Feature by Andrew Haak - August, 2006
Another Breath released in August, 2006, Mill City, a gripping exercise in modern, powerful hardcore. I sent some questions via e-mail to the band's vocalist, Ted, who talks about Mill City, his deeply personal lyricism and Myspace, and makes it pretty clear that Another Breath is truly passionate about their craft.
Andrew: Mill City has been out for several weeks now and it seems to be getting a lot of good feedback. What are your personal reactions to the record?
Ted: We've been really happy about the feedback we've been getting. I think the best feedback that a band as a group of artists can get is being told what you alread know. By that I mean that we set out in the beginning to write a record with a cohesive theme that is longer than a regular hardcore full length and has alot of musical diversity but carries alot of energy and has good and pertinent lyrics. So when we read reviews that say that the record is all of those things and hear people saying that it means that someone got what we are trying to do and we hit the mark which is awesome. Above all we wanted to write an album, not just a record with a bunch of songs on it and to have people making that connection and actually being excited about it is the best possible reaction we could ask for.
Andrew: I've seen videos of Another Breath playing live and I've listened to your recorded work, and everything seems to have an urgency and passion that hardcore bands can't just manufacture. Speaking for yourself or the entire band, where does this come from; what inspires you to pump everything you've got into this music?
Ted: I think we've all had to make decisions through the course of this band where the band has been chosen over other things. We've given up a bunch to do this and in that process we've made it a big part of our lives and who we are. So in essence we aren't really pumping everything we've got into it, it just is everything we've got. We said in the beginning that this was an all or nothing deal. Being in a hardcore band is useless if it isn't going to carry emotion and intensity with it. The genre is abrasive for a reason. We chose it for that reason.
Andrew: The booklet with Mill City album briefly describes the album as the story of a kid from a small shitty town with six friends, a dream and a van. Can you elaborate on why you opted for this narrative, heavily personal approach when plenty of hardcore vocalists get away with singing about the same old stuff?
Ted: I didn't really sit down and choose what to write about. It just kind of happened. Honestly we said we wanted to write a cohesive record but the theme didn't really hit me in the face until it was three quarters of the way done. I didn't make the connection to tie it together until the end. I think that the reason I end up writing about personal stuff is for a couple of reasons. Number one I only know about what I've experienced. Even if I write a socially geared song I usually end up basing the song on specific experiences and writing to the idea it represents. It's just how I do things. Number two, I dedicated most of 2005 to touring and to thinking about my life. It's in the record somewhere that I'm at a real threshold and the decision of where I want to stay as opposed to where I want to go was making me borderline psychotic. When I was on the verge of a meltdown I would pick up my notebook and write to try to sort out how I was feeling about stuff and Mill City just came from all of that writing. And the awesome thing about it is that I wrote Catharsis the day I started to realize where I stood in this whole mess. That record literally chronicles this entire process from being angry and lashing out to confusion to hopelessness and eventually finding my way out in real time as it happened. I'm so proud of the way it came out lyrically because it is literally who I was becoming who I am in words written at the time that it was happening.
Andrew: One of the most memorable and simple lyrics on the album, for me, is "I miss the fire that once inspired me." But It doesn't sound like you're missing any fire. From where does this, and other feelings of despair, come?
Ted: I used to love just showing up to practice 4 times a week and beating the shit out of myself until I fell on my bed exhausted. And aside from music I just used to love doing things like smashing windows and just fucking with everything in sight because just doing that stuff made me feel alive. And now I take that stuff for granted. The fact that I could be sitting in a tour van in Europe and be thinking more about merch sales than the next show and thinking about how great it would be to be home is just completely not who I wanted to be. That person is the exact opposite of that kid who was so excited about the world just a few summers ago. I miss that kid. Especially around the time when I was writing those songs, I was a real shitbag and I was more concerned about finding ways to make money and impress my family with whatever job I would be getting and writing and playing music were things that I had labeled in my head as getting in the way. I sat and took a look at that and realized that things were really fucked up in my life. I was turning into this thing I swore I would never be. So unknowingly that created a different kind of fire which again is the underlying energy driving the record, and it's the struggle to find out who I am and what I want and get rid of the bullshit that's standing in the way of that.
Andrew: What kinds of new musical ideas did the band want to embrace?
Ted: Personally I wanted to see how personal I could get in my writing. Musically we wanted to see if we could slow the tempo and keep our intensity. We also wanted to see if we could get thrashy while staying tight and keeping our musical integrity. We wanted to see if we could create energy through an entire record that would flow from song to song without losing the urgency even if we dropped the tempo or got thrashy. I think we just wanted to write a record and see what we were capable of. Double time is boring and ontime breakdowns have been done to death. Every band sounds like every other band and we wanted to see if we could find a way to be influenced in such a way where it would be hard to make musical connections between very different bands that would sometimes influence the same song. I don't know if anyone has really caught onto that so much yet just because we've clearly been influenced by AN and the Suicide File and MLIW and people seem to be latching onto those, but I think once time is taken to look past those people will start to realize we've taken cues from alot of different bands that don't seem to fit together. I think that diversity in influence and writing is what we were really going for overall.
Andrew: You recently took to the U.S. highways with Dead Hearts. Something interesting had to have happened in those few weeks, so spill those guts. Anything good.
Ted: I think the most interesting thing that has happened (that I can talk about) up to this point is that I broke my elbow. I tried to ride a skateboard from a roof into a swimming pool and when I tried to drop in I caught a rock or a shingle or something and I ate shit hard. I rolled down the roof and smashed my arm on the cement below. So we spent the night at the hospital. Luckily it was on a day off and we didn't miss any shows. I put up a picture of my arm online so if you can find it you can check it out. (Hint: Myspace -Ed.)
Andrew: What's the best part of the country -- or the world, I suppose -- to drive through in a van full of kids and equipment?
Ted: My favorite on this one was Oregon. When we were driving to Portland I sat in the back and stared out the window for hours with the biggest possible smile on my face. Man I loved being alive that day. I'm sure that there were other contributing factors but that was definitely my favorite drive of this tour. In Europe it was definitely Italy. I still can't figure out how to explain the colors to other people.
Andrew: What's your favorite place to stop at and get a bite to eat while you're out on tour?
Ted: Qdoba. Hands down. They have burritos the size of your head and the fact that we don't have any at home makes it an extra special tour treat. We are suckers for mexican food and even though we like to try to find local food places we just can't resist when we see those places.
Andrew: Why don't you guys put songs on your Myspace page? I mean, shit. It's Myspace. You gotta have songs there for people to repeatedly try and stream (but never actually get to work -- great site).
Ted: Well for one we fucking hate myspace. It encourages people to sit at their computers rather than go out and meet people and that is just lame. I made our page because I needed it to contact people to book this tour and I'm admittedly using it even more than I want to now. I didn't put songs on for two reasons. One, myspace is owned by Fox and everything you put on it becomes the property of Rupert Murdock and even though I don't see anything happening I just don't feel comfortable giving up that ownership. Secondly, and more importantly, I want to increase traffic to the Rivalry site. Our songs are there anyway so I would rather have kids click one extra link and see what an awesome label we are on and check out the other bands than stream shit off of myspace.
Andrew: Let's look to the future. What are you up to tomorrow?
Ted: We're going to Columbus Ohio tomorrow. And I think that we're staying with our friend who goes to college there. So since I will probably be all riled up from watching the UFC match tonight I will probably be going directly from the show to the college where I will be breaking into the dining hall, engorging myself on free food and then stealing a golf cart and driving it into a swimming pool or decorative fountain. I am dead serious.
Andrew: Is Thanksgiving or Christmas going to be the better holiday this year?
Ted: Man, remember when holidays were just fun and you could enjoy them? You know, before you got all caught up in thinking about supporting religious consumer holidays and celebrating historical lies and impacting the environment by genetically engineering animals and clear cutting forests for trees? Eh, maybe that's just me. I've become a real party pooper in the last few years. I think I'm going to give up the crusade this year (slightly) and actually eat some tofurkey and enjoy my family and forget that I'm not a christian and try to make them both great. It worked for the femenists in PCU. Maybe it can work for me.
Andrew: Thanks for taking the time for this.
Ted: No problem. thanks for the interest in our band.
-Ted
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