By Tom Crenshaw, tom@RockOm.net
Dayton, Ohio's Hawthorne Heights knows something about adversity and moving beyond limits and expectations. The band's story reads like a dream come true rock odyssey complete with garnering early darling status on MTV with their song Ohio Is For Lovers and then quickly attaining Gold Record status with their 2004 debut album The Silence In Black And White. Their second album, If Only You Were Lonely, scored Victory Records' biggest ever debut, landing at #3 on the Billboard 200 in 2006. The band appeared on Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel and became magazine cover stars with sales of The Silence In Black And White going Platinum.
Yes, Hawthorne Heights seemingly attained, in a remarkably short period of time, largely everything most bands strive for. But with such heights comes a extraordinarily long way to fall. In 2006 and 2007 the band became entangled in legal struggles with both Victory Records and Wild Justice Records involving suits and counter suits and on November 24, 2007, just one day into their new tour, guitarist and vocalist Casey Calvert died due to an accidental overdose of medications prescribed by his doctor and dentist. Most bands would have succumbed to such entanglements and devastation, and the personal and musical fallout from the legal battle with the labels and Casey's death both severely strained and cast a long shadow on the band's future. Choosing to move forward was the toughest decision the band would ever have to make.
Surprisingly, the band patched up its relationship with Victory and on August 5, 2008, Hawthorne Heights returned on Victory Records with Fragile Future. Although the sound is still distinctly Hawthorne Heights, the music, as with the band, has understandably evolved. "After spending the last 2 years in a deep dark place, we decided to try to find the bright lights again with Fragile Future," noted singer J.T. Woodruff. "We, as a band, noticed that everyone has tremendous ups and downs, so we wanted this record to communicate that. We chose the title Fragile Future because it sums up the current state of our band, as well as what is going on in the outside world. We must all make good choices to create a better situation in our lives."
Cognizant of the band's very recent ups and downs, particularly with the anniversary of the death of Casey Calvert being just days before our interview (the band, in fact, had just canceled a concert one year to the day of Casey's death) and the tour's end being just days away, I didn't quite know what to expect from the interview. Guitarist Micah Carli greeted me warmly at the backstage bar and we quickly wandered over to a couple of seats by four pool tables. Carli was all smiles and soon put my doubts as to the direction of the interview to rest. I found Carli engaging and congenial - quite the opposite of what one expects from a Platinum selling musician. Soon the backstage bar was filled with all five bands performing on the Never Sleep Again Tour playing pool, joking around and listening in on our conversation.
If Hawthorne Heights has any regrets, any remorse over the past, they aren't allowing it to effect their decisions, their music and the direction they are moving. It's quite a remarkable feat for four guys from Ohio (OK, I'll amend that to read five guys as Casey Calvert is still listed on the band's roster) to achieve. But, you can hear success in their sound - in their music. 2009 very well may be a pinnacle year for Hawthorne Heights.
RockOm: What's this recent touring experience been like for you – and why the name "Never Sleep Again"?
Micah Carli: They're always fun, you get to hang out with some good friends, make new friends with some up-and-coming bands. It's been a little weird this time, just touring. In the throes of this recession that we are definitely in, you can feel it everywhere. So, some of the shows haven't been what we expected or what we thought it might be. The kids that are there are there to have a good time and that's great, so hopefully that's enough for us to get through it, but sometimes it's been a real culture shock to see how it's affecting everybody. The name, Never Sleep Again tour, we did this tour in winter '05 for the first time. There are multiple reasons for that title; the most obvious and literal is the fact that we work all the time. We pretty much take no days off and we play a show every day in a new city, a new town. So, that's a lot of traveling. That initial tour, though, we also kind of themed in Nightmare on Elm Street and there's a little a little saying from that, "One, two, Freddie's coming for you," and the last one is, "Nine, ten, never sleep again." We used that as an intro before.
RockOm: You guys watch all those movies?
Micah Carli: Oh, yeah! Big horror fans, absolutely.
RockOm: What's been the most print-worthy misadventure you wouldn't dare share with another rag?
Micah Carli: From this tour? Unfortunately, most of these bands, ourselves included - we're pretty "PG." We're not very rockstar-y with egos, we don't get crazy and throw furniture on the ceiling of the hotels or anything like that. One of the most noteworthy things I can think of is the election happened during this tour and was a big topic for all of us. We're sharing a bus with Emery and Emery is mostly republican and we are mostly democrats.
RockOm: Emery is from South Carolina... (laughs)
Micah Carli: They are – it makes sense. But, we have a good friendship nonetheless. We also play a great deal of Halo on the bus. Big video game nerds. So on the day of the elections we did four Emery guys vs. the four Hawthorne Heights guys. We were the blue team, they were the red team and the first one to 70 kills won. (laughs) So that was fun. Something silly to help enjoy the day.
RockOm: There's so much going on for Hawthorne Heights; the tragic, the ironic. It's played itself out these past couple of years. Casey Calvert, Victory Records, The Ne-Yo incident. You guys have emerged with "Fragile Future" which is a departure from your last two records in a lot of ways. What have you guys learned throughout this whole two year ordeal?
Micah Carli: I think it's really made us value the ability to do this. The first few years of our career were an unbridled, successful streak. We couldn't choose a wrong step basically. Unfortunately the last couple of years we've had quite a few missteps that weren't even our fault. And we were dealing with the music business, too, struggling. I think once we were able to green-light a new record and write it and record it, we were all just really thankful that we could all still be musicians professionally, put out a record and tour. We literally couldn't tour for a while and we didn't know if we were going to have another record. After Casey passed away, we didn't even know if we would be a band anymore. I guess it's just the pleasant relief of being able to do what you love again.
RockOm: I want to read an online review here and get your take on it. Speaking of Fragile Future it says, "Thoroughly cathartic effort. There's an obvious element of tragedy, something that the band's music always hinted at but never fully inhabited until now. Given their situation it's quite hard to criticize Hawthorne Heights for playing dark, nocturnal, emo rock songs since few of their contemporaries have such an authentic reason for sounding depressed." Is that a fair assessment of your intentions for Fragile Future? Do you take any umbrage at the reviewer's use of the phrase, "sounding depressed"? You didn't go into Fragile Future trying to sound depressed, did you?
Micah Carli: Oh, no. Actually, that's kind of half the story. Obviously, there is a somber tone to a lot of the lyrical and musical content on the record. But, we were very careful to concisely say that it was also optimistic. To get through the rough, the hard times you have to be optimistic and focus on the good and not just the bad. It's not just, "every day is worse than the last and there's no point in trying." We really learned something persevering through this hardship. And the little shit just doesn't matter. You gotta just carry on.
RockOm: What's the story behind the lyrics of the song "Rescue Me?"
Micah Carli: We were just in a quagmire of everything going bad – like how much worse could this possibly get, and then another bombshell drops. We were convinced that if we just hold on, things would get better.
RockOm: RockOm.net is the crossroads for spirituality and music and we recognize the battle that goes on inside of everybody. The yin, yang. The light and dark. Some would say that without fully embracing the darkness, we can't experience the other half – the light side. What's your take on embracing the dark side of music to discover and emerge in the light?
Micah Carli: I would fully agree with that. I've definitely studied some spiritual people and philosophers. I'm 28, I'll be 29 here soon, and I've definitely come to realize that, yeah; one cannot exist without the other. Without the darker times, the lower times, you wouldn't appreciate the good times as well. It's really all cyclical, you can't take them apart. So, the darker music – it does, it helps us get through the darker times, on to the better times.
RockOm: Regarding the creative process, you're very prolific in your songwriting. Is there a way or ritual that works better for allowing your creative juices to flow?
Micah Carli: I won't say that there's one specific way, but the one rule that is underlying is trying to remain open-minded to other people. Dealing with artistic expression, it's a very personal thing and then doing that with other people, trying to create things with other people obviously makes conflicts of interest. "This means more to you than it does to me." "I don't like that." "It's not a personal attack on you." In Hawthorne Heights, we write songs as a group very democratically. Everyone brings their ideas to [the process], and we try to make the best song we can so that everyone is as happy as they can be. That requires a lot of tolerance, really. Maybe you don't like every part of the song, but you do what's best for the band. And you have to be happy with the music too, so we try to compromise the best we can.
RockOm: How do you know when you're on to a really good song as opposed to something that needs nurturing?
Micah Carli: Sometimes you just feel it. You just hear it. It's instantaneous. The song grabs you and when you play it for people, they just perk up. It's got that snappy, hit feel to it. Other times, it is kind of a crap shoot, too. You never really know, you know? You can love a song with all your heart and then it just flops when you release it or when you bring it to A&R or a studio.
RockOm: Does the opposite ever happen – do you ever nurture a song and then three years later it's like, "God, we had that all along?"
Micah Carli: Absolutely, you're right. Sometimes over nurturing can kill a song as well. Sometimes you try to get too complex, try to factor in too many different opinions and you cloud the original intent of the song.
RockOm: What's been the biggest surprise as far as exceeding your expectations with Fragile Future?
Micah Carli: I guess that I'd just have to go back to that we even released the record. The album is selling well, not fantastic, but well considering the climate.
RockOm: It's got a pretty high benchmark, you know?
Micah Carli: Ya, we did very well with the first two records, so compared to those it's not selling well. But, overall we're just ecstatic that we are continuing on and the future does look bright and we're just optimistic about it.
http://www.hawthorneheights.com/
http://www.myspace.com/hawthorneheights
Photography by Kelle Carli
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