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Exclusive interview: Josh James of Evergreen Terrace
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Evergreen Terrace from L to R: Kyle Mims, Craig Chaney, Josh James, and Andrew Carey
Evergreen Terrace have given fans a lot to offer with their latest record, Almost Home. Josh James, guitarist of Evergreen Terrace, explained, “It's a collection of us... getting into a room and just cranking up as loud as we can go at two in the morning, and just letting loose. These are the songs that came out.”
The Jacksonville, Florida-based hardcore band have released four studio albums previous to Almost Home. With 2007's Wolfbiker, it was an effort to come to grips with new drummer Kyle Mims. Evergreen's newest release shows their understanding of each other, and musical compatibility as a group.
On September 16th, 2009, Josh James and I sat in the band's van in the middle of a rainy night and talked about the September 29th album in detail.
JM: In Almost Home and previous records, you have a lot of song titles inspired by movies, TV, novels and etcetera. What's up with that?
Josh: I think we've always had a little bit of pop culture references, just because of products of our environment to a certain extent. We watch a lot of movies and read a lot of types of books. A lot of times, someone will come to practice and be like “Oh man, I was watching Joe Rogan's stand up last night and he had this bit called 'Enemy Sex' and it was so funny. We should definitely use that for a title of a song.” Then everyone laughs about it and then we'll write a song and just, like, name it “Enemy Sex.” Later on, usually our writing processes, we write the music, and then we put lyrics to the music. Then later, we'll write these lyrics and we'll be like, “Hey, what do we call this song?” Then we'll be like, “Oh, well, you know, in a way, this title 'Enemy Sex,' or whatever the title may be, fits these lyrics.” It actually ends up being this weird, like, pop culture reference that somehow fits the lyrics that we write to the songs without even knowing what we're doing when it comes to a title.
JM: So, if I'm correct, you play an ESP guitar? On one side, Alice Cooper's guitarist plays that, and on the other side, Children of Bodom. What does an ESP bring to Evergreen Terrace?
Josh: ESP is a pretty sick guitar company. I, myself, play them, and our bass player plays them as well. What I personally like about it is, like, it works for me because I like traditional body styles. They have an SG body style, a Les Paul body style, they have like a Strat style. Really, I mean, I'm never going to get endorsed by Gibson or Fender. You know, it's like, the quality of them work really well for us and they're a cool company to work with. We keep in touch and they always want to hear ridiculous tour stories. It works really well with us. We actually recorded almost all of Almost Home with the LTD that I was playing tonight [Reading, PA, 9/16].
JM: Other than pop culture, where else do you draw inspiration for songwriting and constructing music?
Josh: I think, really, just being a part of the world. I joke about being citizens of the world because we tour so much. We've had formal educations in schools and institutions, but I don't think any school can give you what you get from traveling, from meeting different people, and from learning about different cultures. I think just growing up in the real world, you see things that affect you personally and affect other people personally. That's what brings up a lot of inspiration to us with the current state of mankind, the current state of the world, social or political issues. Really, even the simplest thing, like the struggle of just growing up. You know, everyone now is reaching into their late 20's or early 30's, so it's a lot different than what it was 10 years ago when we started.
JM: Describe the creative process for your upcoming album, Almost Home.
Josh: Myself and Craig [Chaney], the other guitar player, and Kyle [Mims], the drummer, we wrote all of the music. Really, after Wolfbiker released in 2007, we toured nonstop for close to a year and half. Then we decided to take a few months off and we just started cracking down, writing. A lot of it was just a collection of riffs that myself or Craig made up throughout the couple of years of touring. When we got into the thing, it just clicked. Back to the previous question, a lot of struggles that we went through after the Wolfbiker release, especially with the economy. I mean, everyone felt it, and we definitely felt a huge hit as well. That really, like, put us through a struggle. We had our original bass player quit the band, and just a lot of things started going downhill for us, I think, in a sense that we never felt before all at once. It kinda felt like someone just took a s**t on our face and then we're like, “Well f**k, we can either give up, or we can go back to the practice room and just jam out and see what comes out.” Really, this record is just one of those things where, that's what it is. It's a collection of us, the three of us, getting into a room and just cranking up as loud as we can go at two in the morning, and just letting loose. These are the songs that came out.
JM: Tell me how you've progressed as a band since the 2007 release, Wolfbiker.
Josh: Wolfbiker was our first release with Kyle on drums, and that was the first time that we wrote with him. Before that, we had the same line-up as the first record. It was real weird when we started writing with Kyle, because he operated completely different from what we were used to with our old drummer. There was really, like, a lot of butting heads, a lot of screaming and yelling, and, like, all, “Oh, f**k this!” You know, everyone losing their minds about it. Actually on Wolfbiker, we wrote about 8 songs, and then we just completely threw them all away. At first, we didn't know if we were all going to click together writing. And then we went on a Rise Against tour and when we came back – that tour was real diverse. It was us, Circa Survive, Thursday, and Rise Against. So we spent this tour listening to these different styles of bands, and when we came back, it was just all of a sudden we were ripping songs out left and right, left and right. It really put us in a groove with Kyle, but I don't think that it put us in the groove that we are now. At that time, he had been in the band for 2 years, and now he's been in the band for 4 years. The relationship that we all have, and the attitude, and the awareness of each other's personalities, I think has grown over time. We've been able to mesh better as musicians. You know, when we wrote this record, it was really natural, versus Wolfbiker. There was a lot of times on Wolfbiker where I write a song, and then in my head I hear the drum parts, and then Kyle's like, “No. This is what I hear.” Then it's just automatic head-butting. But on this record, a lot of it was like, I start playing the riff and he starts playing exactly what I was thinking, or vice-versa. He had an idea, and then we start playing exactly what he was thinking. I think, mentally, we all connected a lot better on this record whenever it came to the actual writing.
JM: I want to talk about a couple of songs from the new album. So, behind the hard-edge metalcore riffs and breakdowns in “Not Good Enough for You,” the lyrics draw an emotionally bitter line. Tell me about that song.
Josh: The last song? You know, I think, some of our songs are definite – you can listen to the lyrics and you know exactly what we're talking about, and then some of the songs, I think, are somewhat open for interpretation. That song is, I mean, you can interpret it in a couple of different ways. We wrote it from a standpoint of, sarcastically, not being good enough for the current state of music, or not being good enough for the current trends because we're so separated from that. We're a band that's not easily categorized. I don't think you can say Evergreen Terrace is a hardcore band, or a metal band, or a punk band, because we draw influences from all over. Sometimes that hurts us, and sometimes that helps us with having such a diverse sound. Really, it just comes down to – I mean, you can also interpret that as a relationship, if you wanted to. It's funny 'cause like, a lot of people will be like, “Ah man, this song is exactly how I felt when my girlfriend broke up with me!” And we're like, “Huh. Never thought about that, but alright.” Someone asked us, recently, if he could propose to their girlfriend at our show and that if we could play this song for him. And he said the song, and in my head I was like, “Man, that song is about constantly being sh***ed on in your life, and it never getting better!” [laughing] In my head I'm just like, “Does he not realize this?” I took it as like, “Hey, I love you! We have a terrible relationship and you probably hate me, it's never getting any better!” He probably takes it in another way, I don't know how he's going to take it, but we'll see how that turns out. You know, a lot of lyrics are open for interpretation. I mean, some people get something positive out of the lyrics, maybe it's not exactly what we were writing about. And someone gets something positive out of it, I think that's really cool.
JM: For “Sending Signals,” the words that stuck out to me the most were in the chorus. “Separation from the complications. I'm not coming, I'm not coming back.” What's your take on that song?
Josh: That song is about growing up. I wrote the majority of the lyrics and it's really, like, a feeling that I was having where it feels like I see all of these negative things in the world. All of these things that are just not going to change. It almost feels like, in a sense, I'm the only person that sees them. Now I know that other people see those same social issues, or political issues, or personal issues, but it seems like everyone is aware about it, but no one does it. I'm talking about anything from just, like, the way people treat each other, womens' rights, race rights. Any social problem that we're having, I mean especially the war that's going on and everything that's going on in the Middle East. You see all of these things happening, and you're trying so hard to make other people aware, and sometimes it's just so frustrating. I think the people that are the most aware about what's around them and in the world, are the most tormented people because they don't see love and excitement. They see despair and destruction, and it's really hard, especially for me. Sometimes it's really hard just to live in this world and see, really, how mankind is and how people treat each other. It's just so simple to treat each other with respect and have a world where people are co-existing. Religion and greed, politics, and power just overrules all and ends up being the downfall of mankind.
JM: Out of all of the tracks in Almost Home, which one is a standout for you, and why?
Josh: I think, for me, “Sending Signals” is one of my favorite songs because I think I have a close connection to the lyrics. Also, I really like – I always say there are different styles to Evergreen Terrace – there's, like, the punk side of Evergreen Terrace, and there's the more metal side of Evergreen Terrace, and I really like the punk side of Evergreen Terrace. That song, I think, has a real good beat and groove and has a sick solo that I have to get better at playing so I don't look like a retard whenever I get on stage to play it... but that's a whole other story. Yeah. “Sending Signals” is probably... right now, I'm sure if you ask me six months down the road, I'll be like, “I hate that song! We have to play it everyday!” And you know, I'm sure I'll have a different favorite then.
JM: I read that the title for the upcoming album really derives from the feeling of being “almost home” when you're on tour. Could you elaborate on that?
Josh: It kind of means a couple of things. In one sense, it's like we've come full-circle when we started the band in '99 and it was something that was strictly for fun. You know, we had no intentions of putting out a record, we had no intentions of touring, and then you fast-forward almost 10 years later and that's all we do. It's turned into our permanent career. Throughout those years we've gone through a lot of hardships, we've gone through a lot of the bulls**t business side of being in a band, and getting ripped off by labels, and being ripped off by managers and all that bulls**t that you always hear about. For a while, I think that we really let all of that negativity affect us in a bad way, where it just brought us down. When we wrote this record, we were real down and out. It was last December when we really started writing the record, just so many things happened personally between band members that everybody was real bummed out. And then something happened, whenever Jason, the old bass player quit the band, it almost seemed like a breath of fresh air and everybody got revived from being dead from all of the negativity that we had to deal with. Instantly, all of the fours of us wanted to do was just have as much fun and not worry about record sales, people downloading, or low attendances at shows or anything like that, or high gas prices, or bad economy. All we wanted to do again was just be like, “F**k this. Let's hang out and write music, and let's just have fun.” And it's almost like we came full-circle, back to where we were all those 10 years ago. I think that's one version about the meaning behind title. Another one is definitely what you said. Constantly when we're on tour, it gets real hard being on the road for 9 or 10 months out of the year, and also trying to have a life outside of the band, or trying to have a relationship, or even friendships. I think that a lot of times when s**t's just going so bad, like the van breaks down, you just spent $4,000 on it, or someone gets food poisoning, or someone gets an ear infection, or whatever. Really, the only thing that makes everyone hold on a little bit tighter is just, “Don't worry guys, we're almost home. We're only 49 days. We're almost there, we're almost there. Let's just hold out. Let's just make it happen.” And we always do. We've never quit in the middle of a tour, we've never done anything like that, and in the end, we're definitely proud of that. We're always sticking out through the hard times and I think that the term “almost home” really gets us.
JM: As the final question, what are your plans after the album release?
Josh: Naturally, in standard Evergreen Terrace fashion, we'll be touring non-stop, sleeping in parking lots, getting pulled over by the police, and probably having some incidents with human feces. I just think we're going to kind of see where this record takes us, you know? We're just going to see what it does for us instead of seeing what we can do for it. We're just going to have fun and try to grow mustaches that look similar to this. [points at furry fabric stuck to the dashboard] That's the plan.
JM: [laughs] Sounds like a good time, man.
Josh: It will be. It'll be a really good time.
JM: Well, thank you!
Josh: Thank you very much, I appreciate it!
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