HOT WATER MUSIC - July 2004

Originally published in: Caustic Truths

Album: The New What Next (Epitaph)

Random thoughts: A couple of Hot Water Music pieces here, inexplicably they were written on the same day. Talk about a quick flipover. Was great talking to this dude though.

Hot Water Music
Learning to love The New What Next

By Jason Schreurs

So what do you do when one of your favorite bands releases a new album and you just can’t seem to get into it? Well, for starters you listen to that damn thing non-stop and force yourself to appreciate it. And, if you have the opportunity to talk to someone in the band about it, as I did with Jason Black of Hot Water Music about their latest, The New What Next, maybe you can even push for an explanation.
“We just wanted to do some different stuff and break it up a little bit more,” explains Black. “Everyone was really happy with Caution [their previous release] but it kinda got to the point where we were starting to do the same thing on every record and we didn’t really want to fall into that trap. It might be selfish of us, but it gets really boring.”
Out of the 12 songs on Hot Water Music’s new album, only about four or five stick with me after countless listens, but each time I put on this record, another tune starts to seep into my psyche. So, I’m starting to think The New What Next might be a real grower.
“It might be… It might be,” ponders Black. “It’s hard for me because I’m just so surrounded by the damn thing by the time we get it done, that it’s just like, ‘I like it or I wouldn’t have put it out,’ you know what I mean?”
Formed in Gainesville, Florida more than decade ago, with a handful of releases on the No Idea label, they were one of the bands who epitomized the emo scene in the mid-to-late ‘90s. With The New What Next, their third album for Epitaph, the band is almost coming full circle with their sound, although in much more mature way.
“We haven’t done any songs this slow or mellow in a few records, we haven’t done anything this slow and heavy in a few records either,” claims Black. “On the older records, there are a lot of different grooves on all the songs. We just wanted to try to make a record where there’s one of every type of song we can do on there, and it’s the best one we’ve got.”
At this point in their lifespan, Hot Water Music are so established in the punk/emo scene they don’t need to pander to their audience as much anymore. But considering how varied this record is, and how different it sounds than their previous two, exactly how much did the band keep their audience in mind while writing it?
“Kinda not at all,” states Black. “Only to the point where we’d call bullshit on ourselves, where we would never play anything like that, you know? But mostly we’ll try anything and it just has to feel good and work, and still sound like us.”
With the amount of experimentation and creative juices flowing with longtime producer Brian McTernan (Cave In, Snapcase, Thrice, etc.), it’s obvious this album was the result of a positive creative process for the band.
“This record was a lot of fun to make,” confirms Black. “We rewrote a lot of it in pre-production and, working with McTernan again, we kinda let go of everything once we went in this time and said, ‘Alright dude, here’s our songs. What should we do with them?’”
Okay, so they had fun making it and they think it’s one of their best albums, so that should be enough to make me sit down with this thing and learn to love it, right? Hey, anything’s possible over time, I guess.
“I think it will come,” reaffirms Black. “I think it will come.”

Originally published in: Chord Magazine

Getting Political With…
Hot Water Music?

By Jason Schreurs

When normally apolitical bands like Hot Water Music decide to spout off against the government, you know one hell of an awful President is running the country.
“This is probably one of the only things we’ve ever released that actually has some very vague political commentary on it,” says bassist Jason Black of The New What Next, their third album for Epitaph (out Sept. 21). “We try not to get political because that’s not the kind of band we are. Not that we aren’t as people, but we’ve never really wanted to be pigeonholed in any category, especially that one.”
With a nutcase like Dubya running the show, is it a necessity for bands of all genres, including hirsute emo bands from the state of Florida (where this big mess all began), to step up and make a stand?
“I think it is,” admits Black. “To us, it’s more just common sense than politics. I don’t think we are being political by saying things are pretty fucked right now. That’s just the truth.”
With every punk, hardcore, and metal release these days including at least one song about Bush and his maladjusted version of US foreign policy (heck, some bands, like Philly’s Anti-Flag write whole albums about it), it’s not a surprise to see Hot Water Music getting into the act a bit.
“I think it’s probably the first thing politically since we’ve been a band that’s pissed anybody in the band off enough to actually write about,” says Black.
“We’ve only been a band during Clinton and Bush. Clinton, I thought he was just kinda funny, for the most part,” he chuckles. “But it’s a sad state of things going on right now and traveling worldwide, which we’re privileged enough to be able to do, it’s really fucking things up everywhere. Things are fucked and it’s mostly his fault. It’s pretty insane.”
The New What Next, in addition to including some politics, also makes a brief jump into a music genre once defined by political action: reggae.
“We’ve always wanted to do a reggae song, but we’ve just never really had the balls to do it,” admits Black. “You listen to The Clash or you hear NOFX doing it… and I know we’re not really in the same world as either of one of those bands, but we were like, ‘Fuck it, let’s give it a shot.’”
“We were just fooling around and came up with that chord progression and it kinda worked,” he says with glee. “It didn’t feel too reggae, like, ‘Jesus Christ, Hot Water’s playing a reggae song?!’ But it just had a good groove to it when we got cooking on it, so we’re all pretty happy with that one.”
The album, again helmed by producer Brian McTernan (Cave In, Thrice) also found the band in perfect synch this time around. “I think everybody’s actually in a good place, for once. I think this is the first record we’ve made where we’re all in the same space, and it’s a pretty good one.”
So, politics and that dummy-head Bush aside, is The New What Next Hot Water’s happy record then? “This is our happy record,” he beams, “Ya, it is.”

For more info, go to: http://www.hotwatermusic.com/

CONVERGE - OCTOBER 2006

Originally published in: Chord Magazine (www.chordmagazine.com)

Album: No Heroes (Epitaph Records)

Random thoughts: One of my all-time favorite stories, it was perfect to catch Jacob Bannon in the middle of his home renovations. The setting of power tools and blaring saws was the perfect backdrop to a chat with a dude in one of the noisiest bands around.

CONVERGE
The heroics of the everyman

By Jason Schreurs

Not surprisingly, Converge vocalist Jacob Bannon is spending the afternoon making some noise. But the day before the release of his band’s latest, No Heroes, Bannon’s not screaming his head off to viciously uncompromising punk/hardcore/metal with bandmates Kurt Ballou (guitars), Nate Newton (bass), and Ben Koller (drums).
Instead, he’s working on a porch for his recently purchased and gutted 1,100 square foot home, a former crack house in Beverly, MA he’s been fixing up with a carpenter friend. Living in a construction zone since August, Bannon is looking forward to settling in with his girlfriend and two dogs but, first, much more hammering, sawing, and smashing.
“When I bought the place last year we were still finding crack pipes in the walls and needles in the yard…” says Bannon, an air compressor drowning him out (“Don’t worry,” he yells, “it just needs to get up to 120 pounds of pressure then it’ll turn off”). Having also spent the past few months creating the thrashing loudness that is No Heroes, a monumental fifth album for Converge, the air compressor doesn’t even phase him.
Bannon’s composure while everything around him pounds and throttles in a flurry of chaos is exactly how Converge, now 15 years ripe, has handled their place in extreme music. Aimed at a singular vision of substance over style, the Boston four-piece’s focus is admirable and, well, more than just a little frightening.
No Heroes (their second for Epitaph) is a monster, every bit as pummeling as its most recent predecessors, 2004’s You Fail Me and 2001’s Jane Doe, but somehow, someway, a tad more fucking brutal. Accessibility just isn’t something these guys care about, and it’s endearing as hell.
“Well, there’s two ways to look at it,” explains Bannon. “Kurt and I were talking about this the other day. Our kind of volume and approach gets an immediate emotional reaction. It’s a reaction from us, as well as the listener and audience. It’s both a positive and a negative.”
Immediate emotional reaction is right. While You Fail Me began with a melodic primer before tearing faces off, No Heroes offers no leeway. Instead, the first four tracks go for the jugular. By the time the minute-and-a-half instrumental breather, “Weight of the World,” lets us regain composure and, let’s face it, balance and sanity (and, um, consciousness?), the horrible and fascinating title track spends the next four minutes brutalizing us back into the ground.
Whether it’s “face-rippers” (Bannon throws that term around, and it’s oh so fitting) like “Versus” and “Bare My Teeth,” or slower, darker, and more monumental dirges like “Grim Heart/Black Rose” (all 9:34 of it), it’s clear Converge has a duality that can please a wide range of musically masochistic maniacs.
“Some people who listen to our slower songs get bored because they want the ‘face-rippers.’ But there’s other listeners who enjoy that mellower stuff more than they enjoy the stuff that goes full speed.”
These “face-rippers” are hard to get a handle on. They require repeated listeners to comprehend what’s happening at maximum overdrive (and perhaps to head-shake while wondering if Converge really pulled off what we think they just did), but the intricate tangle of emotions is also difficult to gauge. Like, are these mad songs? Sad songs? And what’s with that optimism peeking ever so slightly around the frayed edges?
“There should always be a positive aura to even the most negative music,” confirms Bannon. “I’m not a fan of music that just perpetuates negativity. With us, even our angriest songs hopefully have some sort of positive light at the end. At least someone can take something away from them that is much more than pure anger.”
A skill saw screams behind Bannon and his dogs start barking, but now he’s locked in, prepared to explain the concept of No Heroes, a record that incorporates a more universal message. This time, Bannon uses “we” and “us” a lot more than “I,” detailing the ethical and moral struggles everyone goes through.
“’No Heroes,’ the song, talks about overall political and ethical awareness, and whatever you do as a person will be a ripple effect and be felt emotionally for your entire life,” explains Bannon. “It’s a song about the idea of the everyman; the fact that I’m sitting here today working on a decimated house with a friend who is a carpenter, who I have more in common with than most hardcore kids. He literally has no ties to that underground movement and he’s gone through a great deal of ups and downs and life struggles. To me, that kind of person would be a hero; what they do and what they accomplish in their lives with the cards they are dealt.”
Another meaning to No Heroes has to do with Bannon and the band’s growing discomfort with being role models for those who dig their band. Instead of being looked up to, they’d prefer to be at the same level as their listeners, something that’s served them well since their DIY beginnings in the hardcore scene.
“People can dig our band but it doesn’t change who I am when I wake up in the morning,” says Bannon. “We don’t believe in being separate from our audience. That’s something that’s fairly new to punk rock and hardcore, and it shouldn’t be like that… I just turned 30 years old. If I was doing this to serve some egotistical purpose, I’d be sad to find out that was the person I was. I’m trying to give back to this music community that gave me a place in life when I was 13 or 14 years old. I’ve spent half of my life in this band.”
After a decade and a half of creating untainted art and brilliant noise, Converge are in a somewhat solitary place where bands like them are a dying breed. Converge-wannabes can peer at their Soundscan numbers through awkwardly cropped bangs, but four Boston guys continue working on the framework for a house they’ve built themselves.
“We come from a very different world. I don’t really see ourselves as being true peers of the bands that we’re friends with, like the Killswitch Engage/Shadows Fall bands of the world,” explains Bannon. “We have more of a lineage to Starkweather and Rorschach, bands like Merel and Iconoclast; those are bands that we still listen to. People now have never heard of bands like Honeywell or Groundwork; so they don’t really understand where we’re coming from and our world doesn’t really exist anymore.”
As the construction noises behind him go momentarily quiet, he adds, “We’re sort of this lone animal, at this point, which is totally fine by us.”

A Heroes' pallet

No Converge record would be complete without the artwork of vocalist Jacob Bannon, noted graphic designer and owner of Deathwish Inc., a punk/hardcore record label featuring his packaging, art, and design. The booklet and cover for No Heroes revolves around a silhouetted dove, known as a symbol of peace in popular culture but, as Bannon explains, originally the visual metaphor for a higher purpose.

On the dove imagery:
“We’re simply saying, ‘Hey, this is a selfless approach to music.’ These songs are about a personal progression and evolution and we wanted something that represented that. So the dove is being born out of the mouths of two ominous figures beside it in the booklet.”

On those ominous figures:
“When you open up the booklet there’s another ominous figure with the Converge symbol oozing from its mouth, and it’s holding two shards of glass. It’s a visual metaphor for words not being said the softest; not having the softest approach to what we do. Essentially, the truth hurts. It shows a wound, but it also shows a life and energy.”

On creating artwork for Converge versus designing for other bands:
“It’s a very different process. It’s tough to do stuff for other people because you get pigeonholed. The Converge stuff is very different. It’s a much more personal thing. I tend to use stencils and silhouettes when I’m doing my own stuff. I’ll very rarely do that style for someone else.”

ZEKE - OCTOBER 2004

Originally published in: Monday Magazine

www.mondaymag.com

Album: 'Til the Livin' End (Relapse Records)

Random thoughts: I just remember how incredibly fast and tight they were when they played here. It was the kind of thing that, had I known how good they were live, I probably would have blathered on about it in the story. Alas, the preview story, how bittersweet it can be sometimes.

Zeke ‘n’ Roll

Seattle speed-meisters in it for the long haul

By Jason Schreurs

Okay, the dudes in Motorhead are obviously getting on in years. So the burning question on my mind when I got Zeke skin-basher Donny Paycheck on the line was, if Lemmy and crew ever decide to pass the torch to a younger band, will they be there to take it?

“Certainly,” laughs Paycheck. “Definitely, I’d love to carry on the torch for that guy. Wow, what a fucking legend that cat is.”

Since the early ‘90s, the unabashedly Motorhead-influenced Seattle trio have been cranking out the tunes hard and fast, becoming known as one of the fastest bands in the land. Incredibly, Zeke’s new album and first for extreme music label Relapse, ‘Til the Livin’ End, picks up the clip even more. According to Paycheck, the secret to playing no-frills punk rock is really no secret at all.

“I dunno, I guess it’s just not having any frills,” he deadpans. “That’s just the way we are. We’re just into the bands we’re into, you know, Motorhead, The Dwarves, The Ramones, and Black Sabbath. We just wanted to be the hardest, fastest rock that we could possibly be. It’s not a plan. We dress and act like this every day. If I wear a fucking flannel and baseball cap, that’s me.”

Despite the band now calling a label mostly known for heavier bands their home, Zeke feel they are promoted a lot better than in the years they spent on punk biggie Epitaph.

“Relapse does extreme music and Zeke is extreme,” says Paycheck in a stoner dude sort of drawl. “They put out a defining band in each genre of music that they like, and that’s what they consider us: A defining punk band. With Relapse it comes so fucking natural and easy in comparison to having to call up Epitaph and say, ‘Hey, listen, our buddies Pearl Jam want to put us on a couple of shows. Do you think ya’ll should advertise for it?’ And they’re like, ‘Ah well, you know, grumble, mumble.’ Well, fuck, man!”

It was Zeke’s all-pistons-firing live show that caught the attention of Pearl Jam, with Eddie Vedder even collaborating with the Zeke-sters at one point. So what can we expect from their upcoming Victoria gig and first trip to BC?

“It’s gonna be probably the fastest, most intense rock show you’ve seen in a long time,” says Paycheck, daring us by adding, “Probably it rivals seeing a Slayer show. I don’t know if the crowds will know what to do.”