Das Interview führte Janina mit Mike von SCARS OF TOMORROW vor der Show im Chez Heinz in Hannover.

First of all, can you tell me something about how the band got together?

We got together almost six years ago now. We just wanted something to do basically. It wasn’t serious at first, like, you now, we just practiced in a garage, and it was all for fun. And then we started like: “Hey, we could play shows with the bands we always go watch!” So we started doing all that, and we got pretty serious right away after we started playing shows. We put out four records now, and it’s six years we have been a band. And we are actually starting writing for another one, too.

How did you get to Victory?

We signed to Victory in 2003. We put out two records before that on a small label called Thorp Records, and we were just at a point where we knew that we wanted to start touring full-time, and seeing the country and everything. And then Atreyu helped us out, and they gave our CD to Victory and said: “Hey, you should really pick up these guys!” We were talking to a couple of other labels at the time, but then Victory was like: “If you guys are serious about being a band, we’ll put everything behind you guys.We’ll help you guys do it.” So we have been on Victory since and put out two records on Victory, “A Rope Tied To The Trigger” and “The Horror of Realization” as well. And we’re going to write another one this year.

How did the band evolve over time? And how did the records evolve or change?

Well, there’s like, when a band starts to become more serious and touring, not everybody is into the touring so we’ve had member changes in the past. And with different members we started losing or gaining different styles of music. I mean, there’s different influences involved. I have been a big factor in a lot of the creative ideas behind the band so we haven’t changed too much, but we’ve learned how to write songs better. You know, we just grew. We toured 8 to 10 months out of the year, and we played music pretty much every day.And we just grow and we learn our expectations as for ourselves as well as what people wanna hear. We used to be really kind Metal then we kinda got more Hardcore again, but it we didn’t like doing the one or the other, so then we just started to write whatever songs came to us naturally. We started to try and do our own thing. And it was cool, and “Rope Tied To The Trigger”, we kinds finally knew what we wanted to do as musicians, so we were happy when it got released on Victory so a whole lot of people got to hear it, and we sold thousands upon thousands of records on it. So it was awesome. And in October we put out “The Horror of Realization”, and it was almost exactly what we wanted for that record. We wanted to be a little bit more raw; a little bit clearer in understanding. And the record we’re writing right now – I mean, we’re almost half-way done – it’s really intense, really angry, intense, and awesome. We don’t want to keep on writing the same record over and over again. So that’s where we’re going right now. We’re trying to get really intense, we wanna get in people’s face, and that’s what we’re trying to do now.

That’s pretty fast work getting out another album not vene a year after the previous one!

Mostly we’re working so hard on our new record now because we had like a pretty big member change a couple of weeks before the record came out, and a lot of people thought the band gonna break up and be done with, and we’re trying to prove that it’s far from that. You know, we haven’t missed any shows, done some big tours: we toured with It Dies Today, Bury Your Dead since the new record came out. And we’re gonna go home, and we’ve got a lot of big stuff coming, doing a lot of big festivals in the States, we’ve got a lot of big tours we can’t announce yet. We wanna reassure the fact that the band is still strong by having another new record coming out. It’ll be October or November when it comes out so it’ll be a year since the previous record. But we wanna start writing now and recording now so we have plenty of time to have our ideas together for the CD.

How did you get the band together in the first place? Were you just friends wanting to make music or did you search for the other members?

It was all friends that had been playing at highschool together, and they were always like: “Hey, let’s jam, let’s jam!” It was a group of friends at first that always jammed together, and write songs together. It wasn’t like the whole sole purpose of us getting together was to write songs and go on tour. It was more just fun at first, I mean, it’s still fun especially being able to come to countries you have never been to before. It’s like a whole new level of fun for us. At first it was just: “Hey, let’s go to the garage and practice!” And everybody was friends and that’s how we all met, so it was cool.

I read a lot about the lyrics to “The Horror of Realization”. Can you tell me something about what you had in mind writing those lyrics?

They are really dark, but mostly I want people to realize their surroundings and what really goes on in life. I mean, just coming here I learned so much more about the way people live, how other people in other countries live, and their normal attitudes about things. I mean, things are so much different everywhere. It was kinda like people need to open their eyes and see what else is in the world, and the reality, and what’s going on. They are pretty dark lyrics, but I more trying to do it in a positive way. I mean like, the second song on the CD “The False Love In Lust” is about how most people – guys and girls – are totally looking for love in the wrong areas. They’ll abuse themselves, abuse they’re bodies, they won’t care. They are trying to find that affectionate love that is usually fals love. It’s not like real love. I like darker lyrics so people can relate to them more. More heavy people that listen to heavy music relate to them more, so I try to put my positives hidden in there. I want to be positive, I mean, there are a whole lot of bands that have the whole negative thing to them about killing, bfighting, blood, and blood. I am not about that. Even with this new record I am doing the same thing. I am trying to touch somebody and help them out than to write something about the new creative way of blood. That’s how I feel because that’s usually all it is. Some things like burning their skin off and stuff like that. The music is creative, so I wanna be creative as well and do something positive with what we’re doing because mostly when there is positive bands they are only a certain style of music. There’s not a lot of bands in Metalcore or Metal that sing about positive things. We aren’t an old-school-posi-band, but I like to sing about things that matter, and things that might help someone out. That’s what I am trying to accomplish.

How much does the rest of the band care for the lyrics? I mean, I know a lot of bands where the others will just say: “I don’t care what you sing – just sing!”

Before, a lot of the dudes really didn’t really say anything because they always knew that I would write something – cause I don’t like to offend anybody, so I’d never write anything that would be really offensive because I just think it’s wrong. And they know that I put my whole creative effort into it, and that it’s gonna be like possibly offensive to them. And they usually always love what I write so they usually don’t say anything. The guys now, they will ask me because they are curious: “What are you writing now? What’s the meaning of that?” And it’s cool because they are pretty interested in what I am writing, and they’ll push me if they think I can do better they’ll be like: “Hey, you can do better than that. Go ahead and do it!” It’s cool that we all push each other to get the best out of our creative abilities.

Does songwriting work about the same?

M: Yeah. We’ll have our guitar players come up with riffs, and then we’ll bring the ideas together, add new ones, try them out. Like, the other day we were in Paris, and we wrote a song in the club we played at. We were all in the back, and the drummer was air-drumming a beat that he wanted to do,and we all had ideas to that, and then the next day during sound-check we practiced it and we were like: “Hey, that came out quick!” We usually get together for an hour or so and put ideas together, and whenever we’ve got a chance to do sound-check or practice we’ll try it. It flows really easy for us. We wrote like 3 songs in less than two weeks, and then we’ll record them and see if we like it, test it, if we like it we play it.

So you think it’s easier when you personally got a really good connection between all members?

Yeah, definetely! Especially because our last record, not everybody was really putting in their two senses about what we should be writing or how it should be going. It’s all honestly our guitar player took all the weight. He wasn’t getting any help, nobody wanted to do anything, they just thought the record was gonna end up there, ready to go and then record. Not everybody put in a whole lot of effort in the last record. I mean, it sounded really good, and once we actually went to the recording, we actually all sat there the day before recording, trying everything out, playing it as good as possible. But when one person takes on the weight of everything it’s a whole lot harder to come up with more songs, and more creative ideas. And right now it’s really cool because we are five people, and we all bring ideas, all bring in their riffs, their lyrics, music, and beats. It just makes it awesome because everybody helps to improve everybody else. And the songs have been turning out really amazing. When we get home, we’re getting on a pretty big tour a month after, so the month before we will write the whole month. It’s pretty exciting because I think it’s gonna go pretty easy because we practice every day so we will probably have a full album ready. Another one. We are really quick…but then we’ll sit on it a couple of month, and then we’ll play it again, see if we like it and if we’re still so much into it as when we wrote it.

So, is there a life outside of music?

There definetely is…

I mean, there’s a lot of bands I know from interviews that say that they don’t wor or don’t even live anywhere like 3 Inches Of Blood for example.

3 Inches, haha, yeah. Oh, I mean we don’t work either, but we all have our own houses and appartements, but we get bored at home. Right now we’re all kinda tired, we’re aching, we’re sick, we’ve been in Europe for almost a month, and it’s been freezing cold. We’re from California, we’re used to heat. And my feet are cold every day, but I am finally getting used to it. We wanna go home, but I guarantee you each and every one of us will start looking at each other three or four days after we’re home: “It’s time to go again!” Because you get to see new people every day, you’re gonna get to meet people, especially over here we’re in a different country every day basically. So it is a whole new level for us because it is our first time in Europe. We toured the States a million times, and even though we still have fun going through there a million times, it’s just like: “Wow! Now we’ve got all these other people we’re gonna make friends with. All these other countries we’re gonna play in!” And we don’t wanna go home. I mean, I’d rather just stay on the road every day. We’re always been taken care of, everyone has been really nice to us, people have been really nice to us, and they have been buying merch and CDs, kids come up and sing along. Seeing people live 10,000 miles from us singing along to my words when they might not even know English it’s awesome. Because you know they took the time to read the lyrics, and tried to figure out what they meant, and then they come out an it took a lot of effort for them to do. And that’s so gratifying!

Final question because you got two more interviews to go: Anything more about future plany inspite of records, and records, and records?

Honestly this band has been going on for six years, and it will easily go on for another six. It’s just so much fun! I mean, I have finished college, I have done the nine-to-five-job. I wanna live, and by doing this I get to do what I want. And I don’t want to regret anything. We have the time to do this: we’re touring, we’re gonna keep writing records, we’re gonna be back here in September, we’re already having all these fans. We’re gonna keep doing this, it’s absolutely amazing, and I’ll never have any regrets doing this. It’s awesome because we all love each other, and it’s fun.


Janina