The band has released their first full length, Painting Parallels, the highly energetic follow up to their 2015 EP, The Vice Volumes. In Urgency plays driving and emotionally powerful music that playfully mixes pop punk and post hardcore to bring something truly fresh to the scene.

Here’s a look at SCAD Radio’s interview with Sam Mountain and Javier Caudillo of In Urgency.

Kush with SCAD Radio: For those who haven’t heard of In Urgency, what would be a good song to serve as a starting point into your music?

Sam Mountain from In Urgency: It’s hard to choose one. Especially now, with having 16 songs to chose from instead of just 6.

Javier Caudillo from In Urgency: I would say that a good one is “Angel,” the third track from our new album, and “All You Need,” the second track. I think both of these songs are a good representation of our current sound.

Sam Mountain: “Dear Lovely” as well.

Javier Caudillo: Those three if you asked us to choose our top three. And of course The Holy Ghost, the one we did the music video for. It’s kind of hard when we have all this stuff, we’re really excited for the record as a whole. I would say if you needed to pick one, then it’d be “All You Need” or “Angel,” the second and third tracks on the album.

Kush: How would you describe the experience of releasing your first full length, Painting Parallels?

JC: Oh man, it’s a long story. But to sum it up, it’s the most exhilarating and stressful thing to happen all at the same time.

SM: It’s amazing.

JC: I had a question asked that was asking what the most difficult thing we had gone through as a band and that in and of itself is releasing an album as a whole independently. Making sure all the aspects of the album and making sure it gets out there and that people see it are the most difficult aspect for sure. You know, like reaching the outlets, press, media, and video and this and that and it’s just all over the place when you’re really just trying to play music. We’re starting to get back home and perform live.

SM: Unfortunately, we did postpone our CD release show because Chris (Anderson) had to have an emergency due to his appendix. We haven’t really had the opportunity to experience the fruits of our labor in playing most of these songs yet but we will soon — hopefully by the end of the summer.  

JC: We’re set to be scheduled in the middle of August, so this is a very exciting opportunity that we have coming up. Hopefully we get to share it soon.

K: Is there anything else that was different for you guys in recording this album?

SM: The whole process. So this time around we had Daniel Wonacott from Finch come out and take the lead as producer. We worked with Daniel before on our EP but he just did a little bit of co-production but he wasn’t the upfront guy. So this time around he was the only producer working and we got to make the record the real way. The way the real professionals do it as far as pre-production, and getting the good working relationships together and getting the songs really together before we ever set foot in the studio. Daniel literally came out every writing session and rehearsal.

JC: For 6 to 8 weeks — at the least — he would sit with us for 3 to 4 hours. We’d tear through the songs and rip them apart and build them back up and all that in between. Like who does that before they even get paid? I guess it’s a matter of him really believing in what we’re doing. It was a really cool experience from start to finish.

K: So would you say that working with Daniel Wonacott was more of a hands on experience than working with other producers?

SM: Oh, it couldn’t have been more that way. Specifically, he plays it himself a little bit. Like, he’ll hop on bass or decide to do vocals himself or play guitar for a bit. Because he lent his universal knowledge from top to bottom to us he was able to communicate every change and every idea he suggested very well. And us, as a band, were able to take it in the right direction. So, very hands on but not controlling. At all. He was always like, “Here’s what I think is a good idea, what do you guys think?”

JC: Right. For the most part, he left it up to us for what ideas to go with and what not to. And for the ideas that he insisted on, I was like “F—k yeah!” They were some of my favorite parts of the record. He’d be like, “You’ve gotta try this,” and we’d try it out and it’d come out better than we expected.

K: What kind of message are you trying to send through this latest record?

JC: I think Chris has a heavy hand in the writing along with Sam, with them both being vocals and guitar. It’s a lot of introspection and self-evaluation. It’s kind of taking a step back from where you’re at and identifying what’s going on and digging up some stuff that isn’t the easiest to dig up from the past and facing it in real time. He wrote a song about his little sister and he wrote a song about his mom and his hometown. It’s all this really, really inner personal stuff that I’m proud of him for pulling out and not being superficial about anything and putting everything on the table. And Sam, of course, his his own touch on things with bridges and things like that as well as other things that are personal to him. It’s not all just, “Oh, be positive.” This is the real s—t. The real deal.

K: When you guys write do you tend to focus on lyrics first or do you tend to set out the framework through your music first?

SM: It’s different for every song. I’d say lyrics usually come afterwords, at least for me.

JC: The thing that happened this time around is that I think Chris had a ton of material ready to go for the writing process. He was laying things on top of each other and we didn’t realize it until the end of it. I think he does it as he goes. Sam does it in a slightly different sense, but it all worked out. To me it was a nice surprise to hear it all at once. It was really fun to feel it out and jam it out with Daniel who was really hands on with the drums, bass, and guitar. So I had a really fun time writing and getting down and sweaty and getting into the nooks and crannies of the writing process. It came out a lot better and I’m really grateful for everyone pushing themselves.

SM: I think vocals are the one thing we focused on more in the studio. Pre-production was more on instrumentals and the arrangements. There’s a lot of stuff we didn’t hear until we got in the studio and put it together.

K: One of my favorite parts of your music is how emotionally intense it can be. Can you tell me a little bit about what you do in order to preserve the emotional intensity?

SM: Just be real. I feel like on all the songs, the lyrics really come from the heart. Like in terms of Chris’s writing, he delves really deep on this record. There’s no way for it not to come across as super emotional and super gritty. I think this is an issue that some bands have in expressing their vocals. If they’re not singing from the heart and it’s not real, then it doesn’t come across that way. One of the things that Daniel really stressed was the fact that if it’s hard to talk about then it’s probably one of the better topics to write about. I think Chris really took that to heart. In the moment, watching Chris through the booth it was intense. There is just no other word to describe it. It was just intensity. If you take some time to listen to some different songs like “Dear Lovely” and “The Holy Ghost”, he’s really up there in terms of vocal register and something he didn’t do in quite the same way on the previous record. It just translated perfectly. The intensity of the overall record captivates, like you said. It just came out the way we wanted it to.

K: You guys recently released a video for “The Holy Ghost.” Can you tell me a little bit about your experience in recording this video?

JC: It was fun! This is probably one of the most fun shoots we’ve done being that this is probably the third or fourth shoot that we’ve done with the same crew. We started off a long, long time ago with a good friend of Chris’s, a childhood friend. His name is Aaron Alps, he does a lot of crazy stuff. So those guys grew up together and went into different careers and linked up one day. So we started off with a video three years ago and since then we’ve done a video just about every year. Each time it’s gotten more and more smooth. We know how each person works and we know what to do and the shots that he likes to get. So this was the shortest shoot that we’ve done due to the fluidity, but it still took like 12 or 16 hours straight to shoot.

SM: This time we started in the morning and ended in the night, rather than the other way around. The thing that was cool as well was that we just built that entire set in our practice space. Our practice space looked nothing like it does on a daily basis and became a soundstage with all the wood pallets and lights and some of that stuff still hasn’t been taken home. [laughs]

JC: We made a little mini-set, after the fact, to keep the vibe and it’s really cool. It was a really intense backdrop, as you can see in the video. We built it really fast as well. We did the same thing for our very first video, which I mentioned, “Stitches”. We built that set ourselves, and I love the way we do things. It’s really, really rewarding. So yeah, built up from the ground up and you shoot on it and it just looks epic.

K: Why did you choose “The Holy Ghost” as the song for the first music video?

JC: I think it was a preference of Chris’s, in terms of just song. It was the first song off the album and it was just fitting and was the perfect way of opening up the way we wanted to come across in terms of new sound. It’s definitely a different representation than our first record and we thought it was be a good song for the first video.

SM: Obviously, there’s more to come but I think this is a nice transitional song. It keeps the vibes that people are used to but also introduces new elements that were incorporated with the album.

K: What’s next for In Urgency?

SM: Playing a show. [laughs]

JC: We’re really excited to get into the performance aspect because we’ve had people that are waiting nice and patiently for that show we were supposed to have and we’ve rescheduled it. So, that’s looking like the middle of August and we’re going to hit the major venues in our area soon after that. Definitely big fans of playing the Glass House. We’ve played the Rocks a few times in the LA area. It’s always a good time. It’s just the concert experience that we want to bring to everyone. We’re excited to play a nice, long 9 or 10 song set that we were just supporting an EP. I think we’ve gelled together more than we have before so that’s going to be an exciting thing to bring to the stage. It’ll be a more cohesive set of songs rather than just bam, bam, bam. I think this is where we can come into our own sound.

Be sure to visit scadradio.org for more interviews and music news.

The post In Urgency talks new album, “The Holy Ghost” music video appeared first on SCAD Radio.

The band, originally from New Jersey, was one of the most influential pop punk bands to have ever played. Starting off with a 7-inch in 1987, the band has continued making some of the finest punk rock and has played alongside acts such as Grenn Day, Rancid, NOFX, Bad Religion and The Buzzcocks.

Here’s a look at SCAD Radio’s interview with The Parasites.

Kush with SCAD Radio: For people who might not be so familiar with the Parasites —

Dave with the Parasites: You mean…everyone?

Kush: [laughs] What would you say would be a good entry point into your music?

Dave: By us or by someone else? [laughs] We’ll go for the Solitary album. I think that one’s good and we have a whole bunch of them in our merch bin. But it’s because there were a lot of them, not because nobody bought them.

Charlie with the Parasites: So we have both quantity and quality.

K: Is there a sort of message you’d like to send through your music?

D: Generally, it’s been, “Please, someone, will you go out with me,” for the past 32 years. I’m working on it. Really, that’s kind of about it.

K: It’s fun though!

D: Not for 32 years it isn’t. [laughs]

K: So what are the biggest changes you’ve seen affect the pop punk scene over the years?

D: That nobody buys stuff anymore because music is free. Seriously. And although inflation has gone up steady in that time, shows are still, a lot of times, five bucks. This means we’re playing 87 cents in 1987 dollars. Gas is expensive. Food is expensive. Shows are still cheap.

K: Are there any bands that kind of embody what it used to be like in the past?

D: You mean bands that are doing well now like they were back then? Well, the Descendents are about a hundred times more popular now than they were back then. I mean, they played little places back then. I mean now they play like —

Charlie: Arenas.

D: Arenas.

C: I think the trick is going away for an extended period of time. A lot of bands get back together and their reunion shows are much better than their original shows ever were. But you’ve been doing it straight for 30 years. You shot yourself in the foot. [laughs]

D: Well. considering the current lineup, I shot myself twice in the foot. [laughs] There was one period of a year and a half or two years where we didn’t play any shows. I moved somewhere and I just wasn’t doing it. But it was very short and we weren’t missed, so we just decided to keep going regardless.

K: And since you guys have done a few covers over the years, was there one in particular that you found to be the most enjoyable to do?

D: I think the Leonard Cohen cover was unusual for us and it came out pretty good.

K: Is there anything you do on these covers to put your own spin on it and make it your own?

D: Completely destroy them. [laughs] And we’ve been successful so far. Like with the Leonard Cohen one, there’s guitars feeding back and we took the guitar stand and threw things at it. And that’s really one of the tracks. Like, for real. We played it with a screwdriver. Then we started throwing stuff at it. So, that was successful.

K: So you guys were born out of the New Jersey/Tri-State punk scene. How would you say that influenced the direction of the band starting out?

D: I was looking to go west to California and that direction from early on. In New Jersey it wasn’t a big thing. There was the Blisters, the Fiends, and us. We were the least popular then and are probably the most popular now. But that’s in 2017 popularity and is nothing like it used to be. So, we still lose. We’re just the ones that are dumb enough to keep going.

K: For those of you who are newer to the band, what do you bring that brings something new and fresh to the band? 6.11

Patrick with the Parasites: Drug use. [laughs] No, we’re younger people so I guess…germophobia?

Alex with the Parasites: Really bad taste in music, according to Dave.

C: Bad puns, I think, is a thing. It has always been a part of the band —

D: Not like now.  

C: It’s gotten to proportions that it hasn’t prior.

D: It’s almost equal to corporal PUN-ishment at this point. [laughs]

K: So what would you say led to the meteoric rise in puns in the Parasites?

Alex: None of us are cool?

C: Yeah none of us are cool.

D: I don’t know. Charlie just happens to be weird in some of the ways that I’m weird. We started off combining band names. “Grateful Dead Kennedys” and things like that. The entire trip we’d do that.

C: “AeroSmiths.”

D: Our drummer at the time didn’t understand what we were doing and he would just go “Madonna Weezer” [laughs] and think he’d have one. He never understood how to play, so we fired him.

C: It passes the time.

K: So how has the tour been for you guys?

Patrick: It’s been peaceful.

A: We’ve listened to Walter Brennan a lot.

D: No one is going to have any idea who this guy is at all. It’s a guy that was on this TV show in the 50’s that was like this hokey country thing and for some reason he put out records. He doesn’t sing, he talks. There’s people behind him singing. There’s an old cowboy song called “Cool Water” which is about looking for water and being thirsty.  And he just goes, “Cool. Clear. Water.” He sounds like he’s about to die. [laughs] It’s really funny. Alex laughs about it when he just thinks about it. That’s been on a lot. But nobody will know who he is. It’s on YouTube if you look for it. You should find it funny.

K: What would you say are big differences between Dave and the newer guys in the band?

D: Uh, age. [laughs] Age, intelligence, and my ability to remember insults for the rest of my life and hold them against the person who said it.

A: Dave just knows everybody. He knows pretty much every band and has been all over the country more than any of us. Experience, I guess.

C: He came from a time before GPS, so he has internalized maps and atlases and he sort of knows where he is at all times. And all of our directional skills have atrophied because of the advent of map apps. So, he knows where we are. And we don’t know. We’re in…uh…Georgia, right?

D: Charlie actually got lost in the van yesterday. We couldn’t find him for about 3 hours.

C: I did lose my shoe earlier today. When I was back at the van and gone for a little while I was actually looking for my other shoe. I was waiting for the other one to drop.

D: So we did luck out in that Charlie doesn’t drive. Thank goodness.

K: So what’s it like to be in a band with someone so influential to pop punk as Dave?

P: It’s cool. All of us are from Chicago but it’s not like any of us are from the same band or anything. So it’s just one of those things where we’re all in the punk scene and met Dave separately. We all joined up because seperately we were fans of the band and it’s a lot of fun to play songs that we’ve been listening to for a long time.

C: Speak for yourself, I’m not a fan of this band. [laughs]

D: In reality, Charlie was recruited through an ex-drummer who drove our van into a pole at a WhatABurger and got it stuck there. He made his parents pay for the van damage. I knew Pat through an ex-girlfriend, who was also the ex-girlfriend of the guy who messed up the band names game. She told me that he plays drums but that he sucked so I never called him. I found out that he didn’t. Alex, I met through our regular bassist who tours when work allows. He has a band that Alex and I both ended up being in. He doesn’t really do anything so I had him do this so he can do something. So, that’s more of the factual side.

C: Which is far less interesting, to be perfectly honest.

D: Or to keep it simple, I lost three bets. [laughs]

K: So, what’s next for the Parasites?

D: Something to eat, then we’re playing here. A nicer, cleaner house to stay in than we did last night. The first beach that we can run right into because the water’s not too cold.

C: [towards Dave] This guy’s writing songs. I have it on good authority that the next album will be quite good.

D: The songs are about them and it’s called “I Hate My Bandmates.” [laughs] It’s going to be great. Four songs apiece, all the ways that I hate them.

C: And you can of course reach us at www.facebook.com/officialparasites, @parasitesnews on Twitter, and parasites_official on instagram.

Stay tuned to scadradio.org for more music news and interviews.

The post SCAD Radio Chats with The Parasites appeared first on SCAD Radio.

SCAD Radio recently had the opportunity to chat with Microwave after their performance at 2017 A.U.R.A. Fest in Savannah, Georgia.

Microwave is one is most prolific up and comers in the pop punk and post hardcore scene. The band sings about some of the most personal material in a way that never feels corny whilst simultaneously crafting some of the catchiest music to ever hit the genre. Coming off of a tour with A Will Away and Tiny Moving Parts and ahead of a European tour, Microwave took the stage in Savannah, returning for the first time since a show at Sweet Melissa’s.

Here’s a look at our interview with Microwave.

Kush at SCAD Radio: For someone who has never listened to Microwave before, what would you say is a good entry point into your material?

Tyler Hill from Microwave: I’m just going to go ahead and say “Vomit”, because that was the first single off the new record. We thought it would be a good, all-encompassing jam. [laughs]

Nathan Hardy from Microwave: Definitely “Vomit” or “Drown”.

Kush: You guys are often considered one of the up and coming bands in the current emo revival. Do you guys take any influence from bands that might be considered midwest emo or even skramz?

Nathan Hardy: That’s seriously weird to me, because I never think of Microwave, especially with Much Love, as emo or releasing emo records. I’d say we are more indie rock or alternative rock.

Timothy “Tito” Pittard from Microwave: Some hard rock and soft rock in there as well.

NH: Medium rock. [laughs]

Tyler Hill: I will say that I’ve heard that we’ve gotten more emo in the last 6 months, because of Much Love, I guess.

Nathan Hardy: I guess musically, it doesn’t really make sense. I guess people are talking about lyrical things being more emo. But I mean, Radiohead was kind of depressing and sad, but people don’t go around calling Radiohead an emo band. I don’t know. I’m not sure what I think of when I think of emo. I think of Bright Eyes, honestly.

K: Are there any current bands in the emo revival scene that you guys are really into?

NH: I think Brand New is a really big influence for us. They’re kind of seen as forefathers of that whole scene. I bet they wouldn’t really consider themselves an emo band either, though. Because, if you listen to OK Computer by Radiohead, there’s a lot of similar elements between that and the last two Brand New records. I have a theory that Jesse Lacey really likes Radiohead.

TH: You had five seconds to ask him at Riot Fest, and you blew it. [laughs] You said, “Hey man, nice set.” Not even, “Hey man, do you like Radiohead?” [laughs]

NH: I got to say I talked to Jesse Lacey though. It was the best set of a band I’ve ever seen in my life.

TP: It was really awesome. It was a great set.

NH: They’re a great band.

TH: I don’t know if Citizen is part of that category, but Matt Kerekes’ solo record is f–king awesome. I’ve been waiting for it, and it’s super dope.

K: But that’s what other people have to say about you guys. What would you guys call your own music, in regards to a genre?

NH: I would just say indie or alternative rock. Hard rock, soft rock.

TP: The rocks.

TH: Medium well, rock.

NH: [laughs] It’s like a rock sandwich.

TP: Firm enough, but still bleeding. [laughs]

NH: You know, maybe we’re just not self aware. But I feel like this new album has a pretty good spread of different vibes. Some of them will be pretty hard to call a certain genre.

TH: I think when you can’t fully decide, that’s a good thing. You’ve got diversity.

NH: I think it’s that there are so many bands that you like and you’re like, “I want to do something like that!” and like having a short attention span with all these different bands. I mean, we love Converge and Chariot and bands like that. Like, I want to do heavy stuff and then bands like Radiohead and Portugal. The Man and Queens of the Stone Age and stuff make their way in. Queens of the Stone Age is one of my favorite bands. That’s why I don’t know if I’d ever want to be thought of as just a straight up emo band. We’re not trying to do something — like I know there’s the whole sadboy movement. Like it becomes a point of being particularly emo or sad and that’s not us. Maybe some of the s–t is lyrically somewhat sad or whatever, but you know. Life is just bad. Everyone just dies. [laughs]

K: Microwave writes some deeply personal lyrics but they never come off as corny, and are instead rather poetic. Is there anything you guys do to have lyrics like that?

NH: Be obsessive compulsive.

TP: Rewrites and rewrites.

NH: Hate yourself and listen to the things you write and think that they sound corny. And then rewrite them. [laughs] Heavily. [laughs]

TH: Probably, that’s the key right there.

NH: Probably, because I’ll write something and then I’ll be “This sounds f–king corny”. I don’t know. I’ve never been big on the whole magical write on a napkin in the middle of the night storytelling/songwriting sort of thing. I don’t know, I always overthink things. It’s never a poetic moment or whatever.

K: Is there anything you guys do outside of music, like a hobby, that contributes to the band musically in a way?

NH: Tito’s really into paintballing.

TH: I am really stressed out by my job.

NH: Tyler programs HVAC units for…

TH: Commercial equipment. It’s incredibly stressful. You want a temperature adjustment? I got it. Differential pressure? Come on, I’ll get it sorted out.

NH: He takes tech support calls in the van. He’ll hop onto his computer, and while we’re on tour he’ll be taking tech support calls.

TH: It stresses me. So much.

NH: But aside from that…Uh, you know. Making love. [laughs] You know, to our beautiful woman.

Collectively: [laughs]

NH: WomEn. More than one. I get corrected on my plural pronunciation all the time. Wemen. [laughs] You have to say “we” first. Wemen.

TH: We-Man!

TP: I don’t know. I mean, we all drink. [laughs]

NH: Heavily.  

TP: I read. I like reading. I work occasionally. I work at Flying Biscuit.

TH: We’re really boring. [laughs]

K: What’s the most “rock star” thing you guys have ever done?

TP: Touring with Motion City Soundtrack. That’s pretty up there.

TH: Riot Fest Chicago. That was super, super awesome.

NH: I injured myself a bunch last year from…stage things. I dislocated my shoulder onstage while playing at Wrecking Ball. And then at Riot Fest, I strained my neck. I gave myself whiplash, from headbanging too hard. [laughs] And then on the All Get Out tour, I smashed my knee into the ground doing like an Elvis Presley slide. And it’s been 3 months, and I just got an MRI on it last week. [laughs] It still hurts. I’m okay, I just have a bone bruise.  

K: What was different for you guys when you were writing and recording Much Love, as opposed to working on your older material like the split with Head North or Stovall?

TH: Stovall was written over 2 years. Much Love was a lot more condensed. In terms of the whole band being together and working on it, that was different.

TP: We did demos, though. I feel like that was the difference. For a month, we kept changing the songs.

TH: We practiced a lot.

NH: I think a big thing is after Stovall, we got a lot of Manchester Orchestra comparisons. I kind of learned how to sing in high school by singing Manchester Orchestra songs and covering them. So, it kinda bugged me. So, I was like “Oh s–t, I’m just a worse version of a band I like.” So, one of the big things was I wanted it to sound as little like Manchester Orchestra as possible. [laughs] They’re a great band, but I wanted to do something that sounded more personal or something.

I know it’s now late in the day, but who are guys most excited to see at AURA Fest today?

NH: Definitely Oh, Sleeper and Unearth. Probably Zao too. I’m pretty bummed I missed Vatican, honestly. Yashira sounds cool too.

Be sure to visit SCADRadio.org for all the latest on 2017 A.U.R.A. Fest and much more!

The post A.U.R.A. Fest 2017: Microwave Q&A appeared first on SCAD Radio.