Hawthorne Heights - Interview
Posted by Hunter on Mon, 19 Dec 2011.
JT Woodruff
Micah Carli
Matt Ridenour
Eron Bucciarelli
Casey Calvert
American Rockers, Hawthorne Heights formed in 2001 as a five piece, and had something of a meteoric rise with their post-hardcore style, but sadly, the band were beset by problems with record labels, and the tragic death of long time friend and guitarist Casey Calvert in 2007. The official reports stated that it was due to "combined drug intoxication", which wrongly conjured up images of Casey living the rock star life and couldn't have been further from the truth. Drummer Eron Bucciarelli released a statement to correct any misconceptions that people had jumped to, pointing out that it was a fatal interaction between depression, anxiety and pain killer medication, and that it was a tragic accident.
A lot of bands would not have shown the same strength of character, but thankfully, Hawthorne Heights have stuck together through what must have been devastating events on a personal level, with their hardships compounded by a harsh unforgiving music industry. They've managed to unshackle themselves from some record labels, and with their new found freedom have created their own record label and have released the first of three EP's, "Hate".
I speak to Eron whilst on their support slot tour of Red Jumpsuit Apparatus:
New EP Hate, has that been quite hard to write for you on a personal level (such as "there was a kid part 1")? Or has that clearing of the air had a more positive effect?
This was the easiest album we wrote since The Silence In Black And White and I think that's because we were un-restrained creatively. Emotionally it felt like a weight off our shoulders.
How did the UK leg of your tour go? How did the fans of Red Jumpsuit Apparatus respond?
It's gone great. We have a lot of similar fans, so it wasn't a situation where there were a lot of people only there to see one band or the other, which was good for both us. A lot of fun, great crowds and great responses to old and, more importantly, new songs.
There have been a few ups and down with previous labels etc, you've now formed your own, Cardboard Empire, how's that going?
So far so good. We've only released one thing so far, but we're getting the kinks out and we're planning on stepping things up for the next release since we have some more time to plan.
Setting up your own label is quite an achievement, but what for you are your best personal achievements with Hawthorne Heights?
I think the fact that we've been a band for eight years and have five releases is one of the best achievements. Not a lot of bands reach that point without imploding, but we've out-lasted most bands and been through a lot more in order to get there. So still being here is the best achievement.
It seems a lot of labels are struggling to get to grips with the music industry at the moment. Do you think they'll be able to maintain their positions of power? If not, what are the alternatives?
EVERY label is struggling to find their footing nowadays. The industry has, for the most part, not changed their ways even 12 years after Napster came and kicked it in the ass. So no, I don't think they'll be able to maintain their positions of power unless they evolve more with the times. The alternative is to stop focusing exclusively on selling music and radio exposure and start focusing on creating lasting brands (aka artists). While those old methods are still viable to a certain extent, it's no longer the only means of breaking and developing a band.
Every decade or so has had some sort of defining genre of music, up until now it seems, would you agree with that? Do you think that lack of musical identity has meant there's not an easy musical band wagon for some labels to jump on?
I agree with your statement about defining musical genre. The reason for a lack of defining musical genre these days is that MTV and Radio are no longer the megaliths that they once were in terms of exposing large swathes of people to new music. I think there's also the fact that we're living in the digital age where everything is free (and therefore disposable). People also have more choice at their fingertips than ever before. If someone likes one specific sub-genre, they can only listen to that and nothing else. They can listen once, and if they don't like it, hit stop or delete and move onto the next band. As long as this is how we consume music, we'll never have a defining musical genre or artist for that matter. Labels and artists have to find other ways to connect to fans other than through music.
We recently read that Metallica were bringing forward their European tour because of the Euro crisis (http://www.nme.com/news/metallica/60840). The music industry is widely regarded as being pretty brutal but do you think is a step too far or is it absolutely necessary to be that sharp business wise?
Metallica can do what they want. I think they're buying into the hype of the Euro debt crisis along with most of the media and stock markets. The media is fear-mongering as far as I'm concerned. In the US they told us everything was going to fall apart unless we bailed out our banks. They were too big to fail. We handed the banks a blank check and they turned around and bought more banks and gave themselves bonuses. Now they're even bigger and still failing. It seems to be an eerily similar situation in Europe at the moment. The only problem is there is resistance because Europeans have learned from our mistakes. Printing fake money to throw at the problem doesn't really fix the core of the problem. Bottomline, the banks have us by the proverbial balls.
While we're talking about the business aspect of the music business, what are your opinions on music piracy?
I think Piracy as we know it has a foot in the grave and not because of any Copyright Protection shut-down the Internet bulls*** that our Congress tries to pass. It's because more and more people ONLY surf the web on mobile devices. You can't download Torrents on Android or iOS (hackers aside since most people won't jailbreak or hack their phones). The rise of 4G speeds and WIFI mixed with services like iCloud, Google Music, Pandora and Spotify easily fulfill the users music fix. I mean for real, you're STILL downloading torrents from sketchy sites, opening them in uTorrent and then importing to iTunes? Too many steps...you're so 2009. Spotify is SO much easier, artists see a little bit of money (tiny bit actually,but still something) and if you're nice you'll hook up your Spotify to your Facebook and give your favorite bands some word of mouth exposure on your wall.
One of our editors, Karishma, asked if you had any bad habits, musically, and what they were? One of the editors on the site always slings their thumb over the top of the guitar neck when doing G Chords, just wondering if you did anything like that.
I actually think Micah plays his G Chords like that too, or some chord, what do I know about guitars, I'm the drummer! I know I tense up sometimes when I'm trying to play loudly, which is terrible and I always try to immediately rectify if I catch myself doing that.
We know some of you are big gamers, has Skyrim had an impact on the progress of certain projects?
None of us have played Skyrim yet to my knowledge and that's probably a good thing. Halo and all of its brethren have made us procrastinate more than we should on several instances.
We read another interview where you mentioned you liked to get different candy bars, any particular favourites in the UK?
Mine is the Mint Aero, but the other guys like the Crunchie bar.
Many thanks for your time!
Thanks!
JT Woodruff has stated in the past that "We won't add another guitar player or add another screamer", and that "In our albums, it'll always say 'Casey Calvert: guitar/vocals. In keeping with that tradition I have included Casey's name in the band's line up at the head of this piece. To find out more about Hawthorne Heights, and their record label, you can visit their website here: