156/Silence Interview

Hey everyone ! Dave here. My band Rise, My King just recently played with 156/Silence at The Champ in Harrisburg, PA. I caught up with their guitarist Jimmy Howell and got to ask him a few questions. Here's the interview !

Q:When did you start playing music ? And was your current instrument your first instrument ?

A:I started playing guitar when I was like 15. I always wanted to play guitar, I never really wanted to play anything else at all. I literally cannot play anything else, so.

Q:What genre of music do you play ?

A:Metalcore/Hardcore. I would say our biggest influences are like Norma Jean, Everytime I Die, but also like more hardcore stuff too.

Q:Who are your inspirations musically ?

A:My favorite guitar player would probably be Kurt Ballou from Converge. They are very, very fast most of the time. Like, they don't have breakdowns really. It's like very fast Metalcore. They're like an older band, probably twenty years.

Q:What is the last record you purchased ?

A:I honestly cannot tell you. I usually just listen on Spotify to be honest with you.

Q:So what was the last album you listened to on Spotify ?

A:Well today, I was actually listening to Horse the Band. Horse the Band is my favorite band. Whenever I was 15, I started a Nintendocore band. Like breakdowns with like 8-Bit sounds. So I was doing that until I got into this kind of music. I finally got to play with Horse the Band a couple of years ago with my other band. It was a dream come true.

Q:Well, you just said your favorite band. Do you have a favorite song ? Is it by them ? Why is it your favorite song ?

A:I don't really have a specific favorite song. I mean, I would say my top 3 favorite bands would be Horse the Band, a band called A Hope For Home. They're like a sludgier post-hardcore band. They have like post rock elements. And then, Everytime I Die.

Q:What's your favorite Everytime I Die song ?

A:Probably Underwater Bimbos from Outer Space. I always listened to them for awhile, I never got super into them. I heard that song and I was like "I'm in !".

Q:What does music mean to you ?

A;Well, for me it's just like, it's the one thing I can do where I can focus on that and nothing else. Like, this whole tour y'know, we all have super stressful lives. I have a 6-year old son, and like I'm going to college right now, working full-time. This is the only time I don't have to worry about anything. And, that release is what makes it worth it.

Q:If you could improve your local scene, how would you do so ?

A:Just getting more kids to come out to shows, and starting more bands. Because in Pittsburgh, there is no young bands. Every band we play with is all around their 20 to 22 age. We just played with a Metalcore band that are all 16. We were congratulating them because we need people like that. There's nobody starting bands anymore. The shows are suffering. I'm sure it's like that everywhere too.

Q:Outside of the genre you play, what is your favorite genre of music ?

A:I do listen to a lot of electronic music. Vapor Wave, Synth Wave, 80's sounding synth, stuff like that. I'm sure you've heard stuff like it before. Vapor Wave is basically like  this weird sort of sampled music where they play older music and sample it over top of synth beats. It's very, very weird. I listen to that a lot when I'm not listening to heavy music.

Q:Which do you like more ? Writing music, or performing music ?

A:I personally like writing music better. Me and the drummer sit down and write everything. Like start to finish, I'll come in, I'll have like one riff and we'll write a whole song in a half an hour. It's like non-stop. It's still fun though, like I love doing it. Then we leave, we get in the car, we listen to the song we just wrote like 20 times. We're like "This is so sick, dude !". But I still do love, like nothing matches performing live. Looking out and seeing people have a good time to the music, like nothing matches that.

Q:What is your favorite thing about being a musician ?

A:Probably touring honestly. Yeah, this is our first big tour like I was telling you before. I've done little stuff like 5 to 10 days. This one was 17 days. It's just, meeting new people everyday, travelling, it's the most fun thing you can do. We played here last year, but like nobody who's here now was there last time. Everybody's like super nice y'know.

Q:What is your least favorite thing about being a musician ?

A:Probably the whole money aspect. We split everything obviously between the four of us, and right before tour, we had to spend all this money on merch. The van we have, it's not even ours. We had to rent it. $1,500 for the whole tour, and like, all that adds up. And we're never gonna make that money back, but we don't care obviously, because we want to do it.

Q:Where has been your favorite place that you've played ?

A:Our favorite place on this tour was definitely in Laredo, Texas. It's right on the Mexican border. The place we played, it literally looked like this. It was outside, it was a big ole stage, and two blocks from the Mexican border. Like being there just felt like a different country. But everybody came, everybody had a good time, we sold a bunch of merch, everybody was nice like, it was so fun. That was the farthest I've ever been from home too.

Q:What's next for you and the band ?

A:Right now, we're not gonna tour again until we get our own van because we don't want to keep investing into renting. We're working on writing right now. We just put out an EP in May. We already have like another whole thing ready.

Q:What's the name of the EP ?

A:Karma. We're hoping to record again in March or April. Like I said, we write like crazy. I already have the basics written for the whole album already.

Go Listen to 156/Silence and enjoy their sound ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0ep9OYr6hw