The music scene in L.A. has always been a hot spot for new talent. It seems like so many bands are linked with that notorious city as they chased after their dream of superstardom. It’s always been a very competitive market throughout the years and times really haven’t changed much. With all the competition, it may feel like a dog-eat-dog world out there and your band’s wearing Milkbone underwear. Well, Before The Mourning is not intimidated by that competition out there as they set their sights on taking their game to the next level.
The band is comprised of lead singer Adam Ryan, guitarist Nikki Stringfield, guitarist Johnny “JD” Death, bassist Kyle Mayer and drummer Phil Gonyea. Their EP Remembrance got quite a few people to stand up and take notice of this band on the rise. Honest and angry lyrics combined with intricate riffs have garnered them a loyal following as they begin work on the follow-up to that EP. I recently caught up with lead singer Adam Ryan as he was about to enter the studio to work on some new tracks. He caught me up to speed on all things Before The Mourning.
Hey Adam, thanks for sitting down to talk with us today. I hope I didn’t interrupt your studio time. Can you give us a quick history on how the band came together?
Hey Johnny, no man, we’re good. Let’s see: the two guys who really put all of this together were our drummer Phil and our guitar player JD. JD and I had been in a band prior to this one for about five years called Death Pilot that eventually turned into a band called The Kill Corps. He and I got signed to Virgin Records and then we were dropped and we all sort of went our separate ways. Phil was in another band called Instinctive of Aggression around that same time. We had all been in the music scene around the same time so we all knew each other, but never really met each other. So, when all of our bands fell apart JD and Phil teamed up and started writing what was eventually the first song that we all wrote cohesively as a band “Dismembered.” They had written the music for it and started looking for people to get a new band together. JD had met our other guitar player Nikki at NAMM that year and got her on board, so the band was all put together before I was asked to come in on it. They were looking for someone to sing and JD remembered me and wondered what I was doing at the time. Luckily, I wasn’t doing anything and JD contacted me and sent over the music and I really liked it. So, I guess that’s how we all came together; I think it was roughly around Christmas time of 2011.
It’s not very often that you come across a band whose name is also the title of one of their songs and videos. So, which came first, the song or the band name?
The band name actually came first and I came up with that. It came from really what I was feeling at the time. Basically, I had asked a girl to marry me and she said yes and then a week later she said no, then my uncle passed away and all of that made me reflect on the better parts of life before I started to think about how sad everything was at the moment. I wrote the song after we came up with the name and it’s all about remembering the better parts of life before feeling bad about all of the bad stuff that happens.
That’s deep! I don’t think much more can be said there! Let’s move on to another topic: I thought it was interesting that in this day and age of illegal downloading posing such a problem to artists and the industry, you guys chose to give your EP away for free. Tell our readers why you decided to do that.
The main reason was that we are a new band and we are really proud of those three songs, so we just wanted to get our music out there to the people. You know, whether it’s the right way or wrong way, people are going to get the music somehow. Our main focus was just to get the music out there. We also took the time to actually create a physical CD with art and graphics for people who support music the way they should and want to purchase an actual album. In the end, we just wanted to get our music out there and keep building on the band’s momentum and get people to help spread our music around. I think giving it away for free shows that you want people to hear it and spread it around and by doing so, it makes it readily accessible to anyone so that can happen.
When did you guys officially release that EP?
Remembrance was recorded in June of 2012 and it came out on August 9.
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Did you guys self-produce it?
The thing about us is that we all live in the same house and we have a studio in there. We primarily do everything in-house, including pre-production and getting it to sound as good as we could. We then took it to our friend Jeff Hannan from Mid City Sound and he did all the engineering on it and gave it all the little tweaks that got it to where it needed to be, and then sent it out for mastering.
How have things changed for the band since releasing the EP?
It did really well when we first dropped it. We pressed 2,000 copies of it and we have very little left. We went to shows of bands that we appreciated and liked and did the guerilla style thing where we gave it out there to people. It got us a lot of attention and the band is definitely, musically, beyond where we were for those three songs. We’ve been working really hard and we have twelve new songs; we’re basically writing the full length album right now. The EP worked out really well and it did what we needed it to do and that was to spread the word and our music around.
Great segue! How did you know my next question was going to be about recording the next album? What’s the plan on that?
Right now, we’re writing as many songs as we can and we’ll sit down and pick four of five that we feel are the strongest. Over the last year, we’ve gotten management for us and it’s John Boecklin who plays drums for Devil Driver and we’ve been working closely with him on these new songs to hear his input. We’re on the hunt right now looking as far as looking for anyone who is interested in giving us a shot. We’re a hungry band who wants to tour and basically do our music out on the road. We’ll start shopping those four or five songs around to see if we get any interest. The plan is to get the whole album written and ready to record for anyone who’s out there who will hopefully pick us up.
Who has inspired the band? Who would you say are your influences?
For me personally, I am a big fan of the Swedish melodic death metal type of bands such as Soilwork and In Flames. I just love that combination of super heavy guitars and brutal verses, mixed with the really clean epic choruses. Growing up, I was a big Metallica fan and Rob Zombie/White Zombie. Dave Grohl is another one of my musical heroes, I find that he is one of the few, true rock and roll guys that are left. Killswitch Engage was probably the very first band that got me into the mix of really heavy and really clean vocals and that was the Howard Jones era. As far as the rest of the band, the influences are all over the place from Pantera to Avenged Sevenfold.
I am sure your love of Swedish death metal helped to form your own vocal style.
Oh, definitely! I feel like those bands, even with their aggressive tones, are able to treat the tone in the note and I really like that. I think Anders and Bjorn through In Flames and Soilwork, those guys do it perfectly. Also, Soilwork‘s clean vocals and Scar Symmetry, they go from something so ugly into something so beautiful with their big clean choruses.
You guys had a line-up change not too long ago and you lost a bassist, but you have announced Kyle Mayer as your new member. How was that process in finding a bassist who clicked with the three of you?
The nice thing about Kyle is that we’ve known him for quite some time. He was the drummer in The Kill Corps, the band that I was signed with. He was in some other bands and we always stayed in contact. He’s been coming to all of the Before The Mourning shows since the beginning. He couldn’t figure out why we didn’t have hundreds of people wanting to play bass for us. We played a show in February and he was there and he told us that he would love to try out with us. I mean, he’s a drummer, so I didn’t even think that he would be interested in playing bass with us. He learned the EP in a day and he went above and beyond what he needed to do, but it showed us that he was serious and hungry about it.
What kind of insight can you give our readers who are anxious to hear your new stuff that you are working on? Give them a little tease as to what’s in store.
I wish we could release some of the new stuff that we’re working on because it’s a lot more energetic and upbeat as far as the music goes, but it’s still very angry. It’s actually a lot angrier than the EP was and it’s definitely a lot more upbeat. The direction that we’re going is a little bit different than the EP, but I really think that people are going to get into it. It’s going to be great music to lose yourself in for 35 to 40 minutes and come to a show and let off some aggression.
I know I speak for a lot of people out there who are waiting anxiously for that new material. I wish you guys the best of luck with shopping it around. I’m sure that it’s going to reach the desk of the right person. Keep us in the loop with what’s going on with that new album. I know you need to get back to practice, so we’ll wrap this up.
You got it man! Thanks again for wanting to talk to us and we want to thank all of our fans for their support. I think they are going to be surprised by the new stuff we’re working on and we can’t wait to get it to them.
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