The Traditional - I recently had the great opportunity to interview with Anthony, the bassist/vocalist of New York-based band "The Traditional". Check out the interview below.
1. How did The Traditional begin? How long have you been around?
We’ve been around with the lineup we have now for about six months. Myself (Anthony) and Mike (our lead guitar player), were in another band before. That band broke up because of typical band bullshit. We started writing songs together and figured we’d keep going, and we found Jon out of another band, and that’s how we got where we are today.
2. When was the “You Can’t Rebuild Forever” EP recorded and how long was the process?
That was recorded in the summer of 2012. We did it in like a week, going back and forth do little things days after that. It took us about a week. We kind of spread it out between June, July and August. We pretty much did most of it in the second week of June.
3. What does the phrase “you can’t rebuild forever” mean? Where did it come from?
It’s actually a reference to Buffalo sports, how the teams are always terrible and always trying to rebuild. It’s always been a rebuilding season for as long as I can remember. In its own way, it represents how everyone feels about their lives. The “oh I’ve just did this, I’ve gotta start over,” and “oh I’ve gotta rebuild this”. You can’t fucking rebuild forever. You have to figure it out at some point.
4. When creating a song, whom do you guys take inspiration from musically? Are your influences centered around one genre specifically? Or are you all across the board?
Our music taste is really all of the board. All of us come from such different backgrounds. All the bands that Mike was in before he started playing with me were hardcore bands. He’s really into bands like The Dillinger Escape Plan. His leads kind of change our music a little bit. I write the songs for the most part. My main influences are really angsty stuff, like the first Brand New record. I’m really into Margot and the Nuclear So & So’s. Jon is into, like, early 90s, emo shit, so it all kind of comes together. It makes our sound our own thing. We’ve been compared to a lot of stuff, but I feel like the only reason our sound is what it is, is because of all of our influences, and how they’re so different.
5. This is in reference to your song “Growing Young and Aging Poorly”. The lyrics reminded me of getting over a situation, whether it was a relationship or a betrayal from someone. What was that song about specifically?
It’s really a song about myself and trying to get over a six-year relationship. That whole record is pretty much about that, in different lights of the relationship. “Growing Young and Aging Poorly” is really a reference to where you’re de-aging, you know what I mean? I feel like as I’m getting older, I’m getting more immature in the way that I’m looking at relationships and stuff like that.
6. Where do you get most of your lyrical ideas from? Both style wise and content wise?
All of my lyrics come from personal things that have happened to me. I’m really influenced by old-school Jesse Lacey lyrics, where he was angsty and pissed. Those lyrics where he was pissed about what was going on in the world. He’d write songs about his love life and that kind of stuff too. I’d grew up on that; those angsty, teenage, pissed, emo lyrics. When I talk about our band a lot, everybody asks “Oh, what kind of band are you?” and I noticed we get lumped in with pop-punk bands a lot. But really, I just say that we’re an emo band. I’m not afraid to say that.
7. What kind of message would you like fans to walk away with after listening to your music?
I want kids to walk away with knowing that it’s okay to express your feelings. It’s cool to let it out. You don’t always have to keep it all in. It’s not wrong for you to feel or be a certain way. I think that’s something that kids could take from what I’m writing or what I’m saying, and from our live performance too. We could be playing to a hundred kids, or one kid, but we leave it all out there on stage. We go as loud as we can, and put as much emotion into it as we can, and that’s what I want people to take away. You’re not wrong for feeling a certain way.
8. What are the future plans for the band?
On this last tour we just did, we shot every live performance. We are going to be releasing a new song called “Retribution”. We don’t have a release date yet, but we’re gonna do a live video for it and then shoot an actual video for it. We’re gonna be doing a bunch of weekend tours and stuff throughout June and July. We’re doing a tour out to Texas in August, and into September. In the winter, we’re going to be doing a full-length record. We have about fifteen to twenty songs written already. It’s going to be called “Songs About Marilyn”.
Be sure to check out the band on Facebook: www.facebook.com/thetraditional, and follow the band on Twitter: @the_traditional.