.  I asked them and they all said ‘no’.  I’m glad they did though because I didn’t want to be a run-of-the-mill hardcore band.  That’s not why we were in it. 

Timm, though, has this amazing way of just coming up with really cool ideas.  It just comes out.  Maybe he’s working it out in his head for a long time, but it never seems like that when he says something, it seems very spontaneous.  He said, ‘what if we just call it The Helm?’  And I asked if there was any reason why and he just says, ‘it’s where you steer the boat.’  And it worked.  Everyone in the band said it was awesome.  And even though I was a little attached to the bane I thought of I eventually came around and thought it was great.  So we were then The Helm, and we wrote those songs that became the demo, and went on to be the seven inch.

I remember being really nervous about doing vocals because I hadn’t done vocals in awhile.  We recorded somewhere in Tacoma.  We hadn’t played out much beforehand so I didn’t know how it would sound recorded.  Once it was done I thought, ‘oh, I sound like I fit this band well and things came out pretty good’.  I just remember being really psyched.  We had a CD demo of it and this guy in Syracuse put it out on 7”

So this came up in conversation with Tim Leo (Inkling, Minor Times) that you were going to try out to be the singer of The Minor Times as they were getting started.

I didn’t try out.  I wanted to.  I think, two things happened, I could be wrong.  The first was that right at the same time the post-Indecision band, Most Precious Blood, was starting.  This was early 2000s, right before I left Syracuse.  I may have sent those guys something like an audition.  I could be wrong about that.  However, the other thing was that I definitely got in touch with the Minor Times folks.  I really loved Inkling and I thought, ‘I’d be in a band with any of these guys, doing anything.’  So I sent them the Gunmen and Flightpaths stuff we had recorded.  But they went on to find someone who fit that band much better, and I ended up moving, so that’s that.

Yeah, I just thought it was an odd footnote worth mentioning.

For sure, it’s a total ‘what if’ scenario.  I also sent Metallica something (laughs), they never called back.

How long was it before you all started playing out and recording?

I can’t vouch for what Ryan and Timm did before the four of us were all playing together, but I believe in November of 2005 we did some shows.  And then in January of 2006 when you toured with No Idols we played some shows with you all.  I believe that all came after we did a West Coast tour.  That’s when I think was the beginning of when we were the most active.  We toured the U.S. in 2007.  And then we toured the U.S. again in 2008.  We did the West Coast in 2009, and then around New Years 2009-2010 we did the Northeast tour that you drove us around on.  That was pretty much it for us touring a lot after that.

We all had a lot of stuff going on.  Ben left the band pretty soon after we formed because he went back to school.  So the lineup on that 7” was only the first few months of the band.  Joe came on to play bass after that.  In fact, Joe filled in for Ben at a few shows before he was ever really in the band.  Joe never recorded anything with us though.

Was there a specific idea of what kind of band you all wanted to be?  Is that part of why it took awhile to get the band off the ground?

I think my influences were maybe a little different then the other guys.  But we all agreed on Tragedy.  We all really love Tragedy and that was an influence.  It all could have gone a number of ways, but Timm’s guitar work went into that sort of murky way and I loved it.  Ryan’s drumming was so forceful and intense that that’s how it worked out.  My vocals were not really Tragedy style, I have a bit of a higher register.  Lyrically, I just wrote about things that moved me.  Even though I will never sound like Chris Colohan (Cursed, Left For Dead, The Swarm, Sect), my lyrical references took a lot from basically any Swarm song that was about checking out of your job.  I hated my job at the time, so any number of songs that I wrote, which were about people checking out of their jobs, took from that. 

We didn’t set out to sound like anything.  We just played what came out.  There’s a bit of variation to our songs.  Some are a bit more straightforward, and some are a little different.  When we recorded our full lengths, both of them have instrumental jams too.

I can’t recall if you ended up touring on that 7” or did you wait for the full length to come out before committing to bigger tours?

We toured a bit on the 7”.  But I also came out to the East Coast, roadieing for another band, and I brought The Helm demo with me.  I gave it to a lot of people on that tour.  So it got out a bit that way.  I remember also touring on that 7” down the West Coast and talking to Indecision Records, who ended up releasing our first LP, and getting things going that way.

What was the scene in Seattle like around that time?

Well, shows could get really big.  There were a number of other bigger bands at the time.  Champion was kind of the biggest band here at that time.  A lot of the bigger shows didn’t really feature bands that sounded like ours, but we played a bunch of smaller shows with a bunch of bands that would come through.  We did play some of those bigger sows though.  When Champion played their last show we played that.  We played a few Rainfest pre-shows.  Rainfest was just starting out and getting bigger each year.

There were a lot of different shows, and we would play a variety of things.  We played with I Object a bunch, we toured a little with No Idols, we played with Another Breath.  We would play with crusty bands, we would play with more straightforward bands, we played with some thrashy bands.

That also seems like an era where you could have basement shows.  The economy of the city also changed.

One of the places we played the most was called Camp Nowhere.  The building that was in got leveled and it’s now student apartments.  We played a couple places like that that no longer exist.  Or, they were sold and now someone else pays a ton of money to live there.  That’s just Seattle.

When it came to doing the 7” did you have other people in mind, maybe more local people, to help put it out?

It’s funny because there were a few.  I mean, I lived with Dave and he put out records for a long time for all sorts of local bands.  I can’t remember what went through my head when I thought to ask you to release our record.  I don’t know what crazy thought made me believe that was a good idea.  When it happened it just seemed like a good fit and I always liked the stuff you put out.  That’s also how we ended up on Indecision with our first full length.  Ryan (Murphy) was just friends with Dave Mandel (Indecision Records owner) for along time.  They put out all sorts of stuff that was very different from one another- Bleeding Through to Instead.  They did a Botch record.  They did so many different things.  And that’s the same thing for your label too- you can’t make a sound of Hex Records.  It’s not lie some Krautrock label that only puts out stuff that sounds like Neu!  You can’t pin one thing down on your label.  So I thought it was a fir for us because we never did anything with a label that was known for just one thing.  That’s cool because we didn’t play shows with just one kind of band, we played all sorts of stuff.

I was going to say, for a pretty crusty band you didn’t play with a lot of crusty bands.

Oh, we played some stinky shows.   I can remember any number of tours where I was racing to call ‘sleeping in the van’ instead of sleeping in some crusty punk house we were staying at.  We played a lot of different types of shows.  We got tight with that band Giant, who did that very atmospheric, Isis-type of stuff.  There was a lot of variation.

But back to asking you to do the record..  I had already known you for so long it was like, ‘why not ask if you wanted to do the record?’  I felt like it sounded awesome, I was super proud of what it sounded like, and it seemed like a good idea.

I know the band went on to do quite a bit more after this, and the lineup changed a bit, but overall, what was your favorite part of being in The Helm and what was your least favorite?

Well, spoiler alert, “Home” (the second LP) is super important to me.  I’m exceedingly proud of that record.  But I just love those dudes.  The original lineup is great.  Maybe me and Joe aren’t the tightest because he left the band in the middle of a tour, but he was also a super young dude, so I don’t hold a grudge and I hope he’s doing well. 

I just wanted to be in a band, and I had a couple chances at it, but to be in The Helm was great because it wasn’t just people doing cool stuff.  It was also a group of very solid human beings.  All of those people are great.  I still love all of them- Ryan and Timm, and Jeffry, and Jared.  All of them are great.  It was also about something.  All those songs are about things that move us deeply.  It wasn’t just a band that was aggro for the sake of being aggro, or have a mosh pit.  It was a place to deal with things before you feel too bottled up.  I loved being in that band.  With the other bands I got to be in I played some shows away from home, but never got to tour.  That might be the best part.

I’m in a place now where I could never tour again, and I’m not sure if I would want to do that again.  I miss a week with my daughter and that’s missing a substantial amount of time.  Things cane be drastically different between the start of that week and the end.  It doesn’t feel like that while you’re there, but when I’m away from her it feels like forever.  I couldn’t go away from her for that long.

But we played a lot of cool shows, in cool places.  I have played 242 Main (Burlington, VT) with every band I’ve been in.  I’ve played the Westcott Community Center (Syracuse, NY) with every band I’ve been in.  And that’s my favorite place on Earth.  Maybe I was young and dumb and thought we could have played this show, or that show.  But when I look back on it I got to be in a band with a lot of great people.  I got to be in a van driving for hours with those people, played a bunch of shows, and it was fucking cool.  That’s what I take from it the most- playing all over the place for people, and that’s not something I got to do with my other bands.  I was in a place to be able to do that.

The worst?  It sucks that we were on tour and Joe quit and we had to drive back.  That was sort of a low point.  But I don’t want to pin anything on him because that’s petty.  I think the worst was that we played a lot of shows in Seattle where we would get bumped to a headlining spot just because everyone wanted to get out of joint at a certain time.  We loved to play, but at 2AM on a Tuesday wasn’t the best.  But if that’s really the only thing I can complain about than things weren’t that bad, right?  In the end we made some great music and had some good times.  ‘Worst’ is sort of tough to say.  ‘Least favorite’ might be paying rent on a practice space, or playing at 2AM on a Tuesday.  I don’t really have bad things to say.

                               this could be your lucky prize!

It's always great to catch up with Bob, as well as basically anyone from The Helm because they are all wonderful, handsome gents.  They still occasionally play out and record (now as a three-piece) and you can find their music out there in the internet ether.  However, if you want to hear that 7" you can check the Hex Records bandcamp.  The physical copies have sold out, but you can get the digital tracks for just $3 this week!  And I happen to have some oddball variant copies that are a creamy white-blue mix and I'll be giving one away to one random person who purchases the digital this week too!  So get on it!

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!