Hawthorne Heights Interview - 01.07.2005
Interview with Eron Bucciarelli (drummer)Interview by Rob Todd | 01.07.2005 | Ann Arbor, MI | The Blind Pig
It seems like you do most of the interviews, why is that? How did you get that responsibility? I’m just sort of like the business guy, always was – take charge sort of stuff. JT does some interviews but I pretty much do all the rest of them.
This is kind of a cliché question but, since you’ve toured with a lot of bands in your genre, what are some bands you’d like to tour with outside of the whole post-hardcore, pop-punk thing?
I’d absolute love to tour with Jimmy Eat World, Foo Fighters, Muse –
All of which are bands I noticed you claim as inspiration.
Yeah, I’d love to tour with any one of those three and I’d love to tour with Death Cab For Cutie. There’s plenty more that I can’t really think of right now.
I understand your name comes from Nathaniel Hawthorne and transcendentalism – a philosophy based greatly in literature. How do you think the 19th century ideas of creative and spiritual independence apply to your music today?
We try to do our own thing and just not worry about what other people think. I guess it applies in that way. We do what we enjoy, personally, and we’re not trying to follow a specific trend even though some people online will have you think that way. It’s just music that we enjoy playing and so it moves us then we play it.
Are any of you philosophy buffs and thus the name?
I studied some philosophy when I was in college and stuff and I think the other guys have read up on some of the stuff too. Nobody’s really really into it, we just came up with the name and it’s cool and we went with it.
I found a Christian music fan site that had you guys on it. Did they make a mistake or are you guys openly Christian?
Our singer [JT Woodruff], I guess you could say, is a Christian. If you ask him he’d say, ‘Yeah, I’m a Christian.’ I mean, we’re not a Christian band by any means. We get a lot of Christian kids who like our music.
Maybe because of the lyrics not containing any negative content?
Yeah, we don’t curse in any of our songs – there’s no need for any of that.
Do you think JT’s faith plays a role in his song-writing, shows, etc.?
I don’t think so ‘cause when he writes his lyrics he’s drawing from personal experiences. At least to me, it doesn’t seem like any of his lyrics are religion based.
When is there going to be another Hawthorne Heights album? Is there any new material you’ve been writing or even playing live?
We just started writing, literally this week. We just wrote one song the other day and we’re gonna try and get a new album out in the fourth quarter of this year, so around November. I’d say toward the end of November, somewhere around there.
Any ideas on where you’re going to go with that album?
Musically? I don’t know, I would expect it’s going to be somewhere along the lines of Silence In Black and White but more mature and we’re more experienced now so we’re gonna have better songwriting on there. But I don’t think we’re going to take a drastic change, like Saves the Day between Say What You Are and In Reverie or anything like that. You’re definitely gonna see a more natural growth, probably more guitars, there were a lot of guitar parts that we cut out on Silence In Black and White.
More guitars? You guys already have three guitarists!
Yeah, just more of each guitar player doing different things at the same time. More guitars, I’d love for it to be a more raw sounding, more like our live show. Our album, to me, is a little too polished, too produced from what I like so I would definitely want to have something that’s a little more raw.
Has this tour been any different since you’re out with other Victory bands?
This is actually the first day of this tour so I don’t know, we’ll see. We’ve done a few dates with Spitalfield before and actually we did a whole tour with Number One Fan before so we like the guys from Spitalfield and Number One Fan and they wanted to come along, and Black Maria, their stuff’s great so we had them come out with us too.
Tonight you’re going to playing on a really small stage for five guys. Obviously, it doesn’t affect you much as the drummer, but how does that change how you guys would like to be seen live?
Normally they’re all throwing’ their guitars around and going crazy so on a smaller stage it’s toned down a little bit so they don’t kill each other but they’ll still move around a great deal.
What’s one of your guilty pleasures — something people would never expect you to listen to?
I’m a big fan of old school hardcore and old school punk-rock and then on the completely opposite end of the spectrum I think that new Kelly Clarkston song is good. It’s just super catchy and I can’t get it out of my head. After hearing it a few more times I won’t want to hear it anymore but for now, I like it.
What’s more annoying – “Freebird” or “More cowbell?”
We don’t get “Freebird,” we get “more cowbell” because we have cowbell in some of our songs. I’d say that one.
What’s something you would include as “rock show etiquette?”
You don’t wear the band shirt that you’re going to see. We see a lot of people do it but I was always told you never do that. I’ve never done it myself but if you want to do it I’m not gonna stop you.
Anything else?
If you guys get a chance, we have a song on the Elektra soundtrack that’s comin’ out pretty soon. It’s an older A Day In the Life song, we used to be called A Day In the Life, and we redid that. I think they’re selling it for a ridiculous amount of money but if you can download it or something. Come see us live!
