One of Europe’s biggest hardcore happenings, the Persistence Tour, kicked off last Friday. What better occasion to hook up with Evergreen Terrace, who are touring all over Europe alongside Ignite, Biohazard, Agnostic Front, Walls Of Jericho, Death By Stereo and No Turning Back, and ask them a couple of questions. After all they also have a brand new and simply awesome album called “Almost Home” that came out just a few months ago. So – guitarist and cool clean vocals guy Josh James is good enough to answer:
- The main reason to do this with you guys now is the Persistence tour in Europe you’re doing with some of the most insanely big names in the genre. And this is the second time you’re a part of this tour, as far as I know. What was your previous experience like?
- Europe is always awesome to us. The last time we did Persistence was in 2007, the shows were amazing, some of the biggest club shows we have ever played. The bands were great, the crew was great and the crowds were great. We expect nothing less this time around. We have toured with Ignite, Agnostic Front and Walls of Jericho before so we are excited to be reunited with those friends of ours and are looking forward to meeting and watching the other bands.
- Are you doing the tour with Kyle on drums, or there is still a substitute filling in for him?
- After tons of surgeries and a lot of stress, Kyle is now back with us and will be playing drums on Persistence!
- One of the bands on the bill, No Turning Back, just did their own headline show in Bulgaria. Have you heard them and what do you think about them?
- Yes, I have heard of them. We have actually played with No Turning Back a few times, they seemed to be a great band and put on a great show. We are sharing a bus with them so hopefully they will have the shitty sense of humor that we do and don't get offended by too many of our pranks and games, ha.
- How does touring in the USA and Europe compare to each other?
- I think they are very different. Europe always feels like a little bit more of a vacation for us, ha. We take care of everything in the states, all organizing the tours but in Europe we have a solid crew from MAD Booking that we can trust and that takes off a lot of stress. We have a lot more down time in Europe, which is great. I usually take that time to explore the local culture of wherever we are playing. Plus the crowds in Europe really know how to set it off!!! Always stoked to play for the Euros.
- So, about the album - “Almost Home” is probably the freshest sounding metalcore album I’ve heard in quite a while. It came out over a month ago, so I figure you guys are piled with feedback already – what is the reaction to it so far? Mostly positive or mostly negative?
- Mostly positive. All the fans seemed to be pumped on the record. We just started playing some of the new songs on our last tour in the states and if the reaction in Europe is anything like the reaction in the states then these shows are going to be sick.
Dude, I'm pretty sure that ain't the microphone...
Photo taken from the band's MySpace page
- What do you think sets that record apart from the rest of your discography?
- It's a cleared record. From the sound quality to the song quality. You can listen to this record and hear where we have matured and grown as musicians.
- About the last song on the album “Not Good Enough” – was putting it there your own weird way of making sure if the record was a huge failure, you’d still be like “well, we told you so”, or something like that?
- Haha. No, we did that with the title of the B side and live record called "At Our Worst". That was title was not a joke, ha.
- As far as the pop culture references go – I myself am all about The Simpsons and Family Guy and what not, but do you think most people outside of the USA really get them?
- I've never thought about it. We really never think about if people will get the pop culture reference, we do it to make ourselves laugh.
- In this day and age when the USA and actually the whole world’s economy is crumbling, how does that affect a band. I mean record sales wise, also attendance at shows etc.?
- When you look at it from a business perspective being in a band is being a part of the entertainment business. The first thing that people cut out of their lives when they are having financial problems is entertainment. If the fans suffer, the bands suffer. It's that simple. Record sales, merch sales, show attendance, it's all affected. It sucks, but all we can do is try to keep our prices low, put on a good show and still make good music.
- Your band isn’t shy of making its views clear, judging by your one song where you kind of already made it clear what you think of nihilism. I was wondering where you stand on anarchy, though? And what about straight edge and veganism?
- Anarchy = chaos = problems.
Straight Edge = me = personal choice.
Veganism = my girlfriend's dad = main character in the "Chaney Can't Quite Riff Like Helmet's Page Hamilton" video.
- I can’t help ask you about “Writer’s Block”. See, I myself used to be in a metalcore band a few years ago and we all in the band were die-hard fans of The Offspring. But in the same time all the kids at the shows and the bands we toured with were full on hardcore and despised that band. So, I was meaning to ask – did it take balls to cover a band that is so far away musically from what you guys play? And what was the reception of that cover?
- We covered "Maniac" by Michael Sembello, that is a lot farther musically than The Offspring. When we did “Writer’s Block”, we really didn't think if people would like the songs we chose or not, we just thought of if we liked them. Originally, “Writer's Block” was going to be a 5 song EP, but about a week before we entered the studio the record label told us it had to be a full length or it wouldn't be release, so we threw 4 more songs together very quickly so we could meet the quota. The Offspring was 1 of those songs. We have never played that song live, but every once in a while someone will request it.
More info:
Official band MySpace
The photo at the very top is by Face The Show.
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