This Is Hell Interview
What usually happens when you want to relive memories, you go back into the archives of your CD collection and grab that disc, pop it in and wham the floods of memories come rushing back.
So It’s rare years later a newer band comes out with a disc that creates the same sensation. Long Island’s hardcore band THIS IS HELL brought back sentimental thoughts of days of me seeing hardcore bands like Biohazed. Their debut disc SUNDOWNING brings an old school New York style with hints of modern tones.
The band formed in 2004Â and after releasing some demos and EPS Trustkill Records signed them in 2005 and May of 2006 SUNDOWNING was out. This album has received numerous and impressive reviews from the States to Europe. Travis Reilly-vocals, Rick Jimenez-guitar, Chris Reynolds-guitar , Dan Bourke- drums and Johnny Moore- bass has brought a successful run with SUNDOWNING, with great tours, a video and now they are part of the Sounds Of The Underground.
After their Quick Set early in the afternoon, guitarist Rick and I headed outside into the sunshine and humidity in Worcester, MA to chat about the hardcore scene, the new material they are writing and some New York Yankees chit chat.
DID YOU START THE BAND OR DID YOU COME IN AFTERWARDS
I guess a bunch of us like….. three of the five of us now are original. When we first started the band, we were all in other bands and actually all our other bands started touring somewhat one summer and then after that tour, we decided to do this band full time. Some of us stayed on to start this band right away, some still had other bands still. Within the first two and half months of doing this band full time it was back to the original lineup anyway which was me, Travis and Dan are originals and then two other dudes who were in the Backup Plan were originals but either one of them are not in the band anymore and now we have John and Chris. John was in every band I’ve been in since I was 16 and Chris was in Scraps with Travis, so its almost like the same thing anyway.
HAD YOU GUYS TALKED ABOUT GETTING A BAND TOGETHER BEFORE YOU TOURED ALL TOGETHER IN OTHER BANDS
Yea we had always talked about maybe doing a side thing. We wanted to do something a little more straightforward because none of us at the time was doing anything as straightforward, it would be hardcore with a little bit of punk or metal and hardcore . So we did that and all the other bands kind of disappeared and pretty much all the go getters of each of the bands came into THIS IS HELL. So instead of half assing it in three different bands lets just do a band together. So it worked out well.
SO 2004 WAS THE OFFICIAL FORMATION.
Yes I think it was May. Then we recorded the demo in June and released it in July.
SO YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN DOING THIS ALL ON YOUR OWN. IS IT TRUE YOU WENT TO EUROPE ON YOUR OWN.
Yea we did on our demo that was self pressed and everything, we did 4 US tours a Canadian tour and a European tour. Then we did a whole other year of touring on our EP, that a label put out but even though the label put it out all they really did was give us money to record and made it so the CD existed but that was essentially it. It wasn’t like people could go to the store and buy it.They would have to go to a show even in NY people couldn’t get it unless they came out to see us play live. Then there was some limited Internet but essentially we had help with the recording budget.
WELL I READ STATEMENT FROM YOUR LABEL WHERE PEOPLE WERE IN IMPRESSED BY THE DIY ATTITUDE YOU GUYS HAD AND THE WORK ETHIC.
Yea, which is cool and I think we have been like that with all our bands. There was always one or two people holding back the other bands.
SO EVEN WITH THE HELP YOU GOT FOR PUTTING OUT SUNDOWNING DID YOU GUYS STILL STAY VERY CLOSE TO EVERYTHING HAPPENING
OH YEA…I’m such a control freak I’m not capable of letting anything get out of our hands. I know it drives everyone crazy but at least I know every little thing I do I back or otherwise I kind of feel shitty about it .
SO IF EVERYTHING GOES WRONG YOU DONT HAVE A ISSUE GETTING BLAMED FOR EVERYTHING. (LAUGHING)
I’m fine with that I would rather be accountable for something I put myself into.
YOU GUYS ARE A HARDCORE BAND. GROWING UP IN NEW YORK AND HAVING A HARDCORE SCENE AROUND YOU ALL THE TIME, IS THAT WHAT MADE YOU GUYS JUST SLIDE INTO WRITING AND PLAYING THIS TYPE OF MUSIC
I guess. Like before I discovered Hardcore and Punk I was a Metal dude. Not to say I’m not now but that is what I listened to growing up, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth. I think for metal in NY is probably one of the better places when I was growing up but there is not like a scene for metal like there is for hardcore. I think now its very similar and when I was growing up things were different, there wasn’t like the helpfulness that there is in hardcore in the metal scene. So just by wanting to do something at all I wound up finding out about hardcore and punk and it was more of what I relate to, like ethically and musically. NYC and Long Island had a really good hardcore scene. NYC is a little dead right now because there is so many shitty laws and there is no venues to play, its like impossible for people to play there and its even hard to play in Long Island now for the hardcore scene. We the band are from Long Island not NYC. So when I got introduce to the hardcore soon it was so easy to relate to and I felt like I fit. I still remember that moment that I saw SICK OF IT ALL and I was like this is it. This is what I have been working for years for. So once that happened I was like hardcore hardcore, hardcore, cause once I get fanatical about something I’m so into it…so it was like my life was consumed with hardcore.
WELL MY FIRST INITIAL REACTION TO YOUR ALBUM WAS THAT YOU GUYS HAD THAT BIOHAZARD OLD SCHOOL SOUND.
I’m so glad you said that but the rest of my band is going to hate it. But they are one of my favorite bands ever. When I first started into the scene I was more of the NYC hardcore then the Long Island scene and my other dudes were the opposite. But I was into Biohazard, Sick Of It All and even Helmet, those were the first few bands I listened to. I like when people hear that more NY feel in our music then just saying yea it sounds just like your modern hardcore band.
I THOUGHT OLD SCHOOL HARDCORE WITH A TWIST OF THE NEW.
Yea. that’s awesome.
SO LETS GET INTO THE VIDEO FOR THE POLYGRAPH CHEATERS
Yea that video was recorded in Sept. and it aired in Feb. So yeah, it has been out for sometime I think it was out on Headbangers Ball a couple of weeks in a row, which is cool cause if it was on once that’s fine. So us on Headbangers was like how I said I grew up on Metal and that is where I saw Anthrax for the first time. Cause before that show I knew about Metallica and Slayer but I learnt about Anthrax and Machinehead cause of seeing there videos. So for our video be played on it was like a goal in itself.
WELL I ALSO SAW YOU ON THE COMCAST ON DEMAND ALSO.
Yea I heard that I don’t have that but I think that is so cool to be on that too. I think videos are cool. I hate when people are like hardcore bands shouldn’t do videos. I love watching videos and when a hardcore band makes a video it just shows that they are working even harder then any other genre of music and its not marketable at all, there is no money to be made in hardcore like at all and I don’t care what anyone says. And to do a video doesn’t make you mainstream. I think any hardcore band has so much to say and to be able to express yourself like that on TV and not just live but also in a video, where other bands might be like we have to make this bullshit video, a hardcore band is not going to make a bullshit video.
DO YOU THINK YOUR VIDEO, THE CONTENT OF IT GOES ALONG WITH WHAT YOU GUYS WERE FEELING FOR THE SONG
To a certain extent, we wanted to make sure the video was something we backed and we were into but we didn’t want to do a literal, hey guys guess what this line means or have these actors act out this in this part, so we came up with a concept that we were totally into and then we talked to the dudes that were doing the video because we were not video people and they were like well this will work a little better and etc etc. So working together we had so many different versions of it that it was cool. But as a band we were into every single part of the video. Even in editing we went through and asked for changes and everything and the directors were so cool. They were so patient and they wanted us to be happy so the ending came out that we were totally happy with every single frame of the video. I feel like it comes across that we are a hardcore band that are doing stuff that isn’t always typical hardcore things but its almost like the definition of hardcore which is your not going to let anybody kind of tell you what to do at any point and people respect that from us . We kind of cross over and do things that aren’t hardcore and we never give up. That’s what I think is the best thing about this band.
HAVE YOU TALKED ABOUT DOING ANOTHER VIDEO
Probably one for the new album. Cause after this tour we go home and do a new album then before that comes out we go to Europe so essentially that tour and this tour is the wrap up of this album. So we wont be doing another video for a song on this album. But first album one video was a goal for me and then getting it actually played is such a big deal to me
WHAT IS YOUR PROUDEST MOMENT OF THE CD
Honestly I think when the album was totally done and we got the mastered version of it
WELL TO PUT A QUICK NOTE IN FOR ME I THINK THE ALBUM FLOWS VERY WELL ALSO
Well we wrote the album to be a ALBUM opposed to be just a bunch of songs and throw them together. We wrote it to be one complete thought. I think the first time I listened to it all the way through It pretty much summed up everything I wanted it to be like when it starts off super fast aggressive and so in your face and then the way it ends so dramatic that was like the story of how it was suppose to go. I wanted it to make sense to me but the translation to other people I want to make sure it made sense. So when I finally heard it all the way through and it did that I was so excited. At that point it didn’t matter what anyone else thought. the first thing ever is I want to make sure I am happy overall. This was the album I was trying to write for 5 or 6 years.
SO YOUR WORKING ON NEW STUFF HAVE YOU WRITTEN NEW STUFF
We just did a demo of one new song that is going onto Trustkill Takeover Comp and we did two covers cause we had studio time so we decided to record them , and we have been demoing just for ourselves. I think we are two or three songs done with writing for the new album. Its cool cause we have two new members on board for this writing process so we are defiantly not re-writing the first album
BUT YOUR STAYING IN THE HARDCORE GENRE
Yea I mean it sounds like THIS IS HELL writing a new album. We really didn’t change our style but we do have two new musicians in the band and of course we are going to progress a little more. We didn’t focus on writing a story on this album but at the same time I don’t think I have as much fun just writing songs as I do when I know this song is going into this song etc etc. I’m so into giving the fast and aggressive but also adding some thrash and mosh, like everything has to have a balance for me and a reason we are doing it.
SO LYRICALLY YOU ARE GOING SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT
Well like I said with the two new guys in the band writing
SO ALL OF YOU GUYS WRITE
well kind of. Well our main lyric writer was our old bass player but our new bass player has become our principal lyric writer. But to answer your question we all have our hands in with writing the music but we do have main songwriters but everyone has to be happy with it as well or its not fun. But lyrically it still has pattern to each other but it doesn’t have one underlying theme. Like the last album was sort of a concept but not on the level of like Queensryche, Operation Mindcrime. And with this I think its somewhat like last album but not as direct.
OKIE SO DID YOU GUYS EVER RELEASE THAT SPLIT EP WITH THE CANCER BATS
We recorded it but its not out yet. The dude who is putting that out is like super busy. He was tour managing and doing merch for He Is Legend and then he got a job in Cali and moved to LA and now he is booking bands but he is still going to do it. I’m pretty sure it will be out before the end of the year. Each of the bands did one new song and then we covered each others songs.
SO BEING FROM NY AND SEEING THE TAT. I KNOW YOUR A YANKEES FAN AS AM I WITH MY TATTOO ALSO. DO YOU THINK THEY ARE GOING TO MAKE IT.
HELL YEA GIRL THAT ROCKS WITH THE TAT. EHHHH.. I don’t know I hope but I mean its hard for me to say cause since we left on tour I really haven’t seen one game so. I talked to Pyke last night and he was sure to let me know that the Yankees suck but he is from Boston he has to say that
WELL IM FROM BOSTON AND IM AGAINST THAT (LAUGHING)
Well you and Pyke can get into it then. But Boggs was a much better Yankee and so is Roger Clemens then they were Sox, so whatever
DO YOU HAVE ANY LAST COMMENTS
I don’t know. We do a moderate amount of touring, I guess a lot for the style of music we are and we do a lot of stuff that isn’t somewhat typical hardcore stuff which is super frustrating some times. On a lot of levels I am a hardcore snob. I see myself saying like this place is really big and there’s barriers and there is a stage and there’s like monitors and stuff, anything that kind of gets in the way of like me getting in the kids face and them getting in my face kind of like super, kind of like primal exchange, that kind of bums me out sometimes.
But I really enjoy playing in front of, like playing today in front of twenty hardcore kids and like five hundred metal kids. I kind of like that because metal kids don’t always know about hardcore but you know hardcore kids don’t always know about metal. I know it’s kind of frustrating to the hardcore kids some times, they are like oh, I want to see your band but I don’t want to pay twenty five dollars and not be able to enjoy it. Right there, I think so many hardcore kids get in the same mind because I do that like if they can’t have that super up close hardcore feel, they don’t even want to go to the show, I totally understand it, I’m kind of like that too but I appreciate it when those kids will still come see us when we play hard-core shows and when those kids come see us at not hardcore shows also, that’s like so cool. It’s such a pain in the ass.
So, I appreciate it when our fans sort of deal with it and show support for us when we do other type of stuff like. So for us to do Sounds Of The Underground which is so not like a typical hardcore show, it has it’s moments and it’s cool for us to like play in front of other kids and exposing kids to hardcore. My goal, some times, is to make somebody feel like how Sick Of It All made me feel when I saw them. I appreciate any metal kid that gets into us even someone who saw us on like the Glassjaw shows or Lost Prophets shows so it’s cool, hopefully different kind of kids that like us can kind like be cool with each other and be cool with the fact that we do other things regardless of what we do. Like I said we kind of like to do things that are not typical hardcore things. Tours like this or you know different videos.
ALL RIGHT.
That’s it, I guess, check out my other band SOLDIERS, they are going on tour in August and we have a CD coming out on a label which I don’t want to talk about right now because they’re not paying for our recordings right now yet, if they do pay for it then I will let people know what label it is. WWW.MYSPACE.COM/SOLDIERSNY
July 26th, 2007 at 4:37pm
[...] This is Hell guitarist Rick Jimenez sat down for a video interview talking about typical band [...]