13. touche amore interview

Touche Amore. http://www.myspace.com/toucheamore

Touche Amore is one of the best bands in southern california right now.

kyeo: Who are you, what is your job in the band, and who else is in Touche Amore?

Jeremy: My name is Jeremy and I sing. Other members include Clayton Stevens, Nick Steinhardt, and Tyson White.

kyeo: Can we have some background history on the band? How did it all start?

Jeremy: Sure. TA is a band that I’ve wanted to start for years and I just never got around to it. When my time in my last band was coming to an end it gave me the motivation to start it. Our previous drummer Z and I had been friends for years and I always loved his drumming so I asked him to start it with me, so he and I started jamming together. Tyson and I had only known each other for a handful of months before asking him to play guitar for it. We have an interesting mutual connection that made us become great friends. He had never been in a band before or even played guitar through an amp but that didn’t matter at all because the stuff he’d play me on his acoustic was great and we have very similar appreciations when it comes to music and ideas. The three of us wrote more than half the songs on the demo before getting Clayton and Nick in the band. Those two joining definitely made a huge impact on our songs. I knew Clayton since he was about 14 years old and Nick and I’s old bands would play together all the time.

kyeo: Your band is a self-described “hardcore” band and when I listen to your music I get the impression that many of you take in a lot of other influences, especially from the screamo genre. Your sound has a very strong balance of both styles of punk. What are some of your biggest influences in terms of sound and how would you describe Touche’s sound?

Jeremy: I feel we’re lucky enough to ride that line between a hardcore band and a screamo band and be able to have kids on both sides find an appreciation. We’re all vinyl kids and Tyson, Clayton, and I are huge fans of classic screamo stuff like Orchid, Pg 99, Portraits of Past, and Saetia to only name a few. But on the other end, we all have mutual love for bands like American Nightmare, Suicide File, Modern Life is War, Cursed, Hope Conspiracy, etc. The combination of all those fuels what we love to play. The one thing all those bands together have in common is honesty, and in the end that’s our biggest influence.

kyeo: what other things, outside of music, influence your band?

Jeremy: I think Art is a big influence in our band. Nick is about to graduate from Cal Arts with a bachelor of fine art in graphic design. He does all of the artwork for our band and I’ll never get over how talented he is. Clayton has his nitch in the art community as well. He attends a lot of openings and paints in his free time. We all have a mutual appreciation for hand made/hand screened things. You get much more of an appreciation for something when you notice the time it took to get it in your hands.

kyeo: What are your views on diy and how do you incorporate it’s philosophy in the way your band is managed and presented?

Jeremy: Aside from the 7” that came out on No Sleep, everything we’ve put out we’ve made ourselves. Our CD demos that we had at first were all done by hand along with our tour CD and tour 7” covers. I handle all the booking for our shows/tours and prefer to play a DIY space over a non-DIY space any day. We don’t limit ourselves to a strict-diy sense, because we appreciate any opportunity that comes our way, but I can say it’s much more fulfilling to do it yourself.

kyeo: Your lyrics often seem to deal with negative themes. Your words are written simply, with certain exposed details every so often, and coated with hidden meanings. i can’t ever seem to interpret any song one specific way (honest sleep is about nihilism? Broken records is about love and loss?). can you explain some of the songs that you sing and the meaning behind the words?

Jeremy: A lot of my lyrics are pretty cut and dry, but yes I do use some symbolism and have hidden meanings, but they’re structured in a way that you can come up with your own feelings for them. Like most anyone who writes, some songs are far more personal than others. Honest Sleep was written in the parking lot outside of the studio we were recording at right before doing it. It’s a song of confession, exhaustion, and self provoked loneliness. When you have a reputation of always being a certain way, that’s all anyone expects out of you, whether it’s a bad reputation or a good one.. and it gets old. Broken Records is a song of the constant repetition that is my love life.

kyeo: You guys have recently gotten a new drummer. What happened to Z?

Jeremy: We actually haven’t committed to a drummer yet. Our friend Alex has been kind enough to help us out while we’re drummer-less and he’s done an awesome job filling the gap. Z just didn’t have the same feelings as us when it came to the direction of the band.

kyeo: Touche Amore went on tour in March. I heard really good things from friends that went to your Bay Area shows. Can you tell me how the trip went and were any good stories birthed?

Jeremy: It was our first tour and it couldn’t have gone any better. Whether we played to 12 kids or 40 kids, every night was special in one way or the other. As for good stories, I’m sad to say we’re pretty boring and nothing too insane happened. There was some goofy behavior when we were in Washington, but that’s about as much as I’ll say on that!

kyeo: How was it writing and planning everything for the LP that you guys are planning to put out this month? (in May right?) how did you guys hook up with 6131 Records?\

Jeremy: Writing just happened over time. We didn’t necessarily stop and focus on writing at any point. We’d just practice and eventually kick out a new jam here and there and by the time we started discussing a full length, we had enough songs. The album is actually a split release with 6131 and Collect Records. I was having lunch with Joey from 6131 and I mentioned we didn’t know who was going to put it out yet and he offered out of the kindness of his heart. Collect is Geoff Rickly’s new label and I had given him our demo when it was first done and he said he wanted to work with us in the future. Having both Joey and Geoff be apart of our release is awesome since they’ve been such good friends of mine for over 6 years and they’re people I know we can trust.

kyeo: Touche Amore is also playing Sound And Fury festival! Everyone I talk to about it is really excited and happy for you guys for having such an amazing opportunity to share your music with more and more people. How did this happen? Perhaps there will be a tour planned around it?

Jeremy: I think our ties with 6131 had a lot to do with it. We had some other people putting our name out there that I’m sure helped as well. I’m actually just as nervous as I am excited for Sound and Fury! We’ll be heading out on a West Coast tour directly after S&F and then heading East in the Fall. Hopefully we’ll play the majority of this country by the end of the year.

kyeo: What are some of Touche Amore’s plans right now? what will the future bring TA?

Jeremy: Album will be out in June sometime and just heavy touring after that. We have a couple splits in the works right now. One with our amazing friends and No Sleep labelmates La Dispute, and will be released on No Sleep. The other with an incredible country/folk band called Olin and the Moon, and that’ll come out on Melotov Records.

kyeo: Last words?

Jeremy: Listen to MOLDAR!