When did you first realise that COVID-19 was going to have an effect on your band?
I knew it was pretty much going to be an issue when I was talking to my friends who were out on tour and they were being told the tour was getting postponed. There was this weird feeling watching all the news and stuff and I knew it wasn’t going to just be a two week delay and then all of a sudden, we got the call that our upcoming tours in the summer were going to be cancelled.
Initially, what was that whole situation like, and how did your band overcome/react to it?
You know it was crazy when this initially was starting, all I felt was empathy for my bros that had to leave mid tours and lose out on money already spent. Had some hope we might still be able to go out in the fall and then when we kind of all knew we weren’t going to be touring for some time we collectively decided to postpone a couple releases and started writing more. We looked at it as “what can we accomplish in this time to come out ahead” and controlled what we could control. I think the best thing we did to overcome our loses we looked to help our community and especially our local businesses with shirt fundraiser campaigns.
How has your creative process changed as a band over the last couple of months?
To be honest not much really changed in the creative process but more so what part of the creative we were working on. It gave us more time to set up our latest release ‘Rue’ and it has given us more time to focus on our album we have been writing. Normally with us we have day jobs and would only be able to write in small bursts together or individually on our own, with covid we had months to sit in our rooms writing and creating content with no day jobs.
What’s been the hardest part about writing/doing music this way?
The hardest part is the burnouts, having this free reign of creative time for sure burnt me out some days. There was a lot of contemplation from a band in our position where we are newer and had some steam going for us to immediately being stopped dead in our tracks, which I think a lot of bands went through. Keeping that hope alive that was very hard when it seemed the world was falling apart around us.
What bands/artists have you been listening to over the last couple of months?
I’ve been listening to a bunch of nostalgia bands like Crooks UK, older Underoath albums, Akissforjersey, and just shit I grew up listening to. It’s very therapeutic to listen to that stuff that made you fall in love with this music in the first place.
So, what do you think you’ve learnt the most from being a band through COVID-19?
We learned to really become as self-proficient as possible in all aspects of the band. I’ve been doing skype vocal lessons this whole time and have been building my skills in cinematography, DJ has been killing the graphic design game as of late, this gave Brian more incentive to build out a studio at his place and so on. We all have our own little projects that are benefiting not just ourselves but the band in general.
What kind of effect do you think that it’s had on the music industry all together, and how excited are you to see it return to normal?
I mean I don’t want to necessarily shit on the industry, but we have all been 100% exposed to how little the music industry is appreciated. So many artists are struggling without income from tours because streaming payouts and label contracts are not set up to benefit the artist doing the work. You have artists that have taken their lives because they saw now hope, depression is at an all time high. So many independent venues have closed doors or close to closing due to lack of relief benefits for this industry. Like all this shit is so flawed considering music is half of the most consumed industry in the world, and I hope there is some restructuring that takes place. I’m stoked on what we are currently doing, but I won’t get excited until we have tours confirmed and booked with 100% capacity cause our music isn’t meant for people to stand still 6 feet apart (laughs).
What tips/advice would you like to give to other bands who are also going through this?
Utilize this time to get better at your initial craft and learn a new one that helps the band, we really are going to come out of this a better band due to us being all in house now.
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