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Interview
by SashaS
3-6-2005
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| Open Hand, open hearts, open music! |
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Wide-open marksmanship
Open Hand: AmeRock quest school
Open Hand's album ‘You And Me’ is a huge guitar permeated rock masterwork of ‘opposing’ qualities: powerful, complex, accessible, daring, classic, futuristic. The genre-uniting disc in just 41 minutes manages to erase the boundaries between indie, metal, stoner, hardcore, prog and garage rock.
The only thing more remarkable than the music, however, is the fact that the album exists at all. A couple of year ago it looked as if the band may never make another album, the situation that lasted almost 12 months. We’ll get to it in a minute, and in meantime - let’s talk about music and playing two shows in a day, as they recently did in London: a matinee and an evening engagement.
“We are curious about it,” drummer Paxton Pryor commented before the first timeslot, “because we’ve never done two shows in a day. But, we all know that even when you play on two consecutive days, no two shows are ever as good.”
A day later we catch up with singer/vocalist/leader Justin Isham who confirms that one show was excellent and the another not so - but wouldn’t specify which was a lesser one.
With everything going on while touring, do you find time to do any writing?
“I write every day and being on the road inspires me even more,” singer informs us. “There is a lot of time to reflect on things, listen to a lot of bands, seeing sites, cities, you can’t help but be inspired all the time. The members are in the playing mode, you simply put ideas in memory banks and when you get home you try to wash the s**t out.”
Have you assembled a number of contenders already?
“Got about 50 of them but have to work them out as a band and need to be at home to put them down. We came out on the road with 2 CDs of demos, 20 songs each, all excellent stuff and all totally different from this album. Before coming back to Europe we’ll have three weeks off and hope to get some basic recordings down.”
Step back
Open Hand were formed in Hollywood in 1999 by guitarist/vocalist Justin Isham, bassist Michael Anastasi and drummer Alex Rodriguez. Early tours with Glassjaw, The Juliana Theory and Thursday and two acclaimed EP releases on own American Propaganda label, ‘Radio Days’ (1999) and ‘Evolutions’ (2000), helped spread the buzz. Signing to indie label Trustkill in 2002, the following year they issued ‘The Dream’, a collection of the band's long out of print EPs with a couple of new/bonus tracks.
But, the summer of 2003 would turn out to be a dark time for Open Hand. Following a European tour with Poison The Well in support of its acclaimed debut ‘The Dream’, the band's bassist and guitarist abruptly quit, forcing guitarist/vocalist Justin Isham and drummer Alex Rodriguez to put Open Hand on hiatus. Alas, Rodriguez soon left to tour with the more active Saosin. Alone after his departure, Isham retreated to his home studio in Los Angeles, determined to reinvent Open Hand.
“I was very, very frustrated and going mad,” Isham confesses readily. “But, during the year I spent on my own, I turned my frustration into music-making. That’s how I relieved my frustration: so, in one way - it was causing it, but in the other - it was the release for it, healing it. Working on music on my own, I did it all day, every day…”
Was there ever a moment in your mind when you doubted it would come together, again?
“You mean, like - give it up?” he enquires politely. “Sure, there were plenty of moments like that and you wonder… I’m 29 years old and have dedicated a lot of my life, my entire life and a lot of my time to music, and you wonder if the outcome would be becoming an artist having fun making music or you gonna survive as a human offa that. When you start questioning that you start to doubt but, at the same time, I had passion and when the members were assembled, I knew there was nothing to worry about.”
It seems that your band’s history confirms theory that tragedy, misfortune and downturn can inspire some creative highs?
“Oh, yeah, definitely,” Isham booms back, “and tragedy makes a band stronger. Having had to change line-up often, it feels that we have definitely found the members that are just right. These members were part of the band before at various times and now we fell we are completely re-focused, naturally tuned to the same aim, better persons.”
“That year,” he states with a sigh, “luckily feels like it was years ago!”
Continuing exploration
Isham reconnected with drummer Paxton Pryor during those days of soul-searching, a longtime friend in the LA garage band The Vacation at the time, who quickly refocused on Open Hand full-time. Isham and Pryor spent the summer of 2004 recording with producer (and former Shiner bassist) Paul Malinowski. Later on Sean Woods joined on guitar and Michael Anastasi returned on bass.
The album has Hayley Helmericks credited as “guest vocalist”, on ‘Tough Girl’, ‘Take No Action’ and ‘Waiting For Katy’, pairing Isham with a female singer, something he’s been desiring for a while.
“I've always wanted to have other people sing on our records - especially strong, empowered women. It's so boring to just hear a dude singing all the time about the kind of stuff that dudes sing about. It's refreshing to get a female perspective”, laughs Isham. “What's really cool about these songs is that the girls' voices are so much harder and more raw than mine. I sing the pretty parts. It's awesome.”
You make an album and spend time to present it as an artefact but any listener can de- and re-construct it to their own inkling?
“Yeah, true, you want to present an album the certain way,” Isham agrees, “you sequence it, decide on artwork and all that may never come into play if a listener is downloading it. Well, it doesn’t sound right to me, it is not the real thing… The artwork of this album goes together with the album itself and without it - it doesn‘t make a lot of sense, I think.”
“Downloading is part of the future, it is part of what’s going on but it takes control away from artists, for sure. I’d prefer if people like the band enough to go and buy the album. I personally do go and buy records… The main reason is that I don’t have the Internet and prefer albums, I like the whole package, the experience.”
“My advice is to go out and - help the band. If it is the case of a band you have an album by already, you may download some more songs… Still, to me it is like buying one picture by a painter and not wanting him to do another one! You want him to continue painting, I’d say, if you like the guy’s work! It is all about supporting artists.”
Are you optimistic about the future of music?
“I don’t really know,” Isham shrugs, “but it looks like downloading is the future. Instead of going to a store you download all you want and then make you own version. But then it’s technological progress that can’t be stopped, I guess: from 8-track to cassettes to CDs, it continues on.”
“There is power in music,” Pryor stated enthusiastically a day earlier, “and when it takes you, it is unstoppable. Yes, there are elements that work against it but you can’t really ever stop it. Even when it is underground, it has power, perhaps even greater than when it is mainstream. Fans tend to be more obsessive, more dedicated to their bands, more into it, it is the dope, man!”
Tour dates:
03 June - Little Civic, Wolverhampton
04 June - Underworld, London
05 June - Sugarmill, Stoke
06 June - Roadhouse, Manchester
07 June - Cathouse, Glasgow
08 June - Rock City, Nottingham
09 June - Cockpit, Leeds
11 June - Donwload Festival, Donington - Snickers Stage
SashaS
3-6-2005
Open Hand's album 'You And Me' is available now via Roadrunner
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