On The Road… with The Ghost Inside

Posted on November 17, 2015 by News Team

Embarking on a month long U. S. tour known as the “Locals Only Tour” The Ghost Inside are traveling alone. Stopping in each city, they are playing with the opening support of bands native to the city they’re in for the day. TGI vocalist Jonathon Vigil has said that all bands started out as local bands, and being able to get to know them on each stop is a unique experience. In between TGI’s highly energetic songs, the frontman stops and talks , in detail, about each band, and what unique trait they bring to the stage. This is surely one of the most intimate tours that has taken place in he US this year. The band is out on the road supporting last year’s Dear Youth album (Epitaph), and the band is headed next to Europe this winter supporting Refused. At the tour stop in Birmingham at Zydeco, the locals brought a unique mash-up of sounds. From Tempter’s guttural deathcore sounds, to Noir covering Taylor Swift (‘Bad Blood’), and Veda’s technical riffs and wide vocal range. There is only about a week left on the tour, so check it out if you can.

The Ghost Inside, by Brent B Photos

Tempter, by Brent B Photos

Noir, by Brent B Photos

VEDA, by Brent B Photos

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WORDS AND PHOTOS BY BRENT BUTTERWORTH

Braden Barrie of SayWeCanFly Shares How He Built Up His Music

Posted on July 22, 2015 by newsteam

Braden Barrie of SayWeCanFly. Photo Credit: Samantha Madnick

SayYouCanFly has been enjoying their newly found success on this year’s edition of the Vans Warped Tour. The one man musical venture spear-headed by Canadian Braden Barrie has been reaching new fans on each stop, and most recently announcing a recording partnership with Epitaph Records.

Prior to all of this happening, Barrie built up his name and music by himself through the wonders of the internet. He explained how he built up SayWeCanFly and how he reached countless fans.

“In 2009, I decided I wanted to start a YouTube channel, which was the beginning of SayWeCanFly. I don’t remember the day but it’s near my birthday I’m sure,” he said, about his early years.

He placed a lot of energy into learning about how to use the internet, especially the various social media platforms, which is now commonly used (and not always properly) by many musicians in recent years.

“Social media has been my biggest tool. So I think for the first couple of years of Saywecanfly, when I didn’t really leave my house, I would literally come home from school every day, learn about social media and how to use it, and about the algorhythms and what works and what doesn’t. That was my version of college I guess? I knew that everyone, when they had a minute would go and check their Facebook. I always wanted to capture as many people as I could at the right time. I always wanted to bring people along on my journey and post stuff up every single day,” he said.

“There’s a website called PureVolume I used to use. I started posting stuff on there and kids started asking me for more. I started recording in my bedroom. As Saywecanfly grew I started working with other people. I’ve self released all of my albums. Between The Roses is my first full length that I just put out. It’s all been a learning process. I’ve had some offers from labels but I’ve always felt there’s more I’ve wanted to learn on my own, and there’s more I want to accomplish by myself before I possibly take that step. It’s definitely been a conscious decision and a really tough one. That’s what I’ve wanted to do.”

While he has built up quite the extensive following, especially on YouTube and Facebook, his fan base has come from some of the most unexpected places in the world. Aside from his recently discovered fans on the Vans Warped Tour stops and his previous tour supporting Metro Station, he shared some of the other areas he discovered to fans in.

“I have a huge following in Brazil, which is something I never expected and judging off of Facebook stats. Places like that and are way far away like New Zealand. It’s so cool to see how people across the globe have found my music, even if it’s small pockets of people. I think the strangest place is Poland. I have a small following there, which is cool. My grandparents were from there. I’ve never been there.”

“Just where people can’t speak English, it’s crazy that they listen to my music. It blows my mind.”

SayWecanFly on Facebook
SayWeCanFly on Twitter
SayWeCanFly on Instagram
SayWeCanFly on YouTube

SayWeCanFly Sign With Epitaph Records

Posted on July 22, 2015 by newsteam

One man acoustic act SayWeCanFly, featuring 20-year old Braden Barrie has signed with Epitaph Records. He is currently on the Vans Warped Tour playing to capacity crowds in the Full Sail Acoustic Lounge.

SayWeCanFly has self-released music since 2009 and seen social numbers climb into the millions. Barrie’s huge social media presence has created a bond withSayWeCanFly’s fans that goes beyond the music alone, creating a family-like relationship between the artist and fans. Barrie recently formed his own label in PureWolf Records.

Audio: Bring Me The Horizon Debuts New Single- The Happy Song

Posted on July 13, 2015 by News Team

Bring Me The Horizon has debuted a new single on BBC Radio 1’s The Rock Show With Daniel P Carter. ‘The Happy Song’ can be streamed at this link or below on the bands Vevo Channel:

‘The Happy Song’ comes off of the expected new BMTH album, due later this year from Epitaph Records. The bands new DVD concert film Live At Wembley was released last month.

Refused – Freedom

Posted on July 1, 2015 by News Team

The hotly contested reunion or comeback album. Purists will bitch and list off 40 million reasons why a band should never re-enter the studio after calling it quits. They’ll tarnish their legacy. They can never re-achieve past glories. They’re too old. They’re not the same band anymore.

The list never ends.

And in a way, those points have some merits. After all it has been 17 years since Refused put out the revolutionary The Shape of Punk to Come. A recording that is universally considered classic and difficult to categorize. And shortly after the release of that record, the band imploded capped it off with a fiery press release stating “Refused are Fucking Dead.”

As new album Freedom (Epitaph) clearly points out, they were not fucking dead. After a series of reunion shows in 2012 and 2014, frontman Dennis Lyxzen, guitarist Kristofer Steen, drummer David Sandstrom and bassist Magnus Flagge still had some of that future punk left in them. Best of all, is that much like Carcass in 2013 and At the Gates last year, Refused sound as good and confident as they did in their 90s heyday.

Lead single ‘Elektra’ probably states it best: “Time has come, no escape.” It indeed is time for Refused’s left-of-center brand of noise. America at least, seems to be in an odd state of regression. We count corporations as people and have segments of the population that see the Confederate flag as “heritage”, and view same-sex marriage as a threat to their religious freedom. That’s without counting those denying global warming or the anti-vaccination movement.

And to show their discontent with the state of affairs, Refused keep the vitriol and attitude going in other punk scorchers like ‘Dawkins Christ’ and ‘Thought is Blood.’ And when they choose to turn down the assault it’s with tracks like ‘Old Friends/New War’ that while not as a raucous still keep a sharp edge as Lyxzen finds that “there’s no other choice but to create some noise and sharpen up my mind.” And we’re glad that you’re up to your old tricks.

Also, much like in The Shape of Punk to Come, these Swedes find room for eccentricity in Freedom. In the liner notes you’ll notice that both ‘Elektra’ and ‘366’ were produced by Shellback, the hitmaker known for his work with Adele and Taylor Swift. Once again proving that they are the most punk by following their muse rather than convention.

We need more records like Freedom. We need them because they remind us that certain genres are supposed to be the dangerous ones. I’m disgusted by the fact that the punk bands that prevail today happen to fall under the abomination known as “Pop-Punk.” A musical oxymoron whose practitioners are perfectly content to play arenas and extol the virtues of eating pizza and wearing fitted hats.

It’s nice to see that some are still choosing to live dangerously.

Refused, by Dustin Rabin Photography

9.0/10

HANSEL LOPEZ

I Killed The Prom Queen – Rejoining The Court

Posted on June 21, 2015 by newsteam

For veteran guitarist Jona Weinhofen, his musical journey has come together at a good time as his recently resurrected band I Killed The Prom Queen will be spending the summer on the Vans Warped Tour.

I Killed The Prom Queen is the band he founded back in Adelaide, Australia in late 2000 until 2008. Weinhofen landed an opportunity to join Orange County metallic hardcore outfit Bleeding Through (2008-9), with whom he recently also took part on one of their final shows at the Glass House in Pomona, CA. He later joined British modern metallers Bring Me The Horizon (2009-13) until he parted ways with them to do I Killed The Prom Queen again.

“It was real coincidence that I played those Bleeding Through shows. I just happened to be in town at the time and they needed someone to do those shows. It was fun,” he said.

He also talked about what led to their hiatus and the new members who helped revamp the new lineup.

“We had a bunch of issues the first time around. I think we let it sit around for enough time to where we’re all passionate enough to come back to it. We have a somewhat new lineup with a couple of new members. We reinvented the band a little bit. It keeps it a bit more fresh. It’s myself and Kevin [Cameron, guitars], who are the main songwriters since the second EP (2003’s I Killed the Prom Queen / Parkway Drive: Split CD).”

“It was cool having us two who are the core sound of the band and couple of new guys bringing in a fresh influence when it comes to writing and how we sound live. Plus having a couple of new guys makes touring fresh and different as well. The new guys – Jamie [Hope] our vocalist, Ben [Coyt] our bassist and Shane [O’Brien] our drummer – have been playing in other bands but we’ve known them for years. It wasn’t like we were getting some random guys in the fold and saying ‘let’s see how touring goes’ and ‘see if we hate each other.’ They were like dudes we were friends with for years.”

Jamie Hope of I Killed The Prom Queen.

While Weinhofen is now based on Southern California, his band mates are scattered around the globe.

“Three of guys currently live in Melbourne, Victoria, even though the band is from Adelaide. Our drummer Shane lives right outside of Birmingham in England, in a place called Wolverhampton. He met a girl there. I live here in California in Orange County. I lived here previously when I was a member of Bleeding Through. I have a bunch of friends here. I actually met a girl here as well, and coupled with the fact that Epitaph Records is based out here and our management company has an office here in LA now. Our booking agency has always been here in LA. It’s always been cool having me on the ground here and in between the rest of the band getting things going in the US.”

Jona Weinhofen on I Killed The Prom Queen.

While I Killed The Prom Queen is making its Warped Tour debut, Weinhofen has previously taken part on this with Bring Me The Horizon and had positive experiences.

“This is my second Warped Tour but first time with I Killed The Prom Queen. I’m stoked to be part of it again. I think it was 2010? We have just recorded There Is A Hell. I remember showing the guys from Parkway Drive around while we were on that tour. We weren’t actually playing any material from it yet but it was an awesome time.”

“It’s five years later so I don’t know really what’s changed. I heard there’s comedians on it this year and all sorts of different demos on it. I think the core of it will be pretty much the same thing. I’ve always loved the Vans Warped Tour.”

Aside from performing on the tour, he shares his first time attending as a fan.

“I actually went to the Vans Warped Tour in 1998 in a town called Ulladulla in New South Wales in Australia, which is when they first brought it out to Australia. Deftones played with Suicidal Tendencies. I’ve been around the tour since I was teenager, and have been a part of the tour. I know what it’s like to be on the tour. I don’t think there will be that much difference between 2010 and 2015. I know that the barbecues are always fun and hanging out with your mate’s bands you get to be on the tour together, and finding weird watering holes, bike tracks and mini motorcycles. That’s the stuff I look forward to. That’s the social side to the band. The performances themselves will be amazing. It always is.”

So what should fans expect to see from I Killed The Prom Queen this summer? “We’re gonna be flying a full spread of really old stuff, stuff from Beloved, which is our most recent album, and a couple of new songs as well.”

By Rei Nishimoto

Parkway Drive Announce New Album Ire, New Video Out Now

Posted on June 9, 2015 by News Team

Parkway Drive, photo by Tom Barnes.

Parkway Drive has announced that their next album will be called Ire, and will released from Epitaph Records on September 25^th. The first single is the song ‘Vice Grip’ and already has a video which you can see at this link or below:

Speaking about the album in an interview, vocalist Winston McCall commented

“This is the album for us… Every single step of the way, whenever there was gamble to take, we took the biggest one we could. If this isn’t the album that can go further than anything we thought was possible with this band and this type of music, that’s fine, but we can’t go back from this as far as we’re concerned.”

Ire track listing:

1. Destroyer
2. Dying To Believe
3. Vice Grip
4. Crushed
5. Fractures
6. Writings on the Wall
7. Bottom Feeder
8. The Sound of Violence
9. Vicious
10. Dedicated
11. A Deathless Song

Refused Land New Guitarist, Singer Talks About New Album

Posted on May 11, 2015 by newsteam

A lot of changes are apparent within the Refused camp moving into the release of their first new album since 1998 titled Freedom, out June 30, 2015 via Epitaph Records. They fired longtime guitarist Jon Brännström and have been spotted performing with Mattias Bärjed of The Soundtrack Of Our Lives fame on guitars. No word on whether he is just filling in live or has joined as a full member.

In a recent interview, Refused vocalist Dennis Lyxzén spoke about recording a new album, and more.

On if he thought the band would ever record a new album:

“No. Well. . . for the last two years, since it has been happening, yes. But before that, a definite no. When we got back together in 2012 I was very confident that that was gonna be it. “We’re gonna do 10 shows,” you know? But then we wound up doing 82, and somewhere down the line we ended up talking about creating new music together. But before that it was pretty unthinkable that this would ever happen. But I think that was partly a matter of history, and sort of the legacy of what Refused was. A lot of people think, “Oh, those guys, their last record was The Shape of Punk to Come, they can never fuck with that.” So it’s very unexpected to people that we decided to actually fuck with that.”

On if had been wanting a Refused reunion himself:

“Before the reunion I had no desire whatsoever to revisit Refused music at all. I was done. And the reunion was just going to be this one-off kind of thing. But what happened was, Kris [guitarist Kristofer Steen] and David [drummer David Sandström] and Magnus [bassist Magnus Flagge], they actually had a band – I think they started playing together in 2010 – and they were doing this weird instrumental avant-garde metal music.

And while we were doing the reunion thing, Kris once asked me, “Do you want to sing on one of these songs we’re writing?” And I said, “Yeah, I can do that.” And then Kris and David started talking about, “Maybe these songs we’re writing could be Refused songs. . . ” So at some point they asked me if I would be into the idea of creating new Refused music. And my initial reaction was, “I’m not sure this is a good idea.” Then they showed me some music and I said, “Yes, this is a good idea!”

On the bands future:

“Well, we initially set out just to do 10 shows. But then we decided we were going to continue, and we became a band. And I think that’s a big difference. At this point Refused is not on a reunion tour. We are a band – a contemporary band that is putting out a record. And it’s not nostalgia or a throwback. Refused 2015 is just Refused. So that’s our future. And it’s gonna be intense, but not as intense as it was in the Nineties, because we’ll have the time and the leverage to do other things we want to do.

I mean, a couple people in the band have kids and families. I played 110 shows last year with my other band [INVSN], so that’s something I’m still gonna do. Kris is an opera director. David just finished up a play in Stockholm. So there will be other things happening around us at all times. But our idea is tour this record for at least two years, and then we’ll see if a new record comes out of that or if it’s time for another break. But really, who knows? I mean, Freedom isn’t even out yet. Maybe this record comes out and people say, “Fuck these guys!” Then I guess we’ll just travel around in a van again [laughs]. Either way, I can say that the future of Refused, it’s a bright one.”

Audio: Refused – Elektra, New Album Freedom Out June 30th

Posted on April 27, 2015 by newsteam

Veteran Swedish hardcore-punk outfit Refused will be releasing their first new album in 17 years titled Freedom via Epitaph Records on June 30, 2015. Stream the opening track “Elektra” below. They also have upcoming live appearances including supporting Faith No More on the East Coast.

May 22: Ruhrpott Rodeo Festival – Bottrop (DE)
May 24: Punk Rock Bowling Festival Grounds – Las Vegas, NV
May 25: Observatory – Santa Ana, CA
May 26: The Roxy – West Hollywood, CA

Our new album FREEDOM will be available via Epitaph Records end of June (release date varies by territory).Pre-order FREEDOM: http://found.ee/RefusedFreedomphys

Posted by Refused on Monday, April 27, 2015

Every Time I Die Releasing Salem Seven Inch For Record Store Day

Posted on March 13, 2015 by newsteam

Every Time I Die will be releasing their Salem seven inch for this year’s Record Store Day on April 18, 2015 via Epitaph Records, and will feature a cover of Nirvana’s “Tourette’s”, off the recording sessions from their latest release From Parts Unknown.

The track listing for the 7″, which will be pressed on brown/red/clear swirl vinyl, is as follows:

“Tourette’s” (Nirvana cover)
“A Strange Loop”
“Cheap Ludes”
“Saturnalia”

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