Interviews (219)

• August 29, 2016
• Colleen Johnson
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• 1568
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With fall around the corner, it’s time for insane amounts of touring and tons of new great records. This next band is one I’ve been talking about since their first record came out, “Nerve Endings”, and the band is about to drop their sophomore album, “Haven’t Been Myself”, on September 23rd! The band just came off an incredible first Warped Tour summer which included them winning Best Underground Band at this year’s APMA’s!

We were able to grab a few minutes with Keaton and Kenneth of Too Close to Touch in Mansfield where we talked this break out year for the band as well as everything new record. Interviews that go down as a band is about to break a record stand out as my favorite ones always and break up a long day of Warped press. Read our new interview below and pick up the new record in a few weeks! The band will be out on the road with Crown the Empire this fall where we definitely hope to chat with the band again. Find us in the pit and get on this band before the rest of the world does!

This is your first time on the Warped Tour, the first record, “Nerve Endings”, is still so hot. Obviously you have the new record coming out so soon. How has the tour been going so far for you guys?
Keaton: Amazing. Especially at this point now, I think we’re about half way through Kenneth?
Kenneth: Half way is this Saturday.
Keaton: Half way is Saturday! If you don’t have Warped figured out by now, it’s rough. Once you get into the swing of things and like the rhythm, you’re good. Obviously set comes first. Making sure that you’re down in the routine of everything every single day and now it’s going great. You get a lot of chances to go watch other bands and stuff finally and mingle and socialize and make a ton of new friends! Ton of new fans. I love it!

Then “Nerve Endings” has been out for a bout a year. Are you currently working on a new record? Is it like ready to go?
Kenneth: The new record? The new record we finished up like a month before we started Warped. We actually play a song currently off the record live and it should be out sometime this fall. Everyone will know soon. So yeah we finished that other recording process with the same producer that we did last time, Erik Ron. He’s a big part of our actual core kind of group, like the Too Close family. So we’ll probably stick with him but yeah it was a great recording process. We’re super excited for the record to come out. To announce it and start releasing some content. Showing everyone what we’ve been doing for the last four months, five months. So we’re very excited about it. Still stoked on the old record as well so we’re going to keep pushing it until we announce. So very soon.

And you’ve obviously had a really big year touring since “Nerve Endings” came out. Do you think that changed the writing process for this second record?
Keaton: Hell yeah. We had to write a lot of it on the road. Last time it was all studio writing. Well not really all studio writing but like we were able to sit down and write and stuff like that but this was a lot of on the go writing because we’ve just been so busy.
Kenneth: Oh yeah we had a pretty interesting set up in our van. Like we’d stay in hotels sometimes on our off days and we’d set up but it was really just like an eye rig and record into either like a laptop or a phone. Any musician will know like oh my god that’s ridiculous but it actually worked out pretty cool. I mean we banged out some stuff. Probably should plug Garage Band in here somewhere I think. Wrote a lot of the record on Garage Band, it was very interesting. Very stressful.
Keaton: We took a little like three day trip down to Orlando for one writing session before the tour but really like our last chance to sort of organize everybody’s extremely sporadic ideas and stuff that we had each individually worked on tour or together, we got like one week. In an Air B&B in L.A. We didn’t get to go home or anything between the tour and the record. So we had one week and just shut ourselves in and had our entire demo rig set up and were just writing every single day. It was stressful but I mean it definitely turned out being ten fold. Obviously we only have one record out but it’s my favorite record that we’ve ever done easily.
Kenneth: It was a very interesting yet fun process. I don’t know if I’d want to do it again. Mainly just because like he said, we didn’t get to go home. So as we finished up our tour with Secrets and that was like six weeks, we spent the week in the Air B&B then we went straight from that directly into the studio for another six weeks. So we were gone for like three and a half months with travel time and everything. So it definitely impacted the writing process but I think we work well under pressure. I’m not saying that we want to work under pressure but I think we pull together fairly well and we know when to buckle down. So I don’t think it affected it in any sort of negative fashion. I think it might have just changed it. It could have gone differently but I think it could have actually helped like progress the record. Like putting us in a different mindstate then we would normally be in just being comfortable at our homes or in our hometown writing a record. Like taking it easy, that kind of thing. I’m every excited about how it turned out.

Then maybe to end it off, you’re about halfway through the Warped Tour. I was at a different website for several years but I started my own in January. So this year as a new website myself, my focus was to cover the breaking bands this year instead of those I’ve always interviewed. Like you, Cane Hill, With Confidence. These bands that are all on the cusp. Maybe what are some other bands that kids should be looking for, bands that kids should be paying attention to?
Keaton: Ooh here at Warped Tour now?
Just because this year is so strong at all levels.
Kenneth: It’s a very good year for bands on Warped. I mean there’s a lot of cool up and comers. Bad Seed Rising.
Keaton: Are you looking for more like Full Sail stage?
Anything. Like Full Sail, maybe Poisedon, Cyclops.
Keaton: Me personally like he said, Bad Seed Rising. Those kids are all so young and killing it right now.
Kenneth: Palaye Royale. They’re very, very, very rock but they’re great. Hail the Sun, they’ve been killing it.
Keaton: If we could give you four, I would have said Cane Hill. They’re my dudes and Silent Planet too. They’re about to take over their niche market. They’re so great. They just released their second record.
Kenneth: Can’t forget Avion Roe. They’re on Epitaph with us. They put out some killer stuff.
This year in general is just so good. Any stage you’re on, you’re already killing it.
Kenneth: We’re very blessed and happy to be here.