Interview

HOT CROSS

Dimanche 4 mars 2007

1.Actually, in our part of the country...diy screamo hardcore is not well known. So could you present the band and its actual discography?

Well, here's a short history of Hot Cross - Greg and I have been friends forever. We always wanted to do a band together and through our old bands and Greg's label (Level Plane) we knew a bunch of amazing musicians that we'd befriended over the years. We played with our friend Adam Marino for a bit, but his other band was really busy. We hooked up with Casey and Josh and Billy was the final piece. We've had the same lineup since the band started playing shows and recording... so it's been the same people for like 5 or so years. Josh had a lot of personal stuff happening and he has been getting a lot more work as a recording engineer, so it got to a point where he couldn't really tour anymore so he stepped out. We discussed getting another guitarist for a little bit, but to be honest, we all work well together. We understand each others' quirks and personalities, so it would seem weird bringing another person on board who hasn't been along with the rest of us all this time. From a musical standpoint, I like playing in a 4-piece band... there's a lot more space that what I'm playing isn't stepping all over someone else's part. I also get more of the stage to myself so I don't have to risk konking Billy on the head with my bass.

As for our discography (yes, this is lifted straight from our website)

"A New Set of Lungs" 10"/CDEP - Our debut EP. Most of this was written before Billy came into the picture (he was studying abroad in England) but listening to this, you'd never know. 7 songs, all written in about 3 months and banged out one weekend in Washington DC. This record was fun, fast and a little rough around the edges, but a few of these songs are still in our live set.

"split 7"/CDEP with Light the Fuse and Run" - 2 songs from each band and the digital version has some videos of us in Germany and Light the Fuse looking all professional-like. "The Eye is a Tricky Machine" is still a staple of our live set and the best Light the Fuse track is on the flipside. The vinyl is long gone, but they were on orange, red, clear and mostly black. Also, due to mastering snafus, some were released with Hot Cross on both sides, with side b being the shitty mastering job that we rejected. Our then distributor had already assembled about 100 or so, so they just stuffed the correct version of the 7" in with the dooty one and a few confused chaps thought this was a double 7". Some people think that these versions are neat and collectable, but we chalk them up as a fuck up. Use that hot cross 7" as a frisbee.

"Cryonics" CD/LP - Our debut LP which was a little more controlled than "A New Set of Lungs". Getting drum sounds for this thing was a pain. Actually, getting ALL the sounds was a pain and while we were recording this a space shuttle blew up, which seems a fitting omen. We've only played Dissertation: 14 once live and probably won't ever again since we've since shuffled the lineup a bit. Half of the now unavailable vinyl version was on a sweet baby blue and the other half was black. We hate the way this record sounds although we still like the songs. Only a couple of these tunes get played live anymore, which is a shame.

"Fair Trades and Farewells" 12"/CDEP - Recorded entirely by ourselves, (well, mainly Josh, with lots of assistance and love from Andrew "Fadooz" Frankel) this is our first recording with the new(ish) lineup of Josh and Matt switching to guitar and bass respectively. This was a learning experience and a first for us, but it turned out pretty bad-ass all things considered and while it stands up to our earlier material sonically, I think that our songwriting has improved by leaps and bounds. Some of the vinyl is on blue and gray split.

split 7" with Lickgoldensky - Tour only 7" with our favorite road-buddies Lickgoldensky that was made for our joint tour in the summer of '04. These guys are complete assholes for breaking up. 2 songs from each band and ours were 2 that were from the same session as the split with Light the Fuse and Run. Both these songs were supposed to be rerecorded for Cryonics, but "A Voice Turned Vacant" didn't make the cut, wheras a different version of "Patience and Prudence" appears here. I like my guitar parts better on here, and this version is a little rawer and faster. 500 pressed, 100 on white vinyl, 400 on clear. This shit is gone, sorry.

split 7" with the Holy Shroud - This is a split with our tour compatriots, The Holy Shroud. This has one of our personal favorite songs on it, and the Shroud definitely gives us a run for our money with
their own, "make you shit blood, it's so good" track. 100 of these are on wacky blue and white "pie" 4-way split vinyl. Another 300 or so are on clear vinyl with a blob of black in the middle. My inner record dork is happy that these variations exist. The remainder of the domestic press are on black vinyl. The Euro press is all on picture disks.

Risk Revival CD/LP - our first proper record in 2 years and our first LP since Cryonics is a 13 song opus that at the risk of sounding cliche, obliterates everything else we've done. This is our first record we wrote without josh, but he recorded it for us, offered us his much welcomed and amazing input and he even ended up singing on parts of it. Getting this recorded was a pain in the nuts. The first version sounded terrible and had terrible performances by all of us, so it was scrapped, we had to cancel our tour and the record was pushed back 4 months because of the whole, "don't put out records during christmas" rule. I think this is the first record we've done where we've all walked away more than excited about it. This will be out on Feb 20th.

We also had tracks on the Protect compilation that Fat Wreck Chords put out and also on the 80 Records and We're still not Broke (Yet) comp that Level Plane put out.

2.On your website you chosed to present yourself through the instrument and material you play with? Is it just for the funny thing...or to say to the fans what you use to play? Why that choice, and not a personnal desciption or presentation of the member?

Not too much thought was put into that. It was more of a smart-ass way of saying, "I play this. Greg plays that. etc." Kids have asked us what we play through tho, so listing everything sort of kills 2 birds with 1 stone. There's no need for us to list our habits or anything else silly on that page

3.Up to now the band did release its records through Level Plane Records as Greg, your drummer runs the label. But actually your new album is on Equal Vision Records. Why this change and how does it happen? On some way you'll lose the controll you got on your records up to now?

Keep in mind that Andy from Robodog (Robotic Empire) put out our first record. It was just easier later on to do everything ourselves and none of the offers that we were getting would have really been any more beneficial than what Greg was capable of doing for us. Greg always put out our own records because Level Plane was the best choice for us at that time. We also are control freaks and have had labels drop the ball with our other bands, so we had to be assured that our record would be
given the attention we felt it deserved, or that at the very least who ever put it out kept up their end of things. We thought long and hard about doing this record through EVR. The thing is, We're all fans of the label. I have all those 108 and Converge records. It was incredibly flattering that those same people would have any interest in us. We've had frends in bands on EVR and not one had anything bad to say about the way the label was run, or how they were treated.

As far as losing control... maybe. But this record is the same record that would have been put out on Level Plane, albiet with a different logo on it's back. At no point were we told that the record has to sound a certain way or fit into any sort of mold. The only thing we're losing control over is that we dont' have to call up pressing plants, send out copies for review, pay for the recording or any of the myriad of thankless tasks that go along with manufacturing and selling a record. Writing the material and touring on it is stressful enough. Half of EVRs staff drove 3 hours to see us when we played in NYC and they were fans of the band. If letting them manufacture the record comprises "losing control" then we're fine with that. We've put out our own records for years. It's no longer new to us. This isn't our job and we wanted a new adventure. There was no need to repeat ourselves and EVR/Hope Division's help and enthusiasm has helped us get really excited about Hot Cross again.

4.For that new album...which will be the subject you'll sing about in the lyrics? Is there a specimic message you wanna transmit through it?

Billy writes about 98% of the lyrics and I know that most of them are personal. A lot of them are about how certain people in his life has affected him. Even the "political" song on the new record which is called Finance Fuels the Sickness at Heart is a response to Billy's frustration with the Health Care system in the US. Most of the rest of it is personal and best left to the listener's interpretation.

5.I said in first question diy screamo ...Actually many people do know screamo through mainstream bands with no messages and stuff. What's your opinion about this? Is it good or bad that we have such different scene reclaiming the same screamo label? It's still the same problem with hardcore and punk labels reclaimed by the mass media...

We've never described ourselves as "screamo" even tho it seems like we always get brought up when it's mentioned Billy hasn't shrieked on any of our records and we don't do the quiet-loud 3/4 time signature thing. We just get stuck with it since some of our old bands fell into that category. I honestly don't care what happens with "Screamo" bands since we don't associate ourselves with any particular movement. Most of what passes for screamo nowadays is bad haircut pop-punk with the occasional shriek and chug part. They're welcome to that label and we'll do our best to avoid that crowd. Labels are only there to help pigeonhole things anyway and I always thought we were more of a hardcore band from a stylistic standpoint.

6.Aren't you bored to be always compared to your previous band SAETIA and any others? I read you are together in HOT CROSS for far more than what you did with all the previous band. There's kind of a romanticism about your previous band? Does this ex-member of thing helped the band to be known in the begining?

We get that a lot less nowadays. We've even encountered people who have never heard our old bands but like us and that's pretty cool. Saetia ended nearly 8 years ago and most people who were into that band have moved on. We did get "bored" at times in the beginning for people who wanted Saetia 2.0, but it did cause a lot of people to check us out back then. Nowadays any mention of Saetia or You & I is done more in passing rather than a basis for who we are. I don't even see "Ex-Saetia" on flyers anymore and that is a very welcome thing.

7.Maybe that's a stupid question...But do you prefer playing on stage or on the ground surrounded by the crowd? Personnally i prefer seeing a band while being close to them. I better feel and enjoy the music, and see a better connection witht he public when the band play on the ground...But it's
not always possible if you play in front of many people! Your idea? Your feeling on this?

playing 3 feet away from the kids can be fun when the situation calls for it, but it's not always the case. If more than 50 people show up to see you, you're being an asshole to the people not in the first 3-4 rows who can't see you if you insist on playing at crowd level. None of us think stages are inherently evil. In fact, when it comes down to it, I'd prefer to be on the stage for sonic reasons. The monitors are on stage so I can hear myself singing off key and correct it. Greg doesn't have our amps in front of him, so he can actually play to us and not force himself to play too hard to compensate what he thinks is a discrepency in volume between the drums and the guitars, and Billy's vocal mic doesn't feed back like crazy because he's in front of the PA.
Conversely, we've played 5" stages to 40 people because the club/promoter told us to and we felt like fucking idiots.

8.I sometimes like to know how people have got in touch with the hardcore punk music and community. As you're from NYC, your history can be interesting for European people. Which bands did you love? Which zine, or bands inspired you?

I've been going to shows for 15 years over the course of living in 4 major cities in the US. It would be impossible to list everything that got me into hardcore or got me to this point. The band isn't located in NYC anymore either. 3 of us live in Philly and Greg lives an hour away in NJ. the nice thing about hardcore is that as soon as you get bored with it, you can usually find another kickass band doing something different if you care to look.

9.As for Europe...which are the bands you like actually? I know that for some of you like Greg, you pay attention to what's happening music wise outside of USA.

I grew up loving all those brutal German hardcore bands like Acme, Systral, Carol... all that Per Koro stuff. We all obviously love Kaospilot, Amanda Woodward and all the European stuff that Greg puts out here. There's great stuff going on everywhere and sometimes it's really awesome to hear music from overseas because so much stuff coming from the states is the same. I associate Acme with Bremen just as I associate Melt Banana with Tokyo. Those bands could never come from the US and that's one of the many things that makes them so amazing.

10.To finish, i'd like to ask this question : What are the most annoying ticks or habits your fellow bandmates have ? You surely have stupid habits while touring and playing together?

Apparently I snore really bad. Other than that, we're really boring. If you filmed the inside of our van while we were on tour it would get stale after about 45 minutes because we have a tendency to talk about the same shit over and over.
If I may take the time to pimp us a bit, we can be found on the web @ myspace.com/hotcross and we've been trying to find a suitable URL since some enterprising type registered all permutations of "hotcross.com" or anything we might want to use. You can go to level-plane.com/hotcross in the meantime.
Thanks!

TU AS AIME ? PARTAGE !