{"id":422,"date":"2011-03-16T07:07:04","date_gmt":"2011-03-16T11:07:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nowthissound.com\/ntsib\/?p=422"},"modified":"2011-03-16T15:10:29","modified_gmt":"2011-03-16T19:10:29","slug":"get-more-gritty-again-and-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nowthissound.com\/ntsib\/2011\/03\/16\/get-more-gritty-again-and-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Get More Gritty: Again and Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ladies and gentlemen, please meet Again and Again, of Seattle, who I learned about from Twitter. After I had poked around their website<\/a> a little bit and listened to a couple of songs, I was intrigued and wanted to know more. After getting past some technical difficulties, drummer XwesX (Wes Keely) <\/strong>(center) and I had the following email chat:<\/p>\n

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Who was in which band, previously, and how did you get together to form Again and Again? And who does what in Again and Again – did anyone switch roles (or instruments) from previous bands?<\/strong><\/p>\n

OK, well, to start this off, Dutch VI (above left) plays guitar, Geoffrey C Walker (above right) sings, and I play drums. We had a few other members over the years, but at the current moment this is the core group, and we have a few fill in bass players that go out on tour with us from time to time. Geoffrey used to sing in the Victory Records band called On The Last Day<\/a> based out of Seattle, Dutch VI also plays in a few different hardcore bands that we are not really allowed to talk about, and I was a founder of Walls of Jericho<\/a> and have also played in bands such as Most Precious Blood<\/a>, Throwdown<\/a>, Until The End<\/a>, Remembering Never<\/a> and a few others.\u00c2\u00a0 I also spent years as a hired gun for several different bands over a span of 5 or 6 years.<\/p>\n

There was no role switching as far as instruments go, although we all play other instruments. Dutch plays a mean set of drums from time to time; Geoffrey plays guitar and bass and knows how to rock a Pro Tools rig like no other; and I play guitar as well as bass.<\/p>\n

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On the “hired gun” front, I see from your blog that you were out with the Jonas Brothers. How did that happen and what was that like, because there’s quite a vast gulf, musically, between Throwdown and the Jonas Brothers. Also, tangentially, I have noticed that there are an awful lot of ex-hardcore drummers in pop and\/or pop-punk bands. Is that just a coincidence, or a kind of natural progression?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Haha, well, ok, I did some touring with Jonas this past summer, but there was no drumming involved. I was on the tour working for one of the lead sponsors of the tour that works with the Jonas group.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s funny, I did a tour just before that one with Jordin Sparks and a lot of people were asking me \u00e2\u20ac\u0153are you drumming for her?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d because really with the amount of jumping around that I have done in the past something like that is pretty possible.<\/p>\n

As far as hardcore drummers in pop music, well that one has been happening on and off for years, people like Andy Hurley playing in Fall Out Boy with Pete [Wentz], and Chad Gilbert playing in New Found Glory after sinning in Shai Hulud.\u00c2\u00a0 I think its just one of those things where people just play in HC bands for years and eventually you just want to do something else.<\/p>\n

Pete and Andy used to go to WOJ and Earthmover (band 3 members were in before we started WOJ) shows in Chicago and they played in HC bands too. We all used to have fun and play shows together and mosh it up, but eventually some of us just wanted to do other things.\u00c2\u00a0 Some people go back to school, some get married, some start pop bands and become millionaires, it happens.<\/p>\n

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Hah! There’s also Alex Johnson of The Cab, though I don’t remember now which HC band they got him from. Though Andy Hurley (and Joe Trohman) have since gone back to heavy music, with The Damned Things. <\/strong><\/div>\n

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Yeah, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s awesome, they are all doing great. Andy and I just recently got back into touch, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a rad dude and a solid drummer I hope to see him play again one day here soon!!<\/div>\n

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On the ProTools tangent – have you been producing your own records, or are you working up demos and then working with a producer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

YES, the first record we had some help from a sweet dude named Steve Carter, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a great guy and a great engineer and has million dollar ideas.\u00c2\u00a0 Steve and Geoffrey pretty much handled the first record [Again and Again<\/em>, 2008]. I mean, we all had our hands in, it but the majority of the producing was all on them.\u00c2\u00a0 The second record, Get More Gritty<\/a> <\/em>[2010], was pretty much all Geoffrey. Derek [Casey], the guitar player and song writer at the time, had hands in it as well, but for the most part it was Geoff.\u00c2\u00a0 We had some outsiders mix and master the record, which is always a great idea.<\/p>\n

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Is sending a record to someone else to be mixed and mastered a good idea because it’s helpful to have someone listen to it \/ “edit” it who isn’t so close to it?<\/strong><\/div>\n

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Yes, I mean sometimes we are so deep in it that we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always hear the songs for what they are or what they aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. \u00c2\u00a0It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nice to have another set of ears on the songs.\u00c2\u00a0 For example, our latest release Get More Gritty<\/em> was mixed my one of my oldest friends, Marc Hudson, who happens to be an amazing engineer and has a great ear. I have been working with him on and off since I was about 15. \u00c2\u00a0He spends most of his time on the road with Taking Back Sunday and Saves The Day, [so] he has such a different outlook on how things should sound, and sometimes that makes all the difference in the world!<\/div>\n

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Why did you pick Seattle as your home base? (Also I’d like to know more about the Barn of Solitude!)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Seattle is a great place to live, we have all lived in a ton of other places, I mean between us all, we have lived in Vermont, Michigan, Virginia, Kansas, Germany, South Florida, Orange County and Washington.\u00c2\u00a0 Seattle is by far all of our favorite place to live, it has mountains, desert, snow, rain, rain forest, city, hiking, camping, great music scene, jobs, and great food. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just the best! Seattle just happened to be the place that we all ended up, before meeting each other. (Other than Dutch and I, we were friends before the band.)<\/p>\n

The Barn of Solitude is a great place, free of most distractions, where we wrote and recorded our first 2 records. It has a great sound and we have been fortunate enough to use it whenever we needed to over the past 3 years.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 30 minutes out side of the city, up in the hills of an area called Sammamish, just east of the city.\u00c2\u00a0 We also shot a a video there for More Ripley Less Darrow<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just an awesome place to play, write, and hang out.<\/p>\n

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Woah, that’s a lot of moving. And I say that as someone’s who’s moved, I think, nine times since 1998, or something like that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, I mean between dudes in the band that have been in other band, moving and traveling just kind of comes with the gig.\u00c2\u00a0 Some people are fortunate enough to start a band in their home town and never leave only to tour and record, we just haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t had that luxury.<\/p>\n

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“Wish I Could Be” and “More Ripley, Less Darrow” are so far my two favorite songs, MR,LD in particular because a) I appreciate a good ode to a self-rescuing princess but also b) it isn’t a simple song. The narrator sounds like he’s really wrestling with the issue. What can you tell me about those songs?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well all of the songs are written biographically and are situational of course.\u00c2\u00a0 There are metaphors all over the place. Geoffrey really puts the work in to tell a good story in a catchy way.\u00c2\u00a0 We really try write catchy fun songs but\u00c2\u00a0 at the time we also try to keep ourselves entertained while playing them, which in turn makes them a little complicated by nature.\u00c2\u00a0 There is a lot of pre-production that goes into our songs, and we try to write more songs that we will need for a record, so we can sort out the best of the material that we have at the time.\u00c2\u00a0 We are in the process of starting to write and demo some new tracks, [and] we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re very excited to see what will come out next.<\/p>\n

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Again and Again - More Ripley, Less Darrow OFFICIAL<\/div><\/div>
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