Author: Joy Houle

Jeremy Stanton of SAVE OUR SCENE PRODUCTIONS/TRUTH BY BLOOD AGENCY discusses expansion, benefits for area causes

In the midst of holiday traffic, I braved the busy streets and drove to Corning, NY for a night of metalcore, rock and pop punk. It was a holiday benefit show put on by Save Our Scene in which the proceeds from the show went to help The Salvation Army. When I arrived at the Corning Union Hall the first thing I noticed was that there were no parking spaces available. I drove around the block a couple of times before deciding to park in the hotel parking lot located right next to my destination. I went there not only to watch the show and hang out with some friends but also to interview Jeremy Stanton, the founder of Save Our Scene Productions and Save Our Scene Promotions as well as the Truth By Blood Agency. Since I had never met Stanton in person, I asked a musician friend to point him out to me. He was easily spotted since he was the guy working the sound system and doing sound checks. He was dressed in a Santa t-shirt and a Santa hat. I introduced myself and then waited for Stanton to get a band all set up and ready to start their set. Then we went into a hallway to discuss Save Our Scene, Truth By Blood Agency and the holiday benefit shows amongst other things. (Truth By Blood is also shared with partner, Adam Merola)

Janet: Tell me about the history of Save Our Scene and Truth By Blood Agency. When did you start them and why?

Stanton: Save Our Scene is basically an idea that I came up with probably 4-5 years ago when our scene, the 607, wasn’t doing very good. There was a group of hardcore kids that were ruining all the shows. Cause of their actions we were losing venues. Venues were being shut down because of them. No one wanted to go to the shows anymore because they’d go and they’d get hurt. I wanted to do something about it and didn’t know what to do. I met up with a couple of kids who were running a fairly decent production company, actually started working with one of them and told them my idea of what I wanted to do, trying to expand and trying to get kids to start coming back out to shows again. I moved to Elmira and started booking for The College Corner, the only place in Elmira that all the shows came to. I came into it, turned that bar around from making $500 a week to making $3-4000 a weekend. Things didn’t go well with the bar owner and I knew things were turning sour so I started talking to one of my good friends living in Binghamton, Dustin Smith, who wanted to start booking shows but didn’t really know what to do. I gave him the name “Save Our Scene,” told him to use the name and start booking shows and I’d help with the bands and promotion. Dustin and I joined forces and started working together. I told him we’re gonna run Save Our Scene. We’re gonna blow it up, make it as big as possible. There are two branches of Save Our Scene, Save Our Scene Productions and Save Our Scene Promotions, and two other production companies that are subsidiaries, Subculture Events and Stay True Promotions. Truth By Blood Agency was started a year and a half into Save Our Scene. I had been working with a band from Boston called Mummified In Circuitry. Their manager and I had their band signed to a label that we thought was legitimate that I was trying to help out in Ohio. It did not work out. The band lost a lot of money and afterwards we both completely disconnected ourselves from that label and the person running it. We decided that we wanted to set up our own booking and management company and do things right. He’s in charge of booking and I’m kind of taking over the marketing aspect of it. We have about 9 bands underneath right now and we have people working on a website. It’s not out yet. We don’t know when it’s going to be out. We have our first ad coming out in Hails & Horns Magazine next month.

Janet: What do you look for in acts you book?

Stanton: If someone offers me a package that I’ve heard of but I haven’t heard too much hype about, I’ll throw it up on our Facebook page and ask the public what they think about it. If we get a good response, I’ll book them. Why not? Because Save Our Scene has a profile page, I can go to the profile page and see how many of our friends like them and if it’s a significant number, I’m obviously gonna take them. If the people who approach me are very friendly and very nice and professional about how they try and get people to book their band, no matter how small or big they are I’m at least gonna consider it.

Janet: What venues do you like the most?

Stanton: The American Legion in Binghamton. The people that run it are just the friendliest people. They really accept what we’re trying to do down there. If we ever need help or are in a bind, let’s say we don’t produce enough money to pay the bands and the venue, they take a hit and tell us to pay them back within the next couple of weeks and just pay the bands. One time this happened. To me that was awesome. I really like working with them. The Corning Union Hall is a great location. It’s a good sized room and it’s the cheapest venue.

Janet: Any future plans of spreading your area of venues?

Stanton: As much as I love booking shows and putting them on, I don’t like booking shows and putting them on. Since we have Subculture Events and Stay True Promotions and a couple of other small ones in Binghamton starting to come out I hope to eventually sit back and run Save Our Scene Promotions, just promoting our shows for them and maybe once in a while throw a show together. I kinda want to be the secondary guy. I’ll do a couple shows that I really want to do. [My band is] gonna be on the road a lot so I’m not gonna be available to run the shows. I’ll always partner-up with whoever asks me to. I’m good friends with Sage Patrick Keber from Never Fading Promotions and AJ Fagnoli from Personless Promotions up in Rochester and we try to help them out. Sage and I’ve been working on expanding Save Our Scene and Never Fading Promotions and kinda merging a little bit and it’s worked out.

Janet: Any plans you haven’t announced yet that we could announce for you?

Stanton: I really don’t know. There’s a lot of things we talk about behind the scenes but nothing official. Subculture and Stay True are gonna be the ones running the shows. I don’t have any huge plans right now. I have a lot of bands that we’re talking to that could be a huge plan in the future but we’ll just kinda sit back and see how it works out.

Janet: What are some thoughts you may have on the scene as it is right now?

Stanton: I will divide that into two answers because the two main areas that we’re working in are still Corning / Elmira and Binghamton. The Corning / Elmira area is great. The kids are very good out there. They’re very respectful. We always have a decent turnout in Corning with at least 150 people every show. They’re very open to the bands that we bring out. If it’s a new band, they’ll come out and give them a try. I had a band tell me that they love it [in Corning] cause the kids will buy merch like crazy. Binghamton is a little bit different. It is still very flighty. There’s some stuff we’ve been working on for a while. There’s pop punk and then another guy books straight hardcore shows. We’ve been trying to bridge the gap. It’s been working out but we’ve never had more than 110 people at shows. It wasn’t till recently that kids from Binghamton started to travel out to Cornng. Since we’ve started, kids from Coning / Elmira would always travel to Binghamton if there was a good show going on. So, it’s still a work in progress.

Janet: Tell me about your holiday benefit shows and your reason for doing them?

Stanton: We like to do these. We started doing them last year. Look at it this way, we fought tooth and nail to get to the point where we are and to get the venues. We had to work with our communities to get to this point so technically, doing these shows is us giving back to the local communities. I, myself, am a Christian. I’m not the most religious individual but I do believe in helping others. If there’s a reason why we do it, it’s because Save Our Scene is about helping all the kids in the scene so lets do a show once in a while that helps everybody else.

Janet: Thank you for the interview, Jeremy!

Stanton: Thank you!

To get more information on Truth By Blood Agency, or Save Our Scene-
http://www.facebook.com/SaveOurScenePromo
http://www.facebook.com/SaveOurSceneShows

http://www.facebook.com/SaveOurScenePro

http://www.facebook.com/TruthByBlood-Janet Ballos

January 4, 2012
FEATURED BAND: Dropclutch

Few bands in the Upstate New York underground scene have enjoyed the type of success that Binghamton’s Dropclutch has seen in recent years. It is not difficult to say with certainty that these guys have put together a blueprint for success that many will undoubtedly emulate.

The band burst onto the scene in 2005 with the release of their first EP. Like many of the scene’s greats, their DIY work ethic has helped in building the reputation of the band on all levels. Dropclutch has been getting quite a bit of attention on the local, regional and national level for years now. The strength of that first EP certainly helped though. It could be one of the best first offerings from an Upstate band in roughly a decade. With their initial success and the buzz that was invoked, the band was invited to share the stage with many artists including Breaking Benjamin, Seether, Lamb of God, Gwar, Framing Hanley, Skindred, Scum of the Earth, Throwdown, Bury your Dead, and Days of the New. As the band’s star rose, they were also invited to play several high profile gigs including the 2006 Independent Music Conference in Philadelphia.

In 2008, the band was ready to release their full length record. The band teamed up with producer Billy Graziadei (Biohazard, Suicide City) and the results were golden. The Reason, released in May 2008 was a smashing success. The first single, Pressure, off of their debut release was one of the most requested songs on many radio stations in the NY and PA areas before the album was even released! “The Reason” was 2nd in the U.S. for most album adds on commercial radio on FMQB, and 3rd in the U.S. for most album adds on CMJ Loud.

“It was amazing to hear that we were the number two most requested band in the Southern Tier of New York. Our album hadn’t even been released yet and people were already digging what we were doing!” says singer Shawn Smartwood.

Also of note was the selection of their song, Chemical, by The Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlain for inclusion on a compilation. The pair chose the song for release on Guitar Center’s Fresh Cuts Volume Two.

On Valentine’s Day 2011, the band dropped the single, One Bullet, which also was well received by fans and critics. The band plans on dropping a new record in 2012. I look forward in seeing where the band is headed next.

One thing is for sure, the focus of the band is keeping things fresh for fans of their music.

“We love our fans more than the world…” Smartwood explains,”…everything we do is dedicated to them. Without them we are nothing!!!”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY-ZF5DVbkk&w=560&h=315]

For more information on Drop Clutch –
Facebook: www.facebook.com/dropclutch

-Erik Jensen

January 4, 2012
The return of HATE MACHINE, Jeremy “Jed” Seaver discusses future plans

Does this Rochester based, Metal powerhouse sound familiar to anyone? Hate Machine is back, and as a longtime fan and performer, Iam here to tell you that they are here to stay. This band has been through it all, from National tours to record deals, to breaking up. Any fan of Hate Machine knew that they wouldn’t be out of the game forever. Now here they are, “back from the dead”, to give our music scene a much needed swift kick right in the fucking ass!!! If you are into straight up, in your face, good old ass kicking metal, then do yourself a favor and check these guys out. Better yet, go see them live and catch a show with passion, intensity and all out aggression. Watch their fans; rabidly sing every word to every song. Impressive!

Hate machine is:
Jeremy “Jed” Seaver- Vocals
Al Dettori- Guitar
Jimmy “Black” Draudt- Bass
Donny Weissinger- Guitar
Mike Polito- Drums

I had the chance to catch up with Jed to talk about what’s going on in the world of Hate Machine, and what is in store for 2012.

Jason: Explain what it took for Hate Machine to land a record deal, and the events to follow?

Jed: Well, Basically Hate Machine toiled around locally and regionally for a few years touring in support of our first cd “Its All Good”. We gained alot of press/publicity from that cd. I think the year was 1996 maybe 1997..not sure. We changed some members around and wrote and put out our EP Destination 2KH8 in 1998. This EP is what started all the label interest for us. We hired a few different promotions company to push the single off that EP, Hasben?, to active college radio stations across the country. We had the #1 most added song on active college radio that year. We were charting from here to Alaska. No kidding. Of course, like wolves, labels came out of the woodwork to find out what was the deal with us. We showcased many times in NYC and Los Angeles for various labels trying to land the right deal, I guess you could say. Not that we landed the right deal. lol. We ended up signing a deal with a fledgling label named QED Entertainment (which changed their name to Summa) out of Los Angeles. They had distribution through Elektra Records and had just got a band named the Deadlights signed to Elektra and placed on the Ozzfest. We thought we were going to be the next “Ozzfest” band. We ended up moving to Los Angeles to record our major label debut. This was 2000. When we got out to L.A. and started writing this new record our sound changed drastically. In the meantime, our bass player and drummer quit. With no drummer and bass player we had to adapt. Drum tracks were added to the album and our producer played bass on the record. The band changed it’s name to Omniblank. The album became “Birth of a FIrefly”. When the album was done, we came back home to Rochester to find replacement members. The album went over well here locally, but in hindsight I think it alienated old school Hate Machine fans. Because, quite frankly, it wasn’t Hate Machine. It wasn’t raw, it wasn’t aggressive..it just wasn’t what we originally were. Now, don’t get me wrong..the Omniblank album (in my eyes) holds up to this day. It’s a great sounding album. Again, it just wasn’t Hate Machine. So, we ended up touring the country in support of the Firefly record, with little to no support from the label. They boned us. As it turned out, they had zero distribution. Other labels, big labels, wanted to partner up with them and release “Firefly” globally, but QED’s asking price was too high. These guys wanted to get rich off our deal! We were too naive and caught up in other things to realize what was going on. In the meantime, I was having some personal battles and decided it was the best for me if I just walked away. So thats essentially how the band broke up.

Jason: What were the motivating factors in you guys coming back? How has the music scene changed?

Jed: I decided to put Hate Machine back together because I am a performer. I tried my hand at some cover bands the last few years because I missed the stage, man. But it just wasn’t the same. There is nothing else in the world better than performing your own material. So, I contacted Al and asked him if he wanted to get together for one last hurrah. That was our August Water St show this past summer. But, Al started showing me all this material he had written that needed vocals. It was Hate Machine! Sounded like Hate Machine, felt like Hate Machine. I couldn’t let this music die.

I am not entirely sure how the scene has changed. I do miss some of the good old days though. In the old days you would go to a show and you would go to check out all the bands. You would meet up with friends and make a night of it. Now, people show up for one band! And the whole time they are there they are texting, tweeting, facebooking..whatever. It’s sad.

Jason: As a frontman, I always pay close attention to every bands singer. You are like a fuckin’ man possessed when you are on the stage. No one can deny the energy and passion. I really respect that. What turns the screws for this level of intensity? Who are some of your influences?

Jed: I dont know man…lol. I grew up watching Phil Anselmo, Scott Weiland, Eddie Vedder…guys that felt whatever they were singing. I think in order to own it, you have to feel it. It’s not an act, I don’t plan it out. It just happens. A light goes on and it’s showtime man. I give my blood, sweat and tears. I believe it. And in turn I think the audience does as well.

Jason: As a band, will the musical direction change at all? Why or why not?

Jed: The musical direction has changed because we have all evolved as musicians and performers. Things aren’t as basic as they may have been on the Its All Good record. Plus, here’s the kicker..we have zero pressure! We aren’t trying to get a deal, or become rock stars, or get on the Ozzfest, or impress chicks..we are doing it because it’s fun and we love to do it.

Jason: Tell us what Hate Machine has in store for 2012. Album? Tour?

Jed: Hate Machine will be releasing a new EP this spring tentatively titled “Bring in the Butcher”. Look for shows from us regionally every 4-6 weeks. We are looking to breathe a little bit of life into the local scene. Help some younger bands out and meet up with lots of old friends.

Jason: With all that you have accomplished in Hate Machine, what advice would you give to the young musicians out there, trying to make it to the top?

Jed: Honestly? Is there even a top these days? The best way to do it nowadays is all internet based. Give your music away for free. People are too hard strapped for cash to plop down money on cd’s from artists they don’t know. Press some 3 song sample discs and give those bad boys away to everybody and their brother, jack. Get the word out. Use reverbnation, facebook and all the social media sites. Play every show again, for money or not, and bring it everytime!

Jason: You were an integral part from the late 90’s to now in putting/keeping Rochester on the map in the Metal scene. Who are some of the bands from the area that you enjoy watching/performing with?

Jed: Well..we are somewhat new to the new scene. lol. I enjoy your band, Nine Round. I really dig Armed with Valor. Steph and those boys are coming on strong. Cry to the Blind has some nice stuff going on. On the old school tip..check out Burn Everything and Pipe.

Check out the following sites for Hate Machine info:

www.hatemachineny.com

www.reverbnation.com/h8machine

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hate-Machine/134482483249840

www.deadroc.com

-Jason Acevedo

January 4, 2012
KILLSWITCH ENGAGE announces Howard Jones leaving band, releases statement (**UPDATED**)

Earlier today, Killswitch Engage announced via their Facebook that Howard Jones will no longer be the vocalist for the band.

Via Facebook:

To our family, friends and fans: We have decided to continue on without Howard Jones as the singer of Killswitch Engage. We love Howard and are thankful for the nine years that we’ve had him in the band. Out of respect for everyone involved we will not be discussing the specific reasons behind this decision. Howard is a part of our family and always will be, and we wish him well. He has left big shoes to fill, so we certainly have our work cut out for us to find the next singer of Killswitch, something we plan on making priority #1 going forward. Most importantly, thanks to all of you for all the support throughout the years and for sticking by us for all this time. We really do appreciate it and we very much look forward to having a new record for all of you in the not too distant future that we can all be proud of. Sincerely, Adam, Joel, Mike & Justin.

This isn’t the first vocalist to have left the band, Jesse Leach left Killswitch in 2002 for personal reasons.

UPDATE 1/6/2012-

Howard released this statement via the Killswitch Engage Facebook page in response to his departure.

Message From Howard: Well, I guess I will shed a little light without going too deep. As some of you may know, I’ve had a pretty interesting couple of years to say the least battling with some personal issues. One of the low points being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes that went unchecked for years. The rest of the band stuck with me through it, and to be honest they are the ones that kept me going. The whole experience definitely put a scare in me.

Recently we’ve all been in writing mode but somehow I couldn’t get excited about the new album and all the touring that would go with it. The guys saw it before I did. In hindsight I now realize that my heart wasn’t in it. I have had an amazing decade with KSE. I love Justin, MikeD, Joel and Adam for hanging in there and standing by me no matter how bad it was. I have so many good memories, and those are the ones that I will keep. Will I be involved in music again? Sure, I have been in bands for a little over half my life, can’t stop now. Until then, get the new KsE album, it’s going to be good. Thanks everyone for letting me try to entertain you, and I wish myself well in my future endeavors. Gone fishin’ Howard

Fans of Killswitch Engage are plagued with disappointment as Howard was a driving force for that band. He will indeed be missed amongst the line up. There has been hope that Jesse Leach would return to fill the shoes Howard was filling to begin with.

January 4, 2012