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Interview
by SashaS
9-5-2003
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| BoySetsFire's rage against the... lot! |
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Free-notion rockers
BoySetsFire – a successor to RATM legacy?
There are hard working rock bands and then there are some who appear to live on-the-road: BoySetsFire, the Delaware quintet, came through Europe about six months ago and have toured the American vastness ever since, only taking a couple of weeks off for the end-of-year Festive season. They’ll be back touring Europe again this summer, to promote their album ‘Tomorrow Come Today’, issued only at the beginning of April.
We catch up with the band’s singer, Nathan Gray, to discuss what makes their pulse race after 10 years in the business (next year), apart music that is almost next-of-kin to the sadly missing Rage Against The Machine. BST have been outspoken about most of the subjects dear to the American hearts, such as love and relationship abuse, religion, 9/11 Tragedy, war… First, compliment on the lyrics that tend to carry a message rather then be about some teenage-angst issues.
“Well, thank you, that’s very flattering to hear,” Gray comments. “We do our thing, the others… They do their own thing and we don’t compete with them. This is a tremendously different record from ‘After The Eulogy’; we took our time over this one. We worked on every detail, from agonizing over guitar sounds, different settings, choruses, writing and re-writing the songs. I sometime think we are a weird band, that our approach is pretty unique, as we have to have so many things in our music.”
State of a nation’s mind
Since their first self-financed single, BoySetsFire have challenged themselves to push further with each recording and progression echoed from each subsequent release: ‘Consider’ (1996), ‘The Day The Sun Went Out’ (1997), ‘In Chrysalis’ (1998) and ‘After The Eulogy’ (2000). While ‘Tomorrow Come Today’ represents their most intensive work in the studio, you can also hear the ferocious band sound that Gray, guitarists Josh Latshaw and Chad Istvan, drummer Matt Krupanski and bassist Rob Avery have evolved through their relentless touring. And, he explained, “I honestly went out of my way to make this our most political album”, which led to numerous misunderstandings.
“We’ve been called many abusive names throughout our career,” Gray states matter-of-factly, “such as ‘commie faggots’, but we understand that whenever people are afraid, they turn into jackasses. It is not the way the majority feels, it is a minority who totally brainwash everyone and cause people to do anything out of fear… History has thought us that you have a tough time to educate or tell someone, who is scared and angry, something…”
“The message we are trying to play against now is how our government has used that fear to turn it into a positive thing for them to gain more control. People are confused and it is hard for them to understand and deal with it; they just want someone to protect them.”
Flat-chord destructors
The ‘Tomorrow Come Today’ songs take on subjects ranging from the wave of post-9/11 militarism (‘Release The Dogs’), to hypocrisy in organized religion (‘Bathory’s Sainthood’), to spousal abuse (‘White Wedding Dress’). In fact, the album’s only personally themed song ‘With Every Intention’ - a power ballad that many bands would kill to release as a single - was nearly pulled altogether, and finally included only as a hidden/bonus track.
BST are so tough-minded to shy away from displaying their emo-side but, critical to the bitter centre, their diss-galore hasn’t, surprisingly, turned the members into a pessimistic lot.
“I’d call us optimists,” Gray categorizes their stand in somewhat hesitant tone, “because I wouldn’t be doing this if I were a pessimist. I don’t think there is much point to it: if you are a pessimist, you expect it get worse, so – why worry about it? Why educate people, why try to tell them what’s going on, give them the other side, why care if you expect not to get better? I honestly think that we try to not just be negative but to criticise to affect some change, how it can be changed, how to make things better in general.
If you like your band to open a disscusion, then you can’t find better than BoySetsFire. A fine bunch of rocking activists, a dying breed. How many people can say the following without anyone having to question its truism?
“I feel that the true form of patriotism is protest,” Gray adjudges, “and that questioning your government is the most important thing that you can do as a patriot. It is not anti-American.”
Further insights into the band’s thinking can be found on their official website where some serious opinions by Kaminski are on view.
SashaS
9-5-2003
BoysSetsFrire’s album ‘Tomorrow Come Today’ is available now on Wind-up/Epic
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