Just decided to answer a random question from a fan on AHC's Myspace page. I know, I know...Myspace is a ridiculous fucking site. Trust me, if I didn't have a band that wasn't doing anything and was just barely holding it together, I'd never let that piece of interweb bloatware near my neocortex. Ahem...
The Question:
"I'm guessing this is Chad I'm speaking at. I am excited about hearing some new Head Charge tracks, still blasting The War of Art every couple of days, actually listened to The Feeding today for the first time in a while. It's got to be hard to put a record together when all of you guys live apart and have other shit going on. I've been trying to put something together with a long time musician friend of mine for 4+ years and still have squat. Maybe one track that's finished out of maybe 15 scraps. Jobs, girlfriends, drugs, any excuse possible.
Are you tracking all of the demo shit in your house? Do you wait for everyone else to work on songs, or are you writing most of the stuff solo?
I've just been curious.
- Jeremiah (last name withheld)
The Answer:
Indeed. It is difficult with 2 guys in the band living 2000 miles away from the rest of us. It took a year alone to get our respective heads on straight after coming out of treatment (which was 2 years ago for me).
On my end, I've got almost 20 completed demo songs; and I mean complete. About 1/3 of them I did with Justin Fowler, and the other 2/3 I did myself. I was actually just about to finish up the guitars (which are the last things I record) on a brand new one before I let myself get sidetracked with this reply. The AHC demos are just waiting for vocals to be added to actually consider them "finished" demos. Cameron has been having kind of a tough time creatively since getting sober last year (I was a year ahead of him in getting clean), and it makes it harder that he and I are separated by such a huge physical gap. We got together this past September in L.A. for a week and got a song out of it, and he's coming back out here to Minneapolis soon to do some work at my house, which is great news.
I've also been increasingly disappointed with "metal" as a whole, and wouldn't really care if any of the bands we've ever toured with dropped into a gaping chasm. If I never toured with another 93X type metal band, I believe I'd be a better person for it. So while the music I'm recording is indeed heavy, it's not like anything I've been hearing on the radio necessarily. It's sometimes easy for me to fall into comfortable writing styles, and I'm challenging myself (and succeeding greatly, I might add) to not be a lazy fuckhead that writes a million interchangeable riffs in drop C#, ya know? [EDIT:] As a matter of fact, when I started recording these AHC demos a little over a year ago, I stopped tuning down a half-step and have recorded everything in standard tuning (E and B), save for one or two parts of songs that actually needed a drop-tuning. I think it actually affects your brain differently to hear things a half-step back up, after years of hearing things put together a half-step down...or I'm just a nutbag with too much time on my hands. Either or.
Anyway, you caught me in a rare chatty moment. Good luck with your music, sir. And don't do too many drugs, if at all. They can really, really slow your process down.
Chad Hanks/AHC
3 comments:
I really hope you guys can pull it together and make another Head Charge album happen. Hell, it would be fantastic if you could make another 10 Head Charge albums happen, but for now I would be thrilled with one.
The world needs more bands like AHC. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say we're tired of the 93x cock-rock that is ruling the air-waves. I'm personally tired of artists in general that are so unabashedly satisfied with their own mediocrity as long as they keep selling seven million records a day.
In short, I'm looking forward to anything you might offer in the future. Even if it's not strictly AHC material.
This is excellent news to hear, I cant wait to hear how your musics evolved, I cant say in words how much I would love to hear the demo you recorded in september
Yo chad.
It's pretty interesting to hear that you do all the guitar work for the new tracks. Comparing the war of art with the feeding there's a big difference guitar wise - so my guess is that you didn't have a lot to say on guitars back then, or if you did it would have been the war of art? I say that because the guitars and bass on that album just seem to mould into one. One big fucking driving push through the whole album. Ps - this is the guy who pestered you on twitter for news regarding AHC. Oh and E tuning, damn!! Just so you know was drop A right? and i swear there's some B stringing around the place as well. I cannot express how fucking exciting i am about you, J and cam! I wish you all the best of luck. Be seein you from the pits! Luke
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