Interview with Evergreen Terrance · punk and metalcore. Their tour stopped in St. Louis at the Creepy Crawl, where before the show I got a chance to talk to the band’s guitar players,

AMP: OK guys, welcome back to St. Louis, this is not your first time to the Creepy Crawl from what I understand.

Josh: It’s not, it’s our third time here I think.

Do you guys like to play in St. Louis?

Josh: Yeah, it’s always fun to go down to the Arch, head over to Sauget after the show, so usually we have some pretty interesting nights when we play here. I mean it’s Saturday night so you know, play a concert, go to a strip club, and maybe in the morning go to the Budweiser factory.

So has the tour been fun? Any crazy stories?

Josh: Yeah, honestly, it’s been like a party every night.

Craig: Actually as far as fun factor goes it’s probably been one of the best tours we’ve been on in a while. In fact interesting

things have happened, like at first they were cool but then they ended up not being cool.

Josh: Virginia Beach was just gnarly. The show was one of those shows that you’ll remember for the next ten years, like, how crazy the crowd was and how crazy the bands were and then afterwards there was a huge party and everything was great up until that point but then the guitar tech for Strung Out got arrested. It was really weird because at first the cop just gave I Am Ghost and Strung Out parking tickets for a ridiculous charge. It was like two in the morning outside the club, there’s not a fucking automobile in the street.

Craig: There was practically tumbleweed on the street.

Josh: I mean it’s just been a whole lot of fun.

One thing I really want to ask you guys is about the name of your band. As a die-hard Simpsons fan, I get the reference to Evergreen Terrace but not a lot of people do, so

you guys just want to explain what it is and how you decided on the name, just so people know?

Josh: Evergreen Terrace is the name of the street that the Simpsons live on. At one point or another we all were big Simpsons fans until it started going downhill about two years ago. Because I think whenever Family Guy started getting big it started to fall, because I know my life took place around The Simpsons. Craig what do you think?

Craig: I always liked The Simpsons but I was never like a huge die-hard fan, and I joined the band about five or six months after they formed.

You guys really seem to emulate a lot of metalcore in your sound and you guys seem to fit into that genre. On a personal level though, how would you describe your music? What do you try to put

The band Evergreen Terrace has recently emerged into the heavy metal and modern punk scene out of their hometown of Jacksonville, FL. Since the band’s debut in 1999, they have crafted an original sound combining hardcore punk and metalcore. Their tour stopped in St. Louis at

the Creepy Crawl, where before the show I got a chance to talk to the band’s guitar players, Josh James and Craig

Chaney, along with lead singer Andrew Carey.

Candid Q & A. : Interviews....

The second annual Grove-fest on September 15th and 16th had much to offer the community. From great tasting foods to family activities to loud punk rock and roll, Grove-fest accomplished bringing people outdoors to have good old-fashioned fun while promoting the city of St. Louis and the local artists within the city.

I arrived shortly after three o’clock, only to notice that the event had already begun. On the first stage there was a lone acoustic guitar player singing finger-picked cowboy tunes to the open street. No one seemed to care for this solo act, so I decided to check it out. Ar-riving late to the show, I did not catch his name; however, his voice was deep and almost soulful and carried down the street with the wind. He was a true cowboy. After two or three songs, he set down his guitar and left the stage.

I made my way down the street to Atomic Cowboys where many, both adults and children, were painting a mural on the side of the building. It was a huge ‘paint by number’ mural allowing anyone and everyone to be a part of the art. Although I did not participate myself, I could see from the others how much fun it brought.

I stopped in for a beer then made my way to the main stage for a band I thought put on the best performance. They were a local band from Edwardsville, Illinois, called Ken-tucky Knife Fight, and the five of them were rocking away. After a song or two I realized how much these guys rocked. Consisting of Mr. Cool on bass, James Baker on drums, Ja-son Holler with vocals, Nate Jones on guitar and David Wiatrolik on guitar/banjo these guys mixed punk rock with a little country flavor to create this unique and powerful sound. Their influences ranged from Johnny Thunders to Tom Waits, though it may be hard to first no-tice, it is there. These guys knew how to play! A few songs that were included in their set were ‘Herschel Walker,’ ‘Crooked Waltz,’ and ‘Got My Heaven,’ which can all be found on-line at http://www.myspace.com/kentuckyknifefight. Anyone who appreciates rock music should check these guys out, or at the very least listen to them online, and you should not be disappointed.

As far as the other bands that performed during the event I would say were medio-cre acts, but still had much talent (at least enough to get them the gig). Such other artists included Left Arm, Bunnygrunt, Walkie Talkie USA, Superfun Yeah Yeah Rocketship, Long John Thomas and the Duffs and many others. So if anyone has the time, go out and support some of these local artists at future shows.

jesse prince-lubawySTAFF WRITER2nd Annual Grove-fest

Concerts You Should Have Gone To

What kind of music do you prefer? Hmmmmmm….PUNK!

How long have you been at KSLU? This is mein third semes-ter.

What are your basic responsibilities? I am the head of the Mobile DJ Team.

What’s the biggest challenge about your position? Making sure that someone is available for each event.

What’s most fun? Getting paid to listen to music…basically the whole job.

Guilty Pleasure? Madonna - Immaculate Collection

Last CD bought? I got Most Precious Blood’s new album, The Tossers’ new album, and The (International) Noise Conspiracy’s new album all at the same time.

Favorite concert? Wow. I’ve been to hundreds. Gwar was pretty neat.

Favorite Cereal? KIX…but all cereal kicks it!

What kind of music do you prefer? I mainly listen to indie, emo, and post-hardcore, but I have recently gotten into hardcore and metal-core. P.S.-I don’t like listing genres.

How long have you been at KSLU? Ever since KSLU moved to the BSC, which was my sophomore year.

What are your basic responsibilities? Encouraging DJs to make fliers and intros for their shows, and trying to promote the station as much as possible.

What’s the biggest challenge about your position? Trying to find new ways to get kids to listen to KSLU.

What’s most fun? Hanging out with the cool KSLU staff.

Guilty pleasure? The list is long but I am most embarrassed about liking Michelle Branch.

Last CD bought? Thrice’s new cd, Vheissu

Favorite concert? The Get Up Kids final show in KC this summer was awesome.

Favorite cereal? Frosted Mini-Wheats

The AmpA KSLU Publication

The AMP - November 2005 -5- Tune into kslu.slu.edu


R y a n K o h lE v e n t s D i r e c t o r / M D T M a n a g e r / A m p S t a f f / D J

Show Name: In Yo Face Punk!Show Time: Monday 7pm-9pm

Eric PoultonPromotions Director/DJ

Show Name: Skips on the Record

Show Time:

photo by Courtney Nelson

photo by Emily Piro

Have you heard the buzz?

KSLU is now on iTunes!

Check it out via kslu.slu.edu

T h e A M P - O c t o b e r 2 0 0 7 - - A K S L U p u b l i c a t i o n - t u n e i n t o k s l u . s l u . e d u The Amp Magazine- November 2007- KSLU tune in! kslu.slu.edu

Interview with Evergreen Terrance

into music as far as lyrics or sound?

Craig: Like Josh said, we just all have so many influences and when we get together and start writing, sometimes we don’t know what to do. Some of us will come in and want to write a heavy song, so we’ll all work on a heavy song. And then one of us will want to write a rock song so we’ll just start working on something totally different.

Josh: Sometimes it ends up being where we take a part of a heavy song, and take a part of that radio rock song, and take a part of that punk thrash song, and then we just smash it all together, and it ends up where we finally have a song that we like because everybody has something they like about it. I don’t think there’s ever really a time where we think we need to write just a strict metalcore record. We don’t need every song to have an order where it’s like a blast beat and then a breakdown, we really just like to write music that just us five individuals enjoy listening to and enjoy playing.

So what kind of music is that then? What kind of music do you find yourself listening to in your spare time and what influences you as musicians?

Craig: We’re all over the place as far as influences go. I know I was more into the Gainesville rock, guitar-core indie scene, Hot Water Music-ish kind of stuff since we’re an hour from Gainesville.

Josh: I listen to a lot of Propaghandi, Good Riddance, Misfits, Rancid, but at the same time everybody in the band is

like huge Foo Fighters fans. We actually just got the new Foo Fighters record today. But I think we’re really all over the place with our favorite music and influences. Jason, our bass player, listens to a lot of political hip-hop.

Craig: Yeah, he really loves Dead Prez.

Josh: Our drummer, Kyle, listens to a lot of country. I think with every kind of music that’s out there, someone in this band listens to.

Craig: We all do have some common interest bands like Snapcase and Boy Sets Fire, like older metalcore-ish bands before there were like nine million bands all doing the same thing. And even really heavy older metal bands like Metallica and Pantera are definitely a huge influence on our band as far as writing heavy stuff. But there’s such a huge mix of punk and even like new w a v e music.

Josh: Yeah even like Weezer and stuff like that.

Well you guys said something that reminded me of a question I just have to ask; if everyone in the band listens to just about every kind of music, is anyone in the band a fan of ska? I just have to ask.

Josh: Dude, Less Than Jake’s Losing Streak is a fucking great record. That record fucking rules

Craig: Our bass player was in a ska band called Skamikaze. And I po-goed at a Reel Big Fish concert once.

Josh: Just last year I saw a show with Reel Big Fish and Rancid. It was fucking awesome.

I just had to ask that, because metal and ska are my two favorite types of music. So lets talk about this new album, Wolfbiker. What number album is this for you guys?

Josh: This is our fourth full-length original studio album but we also have a full-length record of covers. With that record we just did our own versions of some of our favorite bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Operation Ivy, and NO-FX. On our first record we did a

h i d d e n

track o f “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” by U2. It was a really good crowd-pleaser and the kids were really stoked about it.

Craig: That one was fun to play because peop le r ea l ly remembered it. I know I like seeing covers when I go to shows.

Josh: So we thought it would be cool if we just did an EP of five cover songs. But at the last minute the label that we were on told us, “Oh yeah by the way, you can’t do an EP any more it has to be full-length from now on, because distributors don’t pick up EPs, and you go in the studio in two weeks.” So we were just like, “Shit!” and we had to make up like four or five more cover songs. We ended up just rushing in, agreeing on the

The Amp Magazine- November 2007- KSLU tune in! kslu.slu.edu


































Show Time:


photo by Emily Piro




T h e A M P - O c t o b e r 2 0 0 7 - - A K S L U p u b l i c a t i o n - t u n e i n t o k s l u . s l u . e d u

“...we really just like to write music that just us five

individuals enjoy listening to and enjoy playing.”

songs we wanted to cover, took a stab at it, some turned out pretty good, some uh, not so good. But I think kids that were fans of the band like the CD overall.

But this album in particular, Wolfbiker, what did you try to do differently with it?

Josh: This is our first album writing with our current drummer, Kyle. He joined the band about two and a half years ago; right after our last record came out. And so this first record with him came out awesome since he has a lot of similar influences more than our old drummer.

(At this time lead singer Andrew Carey casually walks into the venue to join in with his band mates in the interview)

Craig: Plus he had an awesome perspective on Evergreen Terrace that we don’t have because he was actually

listening to the band before he joined.

Josh: Yeah he was actually a fan of the band before he joined.

Craig: So when we were writing the record we were listening to the last record which we were super proud of. Looking back on the writing process it was really just cut and dry,

not super dynamic just straight to the point as far as the music goes. Just fast, hard, and heavy. And we asked Kyle what he liked about the band before he was in the band and he said he really liked the dynamics of some of our older songs and how they would go from like a chaotic breakdown to something like an acoustic anthem melody. So I think we really tried to get that back on Wolfbiker since we felt like we kind of dropped the ball on the last record. I think this record is just a combination of everything we’ve done and everything we liked about what we were doing and just sort of doing more of what we used to do in sort of getting more dynamics and texture to the songs.

Josh: To me the album is the definition of what Evergreen Terrace

is now. I think the records that we’ve been trying to write over the years have really built up to this record and we’re really

proud of it and really stoked on the songs and even down to the layout and the artwork. We put a lot of work into writing the record and even making sure the artwork is what we were happy with. We went so far as to scrapping eight songs that we wrote and listened to and just kind of went, “These just suck.” So we just scrapped them off and started all over and we’re glad we made the decisions that we made as far as the writing process goes. And were stoked with writing another record too.

Craig: And maybe next time we’ll work with a producer. We’ve never really worked with



































Show Time:


photo by Emily Piro





photo courtesy of Matt Albers

a producer before. We’ve never had someone in the business like Adam D. from Killswitch Engage to produce our record, so I think that will be interesting. I really have no idea what will happen when we start working with producers.

Josh: Probably just break up (laughs). He’ll express how horrible of musicians we are. Except for Kyle. It’ll probably be like, “You’re the only real musician here, everyone else, you’re out!”

Craig: “Power chords? Power c h o r d s s h m o w e r chords!” (laughs)

So any plans for the future for you guys? Touring, recording, any hopes at all?

Josh: After this tour we’re in Europe for a few weeks with Hatebreed, Agnostic Front, and Ignite, it’s awesome. We’re going to go to Russia, which we haven’t been before.

Have you ever been overseas before?

Josh: Yeah we’ve been to about eighteen different countries in Europe so now we’re going to go see some places we’ve never

been before which is one of the perks of touring.

Craig: Yeah like Spain and Portugal.

Josh: After that we’ll be doing like three weeks in the U.S. with As I Lay Dying which should be pretty cool. And we’ll be touring probably until the end of next summer so this

definitely won’t be the last time that you’ll see us around here.

As the metal director I chart all of the CMJ loud rock info for our station, and for the past three weeks, you guys have been in the top

ten.Josh: We did it guys!

Craig: Yeeeeaaaah!

At least in the top three periodically throughout the semester as well.

Andrew: Oh wow that’s awesome.

Craig: Oooooo, cool.

Josh: Thanks.

There are actually so many different shows over at KSLU that have been really enjoying your music and playing Wolfbiker every week. I mean you can totally tell that they aren’t just playing you for the hell of it, they’re definitely recognizing your name and wanting to play you guys.

Josh: Well we really appreciate you playing it.

Craig: That’s great because this is pretty much our first real go-around with radio.

Josh: We’re like a real band now!

Andrew: Let’s go to Sauget and celebrate! (as he dances the robot victoriously)



































Show Time:


photo by Emily Piro





“[Wolfbiker] is just a combination

of everything we’ve done and everything we liked about

what we were doing and just sort of doing more of what we used

to do in sort of getting more dynamics and texture to

the songs.”

Are you just itching to write about music?

The Amp Magazine wants you!

Meetings are Tuesday at 7pm in the

KSLU studio.

Bring creative ideas,

thoughts and an eager attitude.

Documents

Interview with Evergreen Terrance · punk and metalcore. Their tour stopped in St. Louis at the Creepy Crawl, where before the show I got a chance to talk to the band’s guitar players,