I recently met Moonteeth’s merch guy at a Silent Planet show a few days ago and we hit it off, shooting the shit. Moonteeth’s guitarist, Jay, came out and we spoke a bit. I showed up too late to catch their set unfortunately, but I took down their Instagram and headed to the pit. Strangely, when checking their Instagram, they're followed by another band we know, Recalibrater. I figured this was some sort of serendipitous fate. A day or two later I shot them a message to get in touch. They ended up emailing over an unreleased song, ‘King In Yellow’, and I was locked in.
After letting them know I got the song in my mailbox, I was hit with “Be honest about the song, straight up tell us if you’re not into it.” This made me laugh because it absolutely slaps, but I appreciated the humbleness of it all. Their sound is reminiscent of bands like Convictions, The Wise Man’s Fears, and Erra. Right up my alley. The first thing that stuck out to me immediately was the production value. When I asked about it, turns out it was two dudes they know from other local bands that recorded it. That in and of itself makes me happy. I’m super jazzed to hear that Salt Lake City has a good local music scene. And that everyone is willing to help create something bigger than themselves.
An issue that tends to plague a lot of metal bands is not utilizing the power of silence, and empty spaces. There’s plenty of bands that are a nuclear blast to your face that never relents. Surely, there’s a time and place, but I prefer clever use of dynamics. At first glance at the waveform, before even hitting play, I knew I was in for a treat. The first 30 seconds of ‘King In Yellow’ opens up heavy. Leading up to a full break, nothing but vocals, ready to slam you back in. After that, it’s a heavy stroll up to a lush chorus of clean vocals, dropping into a dirt nasty dissonant bridge. Like I said: slaps.
At the time of writing this, Moonteeth hasn’t officially released any music online. I am one of the lucky few to hear this track before anyone else. Jay let me know they have an EP fully recorded. And I am absolutely going to attempt to pry some more songs out of them before this interview is over.
So, let’s start with introductions, who are you guys?
Moonteeth is a 5-piece metalcore band based out of Salt Lake City, UT. We're just a bunch of California kids, plus Jake the native, who all moved here and started playing music together.
Your Instagram is only 4 months old at this point, how long have you guys been playing together?
The idea of Moonteeth started in California but we started forming in 2017. After a few lineup changes, we finally have our full-time members and we have been playing since February of 2021.
Were any of you in other bands before Moonteeth?
All of us have played in other bands and have stage experience. We all have played similar music which is what drew us together.
What is the metal scene like in Utah?
There are so many good bands here in Utah. Since most of us are from California, we know what the metal scene used to be like and what it is now (dead). But it seems to be alive and well here with extremely loyal fans and super friendly bands - which is not really something we're used to.
How have you been promoting the band without any music online?
We have been trying to play as many shows as we can and just trying to spread our name by word of mouth, which has seemed to work better than expected.
What’s the reception been like at shows?
AWESOME! We're lucky that the fans have been as awesome as they have been and we're excited to see that we have a rowdy crowd when we play.
You have an EP releasing soon, titled ‘The Host’, can you give us any insight into that?
We started writing these songs in 2017 so we're excited to finally have them released. We think that the songs have a good balance of everything you look for in metalcore. Pretty cleans, and heavy breakdowns.
What is the writing process like, where do you guys find inspiration for subject matter?
Our lyrics take a lot from our own personal lives and we try to convey how we are feeling in those moments without being super direct. We do this specifically to let the listener have their own interpretation of what they hear. Regarding instruments, we take a lot of influence from the bands we listened to growing up and try to translate that to today's version of metalcore.
What was the recording process like?
Long and fraught with peril. Haha.. JK
We were lucky that we found Hector and Baylor. They took us in as their first project and they have been nothing but super helpful and patient.
They work at our speed and make sure they push us when they know we can do better.
What do you want fans to find in your music?
We just want people to listen to us have a good time doing it... while also punching their friends in the face.
Now let’s get a little personal here. What advice would you give to someone reading this who may be depressed or suicidal right now?
This hits home for us because we all have experienced serious situations that have put us through the ringer. All we can say is don't stay quiet. Reach out. make yourself heard because bottling up emotions is dangerous.
Always remember that you do matter. As hard as it is to believe sometimes. We know it's hard to see the positives in such a dark place.
Whatever you're going through - let yourself suffer and feel the pain so that you can heal and move forward stronger. YOU. GOT. THIS!
How has depression or suicidal ideation directly affected your guys’ lives?
Everyone in the band has someone close who has either tried to commit suicide or has succeeded. It's a hard feeling. You always find yourself on the fence of being angry, sad, and understanding.
it sucks to see your friends take their own lives and it sucks to see your friends suffer... you almost feel hopeless because you just want to be there for them and it's hard to feel that sometimes it's not always enough.
What’s next for Moonteeth? You’re building a lot of momentum right now, any big projects coming up?
We're planning on releasing The Host EP and play as many shows as we can. We want to make a big dent in this Utah metalcore scene so keep an eye out for us!
Lastly, can you send me more music?? It’ll be our secret, scout’s honor.
We’ll send you a song that we don’t plan on releasing in the near future. We'll link it to your email ;)
You can find more Moonteeth at the links below! Thank you for hanging out with us for this interview. And a big thank you to Moonteeth for taking the time to speak with us. If you would like to get featured, or know someone who does, reach us on our social media. Or email us directly at: Contact@therduneclothing.com to share!
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From the bloody trenches of Austin, Texas, I happily introduce you to today's band: Ties. A hard hitting, five-piece band of brothers. Ties have recently released a self-titled EP, let’s take a deep dive. The opening track ‘You Will Never Die’ starts off with overarching clean vocals above crispy guitar chords. Then the floor falls out from under you, and you find yourself buried deep under Ashton Satchwell’s guttural lows. We’re brought up again to catch a breath with another clean section, before getting tossed back down into the pit. A heavy hitter no doubt.
The second track 'Surround Yourself' begins somberly. Slowly, Jeff Gonzalez’s drums begin to take focus and shape. Picking up speed. Until we meet a break, bathed in lows once again until fade out. This all leads us to the third and final track 'Transitions'. A track I would consider to be the crown jewel of the EP. It comes out kicking and screaming, opening up to a fantastic chorus. A haunting backing track of group vocals lays the groundwork for a single, mournful statement. “These years, they got away, they got away from me”
Needless to say, I’m pretty hooked. And that’s only their latest three tracks. Their 2017 release “Departure” is full of elbow-throwers. The first track ‘Entanglement' is a suitable introduction. Building and building until it bubbles over into a distorted cacophony, which bleeds into the intro of their second track 'Silver Tongue'. Then it all collapses into silence before Ashton slaps you across the face once more. He seems to like doing that.
All in all, Ties is a very powerful band, and reminds me of a version of early 20s I wish I’d had. Or maybe I did, in my own way. Someone needs to tell these guys to get a show in Vegas so I can throw hands after this Covid crap blows over.
Alright, let’s get the introductions going, who are you guys?
We are a band of friends that grew up listening to early 2000s post-hardcore bands like: Poison The Well, Glassjaw, Hopesfall, Thrice etc. And wanted to start a band influenced by that era. David, Zach, Antonio and myself (Ashton) have been playing together for several years (since 2014) We recently added Jeff as the new drummer to our band earlier this year. He has fit in with us perfectly and has helped to elevate our songwriting.
You recently released your self-titled EP, how has the reception been?
So far, the reception has been amazing. We have been kind of quiet for the last couple of years so it feels good to finally get some new music out there, and it’s even better to get the positive responses that we’ve been hearing. We really feel as a band that we are writing the best music we’ve ever created, and the validation from listener feedback has been awesome.
I see that the guitarist Zach Kimmel did the recording and mixing, how is the process doing everything in-house like that?
It was a great experience and something very familiar for us. Zach has very capably handled recording and mixing our demos since the very beginning of this band. We decided this time to experiment with doing a real release all on our own. The process was great and it was so easy to make changes and shape the sound of the EP together throughout the whole process. The result of this effort is something that we are all extremely happy with and I think it turned out better than we even thought it would. All that being said, we will probably never do a release on our own again as it is just too much work for Zach to do alone.
What is the recording set up like? Is it living room jamming?
We rent a space here in Austin. Jeff is a legit drummer and does videos all the time, so his drums are always set up with mics, which makes demoing super easy. Tone (Antonio) sends a line out from his amp to Jeff’s interface, and then David and Zach’s guitars are mic'ed and those go into this little Zoom recorder we’ve had for a few years. The easy demo setup lets us evaluate songs before we record for real, and lets us hear any kinks that need to get worked out.
For recording this last project, we started with recording Jeff’s drums while he listened to a scratch track, and we just built on top of that. We recorded Tone’s cab in parallel with his SansAmp and clean signal, which gave us a lot of options for mixing the different sounds together—we’re really happy with how that bass turned out. David and Zach recorded at Zach’s house with an all-mic setup, and then Ashton recorded at Zach’s house too over a couple days.
What software and hardware are you running?
Jeff: Tama B/B kit with Meinl cymbals, Samson drum mic pack into a Scarlett 18i20 interface
Antonio: For this record, I used a Jericho Alpha bass with DiMarzio Model P/J pickups. Next in the chain was a Radial Pro DI to get the clean signal. After that was my trusty AmpTweaker Bass TightDrive Jr. Following this was a SansAmp BDDIv2 going straight to the board, in parallel with an Ampeg PF-50T through a Bergantino NV610, mic’d with an AKG D112.
David: Bogner Uberschall custom 100W head; Orange 2x12 cab; Musicman with Fishman fluence pickups
Zach: Friedman Runt 50 running through a Mesa 2x12 cab; Telecaster HH with Gibson SG pickups
We recorded the whole project in Logic Pro X.
How stoked are you guys to play a live show again?
We can’t wait for the world to hopefully go back to near normal soon so that we can play a live show. Playing songs you write live is the other half of the creative process. We’ve been hunkered down in our practice space for months crafting these songs and now that we’ve finally got them on a recording, it’s so frustrating to be unable to play them for a live audience. We’ve done a live-streamed show in the past that was pretty fun so we are looking into the possibility of doing something like that again soon, if nothing else.
What was the music scene like in Austin prior to Covid?
It’s probably not too surprising to hear that, prior to Covid, the Austin music scene was very active and healthy. There were changes happening prior to the pandemic though with investors forcing out small venues downtown in order to build new stuff which I’d imagine is a struggle for other cities with an exploding population. It’s not like it used to be but this city still loves music! There are definitely some unique challenges in particular for a post-hardcore band though. We’ve always been kind of a niche genre in our local music scene and fitting ourselves into a show lineup can be difficult. Most of the time we’ve ended up playing with metal or hardcore bands that are much heavier than us, or we play with bands that are not as heavy as our music and we kind of stick out. I think we’ve enjoyed occupying this space though and it’s allowed us to get our music out to some people that may have never listened otherwise. We are also lucky to have some great local bands with us in the hardcore/metal community that have really helped create a growing ‘underground’ scene.
How has being in a band been these past few months during the lockdowns?
I mean it’s been a little weird. We were never the kind of band that had a show every week, but to not even have the option at least a couple times a month…that was a struggle at first. And it wasn’t even so much about us as just feeling for the other bands out there, the ones that actually do this full-time and rely on live shows to survive. It’s just heartbreaking that this time has been such a struggle for so many talented and passionate people. But it did get us to focus on writing and recording. I think having these songs to work on and perfect and record really helped us keep our heads right and keep away from despair. Having a goal, having something to work towards has been really important for us over the last six months.
Have you lost any venues due to covid?
Oh yeah. Unfortunately we know a few venues were forced to close, and a couple of those were ones we played at kind of a lot. Dirty Dog Bar, Skull Mechanix, and Barracuda were all local venues that were super supportive of heavy music that have closed permanently. Hopefully we still have some left after all this.
The self-titled EP has some dark overtones, what’s the inspiration or story behind the album?
Yeah, this EP definitely touches on some dark content but I also think that it has some positivity too that relates to the reason that this is our self-titled release. The overall inspiration for the theme of this release came from a story that I (Ashton) listened to on NPR about how middle-aged men in particular frequently become isolated in their later years. This is due to a lack or meaningful friendships or relationships that can be compounded by romantic relationship issues. Due to this, there has been a rising trend in depression/suicide among this demographic. This story hit me even harder when a family acquaintance who seemingly fit this description perfectly took his own life. These three songs deal with various personal circumstances of mine but that issue was always on my mind while compiling these songs.
The first track, ‘You Will Never Die’ deals with the death of my friend a few years ago due to cancer. At a song level it is just about that event, but in a broader sense this is a contributing reason to why men can end up alone. Sometimes we are powerless to the loss of our friends. The second song, ‘Surround Yourself’ is really the song that highlights the overall theme of ending up alone. It was inspired by several of my personal relationships with close friends who are now states away. With time and distance, these relationships become strained and you gradually become more isolated. The last song, ‘Transitions’ is more about what I do to isolate myself from friends and family because we absolutely play a role in our own isolation. Like I said earlier though, there is a redemptive message in ‘Surround Yourself’. To quote the lyrics, “The truth is we are not alone, and I was never on my own. We have to lift each other up, we are not alone”. How do you combat loneliness? Ties to others. This is why this EP project was the perfect self-titled release for us. We value the ties between each other and those important to us.
What would you say to someone reading this if they were suicidal or depressed?
Reach out to whoever you have in your life! We all need to be better about checking in on each other during this pandemic lock down as we are all more isolated. Your life has value to more people than you probably even know. I assume that music is important to whoever would be reading this, and music is such a great catalyst to get the emotional work done in order to end up in a better place. Hold tight to the records and the songs that lift your spirits, bring you strength, allow you catharsis, etc. Music is such an invaluable resource when you feel alone and depressed.
What do you want fans to take away from your music?
We want fans to take whatever away whatever appeals most to them. We write these songs hoping that there’s a little bit for every kind of listener. Maybe there are people out there who grew up in the same era when post-hardcore was at its peak and they can enjoy a fresh take on a nostalgic genre. Or maybe there are fans who can appreciate the instrumental intricacies that went into the songwriting. Maybe there are fans who can relate to the emotion of our lyrics and vocal style. Whatever it is, we’re just happy to share what we love to do and witness it bring some type of enjoyment to others, especially in these difficult times. Our music is extremely important to us but when it becomes important to others, it takes on a whole new life.
I know that we’re hot off the heels of the self-titled EP, but do you have anything else coming down the pipeline?
Hell yes. After we finished recording Departure in early 2017, we immediately started writing again and ended up with enough material for two short projects. We released this first one as a group because they reflected a certain theme and writing style; we’re scheduled to hit the studio next month to record the next batch of songs. We’re excited about the self-titled project, but we’re REALLY looking forward to getting this next EP out there. Going back to a studio, recording everything in like a week, all being together and hanging out—that’s an experience we missed a little bit with this last project and we’re excited to get back into that. Plus, these next songs are really different for us in a lot of ways; it’ll be a whole other beast.
Catch Ties at the links down below! Thank you for hanging out with us for this interview. If you would like to get featured, or know someone who does, reach us on our social media, or email us directly at: Contact@therduneclothing.com to share!
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