Project 86 - Interview before Drawing Black Lines was released
Just don't ask me about our name and we'll do fine," offers Andrew Schwab (Project 86 frontman and resident "scary-guy-with-the-hair-helmet") as I turn on the tape recorder for our interview at Tomfest, WA. We are in a band van, surrounded by the things that bands have in their vans. The owning party is called Stavesacre, and they pulled into the Tomfest back-lot just in time for us to commandeer their vehicle for Official HM Business: somewhere to get out of the noise for taping purposes.
They are standing outside, acting a little annoyed, doing their rock star thing, talking to Tooth&Nail / BEC owner, Brandon Ebel, and throwing out occasional verbal jabs in Andrew's direction. Randy Torres, 86 guitarist, is in here too, but they leave him alone, focusing most of their mockery on Andrew. We try to ignore the sarcastic jests and random calls of "What up Nat-X?" as we proceed with our interview session.
For those that came in late, Project 86 is a fairly new group, signed to BEC Recordings, and is a four-piece band consisting of drummer, Alex Albert, bassist, Steven Dail, guitarist, Randy, and vocalist, Andrew. Their first album, self-titled, was released over a year ago, and has been lauded as a masterpiece in heavy, violent groove. They have been marketed as "Rap-Core," but when I bring that up in the van, they balk at the use of the term. Andrew asserts, "There is a little bit of rapping in the music, but it's not a hip-hop influence. Like, you wouldn't call Beck a rapper, even though he raps. You take some heavy music with groove, melody, some rap, screaming, and weird stuff, and mix it all together, and that's Project 86." I sympathize with their disdain for the term, and humbly suggest that, if they do not like the label, maybe they should not have allowed their advertising and promotion to contain it. Andrew agrees, and yells out the window in their label owner's direction, "We are NOT Rap-Core!"
Wanting to get the interview process on track, I turn to my mental note pad and find myself a bit defeated, since my opening question about their name had already been nullified by the opening admonition. Lost and confused by this organizational befuddling, I turn to my cheetah-like reporter instincts, and go into their discography and plans for releasing a new album in November, "Uh . . . Your last album was pretty critically acclaimed in a lot of circles. Are you guys going to stay with your old musical focus, or do you think you'll do anything different?"
Randy responds first to my brilliant ad-libbing, "Our first CD . . . we had never actually recorded a CD before, and I was pretty happy with it. But with our new stuff... It's not going to be different music, but it's going to be a lot more mature... Better song writing, more creative stuff. Instead of "chugga-chugga-da-da-da," you know..."
Andrew adds, "I think we have, somewhere along the way in the last year, found ourselves in a lot of ways, and I think that the new music is a lot more diverse. There's some parts of the album that will be much heavier than on the last record, and some parts will be very melodic. A lot more singing, a lot more upbeat tempos. More energy." Now in my stride, I use this information to further the discussion, asking if the heavy tone and anger of the first album will transfer over into the new one, "Are you going to continue with the aggression, or tone it down?"
Andrew replies, "The music is going to stay very aggressive, but lyrically, we try to stay away from presenting ourselves as an angry type of band, or a tough type of band. We want to go for a more emotive, creative presentation of emotion and passion... On the first album, lyrically there were a lot of things that I was going through, personal struggles, issues. Therefore, it comes out really dark. The new album deals a lot less with me, and more with the world around us. Issues out there, people, society, culture, those types of things."
We discuss this change in attitude and focus, and find that one of the things this group wants to communicate most is their individual growth as people in a band. Never content with vague allusions, I ask for specifics. Andrew offers this example, "We played a show in Southern California. There were, like, 700 kids there. It was at this church, and we started playing, and the kids were really into it, and Steve, our bass player, was standing over the monitor with his legs spread open, and just rocking in the face of the crowd. And I've never seen him pull that vibe live, and I looked over and just looked at him, and thought, "Wow, we're changing, we're evolving." So, I think that we have learned how to be ourselves. Each of the individuals in this band has reached inside, and pulled out something unique and put it into the music, into the stage show, put it in the way we look And I think that's what it means to be an artist. And what goes along with that is, when we're on the road, we're challenging each other spiritually a lot more. And, what we have allowed to come out is God's unique blessings in our lives. The unique characteristics that He has created us with. We have kind of stepped outside ourselves and looked internally, and pulled those things out. We feel like that is what's going to make us a unique band, and make us something that the kids can relate to."
Anxious to enter the fray, Randy adds his spin to it, "We've only been a band for three years, but we've spent a lot of time together in a van, just hanging out. When you spend that much time together, you learn who WE are, who YOURSELF is, and we have all just grown so much. Growing so much spiritually, musically, being more mature; finding ourselves, and not trying to be a band that we're not."
Andrew is not done with this subject, and jumps back in, "A specific example is, back in the day, a lot of people had the impression that Project 86 was this really tough band. We were up on the stage being really tough, staring down the kids. I think that we're nothing like that now. We're a very emotional band. We'll continue to play tough music, hard music, but our vibe is not a tough guy vibe at all. We found ourselves, and that's what I mean. Our vibe is ourselves, our personalities, and we're trying to go the opposite way of being that kind of tough. Just being ourselves."
My notes are out the window at this point, and I decide that this topic is hitting massive. So, I continue it and ask, "How would you like people to perceive you then? Like, if you could tell everybody "This is who we are." What would you say?"
NEXT PAGE
All Pages | 1 | 2 | 3
Return to Internet Exclusives
Comments
How old is this interview? Seems to me their attitude has kind of changed.
And can I just say that Truthless Heroes was definately lacking the same passion that was on their first two CD's? Man, I love Project 86, but they're newest CD missed it with me. Too much "agenda" for me. Yucky.
(I feel like there is a new bandwagon of people who are always speaking against the elusive 'industry'. For the love of...bands are falling into the same trap they're speaking against ... forgetting the music, the art, and getting caught up in the business.)
This was in the print edition in about 1999/2000 I think, It was before drwaing black lines was released in New Zealand (march 2000) anyway.
Yeah, I think their attitude has kinda changed.
They're yet another band deluded into thinking that they have a significant number of non christian fans, and don't realise that any success they do have in the so called mainstream is actually due to their Christian fans ringing up and requesting them
Did you know...
1. That the song "Spy Hunter" is actually about a friend of the band who went to church with Andrew several years ago. The song is not about the friend, but about a quite well-known Pastor who molested him and then covered up the crime through manipulation of the church elder board.
2. That the song "Numb" is Andrew's reaction to the rape of his girlfriend, which took place during the writing process of their first record.
3. That the irony that is Truthless Heroes runs far deeper than any of you could ever imagine...
a. The song "Last Meal" is in fact about Tooth and Nail. When Ebel, Inc. signed the band he discouraged legal cousel and threatened to pull out of the deal if the band sought legal counsel. He subsequently got them to sign for SEVEN records at a royalty rate that the P86 mgmt and legal team would, years later, analyze and determine was bordering on slavery and criminal. The song "Last Meal" is about bringing justice to the situation...see further below.
b. The song "Your Heroes Are Dead" is, in fact, about P86s former mgmt team, the supposed "Christian" management team who has singlehandedly taken POD and Blindside from virtual obscurity to what they are today. P86 was politically leveraged out of the equation because said mgmt decided that they were not worthy of the attention necessary to break the band. Money was taken unethically from P86 just prior to the parting of ways, and TH was sacrificed because the band had no manager to work it. This is the main reason that neither TH nor DBL recieved the attention from ATLANTIC it deserved. Yes, management companies have a lot of weight in this business and can actually decide who succeeds, and who fails. The song is about having no support whatsoever from the people who promised it.
c. That from the beginning, TH was written as a means to get Atlantic to buy the contract from Tooth and Nail, and thus get P86 out of their horrible scenerio. In many ways the songs, the lyrics, the creativity were controlled by Atlantic. This had an influence on how the songs sounded, the preponderance of melody, and the loss of the "rawness" of DBL. The band responded by writing a record cloaked in metaphor about the powerlessness of being on a major label that controls a large majority of what you do.
d. That, ironically, Atlantic did in fact buy Project out their deal after a year and a half of negotiation, sleepless nights, heartache, headache, and betrayal. Said mgmt. almost blew the deal off the day before it was to be finished because they deemed it "not a good enough deal," though it in fact was a deal that would pay almost double the royalties that they were getting before. Nevermind the fact that said mgmt. had never taken the time to look over the p86 contract for the first three years of their relationship, during which time P86 constantly fought to have their business affairs handled in a timely, ethical, and honest manner, which they never actually were.
d. That the reason why P86 will never again tour with POD and Blindside is because said mgmt will never allow it.
e. That the hero who dies tragically in the TH story was, in fact, a metaphor for the fact that this record actually WAS sacrificed and killed so that P86 could get out of all these situations. It DID get them out of their mgmt deal and record deals so they could bring the truth, and REAL MUSIC back to you, the fans, where it belongs without all the bullshit.
f. That the band cannot expose any of this for legal reasons, threats of lawsuits, and restraining clauses in their former record deals.
WHO LAUGHS LAST???
More to come...
Before you ask who I am, realize I am not a member of the band, but a very close friend of theirs who has posted this information becuase the truth must be heard.
REALIZE IT IS YOU, THE FANS, THAT STAND BEHIND THIS GREAT BAND AND GIVE THEM THE POWER TO STAND FIRM ALONE, WITH YOU, WITHOUT THE INTERFERENCE OF LABELS AND OTHER INDUSTRY WHORES. YOU GIVE THEM THE POWER AND THE NERVE BY SUPPORTING THEM BY ANY AND ALL MEANS AVAILABLE TO YOU.
spread this information to all who deserve to hear it...
There is a God and he does care about his children when they are oppressed...
This will be a day long remembered
Harsh.
Ah...TruthlessHero, you beat me to it :) Read it, people. Do you understand the third album a little better now? It was a ruse, a prop to get the band out of the contracts that they were under. They're going guerilla now; they are forming their own label and releasing their own stuff independently now. Back to the basics.
Socialpulse, think a little harder. Bands like Project 86 are speaking out against the "industry" becuase THE INDUSTRY IS NOT ABOUT THE MUSIC AND THE ART. It is about money, and ONLY money. Bands like Project have every reason and right to speak out against the industry, and you should pay attention to what they have to say.
-PS
Boy, is that an eye opener! God help us.
I had the privledge of seeing Project 86 at CBGB's in New York. After the show I briefly talked to Andrew about some of the meanings of the songs and heard some of his thoughts on the band's direction. I walked away from the experience realizing that the band was and maybe still is going through a tough time. Andrew never said anything in particular to make me think this. Most of what we said was small talk, but spiritually for some reason I felt that there was more to everything than he was letting on. Alex said that the album was an exertion of much sweat,blood, and tears. I understand that now even more because socialpule's post. I hope everything you wrote is true.
"Sometimes the ends justify the means."
YOU GUYS HAVE MADE ME UNDERSTAND MORE. I AM 12 SO I DON'T GET MUCH. IF ANYONE CAN HELP ME OUT WITH THIS SORT OF THING, PLEASE E-MAIL ME.
if they hate tooth and nail so much , why did they resign?
