Interviews (219)

• August 1, 2018
• Colleen Johnson
• 1997
• 0

This next interview from Warped is with one of the seemingly hardest working bands on the tour, Assuming We Survive! The band is a familiar face to the tour and the road in general as they’ve been on tour pretty much the last three years straight and have been putting out music constantly. I grabbed a few minutes with lead singer Adrian Estrella to talk the new EP, “Chapters”, as well as the hectic schedule he kept while the band was recording!
Find the band on a headlining run this fall and keep your eyes peeled for what’s to come from these road dogs!

Obviously this isn’t your first time on the Warped Tour. You guys have really the past few years been on the tour, been touring really consistently, really growing, considering how long Assuming We Survive has been a band. Maybe since it’s not your first time, things that you brought to the table, maybe precautions you took or things you prepared for?
Well, this year is the first year that I’m completely sober. So I’m not drinking at all on this tour. Which is really cool and the reason for that. Well there’s a lot of reasons but the main reason was that it’s the last Warped Tour and I wanted to make sure that I gave fans a hundred percent of me. Versus being a hungover version. Which is fine too, to each their own, but for me it was such an important fact that it’s the last year. And I just really wanted to give everything I had. So that was definitely a precaution going into this year. Other things are working out, just trying to keep up with the young bucks I guess.

Then “Chapters” is the new EP that came out. Like we previously said, you’ve been writing so much music over the years. How long has “Chapters” been in the making, when did these songs first start?
So we started writing “Chapters” probably a year and a half ago. We were still on the road when we started writing it. Musically at least. There were definitely lyrical ideas and stuff but what I kind of did for this record, which was a lot different then any other record I’ve ever done, well a) sober as well. But for this record, I wanted to try everything just new. So what I also did was, we were home for a few months, so while we were recording the new record, I was like how can I make my life stressful? It sounds weird but I was like how can I stress myself out to where I can really get all the emotion that’s in me right now out? So my friends, they own this italian restaurant, so I was like hey are you guys hiring a janitor, like something gnarly. They were like well, ‘dishwasher?’ and I was like ‘is it a hard job?’ and they were like it’s the hardest job there is. So I was like, sold! Give it to me. So I would literally come home from the studio after recording guitars or whatever with the boys, put my in ears in and go to work while listening to the music. I wrote almost every lyric for the new record while washing dishes and being stressed out. And it turned out awesome! There’s a couple of phrases in some of the songs that I refer to what I was doing at the time, that not a lot of people would catch on to.

So I mean that was a really big part and then there was just a lot that happened in the past two and a half years of touring straight. There’s a lot to talk about so it kind of made that record very easy to write about. But it’s also just a very big departure from what we’ve done in the past so it’s pretty cool. It’s exciting.

And even though, like you said you guys do tour all the time, is it something you’re going to continue to do?
There’s no plans on slowing down as far as touring goes. If anything it will be picking up. The last three years, we had six months off total. We’re probably going to go harder this time so I don’t even know what that entails but yeah, definitely a lot of touring.

And obviously the EP is still so fresh but Assuming We Survive puts music out pretty steadily, I’m sure you’re constantly writing. So do you think a full length is in the future or do you think you’re going to stick to the EP route?
Music is changing so much. We’re just trying to stay with it. Kids aren’t buying records. They’ll buy certain songs that they like. So we’re going to do a new EP. We recorded ten songs but on the EP there are only five songs so we have five other songs just ready to go. So we’ll be releasing those as singles. As soon as the EP is released and everybody’s got it, we have a headlining tour. It’s a two part tour that starts in September. Once we’re done with that, at the beginning of the year we’re going to start releasing more songs. Then we’ll probably go back in the studio to do more songs and just keep on releasing new music.
Go back to the dishwashing?
Oh hell no! I did it, at least I can say I did it, but I’m done with that chapter of my life. It was fun, not really, but it was great.