IN FLAMES and NUCLEAR BLAST RECORDS are happy to announce exclusive anniversary vinyl re-issues of the band’s …
Later this month the forefathers of screamo, Hawthorne Heights, will be hitting Australia to celebrate not one seminal release, but two: 2004’s The Silence In The Black and 2006’s If Only You Were Lonely.
So, yes, that includes the cult hit Ohio is For Lovers. Though the band continued to release records in the years after that, right up until the latest single Push Me Away, which dropped earlier in the year, fans never drifted too far from the first two. Ahead of their arrival, we caught up with the band’s guitarist, Mark.
Hysteria: Hey, Mark, man, thanks for taking the time to chat. I know you guys are rehearsing hard for the upcoming Australian dates. So how is it all sounding?
Mark: It’s been a lot of fun. We left for the previous tour, that we just got home from. Wee started the tour with two weeks across Canada, which was a normal headlining tour, so we played a little bit of every record and then that ended it in Western Canada and then we’ve crossed over and started work tour in Seattle the next day and then we are on work tour for about another seven and a half weeks, on top of that. At work tour you only do 30 to 35 minutes a day, tops. That was essentially kind of a fan favourites, for lack of a better word, greatest hits set for us. We played that for the last two months. We got home, and with everyone having vacations and stuff planned before the Australian tour, we only had about a week and a half off between. We had to dive straight into rehearsals and we’re playing both our first two records on the Australian tour. We had to jump back in to that.Some of the songs we haven’t played live in a couple of years, it was interesting at first because we kind of just jumped into it and then it didn’t take long for all the muscle memory to kick in, been playing this songs over the years. It was a lot of fun. Particularly with some songs off of The Silence of Black and White that we haven’t played in quite a while. I really enjoyed playing Dissolve And Decay, that was a lot of fun after got it locked back in and December is a lot of fun too. That’s a song we don’t normally get to play quite a bit, because on the record it’s kind of like a piano ballad at the end of If Only You Were Lonely. So typically we won’t do anything like that live, because we like to stick to the loud rock songs that power shows, but for this, since we’re playing both records, we’re throwing it in – that and the stripped down version that we’re playing turned out really cool.
It’s quite an experience to listen back to it now, after all these years. What’s the fan reaction been like? Are you surprised by what is resonating with the fans these days?
It’s been cool and on our [retrospective] tour, we’ve noticed we still have a lot of young kids that come out to see us. I think [they] got tipped off on the band by somebody else, an older brother or something, but we also have the people who had been coming to see us for ten years now, so they come out and they’re older now. It’s been really cool to look out in the crowd and see people of all ages out there, super fans. I think the reaction overall has been particularly awesome. We’ve done this ten year anniversary touring for these records, because I think a lot of this people that come in to see us are off and on over the years, we all still play old songs, but some of these songs on this records, in particular some of the deeper cuts … we just don’t get to play them every night because there’s not enough space in the set list to play. Everything we need to play, and we still play those songs.
So I think in that regard a lot of the fans feel special when we get to play a song like I Am On Your Side off of If Only You Were Lonely. It’s special when we get to play something in that deep out of these two records, because they know we just don’t get to do it all the time. A song like Sandpaper And Silk, off The Silence in Black and White, we rarely get to play that song. So, playing something like that on this tour it’s definitely a rarity for us. And I think the fans know that.
I think [the songs] sound like the record in a way that everyone is gonna be excited and they’ll know the songs to sing along, for sure.
[MARK]
What’s the game plan gonna be for the Australian run, in particular? Are you try and speak as truth to the album version of each song or are you going to let the wild horses run and add in some new little twists and turns?
We don’t really layer a lot of tracks or anything, we put in, for the most part, play everything pretty straightforward how we would play it live. I think they sound a little different, but I don’t think there’s a whole lot of changes. We’re definitely not like a jam band or something that’s going to add a lot of extra stuff. That being said, though, I think they sound like the record in a way that everyone is gonna be excited and they’ll know the songs to sing along, for sure.
What’s it like now, looking forward and working on new material as Hawthorne Heights while you’re in this kind of mindset of ten years ago, essentially. Are you finding new inspiration for the new material and things like that? Or is it kind of difficult to look forward while looking back and write music. How is that working out for you?
I think it’s worked great. We’re doing both these together, over in Australia as one, solely because we don’t get to go over as much. But we did separate 10-year tours for the Silence record from end-to-end, we did a separate tour a year later for If Only You Were Lonely 10-year. And in between that we’ve released our last EP called Hurt and Hurt came off … we went into the studio right after doing that first set of 10-year anniversary touring and I think it had a direct impact on how we wrote. I hear a lot sounds and the songs in Hurt. I think just the overall vibe for putting those records live, I think was inspiring.
There’s a youthful energy to play in those records solely because how young the band was, when we start playing. I think that translated a little bit in songwriting and inspired us in a way. And I have heard from a lot of the fans, particularly when we put up the first couple of songs, the stream from that EP, a lot of the fan reaction upon first listening was, “Oh my gosh, this really sounds like classic Hawthorne Heights.” I think the fans were excited as well.
Listen to the entire Hawthorne Heights interview on Hysteria Radio!
Destroy All Lines, Chugg Entertainment and Killyourstereo.com present
HAWTHORNE HEIGHTS AUSTRALIAN TOUR
Monday, August 28: Amplifier Bar, Perth*
Tuesday, August 29: Fowlers Live, Adelaide Lic/AA
Thursday, August 31: Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Friday, September 1: Small Ballroom, Newcastle
Saturday, September 2: The Bald Faced Stag, Sydney
Sunday, September 3: The Zoo, Brisbane
Monday, September 4: Shark Bar, Gold Coast*
Tuesday, September 5: Kings Arms, Auckland* **
*Sienna Skies not appearing **Hawthorne Heights only
Tickets available via Destroy All Lines
